text:
What steps to find a good PhD
Let's say I want to embark on a PhD in Europe, but I still have to find good positions to apply for. What steps do you recommend me to follow to narrow down the possibilities? What steps do you recommend to select some good options?
Should I think first a viable project, or should I stay flexible? Should I just look online for some position in the research fields I like most, or should I maybe focus my attention on professors, institutes, or should I even select the country first? Should I rely on the contacts of my bachelor and master universities professors, or should I try by my own means?
Note for moderators: this should not be considered a shopping question, as I'm not asking for a tip about an individual program or university, this community post shows quite clearly that that policy doesn't apply to this question.

The first thing to think about imo is "am I prepared to put in the time to really learn the language". Because if you don´t you will very likely be lost socially (i.e. alone, or stuck in the local expat group from your own country), and there is a real danger this also has a significant impact on your work. P.S. Be prepared having to force people to speak to you in their own language. Many like to "practice" their mediocre English, at your cost.

I wouldn’t consider this a shopping question, but it is probably too broad...the best strategy will depend on many individual factors.

I didn't want to ask a question too individual... what factors do you think matter most?

Whatever you do, make sure to talk to people directly, whenever possible. Not only will you learn a lot about the program, you will also get to know your potential future colleagues and supervisors which may well be the most important part.

Every country in Europe is different when it comes to PhDs. What exist at most is the recognition of a PhD delivered in one European country as nearly equivalent to a PhD delivered in another.
France, Germany, Italy, Poland have more or less different notions of PhD and a huge lot of facilities delivering PhD (in France, be aware of our Grandes Écoles: some of them, like École Polytechnique or ENS, deliver PhDs). French CIFRE is pretty unique, even if of course you have near equivalent in other European countries.
I've got a French PhD in AI (in 1990). The formal title is Docteur de l'Université. Stricto sensu there is no PhD in France.

Should I think first a viable project, or should I stay flexible? Should I just look online for some position in the research fields I like most, or should I maybe focus my attention on professors, institutes, or should I even select the country first? Should I rely on the contacts of my bachelor and master universities professors, or should I try by my own means?

A PhD is mostly a human adventure. Not all PhDs get a job in academia (after it). Not all PhD graduates are paid for their PhD. A good PhD depends upon the people you are doing it (more than the institutions you are doing it).
You forgot to explain the most important.
why do you want to start a PhD? In what scientific domain?
In France, rules are different for a PhD in philosophy of science (or in medieval history) and for a PhD in computer science: in practice, you are required to get funded in computer science, but not in philosophy of science. I guess the rules are also different in Italy or in Germany (even the formal title is different).
The german Doktoringenieur title has no exact equivalent in France. Of course you do find near-equivalent.
The European research funding programme like H2020 have hard time defining what approximately is an European PhD. In practice they are funding many PhDs.
My opinion is that you should look for PhD advisors (so persons and their scientific work and reputation, not institutions).

Why the downvote? What did I say which is wrong. Please comment

I think your first sentence gives the impression that you're saying not to do a PhD in Europe. It might be clearer if you said "Every country in Europe is different when it comes to PhDs."

Right: I am not a native English speaker

nice answer, although it leads to another question, this one.


text:
Is it appropriate to email a professor about something unrelated to class?
I have a professor currently that I have previously had in a class on a different subject.  Would it be appropriate to email them with a link to an article I found that relates to the previous class' subject (but not to the current one)?  There are no longer office hours due to school moving online, but I'm unsure if an email would be considered a waste of time because it would essentially just be sharing an article that she may have already read.

I assume you mean something related to academics rather than a completely random meme/cat video.
If so: yes, it’s totally appropriate. Discussing cool research topics with students, especially when it’s free from the context of grading, is one of the most fun aspects of a professor’s work. I absolutely love it when students email me links like that.
And if the professor thinks it’s a waste of time, they’ll reply with a curt thanks and ignore the link, or simply ignore your email altogether.

Hmmm, unless you know the prof has some special interest in cat videos. But a shared interest is fine to comment on, not necessarily an academic subject. Maybe you are both Harley riders, for example.

I would have no issues with my students sending me cat videos

I see no problem with this. It is possible that the professor will be interested. We can't read everything, after all, so may have missed it. And the fact that it relates to something other than the current class is of no importance.

Hi Prof X. I just came across this article related to last semester's course and thought you might be interested. ...

Short, sweet, informative.
In fact, even if it isn't related to any course, it might be of interest.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
In the writing phase of masters thesis, is it advisable to take a course that is unrelated?
I'm supposed to be writing my master thesis now in numerical optimization and I have a chance to attend an online course in Analysis. It is unrelated to my thesis topic and the course will require me to work hard and I can't withdraw from the course. I want to take this course because I'm planning to shift afterwards to mathematical analysis and I might need a recommendation letter from the lecturer.
I'm hesitant because I'm afraid to get behind in my writing?
Do you think it is advisable to take the course?

This is more a way for you to think through your dilemma than an actual answer. Only you can provide the answer.
In theory, there is no reason why a single course should interfere. But in practice it depends on how much time you have and how close is the deadline. Only you can evaluate the parameters.
It is good to keep flexible, and a good analysis course might serve your long term interest well. But so will finishing your thesis on time.
It depends on the level of risk you are willing to take on, and whether you have any safety valves if you get backed up.
I'll also note that focusing too much for too long on one thing doesn't use your mind very efficiently. Sometimes if  you get blocked on one thing it is good to take up something else for a while and you mind may well work through the block unconsciously. It is also why physical activity is good at "block" points.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
What software program do most use in the health sciences for preparing paper for submission to journal?
I am submiting my first paper for publication without any academic setting or advisor.  What software programs do researchers/writers use to submit papers for publication?

Why do you have no advisor? Has your research been approved by an appropriate body like an institutional review board?

This depends at least partly on the field. Some journals have preferred formats for submittal.

Probably MS Word, but each journal will have their own template and formatting requirements. LaTeX and Markdown are seldom used outside of Math/CS. However, some journal publishers have non-Word templates.

Those using binary... :)


text:
Very highly regarded (but also very abrasive) secondary PhD supervisor - how much should I involve him in my project?
I'm doing a PhD and I have two people listed down as my supervisors for the project, who I will call supervisors A and B. I get on really well with supervisor A, he makes constructive suggestions in a constructive way, and I always come out of meetings with him feeling better about my work. In many respects, I couldn't have asked for a better supervisor than A, and I feel I can be quite transparent about how my work is going with him (including discussing soft skills like working effectively from home during the lockdown, managing time and so forth). Supervisor B is several decades older, extremely well-regarded in the department, had numerous awards named after him and has made significant contributions to his area from what I gather. Things have panned out so far in such a way that I've seldom needed to meet supervisor B in order to make progress with my work - technically he is listed as a supervisor for my research project but it's more of a "he pops in when he's interested"-type arrangement.
However, the main reason I prefer to stick with meeting supervisor A is that I often encounter supervisor B around in our department and he has a way with people which comes across as incredibly abrasive and overly critical, often casually undermining people in conversation, asking questions to people in a condescending way or even just making unnecessary verbal "snipes" at people. He is infamous in the department for this, and has supervised many of the academics when they were PhD students, but it seems that nobody has pulled him up on his rudeness because of his authority (when it comes to him supervising students) and his academic reputation. Many anecdotes about him from his former students have originated, for example, in reacting badly and inappropriately to former students of his having children, going on holiday or taking part in extracurricular activities during their doctorates with him. These are normal things that people can expect to do without being penalised by most (sane) supervisors. Supervisor B is incredibly knowledgeable, and has some interesting stories to tell, but is not an enjoyable person to be around and I try to avoid meeting him unless I absolutely have to (once every couple of months versus once a week with supervisor A).
However, because of his reputation, people have alluded that a reference letter from supervisor B would be a golden ticket to get a postdoc/industrial position wherever I wanted, as he is an incredibly well-established name in his field. This leaves me torn as to whether I want to involve him much or not in the project. As far as I am aware, not including him in meetings regularly does not seem to be posing supervisor B (or A) any major issues, apart from a whinge on supervisor B's part once or twice which ended without any repercussions. If I did involve him regularly it would certainly benefit my career in getting publications with him and a recommendation letter from him in the end, but being supervised by him regularly would have a negative impact on my confidence and mental health. I'm a mature student in my area (so I'm rusty with some things), so I already lack confidence in my abilities and could do without someone potentially making me feel worse.
Some may diagree, but I feel that it is vital that a PhD supervisor is someone who you can establish a positive and professional working rapport with. I think it's often an aspect of doing/choosing PhDs which is often not talked about, despite PhD students effectively needing to work with the same person for 3-4 years and there being many "horror" stories of students who have quit or failed as a result of clashes with their supervisors. One of my former professors from during my undergrad also told me that the rapport/personality of a supervisor is just as important as the research area, if not more (although obviously there's no use having a supervisor you get on really well with but whose research area/interests don't line up with yours).
I'd be interested to hear about any input on this - am I dodging a bullet here or simply shooting myself in the foot career-wise?

I could ask my precedessor, as he also did a PhD with the two supervisors. However, his thesis only contained supervisor A's name because I gather he didn't meet up with B very often or want to seek his involvement on a regular basis, so it could be that supervisor B declined to provide him a reference or put his name on the thesis.

"some may disagree"..i guess no resonable person could disagree.

Supervisor B sounds like someone I know.  I bet, he/she loathes poor quality work and is impatient.  He/is much faster than your average person, and spends more time on research than anyone else.  My advice: ignore the emotional side, and try to ensure your work is up to his/her level.  I bet he/she is only focused on work, and that's the only aspect that he/she will notice.

@Prof.SantaClaus: How could one ignore the personal side if one is punished for personal things like getting children or taking holidays? Do you really suggest to not to have children and not take holidays to ensure one's work is up to their level?

@user111388 that's not what I'm suggesting.  I'm suggesting you ignore the emotional blackmail or gas lighting that supervisor B may be doing and focus only on generating good work.  In my experience,people like B only see the work, and not the person.  So if you want his/her attention, do good work to get his/her attention, and he will write a recommendation only on your work, and not how how pleasant you are to work with.

@Prof.SantaClaus: but if you get pregnant, how can you still work that much as such people expect?

@user111388 you don't.  A normal person would understand and be very supportive.  However, someone like supervisor B won't.  He/she would rather you write papers to boost his/her reputation further during your pregnancy and right after giving birth.

being supervised by him regularly would have a negative impact on my confidence and mental health.

If this is true, then your best path is to avoid him. Actually, your career could be at stake. The most important thing you need in order to get a good postdoc/industrial position is successful research: in the form of papers, a good rec letter from your supervisor, and possibly connections developed at conferences or internships. None of this can happen if you are unhappy, and all of this can flourish if you continue to be confident and healthy.
It is undoubtedly true that a rec letter from supervisor B can have a huge benefit on your future career compared to one from A, but only if it does not come at the detriment of your research productivity. If it undermines your productivity at all -- which it sounds like you think it might -- then on balance, it is unlikely to be a good idea.
Of course, this assumes that your statement is true -- it is possible that you could manage to work closely with supervisor B and somehow stay confident and remain in good mental health. However, my gut feeling is that you should not play dice with this sort of thing. I have certainly talked to a number of PhD students in similar situations, who tried working with the advisor despite their concerns, and things went badly.

Your situation doesn't seem dire as you state it. Some of the reputation of advisor B may be unearned, of course. B may just be impatient, not actually evil. But I can't say and you don't indicate that you have evidence except hearsay.
You actually have a good situation in that you get support from A. I think, under those circumstances, as long as you don't have actual evidence that B has tried (or succeeded) in actually sabotaging someone's career, then you would probably do well to just put up with it as long as it is tenable.
But if you personally get abused or know of situations where B has negatively affected someone's career then you should separate yourself as much as possible.
There are a lot of different kinds of advisors, some better than others. Depend on A for the things you need. You can also, perhaps let A intercede for you a bit if B gets to be problematic. But if you can manage to stay on B's good side and earn their respect then it might be worth a bit of trouble.

The supervisor B may be an "arrogant person", or he may be just "an old school guy". Some of traits you describe I can easily identify with myself: low tolerance for (what I consider) nonsense, saying what one thinks in the most straightforward and clear way (as opposed to the most polite and considerate one), demanding devotion to the project (this doesn't mean that you should spend all of your time on it, but it means that if you make constant excuses for not doing things as quickly and efficiently as you could based on your "ordinary" life circumstances (marriage, having children, going on vacation, etc.) rather than on "extraordinary" ones (like taking care of a disabled family member, sudden unpleasant event of any sort that requires your immediate attention and such), I lose interest in working with you rather quickly. Am I a "brilliant jerk"? I'm not qualified to judge either my brilliance or my jerkiness: that's the task of other people. You can get a general impression of my qualifications and style of communication from MO, MSE, Math. Education and Academia and decide for yourself. But I'll be not at all surprised if B is something like that too.
The key question to ask is whether B is helpful, clear, and straight to the point when you talk to him about the work and whether he is ready to spend a significant amount of his time on you when a long explanation or some real thinking about the matters is needed. If not, then I will join the advice of others to avoid him like a plague, but if he is, I would seriously consider getting closer to him no matter what his attitudes and communication styles are. It is none of his business if you have children or not and it is none of your business what he thinks of having children in general or your having them in particular. Just do not start such conversations yourself and change the subject when/if he starts them. Merely talk about the project at hand. After a couple of years of professional communication, when you both have a clear idea of what the other one is worth professionally and develop some mutual respect, you may start clashing your "life philosophies", but not earlier than that.
As to "the letter of recommendation from B being a golden ticket", just remember that people with such reputation as B are highly regarded, but also tend to make plenty of enemies, so it may be a double-edge sword and you may find yourself on the wrong end of it.

What if the impatient person lacks soft skills?  Interest in their subordinates' productivity/progress/trajectory?  In my case, I have had a postdoc mentor who showed no interest in whether or not our collaboration was going well, whether or not I wanted to work on this project or do something else, and prioritized their projects over mine (e.g., not concerned about whether I'm particularly busy with other things or not, as though only our joint work mattered)...

...Just as significantly, in my view, they didn't seem invested in trying to push me in a better direction.  OK, so one project with them isn't going well --- do they assume I'm a dud or keep an eye out for something that suits my interests/abilities/prior experience better?  Is all of this nonsense in your view?  (Or is that what you meant by "avoid like the plague"?)  I am genuinely curious (this is not an attack on you).

(But I will say, in the wider world, the management advice I have seen generally suggests showing an interest in your subordinates and conveying that you care about them --- not just the scholarly quality of the work --- and people who feel their manages care about/are invested in them are more productive.)

@anon_postdoc The verb "to care" is not in my active vocabulary, so let me try to figure out first what you mean by it. Here is a story. A friend of mine told me about a smart female student looking for a postdoc but having no offers. Our university was at that point promoting female hires, so I went to the chair, the chair went to the dean, and the dean said that a postdoc (as opposed to TT) would count only as a half-woman on their report sheet, so he would give only half of the salary. I said "Fine, you can pay another half from my grant then!". and she came. Continued.

I offered her several problems to work on but she preferred to continue some project of her own, which was fine with me too. I didn't make that project of hers my top priority, but I spent some substantial amount of time thinking of it. Unfortunately, I had no bright ideas and neither had she (she solved the problem much later in collaboration with somebody else), so by the end of the postdoc we were exactly where we started (which I consider perfectly normal: most math. projects result in a failure).

@anon_postdoc We didn't communicate much because I had nothing interesting to say and she didn't ask many questions, though we discussed some math. and other things now and then and I helped her a bit with local arrangements (finding an apartment to rent, etc.), When she was departing, I wrote her a good recommendation letter based on her previous work. She obtained a TT position at a very decent place and, apparently, lived happily ever after, as far as I can tell. Question: did I care about her, didn't I care about her, or I didn't provide you with enough information to decide?

Not enough information.  I like the fact that you allowed her the space/independence/etc. to do what she preferred, and from what you write, you sound like a caring person (you thought about her problem --- not every "impatient" person would do that).

@anon_postdoc Not enough information Then I'm not yet in a position to answer your comment as posted. Note, however, that your pick of a single criterion for "caring" from the whole story ("you sound like a caring person (you thought about her problem)") coincides exactly with my key question ("whether he is ready to spend a significant amount of his time on you"), so if we are in a disagreement about what a good/bad mentor is, we need to dig deeper to find out where our opinions diverge :-)

A short answer but hopefully useful; an excellent piece of advice I was given early on in my (non-academic) career was "avoid brilliant jerks".
They very often do more harm than good to those around them.

Your have a supervisor who is powerful, but not very pleasant. If you tolerate the unpleasant behaviour, and manage to please your supervisor, they might reward you with a golden ticket to a postdoc. If you don't, you are on your own in this quest. Sounds like a great many stories I've read as a child.
I think the answer to your question depends on do why you want a career in academia.   If this is about a relatively secure and relatively well-payed occupation, then struggling through a relation with a difficult boss is definitely something that many people experience at the beginning of their career. This narrative is a firm part of office folklore and became a driving force of many popular films, e.g. The Devil Wears Prada, etc. This narrative then comes from the secondary culture  back into our professional life (via people telling each other things like

the rapport/personality of a supervisor is just as important as the research area, if not more ...

ultimately forming a self-fulling prophecy. We believe in stories about wise and powerful Jedi masters, who train, challenge and choose a new generation of padawans to become masters themselves. We trust that these incredibly knowledgeable people have good intentions at heart and only challenge their students when it is necessary for their own good. We accept that struggle is an important part on the way to progress and improvement. These ideas are a fundamental part of our modern culture (or at least the mainstream western culture). The advises you receive simply reflect this larger narrative of a wise, strict but ultimately kind ("god-wise") teacher.
Now, is it true? Of course, it partly is. But we also know the flip side of the same story: genuinely abusive supervisors, favouritism, and other manifestations of the old boys' network. We often hear how people who made wonderful careers praise their supervisors, even admitting that the relations were difficult, but ultimately very helpful. At the same time, we have to acknowledge that these success stories form a survivorship bias, because we don't hear from people whose careers were stopped in their tracks because of abusive and unhelpful supervision.  You probably see both sides of this coin rather well now.
But maybe you are looking for a job in academia because it is a huge joy to seek and to share knowledge? Or maybe because research is ultimately a search for the truth, and on this way you depend on your own skills rather than on someone's opinion of you? In this case, you maybe don't need a golden ticket. Maybe a golden ticket can actually rob you of your chance to test your own ability to independently establish yourself in the academic world? Maybe you want to be recognised for what you achieved using your own efforts, not compensated for the difficult times your supervisor gave you? In this case, perhaps, you'd prefer to make your own way rather than to rely on a recommendation letter from your  supervisor.
Apologies for the long answer - hopefully it gives you something to reflect on.


text:
Applying for Phd while being in good standing in another program
I am currently an international student doing a PhD in mathematics (Top 50 program) in the US. I just finished my first year. Having passed my qualifying exams, I now have to start thinking about my comprehensive exam. Now the problem is, the only person active in the area (financial maths) I'm interested in will be retiring soon and is no longer accepting students.
After some thorough search I have found a couple of programs (financial engineering PhD) that are highly competitive but perfectly fit my interests.
My plan is to apply to these programs and leave my current program with a Masters in case I get admitted into one of them.
Now here are my questions:

Is this an acceptable thing to do?

Should I tell my potential advisors in my current program about my plan? I'm actually thinking of asking one of them for a reference letter for my application.

Are my chances of getting into a new PhD program affected in anyway by the fact that I currently in another PhD program?

related/duplicate: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/72182/changing-phd-area-of-math

related/duplicate: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/101609/changing-phd-after-8-months, https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/46053/changing-phd-programs-should-i-submit-a-recommendation-letter-from-my-old-advis

If I were on the admission's committee of your "new" program, I would be wondering whether you would lose interest in "our" program just as quickly as you lost interest in your "old" program. (Besides wondering whether you have the skills and motivations for "our" program.) You need to counter-act this by

explaining why you want to leave the old program
provide evidence (e.g. a letter of recommendation) that you are not leaving because of bad behavior on your side
explain why you want to switch from an area in applied mathematics to an engineering area.

You also do not want to burn bridges unnecessarily with your old program. Since Ph.D. programs foster interpersonal relationships between students and professors, you really need to talk with someone in your current program. I would advise you to go into this conversation with an open mind. Ph.D. programs especially in Mathematics are difficult and feelings of the need to leave are frequent, but should mostly not be acted on.
It is common that students change interests within the same program, so I doubt people will be mad at you. Also, you are not abandoning an advisor who might have invested quite a bit into training you. I doubt that there will be hard feelings in your "old" program if you want to leave.
TLTR: To me, it looks like your plan is a good one, but I would warn you against leaving the program without a good discernment.

Hi @tschwarz thank you for your reply. But i need to add that I am not leaving the current program because I lost interest in Maths. I'm interested in Financial and the only person who currently does Financial maths is not available to supervise me. Also the new program I'm looking at are Financial Engineering programs.

This strengthens your case a lot. You still should talk with someone on your current faculty. Also, being in two Ph.D. programs at the same time???

@ChristopherCharles This answer says nothing about losing interest in math, it refers to losing interest in a program, that is, choosing not to complete a program of study you've applied to and committed to.


text:
Is the journal indexing by SCOPUS meaningless?
A journal that I want to submit my manuscript is SCOPUS and WoS indexed (Q3, impact factor: 1.89, SJR 0.264, Fee: around 1000$). But my Professor said SCOPUS indexed journals are MEANINGLESS!(two months ago he said SCOPUS indexed journals are also OKAY).
He prefers SCI-indexed journal which is Q3, impact factor:0.7, SJR:0.224, Fee: around 250-300$. I understand, maybe SCI index is a little bit higher than SCOPUS but if you scale SCOPUS(IF:1.89) and SCI(IF:0.7).
Which one is better to publish in?

Indexing is a very weak indicator of quality.  A journal that is not indexed is probably bad, but otherwise you cannot draw any conclusions.

Scopus is quality-curated, i.e. getting indexed by it is not meaningless.
However, it is not as selective as the Science Citation Index, which remains the gold standard.
Therefore you are better off publishing in a SCI-indexed journal if you can. Arguing with your professor is unlikely to be a good idea in any case - they have much more experience than you and will have a better idea where to send your manuscript.


text:
How to approach a PhD if I want to have a career in academia?
I am towards the end of the first year of my PhD where most of my time went towards doing courses and a small research project in our lab. I plan to continue in academia after my PhD and aspire to get a good faculty position sometime in the future. Is there a stark difference in the way one should approach a PhD if they want to go in academia versus if they aspire for an industry research position ? What do universities look for in a PhD which might be very different from what a company looks for in the same candidate and what can I do at my level to tailor my PhD research towards the direction I want to go in.

You need to demonstrate the ability to attract funding; writing good proposals (post-Ph.D.) is a huge advantage.

Some good recommendations so far, but I think the big thing that's so far missing from the discussion is how important your advisor is. Of course, things are easier if your advisor is a famous research genius, but more essentially you want to find an advisor who is on the same page as you in terms of your next steps. Then, take their advice, not ours :)

If you want to stay in academia, these are some of the elements that prospective PIs/Institutions will be looking for: 1) published material; 2) conference participation; 3) ability to attract funding; 4) prizes/awards (although this should be of low priority if you are an early-career researcher, given how unlikely it is to get a prize at that stage). You should also focus on showing that you can have original ideas and that your PhD wasn't simply doing what you have been told to do. Other thing that is important, and I cannot stress this enough, is networking. No matter how ridiculous or incorrect it may seem, the people that you know will make a difference in getting jobs and positions.


text:
How can I prove my proficiency in a math subject that I've learned on my own after I graduated?
After I graduated university in an unrelated field, I decided I want to learn a couple of math subjects. So I've gathered the interned resources I could find and I studied them on my own. I've been doing this in order to increase my chances of being accepted to a masters program that would require these as prerequisites.
But how am I to prove in my application that I've been learning these subjects through self study? If it were coding, I could have provided some github projects, but regarding mathematics I find it hard to find some meaningful way to attest that you've covered some area unless you've taken a university degree in that field.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
BSc Hons and MRPHARMS on business cards after names
I am about to have cards of introduction made.
Should both Bsc Hons and MRPharms be added after my name or just MRPharms to reflect I have a pharmacy degree and also have a membership of the Professional Body Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain?

This is a very local thing. How are other pharmacists doing? go with the flow.

Who will these cards be given to?  Potential customers of your pharmacy? (include only MRPharms) Acquaintances of your parents whom you wish to impress?  (include as much as possible)

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

On a business card there are other ways to provide this information than with abbreviations following your name.
For example, a line or two at the bottom of the card showing such things as the degree with honors and/or memberships can suffice. A more concise listing of your name could even be an advantage and less confusing for some. Think about the information as a whole and how it is best presented on the card.


text:
Colleague blames me for not spotting typos when I only reviewed the structure and content
I am a graduate student (PhD) in a STEM program.  A fellow lab mate of mine asked me to review a chapter (basically the background/history of their project) of their graduate thesis a couple months ago.  It was during my finals, I had conference papers due, along with the pandemic shutting everything down; it was a crazy time.  I informed this person I was really busy, but I would try. They sent it to me (in PDF format), and I read through it and made some suggestions on content, ideas, and presentation. It was in rough shape; there was a lot of work to be done, but their main concern was if the content made sense and had good logic flow.  I replied with my opinions. This was a favor from me without compensation. The thesis was in English and the lab mate was a native speaker.
Fast forward to now, this person defended their thesis this week and passed.
Yesterday I received a very passive aggressive text message from this person that stated the following (mostly paraphrasing):

The only real critique I had on my thesis was that the chapter I sent you had typos.  I went through this chapter again and found quite a few.  In the future when someone asks you to review a chapter you need to carefully check and find typos because it’s embarrassing to send a final thesis with a chapter filled with typos.  Its disappointing when you rely on someone and they screw you I hope in the future you do a better job.

The rest of the text chain did not go well.
Let me start off by admitting that I am able to see my fault in this.  I could’ve (should’ve) done a more thorough job in editing.  But my question is: Is it really my responsibility to find typos? It’s always been my view that you polish something as much as you can before sending it off to others. They sent it in a PDF which I can’t edit (also no indication of spelling mistakes, and its so easy to gloss over mistakes), and I informed them I was super busy, both excuses, but still a little relevant.  I also was dumbfounded that they didn’t do a single edit after mine.  I feel ultimately it is their graduate thesis and their responsibility for its contents.  I feel I can’t be blamed for this person literally not pressing the spell-check button.
In hindsight I should’ve been more assertive with this person by saying I didn’t have enough time to fully give myself to editing.  This is a lesson I’ve learned.  They are now removing me from their acknowledgements (I couldn’t care less), but what I do care about are the things they are telling other people about me (I screwed them; I’m lazy; etc.).  I replied to their texts expressing my view that the typos are not my fault, and it quickly turned into a blow out where I just ended up apologizing and asking not to discuss it further.
What could I have done better? What should I do now?  Am I justified in my opinions?
PS:  Thank you all for your responses and encouragements.  I was feeling pretty bad about the situation, but I feel a little vindicated now.  I’ve learned a lesson: I will focus on clear communication and setting expectations.

Check out the cross posted duplicate: https://workplace.stackexchange.com/q/159301/75821

Apologize to the guy/gal and say "For the amount of compensation that he/she is paying you, you should have done a better job." :)

I find that it is common for the acknowledgements section of a document to have a sentence approximately as follows: "I want to thank all the people listed below for their help, but of course any errors remain my own." That is how gracious people (i.e. not assholes) treat those who help them. You seem to have found yourself an asshole to help.

@GlennWillen the trick is to be able to recognize those before agreeing to help them.

"It was in rough shape, there was a lot of work to be done" - did you mention that in your critique?  Not that it matters - you've done great and helped an ingrate graduate.

Moderator’s notice: Please do not post honest answers as comments.

I think this question is motivated by OP's status as a lowly graduate student.  I think it improbable that a full professor would suffer such an attack or if attacked thus feel motivated to even think about it to the point of asking for advice.

Just to be completely clear and explicit here: Yes, you're entirely justified in your opinions, and you've done absolutely nothing wrong. Besides, why would you want an acknowledgement in that thesis? Apparently it's embarrassing and filled with typos.

@anomaly: The asker already said they “couldn’t care less” about the acknowledgement. It’s still a relevant background information.

@Wrzlprmft: Sure, that was just a joke. :)

Reply to the email saying "No problem - next time you want me to rewrite a paper for you, my standard charge is $200 per hour, minimum 5 hours, payable in advance."

You have gotten many good answers (and comments -- that of @GlennWillen is arguably better than all of the answers put together), none of which take your colleague's position. It might be personally risky for you, but it could be eye-opening for them if you send them a link to this question so that they could see how others in academia view their behavior.

"Proofreading" (spelling / grammar check) is not the same as a "critique review" (content check).  At a professional level, these would be two completely separate tasks, since the best person to do one may not be well suited to the other.  Which did they ask you to do?

"The only real critique I had on my thesis was that the chapter I sent you had typos. I went through this chapter again and found quite a few. In the future when someone asks you to review a chapter you need to carefully check and find typos because it's embarrassing to send a final thesis with a chapter filled with typos. Its disappointing when you rely on someone and they screw you I hope in the future you do a better job."

This is unfair. What happened was, at best, a miscommunication on their part. They somehow thought you would check thoroughly for typos, which you did not have time to do. Unless you told them "this chapter is perfect and doesn't need more editing", I have trouble imagining why they would assume the chapter was camera-ready.

Let me start off by admitting that I am able to see my fault in this. I could've (should've) done a more thorough job in editing.

I don't see that as a flaw. If anything, perhaps you could have communicated more clearly about what you were able to do, as well as what you did not do (thoroughly check for typos).

I feel ultimately it is their graduate thesis and their responsibility for its contents.

Exactly right, and this is truly the "bottom line" here. No one else is responsible for the content of your thesis but yourself. Getting help does not absolve you of the responsibility to proofread your own document and when you defend, you are supposed take full ownership over what is written.

what I do care about are the things they are telling other people about me (ie I screwed them, I'm lazy, etc).

The word for this is "bullying". This behavior is not acceptable and should not be tolerated by you or anyone else.

Thank you for this.  I really liked your input of communicating more clearly about what I was able to do (concepts look great, didn't scan for typos though).  In the future I will try to do this.

+1: @fractalflame, I'll add: Many textbooks, theses, longer manuscript, etc. include acknowledgements noting that the author is responsible for mistakes: Ultimately, writing is the responsibility of the author, not anyone else. (Except when editors/typesetters/etc. add mistakes - that's on them.)

This is quite mildly phrased. I don't think it is reasonable at all to blame someone for typos, unless you either paid them, or they are your coauthor and you both agreed that they would do the proofreading for typos. Proofreading for typos is the responsibility of the author (or of the paid proofreader). Complaining about voluntary proofreading being incomplete is just unreasonable.

Furthermore, note that no other "flaws" were found in the thesis. So you didn't let through any error of substance. And, like everyone says, it's not your job to look for typos in someone's thesis; in fact pointing them out could be seen as unkind pedantry.

Even if you told them the chapter is perfect, if they just asked as a favor it's still their responsibility to check.

@Earthliŋ only place to blame someone for typos if you suspect they put them in on purpose... but again, then you better find them and blame him before handing in the thesis.

The word for this is "bullying". This behavior is not acceptable and should not be tolerated by you or anyone else.  Exactly.  It will probably be ignored on the surface, but reflects badly on them, not on you.  I suspect it's in character and won't surprise people.  They're showing themself to be a bad collaborator

I'm not in academia, but I would expect that such behavior (spreading bad rumors about someone) should not be tolerated, and a ground for disciplinary actions against these people.

And, to pile on... Large classes of typos and grammatical errors can now be found by software.  If someone produces a thesis and doesn't either look for the squiggly lines (if using a tool like MS Word) or run the text through an analysis tool (or pay for a proof-reader), that's his/her problem.  Proof-reading is a bit of an art, and it's not something you tune into when you are helping someone out, looking at content and structure.  Typos are definitely the author's problem.

You don't owe this person anything, were under no obligation to help them, and everything you do for them is done in a spirit of generosity and kindness. If they don't think you did a good enough job, that's their problem, not yours. If they don't want your help, they are under no obligation to ask for it.
It sounds to me that you did it exactly right, concentrated on the what the most important thing to improve was a the time - a poor structured and argued thesis might fail. One with typos is unlikely to.
Believe me,  if this person is going round bad mouthing you to others, the only person it is going to reflect badly on is them.

"Believe me, if this person is going round bad mouthing you to others, the only person it is going to reflect badly on is them." That's how it should be.  Perhaps a bit optimistic? Not that I strongly disagree.

Thank you, sometimes as a graduate student I feel obligated to do things and it's a nice reminder that it really is a favor, and anything I do is more than I have to.

Doing favours for people is good. Not just for your conscience, but a person with a reputation for being helpful  is more likely to be given help in return. However, this is never an obligation, and people should be grateful for however much is given.

That student's response is obviously unnaceptable and quite rude. You should gently remind the student that ultimately they are responsible for their own work when they submit a document and if editing was so important to him/her next time they should hire an editor.
That being said, in the future it's a nice gesture to let others know ahead of time if you only looked at grammar or logic so they know what still needs looking over.

I tried communicating this point, didn't go over too well.  I think it's a great point to communicate what editing was performed.  Thank you!

The challenge is if the student in question has a mental illness or is highly-manipulative, there may not be a way to communicate this successfully. This advice assumes you're dealing in good-faith with a rational actor. It seems likely that one or both assumptions may be incorrect.

Once as an undergraduate I gave a professor a draft of a scholarship essay for review. I told the professor that it was a rough draft but that the main idea was there and that I'd appreciate feedback on the main ideas in the essay. When I got the review back, the professor was furious and proceeded to chew me out. I had wasted their time by giving them a draft with typos and mistakes which were obvious and could have been fixed with a good spellchecking and simple grammar review. Typos are a job for the spellchecker, not a tenured and revered faculty member. While I quickly developed an opinion that the professor was in fact not a very nice person, I think that they were right in some sense and ever since I've always made it a point to not send out drafts with obvious typos that are simple to fix, even if it's easy to say "sorry, rough draft, there may be some typos".
I share this because it sounds like almost the exact opposite situation from what you describe. While it's a good idea not to be a jerk about it, IMO it's extraordinarily rude for someone else to expect you to find typos in their own writing unless you are to be a coauthor on the work. I don't think you're responsible for the typos in the slightest.
Good communication is always challenging and it's hard to properly judge how you did there from the vague descriptions of text messages that blew up. It's also important to maintain good relations with your coworkers, so it might be worth re-examining how you engaged with them on the issue after your own feelings about it have settled down a bit. Perhaps you could have worded your response differently, started by congratulating them on passing to try to lighten the mood, etc, but this is more of a personal skill than anything. For what it's worth, if person X complained to me that friend Y failed to find typo's in person X's thesis, I'd think much less of person X more than anything - gossiping and trashing your coworkers like that is not ok.

Thank you.  To be honest I felt attacked by the text messages and responded quickly and reactionary.  I regret this, but I don't regret standing up for myself.  This person absolutely refused to see any fault in themselves so I eventually conceded.  Luckily this person is leaving, so this bridge burned isn't the worst case.

+1 At least for me, it's pretty difficult to focus on the ideas hidden underneath poor writing and heaps of typos. When you're asking someone to do you a favour and review something, your should always at least run it through a spellchecker and read it yourself first. Just saying "sorry, rough draft" feels like "sorry for wasting your time, too lazy to spellcheck".

"(...) Its disappointing when you rely on someone and they screw you I hope in the future you do a better job"
The rest of the text chain did not go well.

Oh man, I had to take a walk to cool down. I truly (and seriously) admire all the answers you got here and that none of them told you to reply to this guy to fuck off.

I've learned a lesson: I will focus on clear communication and setting expectations.

This is a good lesson to learn anyway, but do not expect that kind of person to have been grateful for the work you did. Whatever critique of their work they would have received would have been your fault anyway.
Good work in keeping your emotions at bay.

I was REALLY upset.  The subsequent text messages, even after I apologized, really showed me this person has a fragile ego and is incredibly narcissistic. They have leeched off me for a while so this was the final straw.  Still, I felt bad, but its so refreshing to have this community back me up and validate my position.

@fractalflame: if they have leeched off you for some time then what happened is actually a big win for you. One less person to worry about.

Agreed.  It seems like the kind of person that will leech off someone is the same kind of person that would have this reaction.  Look up the Ben Franklin effect, once you do a favor for someone, you are more likely to do them another than if they had done you a favor.  Some people use this to their advantage.  I can't imagine a reasonable person hearing that you reviewed the chapter and it still had typos and thinking that you were lazy as opposed to he is lazy.

@fractalflame tried to find a suitable place to comment exactly what WoJ said: You have gained two things from this experience. One, you have learnt that you should not expect gratitude from people who do not have the capacity for it (I believe this is probably the origin of "no good deed goes unpunished"). And two you benefited by getting rid of yourself from a toxic person early, before they infected any more of your world.

I've been in similar situations, and I've learned that people have different ideas of what "editing" or "looking over" means. If that happens, I am sure to be absolutely certain what the person is expecting, and what I will offer. I don't think you are to blame in this situation; use it as a learning experience and be sure to clarify the level of "proofreading" requested in the future.

Let me start off by admitting that I am able to see my fault in this.

No.
Don't let your labmate shift the blame to you from himself. In all honestness, you made no error and there's no fault on your part. You did a voluntary review of a text he was responsible of, nothing more. It feels he is coping with the critique by finding someone to blame instead of accepting his faults.
Let me introduce my thoughts by a proposed reply, highlighting the core ideas:

Dear Lab Mate,
I received your letter and I'm glad to hear about your successful
defense. I feel, however, surprised by your assertion of my
responsibility regarding the typos.
When you kindly asked me to review your thesis, I was deeply occupied,
as I mentioned in my reply. Nevertheless, I agreed to spend whatever
little free time I could find with helping. I thoroughly read your
thesis, and I made a number of comments I wholeheartedly believe were
helpful. Assuming you already used a language checking tool, and given
my restricted time I could spend with reading, I focused on the
context and the structure of your thesis - as I mentioned in my reply -
instead of spelling and grammar.
Reading your email, I was surprised that you believe I was in some way
responsible for the typos in your final work, and at the same time, I
am a bit disappointed to see that none of my suggestions were
considered. This makes me believe there was a communication error
regarding your expectations, and perhaps we should've make this more
clear.
Though I was glad to help you, I believe the author of the thesis bears full responsibility for the context, and I did provide genuine help - whether
accepted or not. What I saw was an intermediate version, and a final
review should've been made by you, your supervisor, and possibly e.g.
a spell checker tool, to filter out such errors as well. As I
mentioned in my review, there were places seemingly unfinished, and I
also suggested some major structural changes.
I'm sorry to hear that my voluntary help did not meet your
expectations, but please note that I was in no way obliged to aid your
work, and though I did everything in my limited options to improve
your thesis, it's the writer who should finalize the content and
decide whether it may be submitted. In the future, I would suggest
communicating your expectations more clearly, and also leave enough
time for reviewing your work in detail, instead of solely relying on
other's voluntary help [note: and then shifting the blame on them] , to avoid such situations.
Thanks, and I wish good luck for the followings:
Fractal Flame

I wish I had been that eloquent, sadly I responded in the heat of the moment. But I’m not sure I could’ve said anything to change this person’s feelings.

@fractalflame please check my edit as well. You should not feel responsible in any way. And yeah, probably actually writing this reply wouldn't change anything but giving a sense of justice for you. Don't let this take tolls your feelings anyway - he is just probably finding someone to blame as coping with his own fault. This is his problem, not your's. Let it go, and invite him for a beer later if you feel like to.

@fractalflame What I mean is: at this point, there's nothing to win or lose. The only thing you may do is help this person realize his own shortcomings, and aid him coping with the critique. Whether you choose to do so, or just let it go, is your choice.

Reading you've been friends, I'd be even less passive aggressive, and probably just let it go, invite him to a beer/coffee/whatever, and just lightly discuss this in person. But don't take the blame.

I often review papers for a certain college student, and always explicitly ask if they're looking for deep technical review of their writing - typos, punctuation, word choice, verb tenses - or more of a broad overview of the content (need more explanation here, rework this example, you haven't defined this term yet).  And in any event - unless you edited & submitted it on their behalf, any errors still present when they submitted the paper were their responsibility, not yours.

Others have already elaborated that you did not do anything wrong, and I have nothing to add to this. I will only address your other two subquestions:

What could I have done better?

While setting expectations could have prevented the entire affair (not that it was justified), there is another strategy.
I review a lot of stuff for colleagues, students, journals, and so on, but I do not set any expectations beforehand.
Instead, I review on every level (broad structure to typos) by default, in particular for students, as they benefit from certain issues pointed out early on.
However, I will remark every systematic error only once or twice.
For example, if field names are inappropriately capitalised throughout the manuscript, I will only mark the first one or two occurrences.
If not obvious, I will accompany this with a warning that I will stop marking this kind of error.
In particular, I will not correct more than a handful of typos (of the kind that can be found by spell checkers), but simply remark:

colleauge → colleague (I will stop marking spell-checkable typos from now on)

I think this is a win–win situation: I do not need to proactively set expectations, I do not spend much unnecessary work, every sane person knows what they are up to, and in case I ever review for somebody as ethically challenged as your colleague, I have a solid defence.

I just ended up apologizing

This may depend a bit on your culture, but this sounds like a counterproductive move that will just enable your colleague. (“Fractalflame apologised; so they admit I am right …”)

What should I do now?

As others have mentioned before me, your colleague is probably rather making a fool of themselves than you.
Still,  remember that the entire thing is on print so you have rock-solid proof, should your colleague ever challenge your version of the story.
Just memorise a few typos that a spell-checker could have found and that made it to the final thesis.
In case this ever comes up in a way that requires you addressing this, you can cite them as evidence that your colleague obviously hadn’t run a spell-checker yet, and you didn’t want to rub that in.

Apologies if this is off-topic: Often I review source code that has a whole lot of grammar and spelling errors in the comments, in a context where it's not immediately spell-checkable. What would your process be then?

@DanielR.Collins: If the comments are your primary source of spelling errors, it indicates that the coding style is way off anyway. Most of those errors belong in variable and function names and docstrings. That being said, it depends a bit on the context, but there are indeed spell checkers for code so I would probably recommend to use one after the first few such errors. But this depends somewhat on the context.

True, variable/function name typos (and also just totally inaccurate descriptions) are common, too. Can you recommend a general code (or C++) spell checker?

@DanielR.Collins: I was rather alluding to the wisdom that if most spelling-critical parts of your code are in comments, you have been overusing comments where you should have used docstrings or variable names instead. — I cannot recommend spell checkers for code. One of my many flaws is being too lazy to use one myself. (But then I am at least under the illusion that I do not commit that many typos in comments, docstrings, etc.)

@DanielR.Collins Regarding comments: If "bad practices" in coding are called "code smells", then comments are often used as "deodorant". Often, you can make code better by asking yourself the question "How would I need to code this so as to make this comment unnecessary?".

You're in the right, but don't continue the flame war
The person who requested the review from you appears to be either mentally unstable (e.g. a wound collector; see: psychologytoday.com/us/blog/spycatcher/201509/wound-collectors) or extremely manipulative. Either way try not to inflame the situation anymore than it already is, silently cut your ties with this person, and move on. You now know this is not someone to work with or interact with in any way in the future. They're either going to mistreat you, or are potentially dangerous. You did nothing wrong, but it's time to walk away. If needed get professional advice on next steps. But whatever you do, don't continue the flame war (even though you're in the right), and be very very careful about any further interactions with this person. They may well be harmless, but their behavior is really weird, suggesting they might have a serious (and dangerous) mental illness (note: I am a layperson and not part of any medical profession; if concerned get advice from a professional).
Even if the student might be acting in good faith, just walk away
The third possibility I could see is that the student in question is extremely entitled, so they expect others to do things for them, and feel justified in chewing you out when you don't meet "expectations". In this case the student is being unintentionally rude. The problem is none of us answering over the Internet can judge which of the three is the case. You'll have to assess the situation and make that judgement call, and react accordingly. Which in my opinion, the best response in all three cases is to walk away. Nothing is gained, and poking the bear could be dangerous.

Thank you.  I know this person fairly well, and I guess you can never really know, but they don't seem dangerous to me.  Luckily my personality is to deescalate and walk away, which I agree is the best thing to do.

I believe this is way too strong an assertion. People often tend to respond to hurtful negative critics by finding something, someone, to blame, be it however unfair or irrational. This wouldn't mean they are mentally unstable in such a serious way, or even that they're a bad person even.

Definitely, but the student's wording is way too strong assuming the question as stated is accurate. Hence almost all responses saying basically "you're totally in the right". It's hard to imagine a rational person thinking "you didn't find all typos for me --> you backstabbed me!". Doesn't mean the student is mentally ill, or a bad person; they could be highly-entitled. I've met such folks. But unless OP miss-characterized the situation badly (and I'm assuming they didn't), I'm finding it hard to ascribe the student's response as anything but pathological in some way (even if just entitled).

Even if the student knee-jerk gets mad, places blame, and quickly moves on, it's kind of a pathological way to do it, and I would seriously be wary of that student in the future. It's just not a normal response. Doesn't necessarily mean they're crazy, but it is...weird.

Your colleague wrote "I went through this chapter again and found quite a few [typos] ... "
I would suggest to your "colleague" (who isn't acting very collegial) that it was clearly their responsibility to go through their chapters themselves prior to submitting their thesis. In addition to coming across as rude, they come across as inexcusably lazy.

There is an old joke that goes like this:

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He spots a man down below and lowers the balloon to shout: “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”
The man below says: “Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees N. latitude, and between 58 and 60 degrees W. longitude.”
“You must be an engineer” says the balloonist.
“I am” replies the man. “How did you know.”
“Well” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost.”
The man below says “You must be a manager.”
“I am” replies the balloonist, “but how did you know?”
“Well”, says the man, “you don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problems. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault.”

Long story short, some people just have a strong need to blame anyone but themselves for mistakes.


text:
I failed a written exam and I don't know how to reply to my professor
As a preface, I would like to explain that  have ADHD and anxiety issues and tend to be very slow at writing (mostly due to overthinking/over-analyzing and having OCD-like tendencies when writing).  I also made the dumb decision of not going into academic services to ask for accommodations (partly due to anxiety).
Due to the stay at home order the exam for my class was changed to have only written response questions (thankfully the professor changed it to open book). We had the whole day to work on it but then it was time to turn it in, I had only a third of the questions answered.  Yesterday  I received an email asking about why the exam was sent incomplete  and if I sent the wrong one. I had a minor anxiety attack and made a  unwise decision of avoidance. Today, I am trying to write a reply to my professor's inquiry and have no idea how to explain it. I'm worried that my professor will think that I don't care about the class and that I'm slacking off.

You should get advice from a mental health professional about anxiety, instead of asking internet strangers who might not be able to help.

Tell the professor what happened.  If the professor already knows about your issues, there's no need to belabor them further.  If not, summarize as you did in your question here.
Explain that it was incomplete because, although you worked for the entire allotted time (if you did), you didn't finish.
Your question suggests that you may be used to an oral component on exams.  If that's the case, perhaps the professor would examine you by telephone, or Skype, or something.
The professor's email, as summarized by you, shows that the professor cares about you and wants you to do well.
Addendum: If you have academic trouble, always start with the professor.  If you get an answer you don't like, you can then move on to department heads, academic or disability services, etc.  Please give the professor a chance first.

I would immediately write to academic services and ask for their advice. It is likely that they an intercede on your behalf and you can come to some accommodation.
You need to move to a better place, but having academic services in your corner will help. While it was a mistake not to talk to them earlier, don't compound it by avoiding them now.
Times are bad for everyone, but worse for some than others. Use the tools open to you.


text:
Is having double bachelor's disadvantageous in masters admissions?
I am looking to apply for masters this year. I've previously changed universities after studying data science to physics. If I would finish my data science bachelor's would that affect my application positively/negatively?

A masters in which discipline?  Which country?

In physics, somewhere in Europe. Currently thinking of UK, France and Germany.

A bachelors in data science would not harm your application for a masters in physics.  It might be slightly helpful.
However, be ready to answer the question:  Why did you get this extra bachelors?  Data science is not really a discipline at this point in time, in the sense that it does not have a well defined methodology.  If you think this degree creates value, you need to explain that value.

Many would disagree about your conclusion that Data Science is not a discipline, and others will disagree with the definition that a discipline must have a well established methodology.


text:
Writing abstract
I want to submit an abstract for a call for papers for a good journal in my field. I don't have the paper ready yet, but I have a vague idea for a paper that I would like to propose to the journal editors. Is it possible to write an abstract on such a basis? If selected, there is time of 7 months to submit the manuscript.

What field? Scientific? Math? History? ...?

Applied Linguistics

This may not be the best site for this question, given the field. Not many linguists are regular here. There is a companion site that might be better: https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/. Check their help center before posting, though. But I've added a tag to try an ping whoever is about.

Indeed this could be very field-specific, but I suspect the answer is: you can always try. It's just an abstract, and it can be changed by the time the paper is ready.

What is your confidence level of being able to complete a paper of acceptable quality in the time? What is the penalty if you don't?

@BillOnne it will be rejected.

@stochastic Yes, thank you for that uplifting comment. No harm in trying!

@Buffy Thank you for your comment :)

It is not uncommon to submit an abstract of an unwritten paper for a conference proceedings (when applying to participate in a conference) or another low-key publication. Usually, it is about an ongoing work that is expected to be finished or an obvious offshoot of research already done.
However, if the project hasn't started yet, there is a high risk that it won't be finished in time. If the publication is low-key, one can still submit partial results or something like that... but the editors usually don't take it kindly, if one promises a paper and then bails out. And this may turn out badly even for low-key conference proceedings, since the editors and/or conference organizers in this case are usually people prominent in the field.

I'm a mathematician but I once wrote a paper with an economist and did precisely this. We submitted an abstract for an economics conference where the paper would be presented, and the abstract was accepted. It probably helped that my co-author knew the organizers. Then, we had to write the paper as quickly as possible, which was actually a very good incentive to get it done. My co-author presented it and fielded questions. It was peer reviewed by a panel and published in the conference proceedings. Later, we rewrote the paper more carefully for a journal, since in econ journal publications are looked upon more favorably than conference, and there's not a prohibition for turning a conference paper into a journal paper. I echo the advice in the comments that it doesn't hurt to try, and forcing yourself to write the abstract helps you make progress on the paper even if the abstract doesn't get accepted.


text:
Two research areas of interest for faculty position
I have a PhD in heat transfer area and postdoc experience in biomolecular simulations. I like both of the disciplines and published more than 20 journal articles in both fields together. When I appear for faculty interviews, which area should I focus more? Since I have done a significant amount of work in both fields, my mind is not letting me to disregard biomolecular simulations from the presentation. At the same time within the given 50 mins, talking about both distinct topics is challenging both for me and the audience. I am unable to make a decision, please guide me. (I have a BSME and currently Assistant Professor looking to switch to R1 university in mechanical department).

Actually, you should tailor the talk to the job at hand. The job description should be a good guide. Failing that, look at what the current faculty do, and are therefor interested in.
The only exception would seem to be a job in a department that was explicitly interested in expanding research areas, in which case, probably talk more about which area you'd like to focus on, without ignoring the other.

Thank you, it helps. I don't know why I never put the job description in the picture. It makes more sense now.


text:
What to do with a physics PhD in Europe?
I am currently finishing up my doctorate in Europe and will start a post-doc next year. My understanding is that a lot of people end up doing post-doc after post-doc (easily till around their 40s), without ever getting a permanent contract at a university.
My question is: What are the options are for someone who leaves "academia" after one or some post-docs, and is age is a factor?
This is related to What post PhD path alternatives are there?, however I would like more of a focus on the extent to which age is a factor.
I have often heard that if one is beyond a certain age, then it is difficult to convince someone in the "industry" to hire you. The idea being something like "you can't teach an old dog new tricks". Any personal experience and statistical studies on this question are welcome!

National Labs and industry hire PhDs, do research, publish, etc. The thought that the only place to work is academia is extremely short sighted.

Are you willing to do work that doesn't relate to serious physics?

Long ago, I wrote this answer: https://mathoverflow.net/questions/105495/what-can-an-algebraic-geometer-do-outside-academia/105593#105593 in response to a question from a mathematician, but the answer is completely independent of what you're studying and applies equally to physics PhDs.

You will find contracts are rarely permanent outside academia too.  Permanent contracts are a historical anomaly, not normality.  No contract will protect you if your employer is unable to pay you.

In principle, for most employers, age should not matter. That's because age discrimination is usually frowned upon and many employers want to say that they don't discriminate for that reason. Example.

Integrity is a core part of our culture, and LinkedIn is committed to equal employment opportunity for all qualified individuals - regardless of race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation,
citizenship, or any other legally protected class. This commitment applies across all of our employment policies and practices, from recruiting and hiring to training and career development.

However, if you seek such a career move, there'll be questions you need to answer:

Why are you seeking a career change?
What can you actually do?

The first should be straightforward to answer. The second is not so simple. Considering the age, you are probably also seeking a more senior role (or at least you want to be paid more). That means you are competing against other people who have had several years of experience in whatever position you're applying for. Why should they hire you? Can you demonstrate that your experience in academia allows you to exceed what your competitors offer? "I can learn it quickly" might be true, but it's also not sufficient.
Example: say you're interested in data science, which is certainly something that many physics PhDs go on to do. Here's an example of a job advertisement in that domain (nothing special about this advertisement, it's simply the first one that popped up when I did a search). Note the requirements:

Requirements:

6-8 years of experience in data science; preferably in B2B industry
Excellent modelling experience including but not limited to deep learning and natural language processing
Familiar in handling time series data, machine learning framework and in-depth understanding of data processing and feature engineering techniques
Strong knowledge in Python and SQL
Excellent communications and interpersonal skills
Ability to interact positively and professionally at all levels

As a postdoc you definitely do not have experience in the B2B industry, immediately putting you at a disadvantage. The advertisement also asks for 6-8 years of experience as a data scientist, which some of your competitors definitely will have. You might have it too, if you've been working on data science projects in physics for 6-8 years (have you?). If you haven't, then it becomes very difficult for you to get this job.
If you do have the 6-8 years experience, then there's the next hurdle. The advertisement asks for experience in deep learning and natural language processing. Did your data science projects include these topics? I can see deep learning, but NLP seems rather unlikely in physics. Again, that puts you at a disadvantage. Even if you can learn it quickly, you don't have any examples of delivered projects you can cite at an interview.
As you can see, it's not easy to get a job in data science, but it's not because you're old. It's because you probably don't have the experience that your competitors do. It's not dissimilar to how it's hard to get a job in particle physics when your entire physics career has been in condensed matter physics.
Having said that, there will be jobs where the ability to "do physics" is a key part, and for those jobs your physics PhD will be squarely relevant. Offhand, the first one that comes to mind is teaching, both as a school teacher or as a private tutor.

I realize that this might not qualify as a literal answer, but just some career advice from someone who has completed theirs.
Don't give up if you really want a career in academia.
Times are hard now for entry into permanent positions, hence the prevalence of postdocs. If you get a post doc, don't consider it as a respite, but as an opportunity. Use the postdoc to do three things.
First, don't give up your search for a permanent position. Don't wait until near the end to start applying.
Second, use the postdoc for what it is intended to do: improve your CV by publishing. Grant writing is also possible.
Third, develop collaborative relationships, not only for research but for for general career advancement. Try to attend good conferences. Use the time there to meet people with common interests and explore collaborations. Those people can help you in your search for a permanent position in many ways.
Not quite on the same scale, but continuously reevaluate your goals. That isn't the same as giving them up, but rethinking them is good as you learn more from your current academic situation. In the US, there are a lot of good (really good) colleges and universities that aren't primarily research institutions. Teaching is more important, though usually not all important. And a tenurable/tenured position at a good liberal arts college will still give you opportunities for research, especially if you have developed those collaborative relationships and maintain them. If a postdoc gives you teaching experience as well, it can be a plus for such things.
And, age is probably somewhat less of a factor in academic hiring than in industrial. A former spouse started their academic career after age 40 and did very well. You just need something valuable to offer.


text:
When can I send a status update query to editor for paper under major revision?
I submitted a paper to elsevier and it got major revision. I proceeded as per the suggestions and submitted revision. After few days the status changed to "Under Review". Now the status is still under Review even after 45 days. Can I ask the editor for a status update or should I wait further?

Depending on the field, "Under Review" can also be 6 months. The reviewers review in their spare time. If they don't have spare time or are unorganised reviews take very long time.

But isn't it different from the first review. In my opinion it should take less time than the first revision.

@Ehsa Not necessarily.  Sometimes major revision is indeed major and the reviewers have to dedicate similar amount of time like the 1st review. Also notice that (as J.Fabian.Meier said) they do it on their spare time, and usually such time is limited.

I myself had a first review that took 2 months, resulting in major revision. I revised my manuscript and got the next answer after about 7 months. The length is not predictable.

-By checking the policies of Reed Elsevier, sometimes revision takes 2-4 weeks and the author will be informed directly about the situation whenever it obtained. It depends on several factors such as how many reviewers they have this term and how many submitted papers they have on their system waiting to be evaluated and which field your paper in.

If you in hurry, there will be no harm if you send a kind email asking about the progress of reviewing your paper.

sometimes revision takes 2-4 weeks It depends heavily also on the field. In my field, I wouldn't be surprised to take 4-6 months for a revision.

Review time has nothing to do with "the policies of Reed Elsevier".

I think the best advise would be to go to the journal's homepage and browse recently published articles. Each such article has information about when it was (1) received, (2) received in revised form and (3) accepted for publication.
From this, you can easily infer average time that is under revision. Keep also in mind that for many papers there is minor revision so the time interval from (2) -> (3) might be small. You should check towards the higher end of that interval to get some estimation. If you think the time spend under review is unreasonably large, you can send a message to the editor asking about the status. But you should not hurry.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How do professors get to apply and work on industry projects?
Not necessary to have a research project but any project where professor can get to apply his theory and skills and work along with working professional in the industry - and also get to leverage academia's infrastrcuture in the form of labs, software, students etc. How do professors find such projects and opportunities to interface with industry?

Closely related questions: Who applies academic CS research in the industry and how? and How do academics make money from applying their research?.

Reputation, personal contacts, and open calls for proposals.
Academics who publish important papers relevant to industry problems are likely to draw the attention of people in those industries who may reach out to the professor to find out more about their research. These kinds of contacts may turn into invitations to come speak, collaborate, or even a contract project to get paid to do research for the company.
Similarly, not everyone who gets a PhD goes into academia, so it's likely that a professor will have former labmates from grad school or postdocing or recent advisees who have gone into industry. These connections, if maintained, can be invaluable for finding out about the needs of industry and may lead to funded research projects.
Finally, some companies run research programs more or less just like government research programs. If you want to work with Microsoft Research or Google or Pfizer, you may simply go to their website, discover what research funding programs they are funding, and apply.
There are certainly other possibilities (incubators, university-level liaison offices, etc), but these three are among the most common.


text:
Is following an online tutorial plagiarism?
This might be a silly question, I'm doing a primary education uni degree and my subject study is computing. For our assignment, we have to create a basic website from scratch using HTML. I'm completely new to coding so I'm fumbling my way through it. I want to follow a video on coding parallax scrolling but would this be considered plagiarism as it's not my original code? My head is telling me no because surely there is only a certain amount of ways you can achieve this? Thanks.

For your first website, do not include tricky stuff, make it very simple.  I do not know what "parallax scrolling" is, but I suspect that is in the category of "tricky stuff".  My first web site had a few text paragraphs, a list, and some links from one place to another on the page.  For someone new to coding: make something small, try it out, fix it until it works, then add something else small, and so on.  Do not try to do everything in the first draft.

Thank you for the tip! I've been doing really simple websites for this entire module so have grasped the basics, I don't want to overcomplicate anything but I also need to get a good grade on this assignment. I've also got about 50 back-ups on brackets so I'm hoping if anything goes wrong I can just try something else.

Are there any reasons not to make transparent that you used the tutorial as a source? Using sources alone is no problem. Not citing is a problem. So cite properly and you should have no problem with plagiarism.

I doubt that this is plagiarism in the formal sense of the term. I'd equate it with using things you find in a text book. This relies on the fact that there are a limited number of ways in which some things can be done and also on the fact that students should be allowed to learn with other resources than those provided.
However, if you are asking whether you could be sanctioned by a professor for this then it isn't so clear and depends on whatever rules are set for your completion of the assignment. A professor can certainly put an embargo on using outside resources for purposes of an assignment. If you use those resources then you can be punished even though you haven't committed plagiarism in the formal sense.
But if your final result gives the impression that the ideas are yours when they are not and not cited, then it becomes formal plagiarism.
Don't equate plagiarism with academic misconduct. The easy way to be sure is to cite what you use (avoiding plagiarism) and also avoiding any claim that you were hiding something from the professor.

Note that professors don't assign things because they need the end product produced by the students. They do it purely so that the student can learn something. Breaking the rules reduces the intended learning. It isn't really about "making" something. It is about "learning" something. Working with limited resources is often a good way to enable that.


text:
Are Masters' degrees in Sweden and Denmark free?
Information on the internet is not clear, hence my question.
I have read that masters in Denmark and Sweden are free for Europeans. I am from Spain, so I could potentially apply.
My questions:

is there any contract where the student has to live/work in the country for a certain period before/after studying/applying for the masters?
If I don’t finish the master, do I have to pay for it?
It sounds too good to be true… if that’s the case, how come all Europeans don’t go to study to Denmark/Sweden? Why would any British, Italian, etc study outside Denmark/Sweden?

"how come all Europeans don’t go to study to Denmark/Sweden?" - because university is basically free in some other European countries, as well?

A project manager in Google earns around 300K$/year. How come all people don't work in Google?

The amount of project managers is limited and Google would hire only the top x. Potenially (if they d feel like), all adult european citizens could move to those countries to study. I think cold is one reason and the other being that is not free but really cheap in the rest of europe.

I finished my Master's in Sweden in 2009.  I am from The Netherlands.  Higher education is unconditionally free of charge in Sweden.  There used to be a mandatory student union membership with a fee of around 100 SEK/year (a little over €10) but this was abolished by the Reinfeldt government.  It does not matter whether you finish or whether you stay in the country afterwards.
EU does not permit tuition fee discrimination between native and EU students, so as long as higher education is free for Swedes it is free for EU students.  It is no longer free for non-EU students, who in fact pay some of the highest fees in the world.  I believe EEA students are free of charge as well.
However, you still need to finance your own cost of living, which may not be easy as finding a job without knowing Swedish will be difficult.  The Swedish government only provides grants to Swedish students.
To answer your last question, there are plenty of students from other European countries studying in Sweden.

The courses are taught in English, I presume?

Yes, Master's are normally taught in English.  The quality of the English is variable, though.

Also, finding an apartment to rent in Stockholm is near impossible.

@PerAlexandersson True, but there are many other universities in Sweden that are pretty good.


text:
Should I share my extensive notes summarizing literature in my field?
Before and during my PhD (that I just recently finished) I have been taking notes summarizing basically everything I have read in my field (articles/monographs/dissertations). The notes are structured as nested lists with points ordered as they appear in the reference, with a page reference to each point. The notes are written in markdown with one file for every reference being summarized. There are around 220 of them so far. Some points in the lists are direct quotes, marked up as such. They sometimes include my own comments (which are typically critical, otherwise I don't have reason to comment) in square brackets.
Now, I had the idea of making these notes available as a GitHub repo and to mention it in my blog. I would have found it useful if other researchers did something similar, as I could then see what they found interesting about a particular work and I could make searches in their notes to find relevant references for stuff I am working on. What are the pros and cons of making these notes available? I have spent a huge amount of work reading literature and compiling these notes, and I am bothered by the thought of someone "stealing" my work, but at the same time I am thrilled by the thought of them being of use to others. The notes won't be very citable as such since they are only summaries of other works and anyone who finds them useful would have to go to the original source anyway, meaning I won't get much credit if people do find them useful.
I would keep adding to and editing the notes after they are made available.

You could consider releasing them with a CC-BY-SA (or similar) license. Essentially, if someone uses them, they must give attribution, and potentially they must share their notes as well. But IANAL, so I'm not certain how this applies to "notes" (as opposed to other productions).

There are some projects already out there like http://artelope.uv.es/ , for instance (that's just for one prolific writer's stuff)

You got a PhD and only read 220 articles? What subject?

@EnergyNunbers if he's talking about summaries of novels, essays, plays, etc, 200 or so is reasonable, that's pretty much what my reading list for exams came in at.

@guifa I don't understand what you've written. Do you mean that you got a humanities PhD after reading 200 papers?

@EnergyNumber I don't see how what I said was confusing. I'd estimate between my classes and my reading list for comps, there was a total of about 200 works (unless we want to count individual poems —which I don't— in which case it's much larger). I read tons of articles in addition to that list in writing term papers, preparing for exams, and writing the dissertation, but I wouldn't generally refer to them as works — just papers/articles.

"only"? I surely read much less during my PhD, probably 100 papers or so. It's not that you get a PhD by reading papers by the pound: in my field at the time there was a new paper every couple of years.

@guifa I've no idea what "comps" are, and I still don't understand what you've written. You read "tons" of "articles" in addition to 200 "works". Are "articles" things you made notes about? Does "tons" mean thousands, or  dozens?

@MassimoOrtolano that's why I asked about the subject - I figured it was probably much less for mathematicians. In my field, 150-200 references within a PhD bibliography is normal - and that's about half of what they've read.

@EnergyNumbers comp(rehensive exam)s, also known as qual(ifying exam)s or simply doctoral exams. They are taken during a PhD program generally before beginning the dissertation, although I know some spread them out over the different years. As for articles... by "tons", I reckon on average we read an article or two per work, plus 20-40 per term paper. Lowballing thus would be around 600, before getting to the dissertation phase which could add another 100-200, depending on the topic.

Pros:

Contributing to an open and collaborative scientific process

If you've put a lot of work into something, it is great if that work can benefit others as well. If you can save another researcher a bit of time, or even better provide them with some inspiration, that is great for science in general.

Raising your profile as a researcher

It's almost always a good thing for people to know your name and be aware of what area you are working on. If people read your notes and find them useful, this will give them a positive impression of you and could make them more likely to collaborate with you in the future.

Provide motivation to continue updating your notes

Pretty sure it's an established psychological effect: if you share your goals with others it provides incentive to meet those goals.

Ego boost

As you said yourself, it would feel good!
Cons:

Possible negative impression to authors you are critical of

You mentioned that a lot of your notes are critical of the papers you read. I would say this is normal - we tend to focus on weaknesses when we pick apart a paper. But to the author, this might create a negative impression if they feel that you are unfairly harsh, or that you get hung up on details and don't "get" the main point of the article. On the other hand, researchers tend to be fairly thick-skinned and will be used to dealing with criticism.

Unlikely to be formally cited

Given that your notes don't contain much in the way of original material, they are unlikely to get cited. People are more likely just to cite the original papers that you refer to.

Overall, you can probably tell that my personal opinion would be to go ahead and post them - it sounds like a very positive step. But it might be worth spending a bit of time checking through your more critical points and perhaps moderating them slightly, or balancing them against something positive.

@NajibIdrissi I think Unlikely to be formally cited is to be read as Unlikely to be formally cited in comparison to the publications summarized in the notes.


text:
Do students needs to be specifically mentioned on grant proposals for projects funded by government agencies in the US?
Let me start by giving some background.
I joined a research group about 3 years ago and at the time the PI (who became my advisor) told me that he would not be able to support me until either one of his PhD students graduated or he landed a new project from the agency that funds the research group. He told me that the wait wouldn't be too long because two students would graduate within the next six month (however he did say that it was not guaranteed) and I would be next in line to receive funding.
Well, it took those two students another two years to graduate. However, before they graduated the PI told me that their contract with the funding agency was being restructured and all current projects were being abandoned. He was proposing new projects instead of them however that meant that I was pushed back 3 or 4 places in the line to receive funding (which was based on seniority).
About a year later now, I am first in line again and the next project was suppose to be mine. However, my advisor just told me that they forgot to put my name on the project proposal and that although the project was approved I would not receive any funding. There are several staff members in our research group who are part of each project and he tells me that they are the only ones that were named on the proposal.
Does this sound plausible? I don't know much about how project proposals are structured and how funding is awarded. I'm getting a feeling that my advisor isn't being completely honest with me. I get the feeling that because I haven't complained much about funding to him in the past three years he is assuming that I can afford to go without it.
I've actually had to hunt for a TA position every single quarter which would pay my tuition but provided a very small stipend (not enough to cover expenses).
P.S. these "projects" are separate from our thesis related research and are really just a means for supporting the students in our research group.

My experience is that students are not put in NSF proposals by name, but a slot is put in the narrative and budget with the name listed as TBD, "To Be Determined". It's possible that the PI failed to count all the heads correctly and was off by one. I would be surprised for this to happen in a small group, but if there were 10-12 students in the group, it could be easy to miss one.
Edited to add: It's worth noting that a particularly excellent student with lead or primary authorship on the papers that constitute the prior work for the grant might be highlighted in the grant text and budget, especially if the student has won some awards for the work

If a student has co-authored the grant, the student also needs to be acknowledged, particularly if their work is a key component of the grant.

@jakebeal, yes, that required by NSF, though I've only heard of one enforcement action on that ever.

This answer agrees with my experience. My NSF proposals have included budget lines for graduate student support, but without naming particular students.  Other parts of the proposal sometimes named students who were working with me at the time of the proposal, but there was no promise that they'd be the ones supported by the grant --- they might well graduate before the grant money becomes available.

authors: ดูหนังออนไลน์


text:
When applying to a PhD program whose strength is not my concentration field, should I adjust my statement of purpose to match their area of strength?
I am applying to a PhD in Economics; I am a big in Macro Economics as my background is entirely in macro.
One of the schools I am interested in is more focused in game theory. They have some economists focused in macro & monetary theory but it's just 2-3 members, extremely small compared to the other PhD programs I am applying to.
Should I reword my statement of purpose to areas they have more focus in? I like the school a lot!
Do I make myself more or less competitive by being interested in an area a university isn't its best strength?
Two ways of looking at it:

If I say I am interested in X and most of the faculty is doing Y and the students and program are more focused in subject Y, less of the faculty vote for my admissions and I am rejected.

Or

I am interested in X and most of the faculty is doing Y, subject X is underrepresented, I become a minority and they vote me in.

Which one do you  think is the more likely outcome? Should I reword my SOP to the school's strength?

It seems you are looking at this from the wrong angle.
You should not (primarily) tune your SOP to whatever increases your chances of acceptance, but to your interests. If you are "a big Macro guy", then what good does it do you to pretend like you are really into Game Theory? Do you want to do your PhD in Game Theory, even if you are not passionate about it (hint: you really shouldn't)?
Further, is it possible that you are actually not applying to the right school, if they have close to no faculty in your speciality? Why do you think this school is a good fit? If this question has a good (academic) answer, this is what you write in the SOP. If the answer is non-academic ("I like their sports team!"), I suggest you should reconsider applying to this school altogether. As you can see from browsing various questions on this site, being in the "wrong" grad school can be a terrible experience.

Thanks, I guessed I would get responses similar to yours.