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How to address an Editor if I have new proof techniques of old results?
I read an article published in a High Impact Factor journal and on reading I find that almost all of the proofs could have been done in an easy way.
I devised easy techniques myself and I find that the results obtained in that paper match mine.
Shall I publish my easy techniques stating in my paper that I have found easy proof techniques for the paper already published?
Is it publishable?
How shall I address the Editor and let him/her know that I have obtained the same results but using much easier techniques?
How should I give a title for my manuscript?

Why the downvotes?

Don't worry about down votes. People do what they do. It could be as simple as a single word. I can't guess at any of the downvotes on the question or the answers here. Some voters are kind enough to explain. Others not.

How shall I address the Editor and let him/her know that I have obtained the same results but using much easier techniques? — I don't understand the question. Surely the editor will read the abstract of your paper.  Why would you need to explain anything to them separately?

I think that the question is asked in the wrong way, probably that is why it was downvoted. If you find a new mathematical proof for a theorem, which is shorter or more elementary, that is many times novel enough to publish. But you need to remember that if the original result was published in a High Impact Factor, it was primarly because it was new. Do not expect to publish a new proof of the same result in the same high impact journal, aim lower. You do not need to address the editor in any way, you simply write a paper and emphasize that this is a simpler proof of

.... Theorem X. I should stress this again, the simple fact that you are not proving something new, even if your proof is nicer, makes the paper worth much less than the original paper where the theorem was proven the first time. And I say this from experience, I did publish with a colaborator a paper where we were proving a certain result via elementary methods: our proof was much shorter than all older proofs, and was the only one who could actually be understood by a good undergraduate student, all the others were using methods too advanced. We ended up publishing it in a good journal....

but nowhere close to where we could had published it had it been new.

@JeffE; I am worried about the "cover letter" and how to choose the title

I don't think I've submitted a formal cover letter with a journal submission in two decades, but when I did, they read, in full: "Dear Editor, Please accept the attached paper for submission to journal X.  Sincerely, The Authors."  You're overthinking.  The editor will read the abstract.  As for the title, I recommend something direct like "A simple proof of Theorem Z".

"A direct proof of Cockatoo's equation."
"An elementary approach to Shrokensveny and Ljubovitch's inequalities"
"Deriving the circumferent super-Galois hyperextension of Williamson spaces from basic topological axioms"
Simplified proofs are amongst the most valuables contributions to mathematics if they convey either new perspectives, or clarity or simply insight into the problem. Just make clear that it is a simplification of known results and make sure your proof is solid.
I have myself witnessed the process of an important theorem reduced from a full book length of theory development to effectively one page of comparatively elementary mathematics. It is a perfectly legitimate contribution.

How will I address the Editor? Shall I send the paper for peer review to the same journal where the original article was published

@Math_Freak Write the paper, send it to a journal. You can try the same journal, but especially if it is a good journal, expect it not to be accepted. New proofs to old results are typically valued lower than new theorems.

Please explain downvotes, to help improving the answer or for me to remove it if it is counterproductive.

I am worried about the "cover letter" and how to choose the title

What's to worry? You explain that you shortened or simplified the known proof of a theorem. The editor can choose to find this interesting or not. In any case, if the simplification or shortening is considerable, it is definitively a contribution, even if not necessarily in the top journals. For instance, a proof that leaves out certain techniques necessary in the original, is also interesting.

Thank you very much for the answer

What makes this question challenging to answer is that it’s addressing the wrong level of generality: you’re asking about a very specific situation (publishing a simpler proof of a known result) but your questions suggest you’re missing basic facts about publishing of math research in general (how to “address an editor”, how to select a journal to send your paper to, and how to know if your research is even publishable) that have little to do with the specific situation you’re describing.
In terms of answering these questions, only one strikes me as answerable with the information you’ve provided: in math you don’t “address an editor” in any special way, you simply send in your paper using the process described on the journal’s website. If this involves an email to the editor, this need not contain anything more than a factual statement that you are submitting your paper to the journal. There is no need to “address” the contents of your paper or attempt to support the paper’s case for publication in the email - that’s the job of the paper itself.
For the other questions, I think you’ll have to find a knowledgeable person to actually look at your paper and give you advice about whether the results are publishable and what journal they will be a good fit for, how to choose a good title, etc. Those are all important questions but they would depend on much more detailed information than the mere fact that you’ve found new proofs of known results - papers meeting such a description can range anywhere from near-worthless to something that belongs in a top journal. Anyway, good luck!

I am worried about the "cover letter" and how to choose the title?

@Math_Freak what did your advisor say when you consulted them about those things?

He says " I am busy with my son's birthday party". My advisor is not concerned about my project at all

@Math_Freak well, I’m busy with lots of things myself too, and as I said in my answer one cannot give formulaic answers to such questions. You need to have someone with experience actually look at your paper and give you specific advice tailored to your situation. And maybe also work on developing good communication and trust with your advisor, and some patience to wait for him to get back to you when he’s back in the office, those things are probably much more instrumental to your success in research than the question about how to choose a paper title.

I understand but since its not possible to develop trust with my advisor anymore , my question is " How will you choose a good title in this case" , just give me your take

@Math_Freak interesting. This site is full of XY problems like yours: you ask about Y but then the real problem gradually comes out and it’s X, often a much more serious and difficult problem. Anyway, I wish you the best of luck but can’t help you with the paper title issue, sorry. There are some questions on that subject as well around here, use the search function or post a new question and try to give enough details to allow people to give you useful advice.

Thank you very much for the answer

New proofs are valued in mathematics if they open new doors. But the proof probably needs to be something that has value in its own right, though there are exceptions. A short proof of the four color theorem that doesn't rely on computers would be interesting, even without the "new doors" aspects. (I hope that is still the case. I haven't looked at it in a while.)
But new proofs of old things often give other mathematicians ideas about other ways to exploit the technique. Such proofs are interesting primarily if they offer new insight into the problem itself or, better, into some class of problems.
But if you just write the introduction/abstract of the paper correctly, then the editor doesn't need a special heads up. A quick glance will let them know what you are up to.
I can't give much advice on the title unless one of the key theorems is named and well known (Four Color Theorem, for example). It needs to be specific. A New Proof of an Old Theorem works for a college student project, but probably not so much for a publication.

How will I address the Editor? Shall I send the paper for peer review to the same journal where the original article was published

It could be the same journal or another. Consider, even, a higher ranked journal if that seems reasonable. It depends on what you have done, of course.

I am worried about the "cover letter" and how to choose the title

@Math_Freak Maybe you need to explain to us why specifically you worry about the cover letter / title. You are almost certainly worrying about the wrong things, but it's difficult to provide a convincing argument if you don't say what your worries are.

Thank you very much for the answer


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Given reviewer comments, shall I resubmit after the rejection?
I had submitted a manuscript to a SCI indexed journal and I received a rejection after 4 months
The reviewers comments stated:
The reviewer stated only 1 correction in the whole paper and wrote the following :
The proofs of main theorems of this paper are straight forward, and the proofs of many results are written in a too elaborate way, not compact enough. As a result this paper is not recommended for publication in XXX.
I am currently in a very difficult situation. I don't understand if I should just fix the error which the reviewer pointed out and then submit it to the same journal.
I am able to fix that error. So will it be wise to fix it to the same journal or it will be a complete waste of time.
If anyone can help me out, I will be very grateful.

If there will be no repercussions.from resubmission do it. You might add on a simple statement like, do these changes reflect what you had in mind in your comments? Meanwhile move on and submit elsewhere if feasible

It sounds like that reviewer wouldn't recommend the paper to be published even if that error was fixed. But of course, that's just my interpretation from what is written here. What did the other reviewers say?

@JimmyK4542; This is the only report I got from the Editor

I would resubmit it without changes or add some discussion to say why the proofs are not trivial.   The only concern is if the paper goes back to the same reviewer.  However, it seems like the review is written hastily; perhaps the reviewer is not interested in reviewing the paper and made something up.  In this case, there is no worry.

I think the review comment says: 1. the proofs are not very difficult, 2. and have been written up more complicated than necessary. 2 on its own probably would not have been a reason for rejection, but together with 1 it is. You could ask the editor if there is any point in resubmission if the proofs are made more crisp.

@CaptainEmacs; Can you pls help me what to write to the Editor

@Math_Freak Phrasing is off-topic for SE. However, you could try and ask whether after making the proofs more compact the paper had a chance to be reconsidered to the journal. Make it a short message and to the point, this will increase chance of a quick response.

@CaptainEmacs; I get it, what if the Editor says that it depends on the reviewer and all that, how will i know if the editor is genuinely interested or not?

The editor makes the decision. If he justifies it by the reviewer's comments, it's still the editor's decision.

There's a high chance resubmission will not work. That's because the review says there are two issues with the paper:

The proofs are straightforward, and
The proofs are not written out well, taking many more lines than necessary.

#2 is a purely presentation issue. #1 can be interpreted in a few ways (see the linked question) but I would guess at the second interpretation in the linked question: the results are gotten in straightforward fashion. This is still not a good comment to receive since it implies the proof isn't interesting even if the result can potentially be.
Note neither of these two review comments critique the scientific merit of your results. In other words, they don't imply your work is wrong. That means the most probable reason your paper was rejected is because it's not interesting enough for publication, which cannot be fixed by improving the presentation.
If you do resubmit the paper, you should do more than fix #2, you should also argue why the result is interesting even though the proofs are straightforward.

While this answer provides a fairly accurate analysis, it is the editors who will make the decisions about the importance of 1. and 2. Also, I fear that "arguing" about mathematics is probably a fools game. The paper stands on its own or it doesn't. But the advice to do "more" is correct. it is just that you should improve the paper. And note that some journals won't permit a resubmission after a clear reject. You may need to take it elsewhere.

@Buffy; thanks for your comment, how would i convince the editor that the result is interesting even though the proofs are straightforward.

how would i convince the editor that the result is interesting even though the proofs are straightforward

@Math_Freak well, are your results interesting? Why should other mathematicians care about your results? I don't know what your results are, but Steve Gubkin's answer here gives an idea of what you need to show: "it makes some connection to existing mathematical theory, illuminates why something disconnected from the theory works the way it does, or solves some existing problem."

source: Stack Exchange

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How should I present my work to my advisor?
I am a master student, working on something on my own. One day I came up a new definition (My field is mathematics) of something. I am not sure if it is publishable or not (Not even sure if it works). So I decided to present my work to my thesis advisor to a look first (His field is related to my work).
But the question arises, should I finish my work first (This includes the background introduction, comparison with other definition, etc), or I just present my rough idea first (After all, it is just a definition, I just need to explain why it works)?
For the first approach, it sounds reasonable, but it may take longer time for my advisor to read, and may not worth the effort if it is not publishable. For second approach, it is quick, and the result is not worth trying, I can work on something else. The drawback is my advisor may not understand what I am doing.

It might be worth asking your advisor what they prefer. But personally, I'd prefer to see a rough sketch rather than have a student spend a lot of time on something that might go nowhere.

I think the advantages of showing it soon (i.e. unfinished) outweigh any disadvantages. The advisor may have some suggestions as you note and may point you to prior work that you may not be aware of. That could make further work more or less desirable, of course, but either way, it is good to know.
And, whether publishable or not, it may indicate that you are gaining needed insight into your field.
I think that very few advisors would not want to be bothered.

The question is about which way to show(finished work or rough idea),not should I show it to him.

Fixed, I hope. Let me know if you want more. Sorry I wasn't clear.

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Getting reference letter from professors whom I took their class-should I make any impression except my grade?
I am a master (international)student in Germany, I will apply Phd in Canada or US. There will be a gap year between my graduation year and entrance year.
Now my plan to get reference letter is as follows: One letter from my thesis supervisor. Another two letters from the professor whom I took a class with and got an A.
Now I am not sure if any of the professor will remember me after (at least) one year. Surely I got best grade in their exam(oral), but this does not guarantee the chance.
The question is, should I made a impression to them, like directly(politely) ask them if I can get a reference letter from them in the future?Or just wait till the application time and sending emails to ask them? Or any other?

If you are still in contact with these professors, visit them now and let them know your plans and that you will ask them for letters in a year. This way they know what is happening and can also give you any advice they think relevant. A conversation would be best (not emails) as they get to ask you a few questions if necessary. So, the first option in your last paragraph is best, I think.
It is risky to rely on the memory of professors. We are a forgetful lot for many things.

Yes, please do.  A recommendation letter based on the class performance only is very superficial, something like: He was in my class...  Got such grades...  I cannot tell much more.  Even a short informal conversation where you discuss your interests and career plans is helpful.  Consider also informing the letter writer about other classes you have taken, grades you have received, and what else you may find relevant.
Even better if you think strategically and prepare for the letter before taking the class.  But this is too late now.


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Is there a chance to get in math phd for a physics student?
Let me introduce my background first. I am now a mathematical physics master student in Germany. I obtained my Bachelor in physics in Asia, used to be a M.Phil student in my undergraduate's university, but then I decide to quit, switching to Germany.
I don't take many math course except calculus,linear algebra and topology. Rather I self-study mathematics, including abstract algebra,analysis,geometry,etc. So I am not sure my mathematics background is good enough or not. But at least I got 1.0 in both geometry in manifolds and group and representation. So I am optimistic about my background.
In next semester, I will choose as many math course as I can, but not all of them are basic course. So I do not have a formal background of a math undergraduate student as. Also I don't know if my master degree can be count as a master in mathematics.
Question: Based on my situation, do I have a chance(or how many chance) to get admitted in U.S or Canada school for a pure math Phd? I know that unlike Europe, it seems they required a background of mathematics. So I am afraid it may hurt my chance to get admitted.

There is a chance, but you may need some preparation first. And you may need to make an appeal for a special situation.
In the US, the undergraduate math program consists of approximately 10 - 16 semester-length courses covering the major areas of math and a few less mainstream topics. If you don't have something very close to that, then there are probably gaps in your education that will affect your chances.
Pick a couple of graduate programs you are interested in, and look at the undergraduate math programs at those institutions, especially the required courses. That will give you a sense of where you stand.
But the only way to get a valid answer to your question is to apply for admission to a program, listing what you know and having letters of recommendation that attest to your likelihood of success.
But you can probably also talk to someone at a university you are interested in and ask them for an informal assessment of any gaps you need to fill. Then, you might need to take a year or so seriously filling those gaps, perhaps by enrolling as a non-degree undergraduate somewhere.

I would say 16 is a bit of an overstatement; I had 11 (and that counts 2 for my senior thesis).  Most liberal arts colleges don't allow departments to require more than 9 or 10, and some limit students to counting at most 1/3 of their credits from any department.  Departments do have to be more careful/efficient under such constraints.

@AlexanderWoo, I made an edit. Thanks. I generally had two math courses per semester which is the source of the 16.


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How many revisions are too much for a submitted manuscripts?
I have submitted a manuscript to a journal. The journal can let me revise the manuscript. In total, I have revise it 5-6 times. I am wondering, will too much revision hurt my chance of being accepted? Can the editor reject my manuscript due to this?

A journal that allows revisions during the review process is a new phenomenon for me. Assume that an editor has assigned me as a reviewer. Every time that you revise then, I would get a notice that you have revised your manuscript. This means, that all my previous review work needs to be rechecked against your newest revision. Or, I will not get a notice or I ignore the notice and your latest revisions will not be read by me. I will not be happy with this situation. I would have hoped that you would have revised your manuscript thoroughly before you submitted it.
An editor could come to the conclusion that you are not helpful with the editing process. A good one might ask you to make one final revision before your manuscript goes into the review process. Another editor might indeed decide that you are abusing the revision-while-in-process process and desk-reject your paper.
I would advise you to offer to withdraw the paper until you are ready to submit a version that is final on your side.
If your journal is predatory, the review process is going to be so tainted that it does not matter. Hopefully, you selected better.


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What should I call my graduated PhD advisee?
How should a PhD advisor refer to their PhD advisee after successfully defending and graduating?  "Former PhD advisee" sounds like it didn't end well.  "PhD alumnus" sounds too vague.
Any suggestions?

I suggest using the "in-science" extended family analogy, so they are your son/daughter/child in-science and you are their father/mother/parent in-science :)

"former student"?

Colleague. Isn't that the point of a PhD program?

For what purpose are you referring to them?  Dr. XXX seems like a reasonable answer for many situations.  Are you introducing them at a talk?  Then Dr. XXX seems reasonable, with some more words about them being your student (who made good).  In cocktail party chatter, my student Dr. XXX might work.  I think there are many answers depending on the situation.

@RossMillikan Clearly we are talking about a context where we want to convey that they were our former PhD student

The family metaphor is common, at least in math and computer science. See The Mathematics Genealogy for example. I’d offer something like my academic offspring.

"advisee" is too awkward a construction.  It maybe semantically correct, but it's still not in use.  While it may seem like it's just symmetrical to "advisor", its usage is not.  "My former student" is sufficient.  While it may seem important to emphasize that you advised them on their dissertation, in the long term, their PhD defines them, or doesn't, on its own.  "Former student" is enough to communicate that you significantly contributed to their academic development.

"Doctor" should do

I've most often seen the simple 'my former PhD-student'. If from context it is clear they now have a PhD (because they are postdocs/ lecturer/ professors themselves) there is no ambiguity about the success of their PhD in practice. Theoretically they could have failed as your PhD student and then gotten a PhD elsewhere but I think this situation is sufficiently rare that no one would assume that without further context.

I agree 100%. This is a very natural-sounding phrase, and most people pass so it is not necessary to make a clumsy phrase that includes that fact.

"Former PhD student" is definitely the correct answer. Just like "former advisor" is the answer for the reverse direction.

If you give their title as part of their name then it sounds like success rather than otherwise. Dr. K. Smith, a former advisee.
Former successful advisee also works.
This assumes you are speaking of them to third parties. When speaking to them directly you have presumably worked out how you refer to each other. But calling them "Doctor" is a nice touch.
I once called a recently promoted colleague "Professor" strongly stressing the word. She gave a big smile.

"Dr. K Smith, my graduated student" works, too.

Would not "Dr. K. Smith, my student" generally work as well?

@JonCuster, depending on context, perhaps. Of course, Dr. K. may have earned a previous doctorate, even medical.

Most of these sound terrible. I can't imagine anyone saying the word advisee and it sounding natural.

@BryanKrause "Graduated" as an adjective has a totally different meaning from as a verb. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/graduated

@toby544 I've heard it used with exactly the same meaning as the verb, too.

It's in the title. What's wrong with "graduated PhD advisee"? It implies success, and that you were their advisor for the PhD.

It is a very clumsy-sounding phrase

Dr. Last Name. They have earned their doctorate. They are are now a Doctor of whatever it is they graduated in. In formal settings this entitles them to to be called Dr. Last Name.
Do universities no longer teach etiquette?
If you want to introduce your relationship to them as well. "Please meet  my former student Dr. Last Name(protegee, mentee, etc...) " works. Shows the relationship, and that they earned their PhD (hence doctor). Though after they have had their degree for a couple of years this is bad form on your part.

We are talking about a short phrase to convey that they were our former PhD student. Nobody is suggesting that we should say this every time we mention their name for the rest of our lives.


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Advice for first time mathematics TA during the COVID-19 pandemic
I'm set to start my first year as a TA at a large R1 institution. My teaching assignment consists of being a TA for an honors calculus I section. This includes holding a weekly problem solving session (in person) to about 20 students. The lecture, however, will be online. My general questions are:

Besides taking the obvious safety precautions, (my university has mandated the use of masks on campus) what else can I do to make my classroom as safe as possible?

What would you do differently as a TA during a global pandemic? Maybe grade more leniently? Hold online office hours?

What would you do differently as a TA between an honors and non-honors section? For example, I was looking into old assignments and one of the differences is that honors calculus I cover epsilon-delta proofs and place more emphasis on theorems such as the mean value and intermediate value theorem. I'm guessing there will be a larger percentage of math majors than in your typical calculus I class.

Thanks for your advice.

@Buffy So far, three down votes, two close votes. I must admit I fail to understand the down vote reasons because I can't see what part of the question trigger it, "grade more leniently"? Or something else?

@scaaahu, I find that down votes are often difficult to understand. Everyone has their own ideas. I think the close votes here are reasonable. There really are too many different questions here. (lenient grading, honors, Covid) (For the record, none of the votes are mine).

@Buffy My opinion is that  safety precautions  and lenient grading can be treated as sub-questions of the main question, i.e Covid. Honor/non-honor question is indeed a separate one. To the OP, you may want to consider reducing the number of questions to avoid the close/down votes.

I see several issues with the question: 1. Multiple unrelated questions in one post. 2. First question is inappropriate since only public health officials at your university have the expertise to answer (if someone answered suggesting to use some quack/conspiracy theory-related remedy, how would you feel about helping to spread covid-19 misinformation?) 3. Second question is inappropriate as it reads a bit like “what would you do differently as a TA during an alien invasion?” - there’s a false premise that anyone here has experience that you don’t dealing with such a one-off event.

(P.S. I didn’t downvote, it’s a reasonable question after all, but you seemed to be wanting some feedback about how it might be improved. Good luck with the TA-ing, sounds like a challenging and stressful first assignment.)

I suggest moving your third bullet to a new post. The first two bullets (about teaching during a pandemic) may or may not be answerable, but the third one (about honors sections) is completely unrelated. By the way, you may find that MathEducators.SE is a better fit for the third one.

In general, give yourself permission to be far from perfect under these circumstances. If the students can tell you care about their perspectives, they'll be fine with whatever you can manage to do. :)

Talk to the lecturer in charge of the course.
The lecturer (or professor, if that’s what your university calls them – different countries use different titles to refer to the equivalent positions) is your boss; if there’s something you’re uncertain of regarding how to teach their class, they should be your first port of call unless it’s utterly trivial.
So, ask them about how they would prefer you to handle things like office hours or grading; it’ll be important for all the tutors to be on the same page for those sorts of things anyway, so that students who were in one tutorial aren’t unfairly advantaged over students in others. Similarly, they should be familiar with what material will be covered in the honors vs non-honors versions of the class/unit/course/whatever your university calls it.

A few quick observations, based on my own experience:

In an ordinary situation, one of my big pieces of advice to a first-time TA would be "give the students lots of group work in class". It's a great way to get them to learn and build a supportive community at the same time. Unfortunately, it sounds like your institution is going to be placing COVID-19 precautions firmly on your shoulders, so you'll need to be the one enforcing social distancing. As a result you should avoid group work in order to keep everyone safe. Instead, I'd recommend giving students problems to practice on independently, and then have them share out their ideas to the class as a whole.
Grading more leniently doesn't make sense - remember that, as an educator, one of your primary responsibilities is to make sure that students who pass your class are adequately qualified to succeed in the next class. Instead, I would recommend talking to your instructor about setting up a lenient policy about deadlines. It's reasonable to be nice about late work, but that would need to be something coordinated.
Online office hours are an excellent idea, but in my experience students are less than likely to show up unless prompted to do so. I'd encourage you to ask your instructor if you can require your students to attend online office hours at least once. That would "break the ice" and make them much more likely to attend on their own.

And the big one:

As @nick012000 suggested, talk to your instructor. This is important because it's hard. When I was a first-time TA, I shied away from asking questions or reporting problems to my instructor, because I felt like that would make me look like I didn't know what I was doing. What I didn't understand is that a first-time TA is not supposed to know what they're doing. You've received very little training, and probably none that's relevant to teaching in a pandemic - own that, and communicate as much as you can with the people who do know what they're doing.


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TA salary between different university departments
Recently, I was talking to some fellow grad students and the issue of money came up. I was shocked to find out my two friends who are TA's in the philosophy and physics departments at the same university make $600 less than I do per month. They make about $1100/month while I make almost $1700/month as a TA in the math department. I know $600 doesn't seem like much, but I make roughly 1.5 times as much as them! All three of us get the same tuition waiver and pay roughly the same in fees. Also, my previous roommate who was a TA in the music department got paid about $1100/month, but this was over two years ago while I was still an undergrad. Is this consistent with all other large universities, especially at this magnitude? If it is, why do you think so?
My explanation  is that the math department has more "power" and can fight for better paid TA positions. What I mean by "power" is that despite the relatively small size of the math department, math is more central to other majors. For example, everyone in STEM and many people in economics, business, finance, etc. take a multitude of math classes and give the math department more leverage when it comes to funding. Also, you don't need expensive equipment to do math research so essentially all funding goes towards salaries.
I could also be completely mistaken so if someone would kindly explain how universities generally fund their departments that could also help enlighten me.
Thanks

Well, all of you seem to be paid low - I got more than that some 20 years ago, but it was a different country...

This is definitely country-dependent.

At the university where I did my Ph.D., there was a strong and activist labor union, but this situation was still common. In theory there was a fixed pay rate, but math TAs got "50% appointments" whereas people in some other departments got "33% appointments": two thirds as much pay, and (in principle) two thirds as much work. It wasn't so much about "power" or "leverage"; but rather that there was lots of work for math TAs to do.

Some departments manage their own budgets, of course.

I know of a uni where the CS department paid 1.5h per 1h TA'd. The official reason was prep time, the unofficial one that all CS PhD students did not want to do any TA, so they needed stronger incentive to get people to TA.

There's not a lot of money in philosophy...

It's complicated and depends on a lot of power dynamics between and within departments. A few things that influence the system:

there is a correlation between research pay and TA pay for grad students. They are likely to be closer in departments where many grad students both teach and do research (no one wants their paycheck to vary wildly as they go back and forth)
having more grant money increases the options for how much to pay graduate students to do research.
paying grad students more money for research (and TAships if required) translates to being able to recruit better talent in some circumstances where grad students actually shop around for this (and aren't being wooed entirely on prestige).
competing with industry can influence the pay in a similar way, probably more in industry-adjacent fields. I wonder if in purple-collar fields like music it works against grad students, as people expect not to make money in the non-academic world.
TAs are cheaper than adjuncts who aren't enrolled, so departments that have a heavy teaching load like math have an incentive to recruit more TAs, and may raise their pay to do it.
professors in departments that bring in a lot of money either for research or for being a critical teaching hub have the power to push back against admin and fight for higher pay for TAs, if they choose to do so.
the administration of large universities have a huge incentive to keep TA pay low to save money, so that pushes in the opposite direction as above reasoning to increase pay.
unionizing (in my experience at the UCs) made the pay uniform across departments for teaching (though there were ways around it still) and it happened to be that the research assistant pay matched the TA pay and stayed pretty uniform.

I think the key to realize here is that you guys aren't doing the same jobs.
Your titles may all be "TA", but they're not any more interchangeable than three people with the title "professor" are.  And I assure you that professors get paid different amounts across different departments.
All the usual economic forces may be at play.  Another answer went over many options, but one very likely answer may be that math grad students don't like to sign up to be TAs, relative to TAs in other departments, so they need to pay more in order to get enough of them.  This would be a similar effect if math departments needed more actual TAs per TA-caliber student in the department.

I don't know of any departments that change TA pay just to get people to sign up: if research money exists it's just better. More likely they would have some minimum required teaching for the program, or they would hire out from other departments if possible. Or offer double TAs to people, or increase class size, cancel sections, etc.

Loads of departments do this, mine included.  And in every department I've been in, research budgets are not used to pay TAs.


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Are we focusing too much on cheating with online courses?
Recently, the online calculus class I TA for took their first test of the semester and the grades were horrific. Granted, this is my first semester as a TA so my expectations might have been high. However, the average was about a 50%. While the overall stress of the pandemic is definitely a factor, I also believe the structure of the exam played a significant role.
To prevent rampant cheating, students were given fifty minutes to take the exam but were not able to scroll through questions. That is, students could not look further ahead to see what questions were coming, nor could they revisit questions to change their answer. Does this seem a bit much to anyone else? Is worrying too much about cheating on tests, especially now, counterproductive? I mean, what if this semester's grades are inflated? It's only going to negatively affect the students who passed the class without deserving it as they progress through higher-level math classes.
Ultimately, I'm just a little discouraged as it seems we're more focused on gatekeeping grades instead of instilling knowledge.

I have not ever heard of any test where students where not able to revisit their earlier questions (although, of course, oral exams kind of work in this way). So for me, it seems to much, yes.

But why do you write "instead of instilling knowledge"? Have you cancelled classes to create this exam or what exactly?

@user111388: I think ABC feels that too much of his/her time and effort is being spent on procedural aspects of testing (especially new ones that have arisen as a result of COVID-19) and not enough time is spent on content assessment aspects of testing. Instead of "instilling knowledge", perhaps something like "gatekeeping knowledge" would have been better.

This was a 60 minute test compared to how many hours of class? How much time were the students meant to have worked compared to class hours? How did the top students do? You know, those ones who work, attend and contribute?

This reads like a complaint more than a question. Could you focus on an answerable, non-rhetorical question?

No, the cheaters focus too much on cheating. Ok, seriously: as long as grades are critical and obtained by cheatable assessments (homework, online tests; as opposed to exams or vivas), things will not improve. Frankly, having grade-critical assessments throughout is one of the inheritances of the Anglo-Saxon system that the European Bologna reforms could better have done without. It "schoolified" academia instead of instilling a sense of independence and self-responsibility. But as long as these criteria apply, you will have to protect the integrity of your grades to some extent.

@FedericoPoloni This is a perfectly answerable question. Do agree with me that not allowing students to revisit earlier answers violates some sort unwritten rule and punishes honest students more than discourages cheating? Also, being a mathematics professor yourself, is there a better alternative for online calculus exams that balances being fair to students while also discouraging cheating.

@ABC See? You are not looking for an answer, you are looking for people to agree with you.

@FedericoPoloni When I ask: "Do you agree with me?" you can respond, "No because blah blah blah..." This is how we can exchange perspectives and maybe help each other see things differently. That is however, only if you are interested in doing so, which you clearly are not. Stay safe.

The testing situation you describe sounds like a multifactor problem with multiple possible solutions. It could be that a concern for cheating is the key concern here, but logically speaking, there are several distinct factors that could play a role. Someone can be concerned about cheating and still create a fair test. From an instructional design perspective, I'll name the most important factors I see and then list a few possible solutions.
Raw Difficulty / Learning Objectives
A math test can be easier or harder depending on what the instructor asks students to do, how much work they should show, and so on. For instance, compare solving an equation for x or finding the derivative of f(x) to interpreting a word problem, or solving a fairly simple equation with a more complex one. Compare working with separate questions with sequential questions that build off of the previous question's answer. The selection of these problems is often guided by an instructor's implicit or explicit learning objectives for a unit.
Time to Complete Test
In test design, instructors need to be very careful that students have enough time to give a fair attempt to each problem. Instructors can develop different rules of thumb. Some base completion time on how long it takes them to complete the test multiplied by a factor of two, three, or four. Others estimate the time for completing each problem and sum up a goal time, which might come out to 40 or 45 minutes.
Test Format
As you point out, many instructors don't account for how test format determines timing. In a paper test, a viable test strategy is to read the entire test and focus on easy problems first. In contrast, the testing systems in many Learning Management Systems either make scrolling through the test difficult or restrict movement between problems. So if a student is stuck on problem 3 of 9 and spends 15+ minutes on that one, they have no way of knowing when it's better to cut and run to an easier problem for them. Thus a test that might take 40 minutes for a student on paper would actually take closer to an hour.
Concern for Cheating
So the concern for cheating is a factor that affects how the instructor has implemented these other factors. You describe the time limit and test format as factors affected by a concern for cheating. In particular, students may have less time to share answers or look up information. Yet there are also other anti-cheating formats used. For instance, some professors have proctored exams, even online, which involve some kind of visual monitoring.

There are more factors, but what's to be done? You can toggle any one of these factors in order to increase the pass rate:

Have fewer problems, or easier ones. In other words, adjust the total difficulty of the test so that students can complete it in the allotted time.

Make the test time longer. Giving an hour rather than 50 minutes, for example, may have enabled more students to complete problems.

Allow students to see the whole test when they start. That will let students prioritize the problems they know how to solve, rather than being at the whim of the instructor's own design or an RNG algorithm (if order is randomized).

Worry less about cheating. This may mean adjusting any of the factors above, or it may mean rethinking the format itself. Think critically about whether your summative assessment needs to be a test, or whether it could be a project, homework, or something else.

Finally, any instructor who has been in the classroom for some time knows that they assign unbalanced assessments sometimes. It happens. If the end result is an average of 50%, an instructor has other options to mitigate the effects of unbalanced assessment on student outcomes, like grade curves. So whether or not the concern about cheating - or some other factor - produced a test that was difficult for students to complete, instructors have several tools for adjusting future tests and even addressing this current situation.


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Is it ok to use Github code by having explicit permission from author for Thesis but without license mentioned on the repository?
I am writing my Master Thesis. I used code from GitHub for my application and did modifications and extended its functionality to adjust my requirements. I am also citing the code in my own code and text.
My question is that the Github repository doesn't mention any license, which means that the copyright law applies by default. However, i know the author and have their explicit permission to use the code.
What are my options here?. Should i ask the author to upload the license or is it not necessary since i have their permission?.

You say "I know the author and have their explicit permission to use the code". (1) do you have this in writing? (2) what are the exact words? A proper license could forbid making or distributing derivatives (such as you did here by "extending the functionality"), require a specific citation format, etc. - "yeah whatever" would be shaky legal grounds to publish your modified code.

Crosspost on Open Source: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/10313/is-it-ok-to-use-unlicensed-github-code-in-a-thesis-by-having-explicit-permissio

There are both legal and academic aspects to this. The the single most operative question here being "permission to do what?":

If your thesis quotes significant portions of the original code then you need permission to reproduce it (very small portions are likely to be covered by whatever fair use/fair dealing defence the relevant jurisdictions allow).
If you are distributing the code online (e.g. by creating a public GitHub fork with your modifications in it) then you also need permission to distribute it.
If you are expecting your changes to be used and modified by others (which is generally thought of as a good thing for both knowledge and reproducible code), then you probably want to release it to them under a specific licence yourself, for which you will again want the permission of the original author.

All together, if you are literally only citing the code (e.g. "Plots were created with a modified version of Library X [https://github.com/foo/libraryX] under special licence from the author." ), then you don't need to do anything more. If you want your work to be useful to others in the future, then you should encourage the author to pick a licence and update their repository, then do the same with your version.

The author have allowed me to use it in whatever way possible.  And i am using quite significant amount of it. It is a UI design which i have modified and put functionality in it to make it a working application. My concern for now its usage in thesis. i have no plan for redistribution. If i will decide to do it in future, i will take proper measures. So this is for thesis use only

I am only asking from academic aspect to avoid plagiarism

@Jonny_G Plagiarism has nothing to do with licensing. No-one can give you their work and make it your work. You always need to identify their portion as theirs.

I am identifying how and where i use it and acknowledging them. Does that save me from plagiarism?.

@Jonny_G That really depends what you've written. With a proper citation it could be absolutely fine. With an acknowledgement in passing that doesn't clearly identify the ideas that aren't yours, it could still be a problem. Assuming you have an advisor at your institution supervising you, that is the kind of question you should ask them.

Understood that part. the other is , so having a license or not on repository doesn't matter in this aspect ?.

@Jonny_G It's pretty much orthogonal to the plagiarism question. Adding a licence won't turn a plagiaristic usage into a non-infringing one, removing a licence won't turn a proper citation into plagiarism. Software licences deal with copyright. Plagiarism is much more about the moral attribution of authorship, and in academic writing you can't reassign that.


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How to properly describe future works in Master's Thesis?
I have developed an application for the Master's Thesis. It provides enough functionality for demonstration purposes and to explain the workings of it. However, many other areas (some major, some small) can be improved or are required to be improved in the application. I am mentioning them in future works along with the proposed way to achieve them.
My question is, What approach is the best to mention the missing parts in future works without sounding like that nothing was accomplished or my research was weak while being completely unbiased about my application?


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Will it be unethical to ask the author of a published work to share their code?
I have been working on reproducing the implementation of a model described in a published paper. The paper was published in 2007. I have been trying for quite some time, but I am unable to make any significant progress. Can I contact the corresponding author of the paper asking them to share the code for use in my research? After I understand the implementation, I intend to modify the model based on my own research work. Will it be unethical or rude to ask the authors this directly?

Does this answer your question? Can I request the code behind a research paper from the author?

It is certainly ok to ask.  In my opinion, it is obligatory to ask so you can avoid wasteful duplication.

There may be many reasons the authors no longer have the code (hard disk failure etc). Perhaps you should consider writing the code yourself.

I think ethics only comes into play, if the contacted author actually shares the code. I am struggling to imagine how to ask unethical questions in academic research. Maybe I am just unimaginative.


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As an experimentalist, will it be possible to be a good theoretical researcher through self study?
My Ph.D. research in materials science and mechanics was entirely experimental with some MatLab coding to analyze the results and some image analysis through the image processing toolbox. However, in my 2 years postdoc with my Ph.D. supervisor, I am planning of carrying out computational simulations using Molecular dynamics and Finite element analysis. I have limited mathematical background (undergraduate 1,2,3rd years) and programming (undergrad, master's and through Coursera). Through self-study (books and online lectures), will it be possible to be proficient in these modeling tools and methods? Or has that ship sailed when I started the experimentalist path?
Has anyone followed this path in their career?

One of the outcomes of a PhD is that you have learned how to learn. So, time to learn some new things!

I don't think you need any knowledge of mathematics or programming to conduct molecular dynamics or finite element analysis.  It depends on which tools you wish to use and what problems you need to solve.  I do not think you would learn much about good theoretical research by using such applied simulation tools.

Matter Modeling SE might be helpful for you

Aren't computational simulations some kind of experimental research?

Actually, pioneers in a field have no other option but to learn from self study. So, yes, it is possible and there are others before you.
In fact, for non-pioneers it is easier than in the past since there are now resources that didn't exist in the past. You have named some of them. You no longer have to depend on yourself and obscure papers that are probably misleading.
I assume that many of us here changed fields after their doctorate as I did.
But, a circle of collaborators or other contacts can be a big help in this so that you get some guidance. This is fairly easy if you hold an academic position at a place with, in your case, theoreticians.

Why the downvote?

Not at all! as @JonCuster has pointed out, one of the main goals of Ph.D. is to learn how to learn; you don't have to be schooled for every single skill.
Plus, I think you might even have an advantage over those who studied only theoretical. I wouldn't neglect the importance of the intuition gained from doing experiments. If you talk with people from a purely theoretical background, they don't even know how the experimentalists are experimenting with the system under study. That is why, in general, when their model doesn't work, they have no idea which of the assumptions that are being made are possibly failing.
Not an answer, but if I were you, I would go with OCW courses [mit, harward (see cs50), etc.] instead of that of websites such as coursera.

Theoretical and experimental thinking is quite different. These are not just different topics, they are different worlds of thinking. That being said, some of the best scientists are proficient at both. There are experimentalists which are strong in theory and where experimental intuition guides them towards good theoretical approaches; and theoreticians which keep their feet on the ground by being aware of the experimental realities.
Your problem is not just learning the material, but actually learning the way of thinking and the language. My recommendation is to work closely with or inside a group that does the type of theory you are interested in, and you will see how well you can absorb this type of thinking.
It does not work for everybody, as both experimental and theoretical talent are quite different in character. But it's worth a try. However, I recommend to "go to school" in your new work, in the sense that, apart from doing the daily research you are expected to be productive in, you set yourself a hard self-study program with clear schedule/topics by which you make your way into the topic. E.g. as if you take a course of (say) 2-3 hours every day to just work through the textbook material, as if in class, until you "swim free" and become comfortable with the basics and more capable of moving freely through the literature.


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Is it common for professors to ask a postdoc to start working without compensation while waiting for paperwork to be completed?
I was wondering if it is common for professors to ask a new international postdoc to work without compensation while waiting for paperwork to be completed.
I was in an interview and the professor hinted at something along this line, when I brought up the topic of the lengthy visa process to be expected.
A few notes:

The professor is not my PhD advisor. He's at a different university in a different country. So, my question is not similar to this one.
The whole visa process could take 3 months.
The work contract may include a start date that is earlier than the visa issuing date (in this case ≈ 3 months earlier) but the university cannot pay me for that period without a valid document/visa. That's why I mentioned 'without compensation'. Correct me if you think I am misunderstanding this aspect.
I understand that the scope of the postdoc's work is related to a project that has tight deadlines, which is why the professor wants work done as soon as possible. But, I find that the duration in which this situation would last is long. A maximum of 1 month may seem tolerable but not longer.

Is this common in academia for international hires? And would it be ethical?

@JFabianMeier Not sure I got your point. How do you prove that you did work before getting a contract? What kind of document would you show them?

@Roland Sorry, this was just a comment, not meant to be advice (please don't try this!).

Where would you be during that period? Still at home (or wherever you have valid status to stay and work), or already in the target country? The latter may get you in quite a bit of trouble. Is the compensation adjustable? I.e. if the total engagement is 12 months, can they pay you the equivalent of 12 months over a 9 months period (i.e. at 133% the normal rate), or is the monthly amount fixed (and thus you would be losing 3 months of compensation)?

@jcaron Still at home (or wherever you have valid status to stay and work) . Regarding the second question, I'm not sure. I'd have to be at a more advanced stage of the hiring process to know (and ask about) that.

When I read only the subject line, I though maybe the payments would be made retroactively after the paperwork was complete. In that case I think there might be no problem other than that of proving without the paperwork that promises had been made. But if it's illegal for them to start paying you until you have your visa, maybe you should tell the professor about the legalities, which might not apply to other postdocs because they didn't come from another country.

Can you negotiate that the contract says they also either increase your salary prorated, or pay you a lumpsum? as @jcaron says. Otherwise your question as stated "Is it common...?" is kinda offtopic, and strongly depends on which country and visa laws. Working before you get legal work authorization is generally a very very bad idea.

common?: I'm sure it is. Appropriate or legal?: of course not!

Asking someone to work without compensation is illegal in many jurisdictions. It is also hardly ethical. Unfortunately, it is also not uncommon in academia.
In modern "publish or perish" academia professors are often under a huge deal of pressure from university administration to produce countless high-quality papers and teach ever-growing number of courses. A significant proportion of academics feel that they are forced to work extra hours to meet the expectations of their universities. This draining and insecure work environment often impacts the judgement of academics when they manage the work of their PhD students and postdocs.  Many  sincerely believe that they should "prepare" their students/postdocs to the hard realities of academia and make them more competitive by demanding to produce results at a cost of personal life and well-being. This is wrong, but unfortunately, wrong things do happen in this world and in academia as well.
UPD: Answering some questions in comments, I feel that I have to explain why the PI's behaviour is wrong. I don't think it is a subjective judgement.

Forcing someone to work without compensation and without contract is modern slavery. Slavery is wrong. Postdoc are employees, they have terminal education degrees, they are professionals and they do important research work, not some glorified "training". Forcing a postdoc to work without contract and compensation is wrong.
But perhaps, the PI was not forcing the postdoc, but merely asked them nicely whether they would like to volunteer? Well, let's see. Postdoc does not know whether they can say "no" to their PI without risking their contract or compromising the work relations with their PI during their contract. There are so many ways in which postdoc's whole career depends on their PI's opinion (access to research resources, appraisals, extensions of contract, letters of recommendation, etc).  In this situation postdocs are under a huge pressure to say "yes" to unfair and illegal proposals. That's why even proposing to work without contract is abusive, morally wrong and often illegal.

I think the spin in the second paragraph is unnecessarily negative. One's personal life and well-being does not necessarily hinge on a (forced) multi-month break between PhD and post-doc. Conversely, there is the potential for a "win-win" situation, in which the post-doc benefits by having better chances on a competitive job market. Whether one associates that with pressure and a hard reality is subjective. Some people blossom in competition.

Working without compensation is common for start-ups, where you in tern are given equity which, if the company is a success, will be worth more than your salary would have been (although tell that to the bank when they ask you to pay bills.) And you could definitely make the case that the project here is much the same - a start-up that is hoping to get funding in the near future. The equity here, clearly, is the ability publish the paper which you would expect to boost your career.

@lighthousekeeper Requesting someone to work without compensation is wrong; I don't see anything subjective here. The situation in which highly educated people (such as professors) resort to such wrong and likely illegal practices is also wrong. It is true that competition is good for some people, but it does not make it right for everyone. There are clear legal and ethical boundaries here, and unfortunately people in modern academia do not always see or respect them, particularly under pressure.

In my opinion (which apparently is not everyone's), postdocs are not trainees. Still they are in a career stage where the goal is to build a strong profile, hence it's indeed advisable to use the time productively - especially since papers take time to get published. The reference to slavery doesn't seem appropriate (slaves are forced and not asked). I do agree that power dynamics might might play a role that could be problematic. The degree of this will depend on the exact communication - for example, the PI might proactively say that a "no" is absolutely OK, which would remove pressure.

@corsiKa That is an incredibly toxic attitude. Papers are not money, you cannot be compensated in papers.

@AzorAhai--hehim No, of course you can't. As I said, you can't pay bills in equity. But if you believe the funding will come through, I see no problem with investing your time in the project with the understanding you will be compensated when the funding does come in. I am NOT suggesting you simply work for free in order to get your name on the paper. Not at all. Merely that if you can afford to do so financially, and have confidence the funding will come through, it doesn't seem to be a problem continuing the project until said funding does come in.

@corsiKa No, still toxic. You DID say to work for free to get your name on the paper. Working on a project until your visa comes in is not at all similar to what you propose

@AzorAhai--hehim No, I absolutely did not. It's not my fault you decided what I said without reading it properly. And it really is exactly the same. You work without pay until the funding arrives, at which point you're compensated for the work you did. Again, if you have confidence everything will go well, and you can afford to, why hold up a project you believe in? Being inspired isn't toxic.

@corsiKa You have contradicted yourself so many times I'm not going to spend my time pointing out where you said the things you said you did not. You are misunderstanding the situation entirely. The OP will get paid when their visa comes through. Working now will not change that. Because it is illegal to work without their visa, they cannot be compensated retroactively if they work now. Again, if you have confidence everything will go well, and you can afford to, why hold up a project you believe in? Because you aren't being paid?

@AzorAhai--hehim I did miss the part that says the university is unwilling to retroactively pay for the work done. I had read it as they simply can't issue a check until the paperwork comes in. Obviously that changes the calculus.

@corsiKa Freelancers are paid once when their project is completed. In contrast, academic staff are compensated for time spent on a particular project or task, or generally in employment. A person without visa can not legally work, hence can not normally be compensated. In extraordinary circumstances HRs and Finance may find a way of paying retrospectively, e.g. for famous professors or high-level admin like vice-chancellors and their teams. But for a poor postdoc? Never.

There is a difference between no compensation and delayed compensation. An important question is how routine this paperwork is. If it is merely a bureaucratic hold up and you are already in town, why not get a jump start on your research? It could make the research when you officially start easier, and could lead to a better overall research experience, which could help your long-term career.
Hopefully the professor is enthusiastic about the research. From their point of view, this could be allowing you to start early rather than forcing you to do so. The only thing that would be a red-flag for me would be if you weren't given any choice. You should have the freedom to say something like "I would prefer to get settled while I'm waiting for the paperback. Can you suggest some background material that I might read in the meantime?" (or words to that effect, the business about reading at the end since you would still want to communicate a bit of enthusiasm for the project).

+1 for the second paragraph, that's an important aspect. About the first paragraph I'm unsure. Unless the PI suggests that the postdoc can leave the job early and will still get paid, there will be a discrepancy between "time worked" and "time paid for", so indeed, some time without compensation.

"You should have the freedom to say something like "I would prefer to get settled while I'm waiting for the paperback. Can you suggest some background material that I might read in the meantime?"  " Exactly, this sounds like something I would say indeed (maybe 1 month before the official start of the position and after an official offer has been made). However, I was surprised to see the professor say I could start working (on publications directly) and not even background material. As others have suggested above, this may be beneficial. But, I would've preferred to take the initiative myself.

The underlying issue you're encountering here is that, generally speaking, a postdoc position is considered an education (albeit a paid one) for the position holder. As a consequence, telling a postdoc before they formally start their job that they might want to start reading some background material or working on the project (presumably while they have no other job because (i) they've graduated with their PhD and (ii) are waiting for their visa to process) is not so different from telling a student at the beginning of the summer break "Look, this is the material I'm going to cover in MATH 517, and here is the book we're going to use; why don't you start reading up on that material now already instead of waiting for the beginning of the fall semester?".
Strictly speaking, it might of course be illegal to have someone work for you while they are not paid. But graduate students are also not paid and still work on research projects -- the point simply being that it actually benefits both the graduate student and the future postdoc to already work on the project because they are also working for themselves (through publications or, more generally, for future job prospects).

I'm not sure about the extent to which a postdoc is always regarded as an education, but I'd certainly subscribe to the view that postdocs (and researchers in general) are to a significant extent working "for themselves" (i.e. in their own interests), and that that's what makes any unpaid work they might decide to do make sense. Note that: (i) it's quite common for research projects to persist across jobs, rather than being tied to them, (ii) it's quite common to evaluate researchers on their individual productivity, and (iii) your name's on your work.

Given those considerations, only doing research when you're being paid for it seems self-defeating, because it's a reasonable bet that (i) you might want another research job in the future, and (ii) when you do, you're going to be evaluated based on your productivity, including during the times when you didn't have a job, and against people who were working that whole time.

@StuartGolodetz , thanks, I haven't thought about it that way. I was mostly focusing on the length of the duration.

"generally speaking, a postdoc position is considered an education (albeit a paid one) for the position holder". This is simply not true. In most European countries a post-doc is a paid job with a FTE contract, and asking a post-doc to do free work is illegal. By those standards, every job is "education" in that the person gains experience, and thus people are "working for themselves for future job prospects".

@JorgeLeitao It isn't completely wrong to claim that in academia, in some sense every position you might ever hold is considered an education and that an application you send in for any job you apply isn't just evaluated by your "experience in a field" (as would often be the case in industry) but your cumulative output over years or decades. As such, unpaid work can often pay off later on. That's what makes people work on weekends and, at least in the US, during the summer when many of us are not actually paid (professors typically have 9-month contracts every year).

All of that, of course, is separate from the question whether that is a humane system. Also, whether that is legal. But these are separate questions, and the original question was just about whether it is common. It is common, though we can certainly agree that it's maybe neither legal nor moral.

@WolfgangBangerth, I understand that sentiment, and I am sorry that you have to do unpaid work. However, that sentiment is not "general"; it is common in the US and other countries, but it is uncommon in Europe. As it stands, this answer incentivizes people to work pro-bono 'because that's the way it is'. Also, comparing a post-doc with a graduate student is funny for EU standards.

You should encourage them to write a work contract that begins at a time when they will be allowed to pay you, and not before, unless they are agreeing to give back pay (I would be hesitant even in this case). You don't want any legal trouble for working when you are not legally allowed to work, this can be just as big a deal as hiring someone when you are not legally allowed to hire them.
As for whether this is common, it probably varies by country. In Germany, I'm sure this almost never happens; but very few countries are as structured in following rules as Germany. In other countries (not naming names) you might find that sketchy things can happen, like once you get there they write a new work contract that doesn't actually begin until your visa does, and you are left "working" the first 3 months without pay OR a contract (or so I hear, hahahahahaha :/ ). Or even if you refuse to work, you are already in the new country as a "visitor" with no income.

@TheoreticalMinimum So who taught the course, then?

@TheoreticalMinimum Ah, so you did work those weeks, just there was nothing to do! (Or was it the physical presence which was not ok, not the teaching as such?)

@TheoreticalMinimum: I think they wanted to prevent a permant work contract to form. The university letting you work (knowingly without protesting) constitutes a valid work contract (conduct implying intent). Fixed term clauses in work contracts, however, are valid only in written form. So the unwritten work contract would have been a permanent one and there are few things scarier to university administration than a work contract accidentally becoming permanent. By telling you not to work before the contract starts, they prevented such a permanent contract. The only one who they were...

afraid of noticing is you. @MorganRodgers: yes, very German since it was a legal problem about labor law which is always very country specific.

@MorganRodgers: Well, let's put it like this: I'm still curious how a certain German university who hired me on a 2 month contract last Dec+Jan but took until almost May to figure out how much to pay me and actually do that will handle the annual wage tax declarations (correct the 2019 one with a payment that happened far outside the actuarial grace period at the beginning of the year or declare my work in 2020 but by law should have happened in the old year). German university administration is often very much to the letter of the law (with the notable exception of paying in time - both

employees for their first wages and contractors). But if you happen to deal with the combination of such an administration and a professor who has not a "legal mindset" that considers deadlines, notification periods etc. then expect that a certain amount of mess to happen. What German administration is very bad at is dealing with/recovering from things that did not happen as supposed. (I say this having the comparison/contrast also of dealing with an Italian university and a professor who was versed in their administrative processes)


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Past experience seems to be overlooked by future employer in recruitment process: Is that a bad sign?
I have been involved in the recruitment process for a researcher position in Europe and I have been informed I was accepted.
However, thinking about how the interview went, I noticed that most of it focused on the evaluation of the skills and the responsibilities associated with the future job opportunity. In particular, I was expecting the prospective employer to at least show some interest in my previous work (my recently-completed PhD* for example), beyond the common question of introducing myself. However, no questions have been explictly asked about it, which I found particularly odd, since both topics (PhD and new position) are closely-related.
Is the employer's lack of interactivity/interest in knowing more about a candidate's past experiences normal/common in such interviews or is it a bad sign?

*I don't know if this is relevant, but a PhD wasn't mentioned in the requirements for the position, but I applied anyway.

Presumably you gained the skills relevant to the job while doing your PhD, so the questions covered it, albeit indirectly.

@astronat yes, I guess I was expecting a rather direct interaction.

Also, downvoter, please suggest how you think I can improve the post.

I'm not sure why this should be odd. The point of a postdoc is to broaden your research profile, not to reiterate the same things that you did during your PhD. It might indeed be feasible to use some of your PhD work for the new project, but that's usually just one out of many possibilities, and if that's your key interest you could have brought that up, too.

@lighthousekeeper The position is neither advertized as a postdoc, nor a PhD position. But in my case, since it will happen [post] my [doc], I guess we can refer to it that way.

First, learn to take good news as good news! You've got better things to do in life than to second-guess these things :-)
As for the actual question: We really can't know. In academia, a lot of things are available in written form. You probably had to provide letters of reference, and the people who interviewed you will have read them. You also wrote a PhD thesis, and the people who interviewed you will have taken a look at it. You may have written publications, and the people who interviewed you will be aware of them. So a lot of your past performance is an open book. What isn't available to the selection committee is your ideas about your future because, I assume, you don't have a website on which you have provided a vision statement.
So, first, it doesn't strike me as particularly odd that the people who want to hire you for a particular job ask you about that job rather than your previous job. Second, just take the fact that they're offering you the job as good news and celebrate!

thanks for sharing your view! "You probably had to provide letters of reference" -> They didn't ask for it. Also, my CV didn't include reference contacts, as they didn't ask for it.
"You also wrote a PhD thesis, and the people who interviewed you will have taken a look at it." -> My thesis will take a few weeks to be published online, and they didn't ask for a copy to have a look at it.
Re- publications, yes, that's probably true!

"What isn't available to the selection committee is your ideas about your future " -> In fact, yes, and they didn't ask about what my future plans were. So, it seems that everything is assumed.

+1 for explaining that OP's past output is public. "You probably had to provide letters of reference" -> not e.g. in Germany. Instead, here the employer certifies what types of work OP did. However, these certificates are often not yet available when a job interview takes place (and they are sometimes omitted in academia, since e.g. the PhD thesis does that as well). The new institution's HR department will ask for them later on, though and use them to validate what is claimed in the CV (and also to judge experience = wage tariff for public research institutions).

@cbeleitesunhappywithSX thanks for these clarifications. The position is indeed in Germany (the new, not the old one)

@acad-user -- even if there are no letters, academic communities are small. Your PhD adviser may very well be well known to your new employers, and they may have had a conversation on the phone, or over beers at some conference. I believe that I've known the advisers of all postdocs I've hired, and probably had formal or informal conversations with each of them about the candidate at some point. In several cases, this was long before I hired them: I hired them because I already knew for a long time that they're good, sometimes before they had first met me.

Lots of large organisations have very strict requirements about recruitment processes to avoid bias. These may include asking identical questions to each applicant. When you answer the question, you draw examples from whatever your history is - PhD, organising the family business, caring for your sick relative for five years. The thesis is a tool for developing and demonstrating a set of skills.


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Should you answer 'are you interviewing elsewhere' honestly when you don't have other interviews yet?
A bit of context. I am about to get my PhD soon and a few months ago I started applying for R&D positions1  , both in academia and in the industry. A few things to note here:

I am interested in applying to positions in a limited number of countries (in Europe)
The positions I applied to may be very competitive (especially the ones in industry)
The COVID situation may be impacting the job market

So the result is that I ended up with a very limited number of applications (~15) and absolutely no feedback from them, except one rejection and one invitation for an interview. The latter is in an academic research lab.
Now I have been thinking, if in this upcoming interview I'm asked: “Are you currently interviewing elsewhere?”, should I be honest and say that I’m not?
My concern is that I don’t know how this could be seen. I thought of 2 options:

they will think that I’m not “in-demand” and that I don’t have successful applications so perhaps that may discourage them from hiring me.
they instead would be understanding of the fact that I don't have other options, given the global context and my personal preferences. Then, if the interview goes well and they do make an offer, I'd have to provide them with a response fast since they know that I don’t have other options. My concern here is: what if (miraculously) another/better option opens up for me in the meantime such that it would be better for me not to respond to the first offer right away.

Note that my question is not very related to: Should I tell other interviewers where else I've interviewed?, as that one deals with the case where the candidate had other interviews and it is about graduate school admissions, while mine is related to a later career stage. In addition, as there is an academic component in the situation, I preferred to ask the question here instead of Workplace SE.
Any thoughts would be welcome.
1 What I mean by R&D positions are those positions where you work in the context of EU R&D projects. I hope that's not too vague as a definition.

Very similar question Why do interviewers ask if I'm interviewing with other companies? on Workplace SE.

When interviewing candidates for any job (including post docs) I never ask that question. They applied and looked good enough to interview. Done. Should I move forward with an offer, then I would like to know if it is time critical since I can only ask so many favors from my HR folks.

My organisation tends to move slowly on offers. If I ask the question what I really mean is "do I need to put pressure on the rest of the organisation to get this candidate an offer quickly". So yes, if you have other irons in the fire, let me know so I can get back to you in time.

It is none of their business, and an improper question. If they ask you should answer 'of course', even if you aren't.

This is clearly one of those "don't ask, don't tell" questions. If they violate the gentlemen's agreement, you are not obliged to answer, or even answer honestly. (During interviews, of course. It's very legitimate after they've written "we want to make you a formal offer".)

Short answer: Yes, you should answer honestly.

Long answer: your question contains, implicitly and explicitly, several (mostly) flawed premises.

Premise 1: professors are superficial people who can’t be bothered to come up with their own idea of how good you are as an applicant based on the strength of your application, so will resort to relying on an (essentially) irrelevant piece of information to guide their decision.

The reality: almost no professor would care whether you have an interview elsewhere, or, to the small extent that they might care, it’s mainly to help them figure out if there’s any time pressure to reaching a decision on your application. In the case of truly stellar applicants the knowledge of other pending interviews/offers may affect the salary the professor might offer, but in normal cases it won’t.
There’s also a small number of professors for whom the assumption you’re making may be valid. But by and large the premise is not an accurate description of reality.

Premise 2: you are as good of a liar as you think you are.

The reality: you aren’t. In your question you only factor in the perceived cost of acting honestly (and are incorrect in how high you think that cost is, see premise 1 above) but completely ignore the very real - almost certain in my opinion - possibility that the alternative approach of trying to make yourself look much more desired than you are by not telling the honest truth would come across as clumsy and clueless in the best case, or shady and dishonest in the worst case. That eventuality will lead to a much worse outcome (certain rejection of your application, and a bad reputation that could follow you far into the future) than the eventuality you are actually expressing concern about.

Premise 3: if you say you don’t have any interviews you will have to accept an offer very fast since “they know [you] don’t have other options”, even if in the meantime you do receive some other offer.

The reality: this is false. You seem to have the misguided notion that by stating you don’t currently have other interviews you are committing yourself to never having any interviews. That’s not how the world (academia or anywhere else) works.
Hope this helps, and good luck with your interview!

Also, even if you have no other interviews you don't have to accept an offer. One can always keep looking a little longer, especially in Europe where many labs are happy to keep graduated PhDs on the payroll for a while during job hunt.

@Dan Romik, thanks for sharing your perspective on this.
"There’s also a small number of professors for whom the assumption you’re making may be valid." -> yes, I was worried about those.
"trying to make yourself look much more desired than you are by not telling the honest truth would come across as clumsy and clueless in the best case, or shady and dishonest in the worst case. " -> agree, although I did not mention this in the post, I was worried about that

@xLeitix , I know I don't have to, I just felt I may feel the urge to, given that my job search is not going well.
Regarding "many labs are happy to keep graduated PhDs on the payroll for a while during job hunt." not necessarily. It depends on funding. Funny enough, in my case it's feasible given that my grant allows it, but I know other colleaguess who were not given such a possibility.

@acad-user IMO it would be illogical for a professor to allow your answer to the question to influence their hiring decision. Now, people do behave illogically sometimes, so in that sense you‘re reasonable to worry. However, it does not make sense to worry about this any more than you worry about not being hired for any other illogical reason (say, because of your height, or because you wore a green shirt to the interview). On the flip side, not hiring you because you come across as dishonest or untrustworthy during the interview would be extremely logical. See what I’m getting at...?

@acad-user But the hiring professor does not know any of these things. Hence, they cannot conclude that you have to accept an offer very quickly just because you aren't negotiating elsewhere at the moment.

I couldn't agree more, especially with premise 2. Just imagine being asked follow-up questions like "where else are you applying to?" or "are you looking outside the US as well?". It will be hard to keep a straight face when answering those.

you should answer honestly Why? In a business situation, truth is a commodity that should be rationed economically. Should you also answer honestly when asked, What is the minimum salary you would accept?

@OscarBravo yes you should answer honestly, the honest answer being “you are not entitled to that information” (or some more diplomatic statement to that effect). The difference with the question in the post is that giving such an answer to the question about where you’re interviewing, while also honest, will communicate that you have no other interviews except in a much more awkward way than just straight out admitting that fact. So yes, I agree with the principle that it’s sometimes best to be economical about volunteering information, as long as one does so in an honest and tactful way.

@OscarBravo as for your “why?” question, the short answer is that it’s to OP’s advantage to do so. The long answer is what I wrote in the answer.

In general, honesty is a good thing. But you can be honest without giving out too much information. Some possibilities that may work for you.

Not at the current time.

I'm awaiting some offers.

I'm only getting started in this process.

None that I'd care to discuss at this time.

But you can also turn it around a bit.

This is the one I'm most interested in at the moment. (a non-answer)

Not all of these are equivalent, of course, but you may be able to come up with something that fits your case.

I think a non-answer is best.

@AnonymousPhysicist can you be more specific? How would you answer the question exactly? @Buffy’s suggested “non-answer” is actually a dishonest answer rather than a non-answer, as it implies the existence of other offers.

@DanRomik I'm not going to be more specific.

@AnonymousPhysicist answering a question about a non-answer with a non-answer? How meta. :-)

@TheoreticalMinimum I look forward to reading your detailed answer elaborating on this idea. Note that I did not claim one must always be maximally honest or transparent about everything. I stand by my answer in the specific context being discussed though.

You can also respond with a "why do you ask" that can tell you a lot (if they try to stall or judge payment). Normally it is about timing, and then it is a good point to discuss "next steps", don't let the initiative get taken out of your hands if you can stay on top.

To offer another perspective on the question; you may be attributing incorrect meaning to the question.
It may sound as if a question asking if you are interviewing other places is gauging how many other places 'want you', but may just as well be gauging how much you 'want them'. I.E., are you interviewing for other job opportunities that are completely unrelated to this one? Is this your main target?
For each example you think of that suggests they would think less of you, there are equal numbers of examples in which they are instead trying to understand your own interests (which links to how well you fit in their department) or even where they stand in relation.
So it is not a good idea to lie, as I can imagine the next question could even be "so where?". Academia is a small world, and it is likely they will know the other job openings.
Having been on both sides, I can say at least a few times there was a question of if the department could even attract a person, and understanding the state they were in for other offers was a way to rush their application through administration. Similarly to my last point, when there is a faculty position posting we also do an extensive search to find what other peer institutes are searching for, so it is usually expected someone is applying to other postings we are already aware of.

While the answer may seem a bit similar to one offered by Buffy, I will suggest one more very specific answer with some explanation:

I'm involved in few other recruitment processes but I didn't have any other interviews yet.

It doesn't disclose the information that you didn't even have invitations to interviews. But it gives the information that you are involved in other processes and that you didn't have interviews yet so you may have also something else in the future.
It is fully sincere and safe. It offers accurate information to the interviewer and shows the possibility of other offers for you. At the same time, it does not disclose how far are you in the other processes. If something comes up in the future, you will not surprise the respondents of the current process with this information.

No offense but your suggested answer comes across as a bit insecure and evasive. If I heard that it would be clear to me that “involved in a recruitment process” is a euphemism for “applied to”.

I don't feel offended at all. Actually saying something along lines "I have applied to few other places but you were so far fastest to response" could be an answer as well. I guess there can be a bit of cultural difference also. I was answering this kind of question and usually it was more a matter-of-fact answer. On the other hand, I was in a different situation since I was already employed.


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Do I need to sign ex-advisor's PhD dissertation?
This post is an extension of this previous situation that I discussed a few years ago here: Supervisor has said some very disgusting things online, should I pull my name from our paper?
That advisor contacted me (and the other collaborators of that paper) today, saying he's submitting his PhD dissertation this month, and that one of the requirements is getting signatures of all co-authors related to the dissertation. My natural inclination is to not sign anything involving him, however I'm not sure how strict this requirement is, and whether or not my not signing would significantly impact his dissertation.
Personally, I think his views are at odds with his field (psychology), and I would prefer that he doesn't earn such a degree and gain that level of influence. However, I'm obviously hesitant to do anything that would stop anybody's life's work; I'm not in the business of ruining lives. These two preferences are opposing, which is frustrating.
Ideally, signing/not signing his dissertation would have no impact on anything, and then I can happily not sign it and continue to distance myself from him. But I don't know enough about academia to determine if that is feasible.
My question is therefore, do I run any serious risks to the advisor or myself by not signing his dissertation?

The person to whom you refer will have a dissertation supervisor or dissertation committee chair.  That person will know the answer.  You could write, "What would happen if I declined...?"

When you sign, you are agreeing to something.  What exactly are you agreeing to?  Are you just agreeing to some true statement of fact?  Or are you actually giving permission for something that you have the legal right to withhold?

Echo that you should add details about exactly what you are signing. Also, assuming this related to the prior paper you co-authored -- was that paper actually published anywhere with your name on it (e.g., the conference prospect in prior question)?

The cited other question on SE is basically "he said something bad, now what?" without saying what the bad thing was. It's kind of difficult to evaluate.

In the end, the relevant question is what it is you are signing. If you are signing an affidavit that the thesis contains some data you have collected and that you are ok with it being published in this way, then that is a technical certification that you probably are legally obligated to sign, but that regardless does not pose ethical problems because you are certifying a fact. [1]
If, on the other hand, you are asked to sign an endorsement of said candidate, then that is an entirely different situation, be it as a statement of the candidate's scientific abilities or of the correctness/novelty/relevance of the thesis. Here, what you are asked is to provide your judgment of something, and it legitimate for you claim that in your judgment, the bar is not met.

[1] You should think of this in the same way as a tax official certifying the tax exempt status of a not-for-profit organization once they have filed an application and paid the application fee, and have made credible that they really are not for profit. The organization has satisfied the requirements, and the official is required to sign the certification. The fact that the organization espouses white supremacist views is not a part of the decisionmaking.

I have a hard time imagining any case where the OP would be "legally obligated to sign" anything.

@DanielR.Collins Then call it "can reasonably be expected to sign". I am also not legally required to sign my travel request forms, but the university can sure reasonably expect me to do it as part of my job duties.

@DanielHatton I think that leads down slippery slopes. How would you feel if you were denied a job because of your political orientation? Or if a company denied you service because of your political orientation?

The point I want to make is that it is ok to advocate for certain positions, and to make clear that one disagrees with others' positions. Refusing to certify facts and thereby standing in the way of others is a different level of political discourse I don't think I can endorse. To me, that is very much like not wanting to certify a person's election to the presidency because you don't like their political position.

@DanielHatton I tried to write my answer in a politically-neutral way. I believe from the linked-to question that I'm actually in the same political camp as you. I just wanted to point out that I see a line between executing clerical acts and signing endorsements, and that treating the former as if it was the latter is opening doors to areas we may not want to go into.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

I expect that the thing that you are being asked to sign is merely a declaration confirming the applicant's own statement regarding the relative contribution of different authors on jointly published work. That would be fairly typical in situations where work with collaborators forms part of the material that is being submitted for the degree of one of those author-collaborators. I also imagine that a refusal on your part to provide such a declaration would be an irritation to the university and the applicant, rather than any real impediment to the applicant receiving a degree.


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How do I write a reference in my reference list which has various places of publication with different editorials?
I am writing my reference list for my final paper and there is a book, which has different places of publication with different editorials in each one

So are you referencing a specific editorial (so reference that specific edition), or does it not matter which edition?

You reference the one you actually read.