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How important is it to disclose all of academic records for graduate school application, especially ones that are seemingly trivial?
I've done all my undergraduate and MS in a country that I'm not a citizen of. After my MS, I did not want to continue studying at the school I was in and even wanted to switch my studies. However, I opted to stay a bit longer to see if I could publish off of the research I was doing with my MS. For this, I needed to get a new status for my visa for staying, and the easiest option was to continue being registered as a student which I did for half a year or so as a PhD student. I had to register for a course and since I had no intention of continuing the program I just registered and didn't bother with the course. As it turns out, I have an academic record for that one semester's worth of PhD program I was in with a failed course.
At the moment I'm applying for other schools in Europe (both MS and PhD), and the application for MS asks me to provide full academic records. Well technically speaking, I have that record of this PhD, with a failed course and a dropout. But obviously, this does not correctly interpret my academic history, where I had never actually failed any course. I'm afraid that the inclusion of this would weaken my chances.
What do you suggest I do? Do the universities really go through and verify the details? If I didn't include this part of the record would it be a serious problem? Or if I did include it, how would I make this clearly understood?

So I'll try to get through all your questions. Take this all with a grain of salt, I've never personally dealt with something like this before...

Do the universities really go through and verify the details?

Usually no, but that's why most schools request official transcripts - so they don't have to. Every transcript I have seen lists all classes and degrees. So if you sent your transcript, by default it will show the failed class and the fact that it was for a second degree (that was obviously never completed). I don't see any way around this since most places, even if they initially take self-reported/unofficial transcripts, will expect an official record directly from your prior institution once you are accepted.

If I didn't include this part of the record would it be a serious problem?

Down the line, maybe not. This is not something you need to include on a resume or CV in 10 years. But on a university application that explicitly asks for all academic records, yes. I have never seen a university not explicitly ask for this. And I think the chances of being discovered are high (re the first part of this answer). So you'd likely end up in hot water if you omit this information.

Or if I did include it, how would I make this clearly understood?

I would explain as little as possible to get the point across that you didn't fail out of the program. I say this because this situation makes me a little nervous. I'm not familiar with immigration laws, but this feels...off. You were clearly gaming the system by working when you were (falsely?) registered as a student. I don't know if this would have any negative repercussions, but I don't know that I would go around announcing (especially if you need another visa for school).

But obviously, this does not correctly interpret my academic history, where I had never actually failed any course.

Also want to address this - you did actually fail a course. It's no different than if you failed a class during undergrad or your masters because you didn't show up... If you could rewind the clock, I would have told you to just take the class and pass. That would have been much easier to explain. As it stands now, your best bet is to address it as briefly as possible and move on. Send the transcript, answer the inevitable follow-up questions honestly but vaguely, and hope for the best.

Thanks for your detailed input. To clarify some info, I can submit official transcript documents by selecting my degrees - I can separately submit my official transcripts of my BS and MS, and the PhD part also.
I was not like an unofficial PhD student, but in fact, a number of students do this after masters at the school I was in - temporarily register themselves as a PhD and transition to other places. But I get your general input. Yes, if I knew this I wouldn't have registered as a PhD or just attended the course. Also your point of saying that mentioning visa stuff is potentially bad.

Verification of details may not be common but can definitely happen. If they ask for EVERY record, then it should be on the CV.
(otherwise, I believe you are usually under no obligation to report all your life in your CV, just experience that you think is relevant and useful)
However, you are also allowed to not put emphasis on something you think is not beneficial. In this case, can you just briefly mention it in an unremarkable sentence that will likely be ignored?

I have it as a research experience, as an RA rather than my education part. Would this be a problem?

I don't know where you want to apply to exactly, but in Germany, you are required to list EVERY academic enrollment and transcript. They check e.g. if you failed a course three times, which would automatically disqualify for any further studies that require this course (or a course with similar content). I am sure this is not the only reason why they ask this, but one of the most important ones.
The thing is, they might not be able to check with every single uni in the world if you have been enrolled there. But if somehow someone found out afterwards, this could be grounds for having your degree revoked afterwards as you are obligated to disclose your full academic history and actively lied and withheld information. Don't hold this info back. If you think that it might hurt your chances, a short info how it came about never hurts.

I believe the same is true in the US.

"if you failed a course three times, which would automatically disqualify for any further studies that require this course (or a course with similar content)" That is claim doesn't seem to be correct, in general (although it might apply in some cases).

Not only might a lie (by omission) on the application be grounds for revoking a degree, at all the institutions with which I am familiar, it is grounds for dismissal from the program.

Thank you.
Where do you suggest I mention it? It feels a bit off the topic to mention it on SOP, and awkward to write it in a sentence on CV. Perhaps in my education experience section mentioning it as a research assistant?
Or just on the application window, I can write as additional information, though I'm worried that the reviewers would miss this part.


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How can I devote enough time to my research when there are other things I am passionate about?
I am a Master of Science student and I am working on my thesis. Although I know that I need to devote enough time to my research in order to finish the thesis and improve my publications, I cannot do it because there are other activities that I am interested in doing. For example, I play piano and guitar, and I am passionate about learning music theory and maybe becoming an expert in the future. In fact, recently I've decided to dedicate 3-4 hours of my daily time to music, and now every day when I get out of bed, it's the first thing I want to do. Usually I cannot stick to only 3-4 hours and even thinking about it distracts me when I am doing research for my thesis. There are also other things I really like to do every day, like playing chess, solving math problems (although it is completely unrelated to my research).
In summary, I think that with the presence of all these activities (distractions!), I cannot focus on doing research. I'm not sure what to do in this situation. Should I really give up my passion for music, which is such a big distraction? On the one hand, I don't want to sacrifice it for my research (which has been less rewarding so far), and on the other hand, I find it very difficult to be productive in my research while spending time on music.

Gotta prioritize, that's all there is to it. Figure out what you care most about, and realize that indulging those things may cause other things to be inadequately served...

@paulgarrett Thanks a lot for the advice.

My personal story:
I was in the same situation in the middle of math PhD, but it was more a question of staying or not in academia. And after pondering for a year or so I decided that I'm not ready to live without sufficiently enjoying my side interests(reading/writing/learning new non-math subjects). This lead me to make a decision on not staying in academia as I hope to have more free time(and more importantly: intellectual energy) with a non-research job. But I still want a good enough thesis. Right now I'm able to do both, research and side work, but not squeezing fully neither of them.

Please realise that 4+ hours every day is a massive time investment. That’s basically another >60% job on top of your official work. This is far beyond a side distraction like a hobby, and very likely not sustainable in terms of health and wellbeing. If you don’t prioritise quickly, life will prioritise for you the hard way.

FWIW, I am not seeing how this is an academia question. This isn’t terribly different from focusing on your career versus focusing on your passions. Any answer will be a generic productivity/life focus/self help advice that would equally apply outside of academia. (In fact I just binned my answer draft after realising I was basically summarising the last productivity book I read.)

Growing up is hard, sometimes you have to make choices you don't like. Either way, I vote to close, this is hardly an academia question.

See also other questions ... working while studying https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/142827/4484 or social life plus academic life https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/15175/4484

It's sort of specific to academia in that focusing on research/finishing a thesis is a different challenge to focusing on non-research jobs. I found finishing my masters thesis (on a topic I was pretty interested in!) much more difficult than reliably showing up to work at a job I wasn't that interested in.

@deee Hence I said "career" instead of "job". Sure this doesn’t mirror any deadbeat job,  but academia is hardly the only "job" that benefits from a long term time investment and passion.

Unfortunately you need to choose, there's just not enough time for everything. E.g. when I graduated from high school I could reasonably have studied any of the three hard sciences (physics, chemistry & biology), or mathematics, or a few other topics (like law & medicine). I obviously can't do all of them, so I had to choose one. Was that choice the best one? There's no way to tell, but it was a choice. I made the choice and I live with it.
You're encountering the same issue dressed in different words: you've already chosen a topic for your MSc, but are now finding that perhaps you should've chosen something else entirely (in this context, music is also a subject that can be studied, see e.g. the Berklee College of Music). What do you want to do? You can't do both, you must choose one to specialize in.
Not knowing anything about your circumstances, I'd say focus on your MSc first since you're already so deep into it; even if you switch now it'll be a while before you can start formally studying music anyway. Then after finishing your MSc, think about studying music.

If you are finding you can't direct your attention to tasks you need to complete to the extent that it is affecting your ability to work, it may be worth speaking to a medical professional to ask about being assessed for a specific learning difficulty (e.g. ADHD). Unless you plan to make music into a career then you will have to find ways to force yourself to do things other than music in order to hold down a job.
If you are working on your master's thesis you are presumably close to the end of a degree you've put a lot of effort into, and it would be a shame not to finish it. You can try setting timers or saving the fun things like music as a reward for hitting a certain word count each day. You can try leaving the house and going somewhere to work where it's harder to access the distracting activities. But you need to work out how to direct your attention to things you need to do, even when they're less immediately gratifying.

I hate to say it, but if you aren't at least as passionate about your research as you are about other things, then you should, perhaps, think about quitting the research and following music, in this case, as a career. I can't recommend that you quit, but only that you consider the options open to you. There is little that is worse than an unfulfilled life.
I suspect that things could get worse for you if you continue on as you are. It sounds like the research, and academia in general, is the distraction, not the other way 'round. Dropping music, however, seems like it would be extremely frustrating.
It is hard to be successful as an academic without passion for your subject and/or teaching. And hard to be successful in music without passion (and practice). Do what you love to the maximum extent you are able.

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Where can I publish the proceedings articles of a small conference?
I am responsible for publishing the proceedings submissions of the Scandinavian Symposium on Physical Acoustics, a smallish yearly conference with about 50 participants. After the symposium, participants who held a presentation are encouraged but not required to submit articles to the symposium’s proceedings. Typically, these proceedings end up with 5–10 articles, all of decent quality.
My aim is to publish the proceedings through a channel which makes the articles visible and searchable through at least Google Scholar. In 2016 and 2019, when I was previously responsible for publishing the proceedings, I uploaded the proceedings to arXiv.org through a process that I established with arXiv moderators and later described on my blog. This gave us the visibility and searchability that we wanted.
In 2016, this went fairly smoothly, but in 2019 there was an issue. Our symposium accepts a wide range of proceedings articles, including working papers that present a research setup and briefly describe preliminary results. However, arXiv have a stricter policy saying that “arXiv only accepts submissions in the form of an article that would be refereeable by a conventional publication venue”. The arXiv moderators therefore rejected one of our proceedings submissions, as they judged it not to be “in a format appropriate for publication in a conventional journal”. This is of course their prerogative, but it left the uploaded proceedings incomplete. (We ended up uploading the last article to ResearchGate instead.)
My question is therefore whether there are any other channels that we can upload such a proceedings to, which would give us similar searchability and visibility to arXiv, but where we can also be certain that we will be able to upload all of our proceedings submissions. Could ResearchGate, HAL, or another site be an option?

Are you interested in a printed version also?

@Buffy No, just online publication.

Just in case there are no better ideas: I would check what the local university library can offer. University libraries nowadays usually maintain some kind of open access repositories, and such systems tend to provide the right metadata fields that should make e.g. Google Scholar happy to index everything correctly. Maybe try to contact the relevant people of your local library and have a chat with them?

@JukkaSuomela, I was going to suggest something similar for a printed version. Many universities maintain a "University Press" that can sometimes be persuaded to publish such proceedings. For example, the EuroPLoP proceedings are published by UVK Universitätsverlag Konstanz GmbH.

There are many organizations that publish open access conference proceedings on the web for a small fee.  See for example dagstuhl.de

Did you try approaching an academic publisher? I imagine most academic publishers would be able to do what you want.

We are a small conference with no registration fees and therefore no budget, which means that we unfortunately can't go for any publishing options that cost money. The local university library might be an option, though!

Update: I have discussed this further with the main organiser of the conference, and we decided to try using ResearchGate this year. Unfortunately, ResearchGate told me that their policy does not allow me to upload the proceedings articles on behalf of the authors, like arXiv does. Instead, we will ask the authors to upload their own articles themselves, which should be easy enough. I will give another update when this is over, which will hopefully be sometime in April.

Have you considered https://www.sciencesconf.org/?forward-action=index&forward-controller=index&lang=en ? There is also this tutorial (in French, unfortunately, and specifically for the INRIA, but I'm sure it can be easily adapted) to publish proceedings in HAL ( https://iww.inria.fr/hal/aide/spip.php%3Farticle46&lang=fr.html ).

@Clément, while sciencesconf.org seems like a good tool, it might be a bit overkill for this task as it's an entire conference administration system, and their English translation is currently spotty. I do think HAL could be an excellent fit for this task, but their English translation was unfortunately also a bit spotty last I checked, and I don't trust my sadly half-forgotten school French enough.

We ended up publishing the proceedings through ResearchGate, using this procedure:

The authors send their submissions to the proceedings editor for approval.
The authors upload their approved submissions to ResearchGate, following a guide provided by the editor to ensure that the metainformation is consistently registered.
The editor uploads a proceedings index to ResearchGate, which gives an overview of and links to the proceedings submissions.

This ResearchGate procedure has some advantages:

Fairly straightforward, both for editor and authors
Good searchability: The proceedings submissions are automatically indexed by Google Scholar
Good visibility: ResearchGate helps by suggesting the proceedings submissions to other relevant researchers

It also has some disadvantages:

Unlike the arXiv procedure, the individual proceedings submissions do not link back to the index.
The authors are required to register ResearchGate account and do the work of uploading their own submissions. (Unlike arXiv, ResearchGate never allows uploading by third parties such as a proceedings editor.)

All in all, this approach was quite successful and we are fairly happy with it. I imagine we will use it again next year. Of course, however, this is not the only possible approach, and I would still be interested in other suggestions!

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Paper published using my work
During my master thesis I have been working on a project. The professor used a good bunch of my work and included it in a publication. She even requested some of the data at the beginning of the year, which I provided for her. She did not put my name on the publication. The paper has been already published. Is there anything I can do in such case?
Edit: I did not have any publication based on this project. And there is an acknowledgment part, but my name is not there. The data was used for the core of the paper. The ex-supervisor contacted me earlier this year to send her my data, claiming that she lost everything on her hard disk. Then she used all that in the paper. She even put 12 authors on the publication, needless to say, most of them did not contribute. Half of the experimental section and analysis part is my work. I mean even if she didn't want to put my name on it, at least she could have let me know that she is publishing the data.

If you have the evidence that it was your work then you can send it to the editor and claim it is yours... but the consequences may well be final, evidence of another excellent advisor sadly...

Welcome to the site @Zsuzsanna please [edit] the question to add these details of your last comment. Have you looked to other questions and answers around (I think similar questions have been answered but maybe you are already aware and you didn't find complete enough)

Was your thesis published, e.g. through an online service offered by the university? Is there any dated copy of your thesis (in some archive, at the chair where you graduated,...) that can prove that you did the stuff first?

This is textbook unethical behaviour, probably in breach of their institution policy and of the journal policy. Regarding your options, I'd say it depends to what extent you are willing and/or can afford to publicly accuse this person, taking into account potential side effects in the school? I mean are you still in the same school, working with people who might be close to this person?

Are you sure you were left out intentionally? Your first step either way needs to be to talk to your advisor. There's no benefit to her to leave you off. Was novelty a requirement of your thesis? Because it would be contradictory for an advisor to say your research was novel enough to graduate but not novel enough for co-authorship.

Unfortunately, your institution is the most likely avenue for recourse in these situations. I believe most journals leave it up the authors to sort this out and direct you to your university or institution for adjudication, despite spelling out the various and detailed criteria for authorship. Even if the editor agrees with you, any authorship changes after publication must be approved by all the current authors. I don't mean to be overly cynical but getting your name on that paper would require an exceptionally ethical and proactive worker/administrator at your institution. Seems like quite the uphill battle to me...  Here are the relevant links to Nature and Science:
https://www.nature.com/nature-research/editorial-policies/authorship
https://www.sciencemag.org/authors/science-journals-editorial-policies


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How can an independent researcher publish a well-written research paper / proof in a respected mathematical publication?
Question:
How can an independent researcher publish a well-written research paper / proof in a respected mathematical publication?
Related Questions:
How do I ensure I'll be able to claim authorship over a math proof, as an amateur math student?
How can I "time-stamp" my data without publishing it?
I've reviewed these both, and while I find them somewhat insightful, don't believe they answer my question directly. Generally speaking, how should an independent researcher go about submitting to an academic publication?
Suggested Duplicate / Existing Answer:
I believe I have solved a famous open problem. How do I convince people in the field that I am not a crank?
Whether a "crank" could possibly write a valid proof of this nature is outside the scope of this question. Simply how and where an independent researcher should submit their work when they believe it is of sufficient quality to do so.

You are in a tough spot: Given what you wrote, you have hard time even writing coherent math. Most likely (with > 0.99 probability), whatever you will write, no professional mathematician will read. My suggestion would be to forget the Collatz Conjecture and try to learn some rigorous math maybe by reading a book or online notes with an introduction to math proofs (you will find many just by googling). Right now, you are in a situation akin to somebody who would like to play, say, basketball, at a professional level, but cannot dribble a ball.

I understand you took a Discrete Math course before. Besides that, what math courses have you taken ? How much math proof have you done besides writing homework problems for your Calculus class ? (I assume you took Calc I & II, right ?) Did you take multivariable Calculus ?

My suggestion: learn multivariable Calculus and complex analysis online first. Do a lot exercises for them. Then go back to your proof to see it makes sense or not. Right now, you don't even have the foundational knowledge to tell if your proof is correct. If you go to a professional mathematician for a co-author, it's very likely you will be laughed at. So, have enough knowledge to review your own proof before you go to anybody else.

No, I am not suggesting looking for a coauthor (at best, you will find someone incompetent). I am suggesting learning how to do rigorous math.

Moishe Kohan's comment was surely not intended to be harsh.  It is in the nature of mathematics that without substantial training you can have no idea whether your work is correct or not.  (Sorting this out is something that even the professionals spend lots of time and effort on.)  What many amateurs don't realize is that it is all but impossible for someone's first mathematical work to resolve a famous problem.

Moishe was translating from one event to another event of similar probability but for which the vanishingly smaller probability of the latter event is easier to believe.  I did this myself upon reading your question.  What I came up with is: it is about as likely that you have solved the Collatz Conjecture as that in the first full tennis match of your life, you beat Novak Djokovic.  Yes, it is possible, but it is overwhelmingly more likely that some mistake has been made.  If you are serious about tennis, take the process of improvement seriously...

@TCooper: Bigoted?  That is a very heavy word to apply to someone who is giving academic advice to an anonymous person on the internet.  I think I had better not engage further.

"I must learn the specific language of professional mathematicians to convey ideas to professional mathematicians effectively is 100% valid." That's part of it, but more importantly you need to learn how serious mathematics is done so that you yourself can have justified confidence in your claims. If you are semi-jokingly saying that you will "keep working on this here and there, probably for at least the next 9 years :)", then it would surely be a wise investment to first learn how serious mathematics is done and only then spend however many years on the problem.

@AdamPřenosil I apologize for any confusion my previous communication may have caused about my skills. While I'm proficient in using latex, and comfortable writing functions, matrices, sets, and cases (the 'real' math), I struggle to articulate mathematical analysis into professional proofs. My unfamiliarity with mathematicians' language may have suggested a lack of ability in multivariable calculus or complex analysis, which is not the case. I realize this misunderstanding stemmed from my ineffective communication and defensive responses, rather than productive dialogue.

Does this answer your question? I believe I have solved a famous open problem. How do I convince people in the field that I am not a crank?

@DanielR.Collins I appreciate the link, but I believe that's where the confusion stemmed from. I genuinely was looking for how to publish as an unaffiliated researcher, and that's it. The topic should've been irrelevant and I regret ever mentioning it due to the assumptions it led to, and my defensive responses to those assumptions. Both generally detracting from the value of the question/answer. I think the accepted answer is spot on (why I accepted and upvoted). It provides where and how to proceed, acknowledging you can regardless of affiliation (or lack of).

@PeteL.Clark Thank you for the comment. I used that word because of one mistaken, but key point in my mind. I believed Moishe had no evidence to make the statement that I "have [a] hard time writing coherent math" - I let my ego respond instead of realizing that by everything I had communicated at that point, he had plenty of evidence to make that statement. Further, I had not offered any evidence to the contrary. Whether or not I felt insulted by it is irrelevant and I obviously shouldn't have let it cloud my judgement in responding to anyone.

If a professional mathematician had a proof of the Collatz Conjecture, they would submit a paper to the Annals of Mathematics.  You can look at their webpage for submission guidelines, but I believe it just involves sending a PDF of your paper to the appropriate email address.  There are no costs.
I am about 99.99% certain that there is no elementary proof (one that does not involve significant techniques from real and or complex analysis) for the Collatz Conjecture.  If someone submitted such a purported proof to the Annals of Mathematics, particularly if it's an amateur, they won't bother to look at it because it's almost certainly a waste of their time.
Any other reputable journal would do the same thing because it's also a waste of their time (plus if you really believed your proof had a chance, you would've submitted it to the Annals of Mathematics).
You should know that the vast majority of mathematicians will not submit a proof to a journal unless they are 99.95% certain their proof is correct.  It is very unusual for a paper to be rejected only for errors in a proof (though it does happen, more than 0.05% of the time, indicating most mathematicians are overconfident about their proofs).  You don't seem to have that level of certainty in your work.

Thank you Alexander. I greatly appreciate the information. I believe my approach is novel. Although I'm not the right person to judge this, I don't believe it is elementary either. Obviously only time will tell.

@TCooper - I think you misunderstood my statement - for the purposes of that sentence I am defining the word "elementary" to mean not using significant techniques from real or complex analysis.  Presumably, you do know whether you're using real/complex analysis or not, so you should know for certain, not just believe, whether your proof is elementary or not according to the definition stipulated for the purposes of this argument.

I think I'm just not making my ignorance of the fields common language and practices clear enough. I realize you defined it, but I'm not sure what qualifies as significant techniques from real or complex analysis. I've done extensive research and analysis, sporadically over 9 years as a way to hone my software engineering/development skills when I needed a side project to work on. But to your points, and the comment on the question - seems like a co-author is the only possible way to translate the information so its useful for practicing mathematicians.

If you cannot understand this paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.03562 you did not prove the Collatz Conjecture.

I think I'm far better comprehending mathematical language than producing. Similarly to how I can understand Spanish and Japanese to a much higher degree than I can speak them. In the paper, the authors seem to show that for any function that increases without bound as the number increases, the smallest number you get to by applying the Collatz map is less than or equal to the value of that function for most numbers. So it would be a probabilistic "proof" that doesn't provide a deterministic proof of any kind? Just going off the abstract - will read tomorrow. Thank you either way

@TCooper - yes your summary of the abstract is correct.  That paper does not prove the Collatz Conjecture, though I think the experts in the area believe it is significant progress towards a potential proof.  Keep in mind that a professional would need at least a week or two to actually read the whole paper and understand all its details.  It's relatively easy as math papers go - I actually would have some chance of understanding it despite my expertise being in a completely different area of mathematics.

@TCooper: "I'm not sure what qualifies as significant techniques from real or complex analysis. I've done extensive research and analysis..." Sounds like you may be mistaking the branch of pure math known as "Analysis" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_analysis#Main_branches with everyday uses of the word. If so -- if you're not familiar with the branch of math called analysis -- it's implausible for you to have independently reinvented the tools (built over centuries of work) needed for problems like this one. Take a course like "Real Analysis" first.

@civilstat You're right, why I tried to make it clear I'm a layman, not a mathematician. Some of my best insights have come from the relationship of the change of length of binary representations for each integer in the generated sequences. I might be giving away my "proof", but fresh eyes this morning let me realize that my excitement and belief in my proof last night was just from spending 9+ hours working on it straight and convincing myself... I think the concepts are strong (derived from insights found in binary representation patterns, not directly related) - no proof though.

@TCooper - sounds like you're looking at limits under the 2-adic norm - something Tao touches on briefly as a well-studied but not ultimately fruitful approach in his paper.

Direct answer to the question that's asked: you write the paper up and submit it to a journal. There's no requirement that the author be affiliated to a university to publish.
How do you submit? You go to the target journal's website and check their submission procedure. There's a high chance you'll need to register an account on the journal's editorial management system, and then there's a submission system not dissimilar to the kind of system you might use to apply for university admission or for a visa to some foreign country.
Which journal? Find something where your proof is within the aims and scope. In the case of the Collatz conjecture, I'm not a mathematician, but a proof would apparently be one of the greatest mathematical achievements of all time, which means you should send to the most prestigious mathematics journals out there - so e.g. Annals of Mathematics. Note the website gives exact submission instructions (in this case you don't need an account at all, you can just send them an email).
Finally, you might be interested: Do journals in general have any kind of policy regarding papers submitted by someone without a research affiliation? Top journals get lots of submissions. They won't desk reject a submission solely because you are an independent researcher, but they will desk reject if your paper is poorly written, poorly formatted, poorly structured, etc. When you say your paper is well-written, sure it really is well-written (not just English-wise, but also in the "language of mathematics"), or the reader might not make it past the abstract.

Try to follow the rules for writing using available papers from the field as an example and follow the rules from guidelines for authors from the relevant journals. Then submit your work to preprints.com or arxiv.org.
Don't worry after that. You will find a way to real, reviewed journals if the work is correct and a valid extension of knowledge in the field.
One shouldn't undermine themselves with such statements as "I'm not real mathematician". If you reached the proof as you said, then you are. Initially many "real" scientists will not understand your findings and will tell you that it is nothing more than rubbish if you haven't yet provided any proof.

Hate to see all the flack you're getting for a valid answer. It's odd to me how often hard problems are solved by people outside the field offering a fresh perspective, and yet people within the field will continually assume only they themselves, with the tools that have failed them for decades or centuries to arrive at a solution, are the only possibility. Sure, in most cases building off existing work is the only way forward - but for the hardest problems, it's most often a novel approach from a novice that, at least starts the ball rolling, if not providing a direct solution.

@TCooper if you know of examples of a hard problem being solved by someone outside the field offering a fresh perspective, you should write an answer to this question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/181336/is-there-a-single-example-of-an-outsider-considered-a-crank-publishing-a-groun

@Allure Rather than citing examples that are anecdotal, here's scientific research covering numerous examples -https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797616634665 - You can also check out InnoCentive - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InnoCentive - who collaborated on this research. If a counter-argument is simply "this doesn't apply to complex mathematical problems because math is special", I have no contradiction for a logical fallacy.

@TCooper again, if you know of examples, you should write them as answers to that question.

@TCooper many of the answers to that question cite examples from >30 years ago. If you know of examples from >30 years ago or from fields that are not mathematics, you can definitely write them as answers. I'm done..

@Allure I guess I missed the point of your comments in this context originally. It seemed you were attempting to discredit my statement by implying a thread on this site had no specific examples meeting the criteria. I was simply attempting to support my statement. I have no interest in copy and pasting 230 examples from the research I linked to that thread, or talking about the petroleum engineer that created auto-tune, etc. The fact that outsider's fresh perspectives often lead to novel solutions is well established.


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Writing a journal paper based on work already published in conference paper
Im in the Applied Computer Science field (deploying technologies in different areas of society). I published a conference paper last year on one such case study and wanted to reuse this data to create a longer, journal paper about the socio-political realities and broader societal reflections on this work (which was not appropriate for the conference audience).
Im wary of self-plagiarism, so the question is: is it possible to take this same idea and publish it in the journal, if the quotes and participant comments are carried across, does it invalidate my claim to this being unpublished work? (Both SAGE Journals and Elsevier have a journal submission policy that only unpublished writing such as thesis, conference posters etc. can be used for journal writing:
Prior Publication: SAGE Journals

If a substantial portion of your manuscript has been previously published, your manuscript will generally not be acceptable for publication in a SAGE journal. However, subject to each journal’s policy, there are certain circumstances where material that has been publicly distributed may be considered for publication.

Does rewriting relevant sections that I will be re-using from the conference publication count as a portion from previously published piece?
Similar answers from Academia SO cover some elements of this question, but my question is about the Findings (Participant Interview quotes) being carried over and the other aspects being fresh.
Does conference presentation of preliminary findings conflict with publication?
Using my published work on another paper
Any help with this, or links to resources that help appreciated!

It might be field depended but it is certainly possible in chemistry, material science and applied physics, at least. I think one should know exactly what and how things were published and how much they will be extended in the potential full paper. I always avoid cut and paste of course. Everything should be rethought, in my opinion. While the proceeding can mean "we do this", the full paper should put things in a solid frame and be conclusive. Else no full paper.

From the SAGE link you provide:

Conference abstracts, posters and presentations
Subject to the journal's policy, manuscripts based on papers that have been presented at conferences may be considered for publication as long as they have not been published and provided that you still retain the rights to the manuscript. The journal editor may review whether the version of your article considered for publication is materially different from the work you presented at a conference and/or whether publication in the journal will enable your article to reach an audience that the conference paper did not previously reach. Prior publication of an abstract or poster presented at a conference will generally not impact the manuscript's eligibility for publication.

A similar policy is enforced by Elsevier (at least AIJ) and IEEE. Prior publication at a conference does not disqualify the content for publication in the journal, but the journal version usually needs to be more detailed or add new information. The standards of a journal are normally higher than those of a conference in terms of completeness of the exposition.
So in general it is fine to extend a conference paper into a journal paper, but you should always check the particular journal's policy, in case it has a different clause that overrides the publisher's policy.
Sometimes, the submission process of the journal specifically asks whether the paper is an extension of a conference paper. Even if it does not, you should make the editor aware of this fact (for example in the cover letter), and cite the conference paper in the journal paper, explaining what the latter adds on top of the former.

In addition to the above answer, I suggest letting the editor know about the previous paper in your cover letter. Also, reviewing and citing that paper in the manuscript should clear any confusion about the possible overlap.

@Ehsan that is a very important suggestion, so I added it to the answer. Thanks.

I'd even say, it makes sense to upload the original paper and even a short summary, highlighting the changes, as supplementary material for the review. This way, the editor, and later the reviewers would be able to wage the amount of similarity in the easiest (for them) manner.

Thanks for the answer and the comments folks. I emailed the editor of the journal and told them how I am planning on adapting a previous paper, and they were very supportive in their response.


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How to get through with an unsupporting supervisor?
My supervisor does not have time to neither read my report nor give me feedback. The topic I am working on is totally new and my supervisor does not know about that.
There is another guy in my group who works on the same topic. I got the correct result and the other guy did not get the correct result but my supervisor believes the other guy and made me feel very bad by implying that I made up the data. Even if I show her my solution, she will not be able to understand or simply does not want to admit that I am right. It is not an easy feeling for me when I am in group meetings, I have to shut my mouth when the guy says wrong things.
I like the topic and I want to continue work on that but I really need to get over all the bad feelings. All other professors in my university working on that topic have some kind of collaborations with my supervisor so it is not ideal for me to change supervisor.
Has anyone been in the similar situation? How would you get over that and become successful?

Is there any chance that you can get a co-supervisor with one of the other faculty? Someone interested specifically in your work. Long term they might be able to take over completely if you work it right.

I think they might not want to officially be my supervisor but I think they welcome students to see them to ask questions and discuss.

Show your supervisor why you are right and the other guy is wrong. Gather solid proof, wait until you are less emotional, ask to meet your supervisor and tell her in a neutral, professional tone. Maybe she just wasn't able to see your point at that moment.

without knowing the makeup or politics of how your institution works and how connected your supervisor is, its hard to give concrete tips. So take the answers here with a pinch of salt.
Which field are you in? From your question it seems like you are in a field that uses quantitative data (primarily), thus the emphasis on right and wrong results. What is the kind of feedback the other guy gets when (or if) he publishes his work?
When you say that the other guy "did not get the correct result", is he being:

fraudulent - wrongfully analysing data on purpose or not following correct procedures
ignorant - the guy is clueless about the 'right' way to analyse the data and needs some serious help
just different - are you sure that your way is the right way and the other guy's way is the wrong way? Can you be confident of this (academically speaking)? Are there research papers you can send to the other guy and your supervisor about your approach being valid and the other guy's approach being invalid.

There are a number of things you can do in each of these situations:

reporting fraudulent practices (anonymously and only if it is safe to do so for you!) to an ethics/review board
seek opinion from others in your field outside of your institution (are there institutions that work in the same research field in your city/region? make connections with them and get a mentorship role form a senior academic there - this will take a few months so no quick fixes unfortunately).
Additionally have you been to a conference/workshop of people from your field (again outside your institution)? If yes, then recall those connections and make those ties stronger (via skype/coffee) or visit a conference soon and make those connections happen.

In my experience, the PhDs who progress and learn the most are those who are connecting and learning from those in their field, regardless of whether they are from your institution or not - so this is valuable (irregardless of the troubles you are having).
You can write up your work to a workshop/conference and gain feedback there? Might be valuable in backing up your claims to your supervisor.
Is there a 'third-way'? A compromise between your approach and your supervisors's preferred approach? Unfortunately, the PhD-Supervisor relationship is filled with power dynamics which mean that your PhD will never be 'purely academic' as we might want it to be..


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Would a 3.5 grade in the subject that I want to specialize in have a negative impact on my grad application?
I'm applying to math PhD programs in the US (I'm also in the US). In my statement of purpose, I write that I want to specialize in probability theory. However, this semester I took a measure-theoretic course in probability theory, and I did not do well on the final exam. This resulted in a 3.5 final grade (at my school, we have 4.0 then 3.5, 3.0, etc).
I worry that getting a 3.5 in the subject that I said I wanted to specialize in would have a negative impact on my application, especially for the top schools. Would it be wise to revise my statement of purpose and replace probability with something else I'm interested in? I'm broadly interested in analysis.
Also, I submitted the transcript that only has the courses I took before the Fall semester, but I they might ask about my Fall grades at some point during the review process (or during an interview).
Thank you!
Edit: added the country

In what country are you planning to pursue a PhD?

It is in the US.

In the US, admissions is based on a broad set of criteria. A single course that isn't perfect isn't likely, on its own to be much of an issue. In the final year, it is also common for people to do a bit worse than previously since they have other things going on (like applying to grad school).
However, note that competition can be fierce, especially at top schools. If you don't narrow your search too much then I'd expect you to do OK, though decisions are made by individuals with their own judgements.
Most important, is that you get good letters of recommendation that predict your success in your chosen field.


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Does doing 4 vs 3 substantive chapters in a US PhD come across as a "higher quality" dissertation?
I'm a 1st year PhD student in environmental science and policy. The expectation at my institution is generally to do three substantive chapters in our dissertations. I'm set up well and have the first two chapters pretty much entirely scoped and am feeling really good about my progression this early on.
I've noticed some academics volunteer that they did 4 chapters almost as a point of pride. And I'm wondering if this is something that is considered "better" or higher quality or more competitive amongst academics and when thinking about future employment?

Can't comment on US PhD dissertations nor environmental science and policy in specific, but in my neck of the woods if someone can't even count to three, well... Brevity is a skill too!

My PhD thesis had around five substantive chapters and lots of appendices. However, it is not the number of chapters or the length that counts. I can imagine a one-page thesis having more impact than mine.

@Jake exactly my thoughts. With rather little effort you can always turn 3 chapters into 5-6 chapters. They're just half as substantive

Your overall research output is important; your dissertation is not, neither its length, nor its "quality", just that it's done.
If having more chapters means more research output, yeah that looks good when you are up for jobs where you are being hired to produce research, but the impact of the work matters, too, as long as someone is looking closely (which they should be if they are deciding whom to hire). Someone can stretch out what they've done into however many chapters they want for organizational purposes.

Hard to imagine that it could. Your thesis is read by your examiners, and your examiners evaluate it depending on the content of what you've written. The number of chapters doesn't really count for much. Here's a little thought experiment: think of a couple of books that you've just read. Some questions: firstly, which one is better? Secondly, why? And, after you've answered these, ask yourself (without looking) how many chapters each of them has? I would guess that you would have forgotten (if you even knew) the number of chapters.

Don't compare yourself to others!!!!! Focus on publishing and presenting your work. Try to make each chapter of your dissertation a published manuscript. Your lit review can be an actual published review and the subsequent chapters can be original works. Do that and the final length won't matter. Your dissertation can be 10 chapters long but if none of it is published it provides minimal scientific currency.

Strongly depends on the field and its specific culture.

The correct number of chapters depends on your material: the number of logical parts into which your ideas and arguments naturally divide, the stages in testing them, and so on.
You can cram it into fewer than the natural number of chapters, or spread it out over more, if you want to, but the best way is whatever explains it most clearly to your target audience. That's basic writing technique.
If your field has conventions for the number of chapters, does this imply that there's an expected structure for your research and the material coming out of it? If so, conforming to that during your research, rather than forcing your material into it afterwards may be a good idea, but that's not certain. If the results of your research lead you to a different structure, talk to your supervisor: you're either making good progress, or you've gone astray, and your supervisor is the one who can tell the difference.

Nowadays the details of thesis and the number of chapters are not that critical. I would say which was not the case 10 15 years ago. I tell my students publish 4 first author papers in journals with IF greater than 4. Then it is more valuable than a thesis. Thesis contains more details but the SI  can be used to include details in the journal papers also.


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How do I prepare for my research program 2 months ahead of its beginning?
I'm starting a PhD program in the Fall. I know this can be specific to my program, but more generally, what's your advice for an international student preparing for academic success?
I'm going to email my advisor for some advice. I'm still not very familiar with formal and professional emails in academia . So is this OK?
"Dear Dr.???,
Can you give me more info on our research and how I can prepare for it?"
Thanks

Find out what documents, visas etc that you need tp prepare. Having to get a translated and ratified birth certificate at short notice in a new country can be expensive and challenging , while it is trivial at hime.

As you have already stated, your advisor is the best person to contact regarding this. Next would be the students who are already in that group. Going through the research work/ongoing projects of your group is a good beginning, based on that you can prepare accordingly.

I think this question is too vague for us to give helpful answers. Which country are you going to? What visas do you need? What is the field of study? Are you looking for help on practical matters like university administration and funding, or do you want to know what papers or books to read? Have you already discussed a possible research project or area of interest? Are you already at the university? (In which case it might be better to ask for a 30 minute meeting). Will you be rotating amongst supervisors, or will you have this one for the entire course?

You can reasonably guess that your research when you join the group will be closely related to the research the group has published in the past 1-5 years. Therefore, the biggest leg-up you can get is to go through their recent publications (ask for them from the professor if you don't have access to the journals from home or your current school's network) and try to understand what was done, why it was done, and what tools were used?
Reading one or two review articles in the area would also be useful.

Also, you could read a textbook about the subject of your PhD or the techniques you are going to use. There probably is lots of new stuff you can still learn.


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Should my math teacher talk about my grades in his letter of recommendation?
I did really well at school except for the final exams where I got terrible grades. Thoughout the years, my grades were above average but I got terrible grades in my finals(which count for 50% in my country) and that caused me to get a GPA of 2.4.
Should my math teacher talk about how/why i got bad grades in my finals? It's quite clear that I almost failed because of those grades but it's also quite clear that I was an A student before those grades.
If he doesn't talk about my math abilities(or disabilities) then what should he talk about?
Please help me, I need to send this letter next week

with due respect: what he talks about is expected to be confidential and none of your business.  You should have no say in the content.

"Please help me, I need to send this letter next week" - you shouldn't be sending anything, your instructor should be.

Your advisor might be limited by local law about what s/he may say about your grades. But they can probably say that your grades don't completely reflect your abilities and then comment on those abilities. But, IMO, a too-detailed letter won't serve you as well as one that is more general and speaks about your abilities. If they focus on the positive then it should serve you better, I think.
However, if you have difficulty in exams you should find a way to work on that. Perhaps it is just ineffective studying. Cramming is a poor way to learn, if that is it. Taking and reviewing better notes throughout the course is a much better way to learn.

Thank you so much. So he should just talk about my ability and focus on my personality rather than my academic things?

Not your personality. Your math ability.

So he should speak about my math ability without mentioning my grades?

OP hasn't mentioned how poorly they fared on the final exam or whether there are any extenuating circumstances. It might make a difference in your case.

When students ask me for a recommendation letter, I often ask them to send me a resume and a bullet-point list of their academic and other accomplishments. For students who have been affected adversely by reasons of finance, family, or other issues, I ask them to include those as well. Assuming this is the case for your final exam performance, you should note this as well. If you have not sent over this material as a "refresher" for your professor, you should feel welcome to do so.
As a matter of etiquette, please do not request that the professor exclude what you might find as a matter of fault. It makes you human. Additionally, professors are not required to write recommendation letters for students, so please be nice to them. Otherwise, you may find yourself being refused a rec letter.
I assume you are applying for graduate school? The graduate schools you are applying to have access to your transcripts, so they will see your grades regardless of what your professor writes. Indeed, if you are applying to graduate school, it is likely that you will be taking many exams during the course of your studies. Be prepared that you will need to foster the skills to pass those exams as well.


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Will medical institutions reject an applicant based on being 28 years of age?
As I've contemplated the future over the past year, I have returned over and over again to the idea of becoming a doctor -- specifically, a neurosurgeon. However, I recognize that as a 28 year old Physics BS who would need to take a year of postbac courses before even applying to medical school, I might face unreasonable challenges should I choose to pursue this goal. I recognize that by the time I would be ready to apply, I would be 7 to 8 years older than the typical medical school applicant. My main fear is the idea of getting partway down the road to becoming a doctor and then being unanimously rejected by the institutions (schools, residency programs, employers, etc.) based on my age, rendering my efforts fruitless. Is this a likely outcome?

In the US, at least, it would probably be illegal to discriminate against you based on age.

@Buffy Not probably. Definitely. I can't believe people keep posting these kinds of questions.

I briefly had a job working for a medical school, and part of the onboarding training involved a scenario with a 60-year-old applicant. The training very explicitly said that considering age or dropping hints like "residency is very demanding" was 100% illegal.

@ElizabethHenning Other countries train doctors & neurosurgeons... And they accept the « older » student... A friend had his BEng Hons then changed to medicine - he found sorting all the mixing of chemicals %vol, %mass so easy, in fact all the others went to him for help - partly because the lecturer was useless...

@Buffy actually, in the US the Age Discrimination in Employment Act makes illegal to discriminate against people older then 40 based on their age (https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm), so unless your particular state has some extra laws against that (some of them do) it would be perfectly legal to have hiring policies that discriminate against 28-year olds based on their age.

Most medical students end up following a different specialty than they expect https://www.ama-assn.org/residents-students/specialty-profiles/specialty-preferences-and-after-med-school-numbers You also might turn out to be a bad surgeon - surgeons are dextrous athletes, unless you've been doing neurosurgery you don't know if you're any good at it yet. That's okay, but be careful of being too focused, it's probably a much bigger issue than your age.

I chose neurosurgery because it seems to make sense for me: I have always enjoyed dextrous performance tasks from Rubik’s cubes to eSports to guitar playing to typing.

(And, to some extent, excelled at them)

@DJG That's fine, and it's fine to think of as a goal, but be ready to go another direction. Don't go to med school unless you'd be okay with another specialty.

If I was rejected as a neurosurgeon, would I be able to gracefully pivot and be a neuroscientist instead?

@ElizabethHenning: they post them because there is also the real world, where your age counts. Being 28 can be an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on the position. If there are quantifiable entrance indicators (say, an exam result) then obviously age cannot count. If you have three candidates and someone's age is outside the norm it is better to know. I once applied for a job and was told to come back in 10 years, despite having all what was needed for the position. I was just too young (as they put it: "not enough gray hair")

@DJG Neuroscience is a basic science discipline, not a medical one. The two main schools of medicine are Neurology and Neurosurgery. There is overlap, but neurologists do more diagnosing of brain, spine, and peripheral nervous system problems including neurodegenerative disease and dementia; neurosurgeons operate on brains in cases of trauma, vascular issues like stroke, and cancer.

@Peteris The applicable law for med school applications and residency is the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, which prohibits discrimination without regard to age group. All 50 states have age discrimination laws, many of which also prohibit discrimination without regard to age group in employment as well.

@DJG There's always neurology residency. For neuroscience, that's probably a more feasible career path than neurosurgery (broad overgeneralization, obviously!).

In the US, being 28, 30, or even 40 is not a problem for getting into med school. I was 26 when I was admitted, and I was far from the oldest in my class. In fact, by my senior year, they had admitted a couple of students older than my current age at the time! If you haven't been slacking off in between college and now, it could make you even more competitive because you can point to past successes and have interesting stories for the interviewing process. A typical medical school in the US could easily fill each class with biology and chemistry students fresh out of college with high GPA's and MCAT scores. Someone older might have all of those, plus the strengths of a rigorous career or valuable experience outside of medicine. You can differentiate yourself from the rest of the pool.
Now, to the main issue of age. By the time you finish the pre-reqs, ace the MCATs, and finish 4 grueling years of medical school, do you think you'll have the energy or motivation to do an even more intense additional 7 years of neurosurgery? Neurosurgery is competitive enough that they can pick whatever candidate they want. While not a given, you will likely face some "soft" age discrimination for intense/competitive residencies and fellowships. For this stage, you'll have to work extra hard to convince them you can physically compete with the youngin's, much less complete/survive the program. Once you finish your neurosurg training, you won't have problems finding a job. Once you're board eligible/certified, no hospital cares what school you went to, how old you are (to a point), or what you did in the past. All that matters is what you can do for them, ie increase billing by a zillion dollars.
You can get more detailed responses and support from the forums.studentdoctor.net website. There's even a sub-forum for the "non-traditional" applicant, which honestly, isn't so non-traditional anymore!

"Couple of students older than my current age" would be more informative if we knew what your current age is

@Moyli He said he started med school at 26, so by senior year, he was 30.

I actually did a combined MD/PhD program, so I was actually 34 (eek!) by the time I graduated!

Being a few years older is definitely not a problem for entering medical school.
I know people who have gone off and done other professions before figuring out that they actually wanted to be a doctor.  The difference between being 20 and being 30 just isn't that much, and you even may have an advantage in some ways from having more maturity and a better understanding of why you want to be in the profession.

I taught Calculus somewhere with a well regarded postbac premed program, and they had a great placement rate and plenty of the students were in their late 20s.  This really isn't unusual at all.


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Should I still submit if my final results are not good?
Firstly, I am aware of this question, but: 1) there is no accepted answer there and 2) my situation is not as good as the OP's in that question.
Being new to research, I have always thought it is about the new knowledge you create. Many times, you follow a theory to find out that it doesn't work. I had thought it is OK to publish such findings and to provide a constructive criticism thereof, but recently I got a second rejection which made me revisit myself.
From your practical experience, is it worthy submitting in such cases? if not, how is this situation best dealt with provided that much time and effort are usually invested therein?
I assume it makes sense to submit in principle but I am wondering whether the academic reality agrees with such an assumption.

An answer being accepted sounds impressive, but all it means is that the person asking the question thought that that answer was good. So that is not much of a quality indicator. It depends on how knowledgeable the person asking the question is and if (s)he is even aware that (s)he could accept an answer. So the absence of an accepted answer means pretty much nothing.

@MaartenBuis could well be the case and also could not. However, I am aware of that issue hence the reason #2. My situation is "worse" so to say

See https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30995/what-to-do-when-you-spend-several-months-working-on-an-idea-that-fails-in-a-mast/31082#31082

@EthanBolker thank you, the problem is mostly such a finding won't get accepted, or it is a "lower priority"

Can you define what 'submit' means in this context?

@user2705196 Submitting to scientific conferences

Can you make a good theory on why it doesn't work? How it fails? When it fails? Can you extend your showcase to show that? I think this would be more interesting.
The truth is, otherwise it is difficult because far too many people are reducing papers to state of the art results. I don't approve of this but this seems to be far too common.

I didn't quite get what you meant by "reducing papers to sota results", can you explain more please?

Sorry for not explaining better, in my field sota: state-of-the-art is basically the best results achieved on for example, a public dataset. So people have theories, they implement those and test it on these datasets, and then you can analyze how your method  compares to the best results achieved by others until then (sota). So more than often, in my field, reviewers only consider this, even if you have a different approach, a novel method etc. which might be actually insightful. It is just too easy to dismiss a theory if they aren't working just as well.

Of course this is bad practice because, again, in my field, most of the time getting good results is very much dependent on access to an abundance of human and computing power, tests and trials that finetune your implementation.

My point is, why a theory or method fails can be well written to be an interesting paper, but otherwise I feel it has lower chances

Reflecting on the original question I get that it is not that worth it proceeding and investing more resources into submitting such inferior results, no? (pragmatically speaking)

I am just saying it may have lower chances unless you have some insight to the inner workings of it, so I would recommend doing that if you can, but -obviously- I don't know -anything- about your field, your paper, your results, or the reviews you have received. You should be the judge, no one can know for sure. Also, I think you can consider how much effort is needed to resubmit, can you easily send it to another venue? Do you think you can improve your results? At worst it could be good exercise to just write.

There is a big problem called publication bias: only studies that "find something" get published. In part this bias is due to journals being less likely to accept papers with negative findings. In part this is due to researchers not even submitting the papers. So, the fact that you submitted those papers is an important and positive step you have taken to (try to) reduce publication bias. However, it is an uphill battle.

I agree that it's a nudge in the correct direction, but most of us are very tight on resources, and such a bias needs to be resolved on higher levels inevitably. How would this bias be reduced if such publications do not see the light of day? alas, slightly if at all


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In what cases should I completely state a theorem I'm about to use?
This is the question. The theorem is taken from someplace else.
In my case, I want to use the asymmetric case of local lovasz lemma , and I am not sure if I should completely state it, or just refer the reader to (lemma 5.1.1 on pg ..).
If the answer is yes, the next question is where. Specifically, in the middle of the proof, it is strange to have all of a sudden another lemma. So I guess I should state it before the start of the lemma(should I write: I am about to use this lemma?).
Thanks.

Consider having an appendix/annex to the thesis where you state things that are essential to your argument and which your reader may want to see without looking elsewhere. For some things, perhaps in this case as well, a footnote citation of the lemma, including its name, might be enough since most people working in probability will know of it by name. Then, as a step in proving the current lemma/theorem, just refer to the footnote or appendix entry. The reader can take a detour if they feel it necessary.
But, you are correct not to make it hard to follow the flow of a proof.
A full statement of such a thing might be necessary if you were proving a variation or an extension of that thing. And in that case it might be necessary to work the statement and even, perhaps, a proof outline of the original into the text itself so it is clear how you are extending/modifying.

This advice seems oddly specific to theses. Such an appendix would be rather unusual in a paper.

@AndrésE.Caicedo, yes, agreed in general, but there might be exceptions. See the tag on the question, however.

Yes, I noticed the tag. What still gives me pause, though, is that the same question will then reappear in a few months,  when the person asking is now trying to write papers. In any case, this is one of those things that advisors may want to help novices with.

For my taste, I'd "recall" the precise statement exactly when you need it, in the internals of your proof, as you seem to indicate. I myself have become ever fonder of a math writing style which does not require so much flipping back-and-forth to understand what's being said. (Especially the otherwise-precise quasi-Bourbaki of referring to things by some (necessarily artificial and meaningless) numbering scheme, rather than any sort of descriptive reference.)
In particular, for simply the statement (rather than proof) of a result, adding an appendix would make things harder to read for many people, and the people who already know the result would not gain much. Skipping over known things is easier than flipping back-and-forth.
That is, allowing your readers to read straight through seems to me the ideal. So, no, similarly, don't introduce all the notation at the beginning and then expect people to remember it. Sure, you could have an appendix for reference for notation, but it really should be explained when first used, ... in my opinion. That kind of thing.

I like this suggestion. I would add that it may be reasonable to "announce" one would be using the result. Saying something like "the following lemma makes use of [4] Theorem blah, whose statement we recall in due course". A reason is that a reader wanting to understand every detail may decide to take a look at [4] before reading the lemma rather than finding themselves having to pause in the middle if it.

I think the Bourbakist reference style works fine with hyperlinks. To go even further, I wish HTML rather than PDF were the standard for mathematics papers, so that it would be possible to have mouseovers, collapsible text, and so forth.

PDF provides a lot of abilities. I am not sure it is not possible. mouseovers do exists.


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Breach a Hiwi (TA) contract
I'm a Master's student at one of the TUs (Technical Universities) in Germany. I have been working as a hiwi ("Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft", or Teaching Assistant) under a PhD for the past one year.
I have signed a new contract starting from December for another six months. Can I breach the contract now? What's the procedure if I have to breach it after the contract begins?
Would it affect my job profile? Would I still be able to work in other institutes?

Check with your professor or your department chair or whomever is your work supervisor. Walking out on a contract is unlikely to do your reputation any good. But they may be able to fill your position if you give them some notice.

My Supervisor is very rude. I have coped with him for a year now. I have seen him fire hiwis and he has no courtesy. I wouldn't mind even complaining it to the HR if it's necessary

No. I'm just working. He is not gonna grade me.

Why do you want to resign?

Short answer: Don't do it
Long answer: Breaching your contract would have legal consequences. It also will definitely not help you getting work anywhere else. Formally the fabled 'black lists' don't exist, but in general people talk to each other and someone simply breaking their contract is exceptional enough that news will spread fast. Furthermore at least in the place I was, the paperwork is often done by the universities HR-department and payment is handled through the same state agency, independent of which other institute you work at, so this will turn up as a red flag.
You can ask your boss to cancel a contract. What you want is called an "Auflösungsvertrag". However this needs to be agreed on by both sides, so you better have a good enough reason. For example as a boss, if you told me that you want to interrupt your studies to take care of a dying relative, I would gladly sign it, but if you told me you got a better offer somewhere else, I would still insist on you fulfilling the contract until I at least can find a replacement. And don't lie, as mentioned before, bad news travels fast.
Apart from this, if there is no other clause in your contract allowing you to give notice, it's best to just bear it for another six months. Document your hours, do your job diligently and wait for the time to be up. If you worked for the same boss for a year already, you knew what you were signing up for.

Thank you for the suggestion. I already have another offer. Yes, I knew what i was signing for. I just didn't want to leave all of a sudden and put him through the effort of training a new hiwi. Now that I have signed, I can see him being more rude. Turns out I have to pay the price for being nice.

@BlackHeart The price of being nice is paid immediately, while the reward is long in coming. But usually it's coming. Just be more careful in the future. Since you knew this supervisor is a nasty fellow, you had some forewarning. Good luck!

+1 Auflösungsvertrag is the solution here: these fixed term contracts usually do not have the normal one-sided cancellation rights that permanent contracts have (keine ordentliche Kündigung) - from neither side. But then, if both sides agree, the contract can be voided.

Resigning from and breaching a contract are two different things. Have you read the contract? Most likely you have to give notice one month in advance. Usually resigning with due notice is not a big deal. In any case, it's your right.


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Work experience certificate (Arbeitszeugnis) - Student Assistant (Wissenschaftliche Hilfskrafte)
I worked as a Student Assistant (Wissenschaftliche Hilfskrafte) for two years (19 hrs/week) at an institute of a reputed German University. I have received a work experience certificate (Arbeitzeugnis) and the performance rating does not reflect the amount of work I have done. I have been rated as just above average even though I have worked on plenty of projects and have been way better than other student assistants.
I have had some issues with my supervisor at times and I have faced rude unprofessional behaviour on multiple occasions. I'm sure this non work related issue is influencing the rating.
I have enough evidence to support the quality of my work and there are publications in which I have made significant contributions.
I would like to know if I'm legally allowed to further escalate the matter and talk to the institute head about a fair rating?

"I would like to know if I'm legally allowed to [...] talk to the institute head about a fair rating": It's safe to say that you are allowed to talk about this matter to whoever you would like. So I'm quite sure that you actually want to ask something else (though I'm not completely sure what it is).

I just want a fair rating. I was thinking of contacting the institute head. I just wanted to make sure if it is okay before making the move.

Is this a standardized "Arbeitszeugnis" ("er erledigte alle ihm übertragenen Aufgaben zu unserer vollsten Zufriedenheit", etc.), or a scientific letter of recommendation?

Just a standardized "Arbeitszeugnis". ("er erledigte alle ihm übertragenen Aufgaben zu unserer vollsten Zufriedenheit", etc.) exactly like this. The institute has a standard format.

Then what do you dislike about it? These are pretty much standardized (not only at the institute, but throughout employers). Unless it says "zu unserer Zufriedenheit" or the like...

In my previous comment I was just referring to the standard format. It actually just says "satisfactory" (Zeugnis was given in English). They also have a sheet with performance rating in which the overall performance is rated "above average/above satisfactory". I heard/read that statistically it seen as equivalent to average/satisfactory. While the highest possible rating in the sheet is "well above satisfactory".

Given that I have enough evidence to prove my work, is it worth going through the hassle to get the "well above satisfactory" rating? Because even the HR does not seem to be very responsible. They didn't even care to ask the Supervisor who purposely delayed forwarding the Zeugnis to institute head. After waiting for 3 months I had to directly email the institute head to give me the Zeugnis. Then instantly I received a Zeugnis (Signed by the institute head) dated 3 months earlier (My last working day) along with an apology for the delay.

Would the head even go against his own employee and give me the better rating?

What do you want to use this letter for? As a scientific recommendation letter, is is likely pretty much useless, regardless of what it says. And people outside Germany don't know how to interpret those "official" letters (and I'd guess in many places, they might also not be sure how to judge the english version of such a letter).

I'm done with my Masters and I'm looking for jobs. I was hoping a good rating in the Zeugnis would further boost my job application. I just received an email from the Supervisor and he says there is no scope to improve the rating. I guess that's it. It's a lesson learnt hard way!!

I don't think people generally would expect that you have a "Zeugnis" from a SHK/WHK job. And moreover: If you apply in Germany, people would expect this letter in German; if you apply abroad, people likely wouldn't know much what to do with it anyway.

I am not a lawyer. If you want legal advice, talk to a lawyer.
That said, you're entitled to an Arbeitszeugnis that is both truthful (Zeugniswahrheit) and favourable (Zeugniswohlwollen). https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeitszeugnis
As for how to get it, you should probably start with talking to whoever actually wrote the one you have - that could be your advisor or their secretary or someone in the Personalabteilung.
And if that doesn't work, the next step could be one of your advisor, the Personalabteilung, or a lawyer. I wouldn't involve the head unless you have a good relationship with them.

My Supervisor is a non German and He has no idea about German laws. He actually took 3 months to provide me a zeugnis. I recently found out that it is supposed to be issued on the last day of employment. I will talk to the HR. I just want to make sure if Wissenschaftliche Hilfskrafte (HiWi) is also covered under German labor laws. Is it considered as a normal employment?


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Studying for an exam with an unprepared student
I am a student and another student asked me to study together for an exam and I agreed. But when we started studying he didn't know much about the subject, and I had to explain to him how to solve the problems and waste a lot of time in doing so.
Should I keep studying with him?

Often the best way to cement learning of a subject is to teach someone else.

I think whether it is helping you significantly depends on the expertise differential. If you have to teach him basics, this may hold yourself back. If the other student is only moderately behind, explaining to them may be beneficial also for you.

This is purely a matter of opinion and personal values.  I voted to close.

Ask yourself what you are getting out of it. If nothing, then give it up and just advise the student to study harder.
But it is just possible that you are benefitting from the experience. Having to explain things to others firms up your own understanding in many fields. Many professors have had the experience that teaching a relatively low level course for the first time gave them a deeper understanding. Even something like, say, calculus.
One of the most important aspects to learning is reinforcement and feedback. Depending on the other student's questions and issues, you may be getting both from the interaction.
Think about it and also think about your best use of the time. Active learning (as in such a scenario) may be more effective than passive (reading notes, say).

This is not a clear case of a hard YES or NO answer.
Let's start with the question: Why should you continue?
You could continue studying with him and approach the study periods as though they are lessons to you about how to work with peers who do not have the same levels of interest, skills, comprehension, or aptitude as you have. This may be your first time in such a situation. It will not be your last time in such a situation. In the future, you may not have an option to leave such situations.
This approach will test your patience (as you have already noted). More importantly, this approach will test not only whether you have learned the material but also whether you can teach/communicate the meaning of that material to someone else with the expectation that you will not learn anything new about the material in return.
To be clear, I stand by the mantra that, what you think you know about something is only truly tested when you have to communicate it completely to someone who does not know it. You should make your own judgement about how this mantra comes to play in your case.
To what extent then are you prepared to continue in the study group when continuing may give you absolutely no new insights about the material that you are studying but when continuing could give you new insights about how to communicate what you already think that you know about the material yet continuing will definitely test your patience?
Now ask: Why should you not continue?
You should not continue when you have exhausted the above analysis to the point that you have determined that your return on investment is too low compared to the effort, time, and patience that you must invest during the study period.
This is only a shameful decision to make when it is done flippantly or conversely, when you blame the other student for YOUR choice.
So, when you decide you will stay, do so with an appreciation that the investments that you must make go beyond just learning the material, they include learning how to teach it. Also, the returns that you will get will perhaps not include learning more or new information about the material at hand versus learning how to communicate and teach what you already think that you know.
Alternatively, when you decide you will leave, do so with an appreciation that you owe the other student a respectful closing statement. An example might be: I have to stop working with you in the study group because I am not well-enough prepared to spend the time needed to teach you in the way that you seem to need.
In either case, I strongly recommend that you visit your course instructor for two reasons. First, for any course material, the highest level of understanding that students have generally never fully exceeds the level of understanding that a course instructor has. Secondly, you will do well to ask your instructor for advice about this situation. He/She may be able to point you to better resources (on-line Web tutorials, university study mentors) that you can suggest to your classmate to help him as supplements when you continue in the study group or, more importantly, as replacements when you leave the study group.

Your choice.
Of course, you knew that.  You might also suspect things could turn to your benefit, but believe such a payoff is unlikely.  If you're looking for an excuse to help, to see if such a possibility exists, then let me provide you with a scenario.  True story, involving me, where I fit the description of the other person in your story.
I went to a class.  This was after I had been away from college for years, and this was the last quarter I could graduate under the old catalog, and was the last time this class was offered.  I attended class and paid attention during the class.  Yet I made an error that could well have been fatal to my efforts: I didn't take notes.  I was naturally gifted with a talent of picking up an understanding of material quickly, doing well on tests, and memorizing some details rather well.
However, this humanities class ended up having a take-home exam which was a tremendous portion of the grade, and it asked for tons of nitpicky historical facts like dates and cities and other minor details.  There was no way I would have passed this on my own.
Yet I had a savior...  partners were allowed in this monstrosity of an exam, and here was an elder gentleman who was a fellow student and who was impressed with how attentive I seemed in class.  He decided to partner with me.
I worked with him at the school and in his house, and it took us 3 or 4 days to fill out all the numerous questions that were asked.  It became very evident that the only way either of us could pass was based on the notes he took.  He quite literally saved me.  But this was not unethical cheating - the rules totally permitted such "partnership".  Surely, it was lopsided.  I really only managed to contribute to one question the whole time.  (There happened to be one question, out of the whole bunch, where my sharp memory did recall an obscure detail.)
So, he improved my score dramatically.  What did I contribute back to him?  Just one detail, which he somehow missed in his notes.  The end result is that I graduated college.  For him, the end result was his score was improved, by one correct question (out of probably hundreds).
I can also remember being in the shoes of being the knowledgeable one, when I was assigned a partner whose knowledge and skill were clearly inferior throughout the whole class.  We were supposed to make a computer image, yet I decided we could go above and beyond by making an animation.  It was wonderful, except for one part which was broken.  I wasn't finding the cause as a deadline was closing in on us, yet my partner stunned me by successfully noticing a problem.  He saved both of us.
So, getting back to you...  would it be worthwhile to help, even if the overall result ends up being only a very slight benefit to your grade?  (Not to say that those results are guaranteed...  he might surprise you, and help a lot, or just not help at all.)  Whether you deem such a slight bump to be worth your effort is a judgement call that would reflect how much you value your grade.
Also, there's the concept of you helping someone else.  Maybe you doing such a good deed would just be a positive thing, simply for humanitarian reasons.  Is that something you would like to invest in?  Maybe the only benefit to you will be when someone else learned how nice you were.  Maybe nobody will ever learn of that, but you yourself will know that you helped someone.  Is this worthwhile?
If you were looking to see if excuses may exist on why to keep helping someone, I've just provided you with some.  Ultimately, though, I agree with Anonymous Physicist's comment.  There isn't a single answer which logic dictates to certainly be right.  In the end, it's your judgement call.


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I have published my thesis in scholars press as a book as adviced by my collegue. Can I publish papers now? Or should I cite it?
I was unaware that scholar press have a bad reputation. I wanted to gain the copyright as I was afraid it will be misused. So I published it as book. Now I came to know they are not genuine publishers. But for visibility it worked. But if I want to publish in some reputed journals what shall I do? Shall I cite the thesis and the book? If so can anyone please help me with format and ideas.

In general you should always cite work you have previously done when you use it. If you don't, you open yourself to a charge of self-plagiarism.
The reason for citation is that a reader may need to go back to earlier work to get a full picture. The earlier work included context that is likely missing in the current work, such as the references you used, etc. And a citation should be to something that is available. If the thesis isn't available directly, then cite the book.
But don't let one bad choice lead you to make others. So, yes, publish your papers, and cite your earlier work as needed.


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If, where and how to talk about personal problems during master in PhD application
I am applying to become a PhD student in some institutions. My master record isn't exactly perfect mainly because I didn't complete it in time: I should have completed it in two years but it took me far longer.
Now, during the master I have had some serious healthy and personal issues that can partially justify not finishing in time: I had to stay several months in my hometown without the possibility to study or do anything university related because of a certain situation. Even when I came back to University it took me quite a bit of time to fully recover physically and mentally.
I wish I could tell this in my application since it can be important to not put me at a strong disadvantage with respect to people that took one year less than me to get to this point.
Should I talk about this?
If yes, where and how? I was thinking about writing a few lines in the cover letter but I have no idea how detailed such things should be. From one side I wouldn't like to give detailed informations on my personal issues to random people and from another side I'd like to be clear on how affected I was by them. I'd also like to be extremely clear that this issues, in my opinion, don't completely justify my delay in finishing the study.
Maybe I should simply not worry about it and just apply and see what it comes out of it, but I'm not in a mood to waste chances right now.
Clarification: the question refers to the programs that require some sort of cover letter/personal statement, as far as regards the programs that don't require it, I can do nothing about them.

Does the application process require a personal statement?  That would be the place to discuss this.

@Jeff Some of them don't so I can't do anything for them. My question was about the programmes that require a cover letter, where I could (but should I?) write that?  I'll specify it in the question

I suggest you say very little in your application materials. Nothing more than "My completion was delayed by medical/(or whatever) considerations, now resolved."
Just that. If you get into a situation in which you need to say more, it will likely be with a small group and you can go into detail as you see best.
They will have some valid concern that the old issues won't cause a problem in the future, so be prepared to address that.
And who can say, even yourself, what contributed to the delay. Illness, family problems, lots of things can cause stress that reduce focus and make things harder. Don't make assumptions that you've done wrong, at least not in public.

Be very brief and to say that the problems are fixed now.  Nobody wants to hear you bare your soul, to get the details on how your grandpa died or broke your leg or whatever.  You are a more mature person and more dedicated person now.  You are trying to sell yourself here.  So all you want to do is show that you covered the issue and then shift the topic to points where you can show positive attributes. (Worked in industry successfully, etc., whatever you have.)


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How long outside academia without publishing is too long?
I finished a PhD in Earth Science 10 months ago and now work as a software engineer. I haven’t done any research or published in these 10 months. Is it too late for me to go for a postdoc and have a realistic shot at tenure track? My PhD is from a good school in our field and I have a good publication record in top journals in our field.

You should be getting advice about such things from your advisor and/or other experienced colleagues within your academic field. It’s hard for anyone here to make predictions about whether you can get a postdoc based on so little information.
In general though, I would say 10 months isn’t such a long time, so if you were in a good position to get a postdoc 10 months ago then it shouldn’t be very different now, assuming you are on good terms with your advisor and other people who can write you letters. And who knows, the skills you developed in your software engineering job might even come in handy in academic research. Good luck!

You have focused on a single thing and that alone gives no real indication of possible success. While having a publication would be better, there are other things that will also be taken into consideration in any application.
You say you already have a good publication record. You will need good letters of recommendation. You will need some ideas about the research you intend to do, and may be involved in currently. There are lots of things that can help you.
In any application, stress the positive. Why is it that you are a good candidate for this position and are highly likely to succeed. If you can show that, then individual factors will have less negative importance.
But it would be good to start thinking about what you can do to get a publication, or the background research, going so that this state doesn't continue. Work so that you can write a good Statement of Purpose for the future, with some evidence to back it up.


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Racial Classification in US College Admissions Process
Elite U.S. universities are known to have affirmative action policies based on race and sex (and maybe religion?), in an effort to promote diversity.
I wonder how they can classify applicants based on race, given that it is sometimes difficult to clearly identify or prove one's race.
Is there a checkbox dedicated to race on an application form? For example, can a child of an Asian mother and a black farther choose to be categorized as black so as to improve the chance of admission?
I am asking these questions purely out of curiosity because I was born, raised and educated in Japan, a rather homogeneous society where no official records on race are kept.
I wonder the U.S. registry keeps residents' races, so it is relatively easy for Americans to obtain official documents proving their races.
As for religion, I guess it is even more difficult to obtain official documents. So, do applicants discretionally select their religions without the need to prove it, or does the U.S. government have religious records on its citizens? If applicants are free to choose, some unscrupulous individuals can choose a minority religion that gives a better chance, regardless of their true faith?
I have no idea about international applicants. Outside the U.S., it is very difficult and sometime impossible to officially prove one's race or religion, so the U.S. college admissions committee considers nationality only in the screening process?
I have no plan to apply for a U.S. university or have no interest in ideological stuff. But I would like to know practical aspects of affirmative action in American universities.

It relies entirely on self-identification. There are no legal definitions.

This might be a duplicate, but I hope I could know more about practical details. The stakes are high for applicants, and U.S. elite universities actually give some "advantages" to some groups in terms of SAT scores and grades. I am at a loss as to why the admissions committee accepts everything self-reported without checking its authenticity, given having a degree at a prestigious university boosts lifetime earnings power hugely. This screening process seems to be prone to abuse.

The point of racial or ethnic preferences is to adjust for discrimination, historical mistreatment and unequal access to opportunity. Trying to game your racial identification to "improve your odds" is unethical and takes opportunity away from someone who has been hobbled by discrimination. It's no different from faking a disability to get an accommodation. It certainly goes on, but most people have the decency not to do it.