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Is it unethical to use a published code in my PhD thesis work?
I used code from a published Masters thesis in my PhD work. I have modified just 10% of the code to suit my research requirement. However, most of the code is as developed by the original researcher. I had to use the code from the literature because I currently don't have the time, the resources or the motivation to write the code from scratch.
However, I am in a dilemma whether I am doing something unethical by using code developed by someone else for my research. I will cite the original thesis in my papers and thesis. I will cite it in the following manner:

The code used in this thesis has been developed based on the work published by John Doe at the University of Agartha [1].
[1] Doe, J. Implementation of a code. University of Agartha, 2008.

Also, I am not going to add the code in my thesis or my paper. Will this be unethical and violation of the original author's copyright?

Under which licence has the code been published? Most likely, the original author published the code so that you and another researchers can work with it.

There are three issues:

Is it a copyright violation? This depends on the license under which the original code was released.  You'll have to read it.

Is it plagiarism?  No, you have credited the original author.  However, you may want to make it more clear that it is really a relatively minor modification of their code.  Your current wording, "developed based on work...", could be interpreted as "I got some ideas from their work but then wrote all my code from scratch", which would misrepresent the real contribution of the other authors.

Is it adequate for your PhD thesis? You could write an entire thesis that just used the work of others, appropriately cited, with minor tweaks.  It wouldn't be plagiarism, but it also wouldn't get you a PhD, because it doesn't demonstrate an ability to do independent research.  So, you need to make sure that your advisor and committee are fully aware of what parts are your own work, and what parts are the work of others, so that they can evaluate your research accomplishment based on what you did.  If they don't feel it's adequate, then you may have to do more work in order to complete a thesis that will pass.
The same applies when you publish a paper.  Here, the editors and reviewers need to evaluate your paper based on its novelty - what part of it is new work, versus what simply makes use of existing work?

Copyright isn't involved if the code isn't published.

@Buffy No, you also need a license to use the code.  The question asks about the ethics of using the code, not writing a thesis about it.

Good answer, I’ll add that when referencing code it’s fairly standard to provide a link to the public repository from which you got the code (eg GitHub)

"a relatively minor modification of their code"; actually, that would depend on what the 10% does (and how 'critical' it is); if the 90% is just doing UI, data formatting and parsing and what-not, while the 10% is the part that's actually doing the actual analysis work, well, that 10% change would be, in fact, a major change IMHO...

@AnonymousPhysicist That question is common sense and has little to do with Academia. It's the same as "Is it ethical to use Microsoft Word to write my thesis?", "Not if you pirated it".

@Buffy If the code isn't published, all rights are reserved by default.

@CaptainEmacs, the thesis was published. I don't think copyright means what you think it means. It is about publishing, not about using. There is a lot of misunderstanding here. Not just for this question, but generally. I can't republish or publish a derived work without a license, but I can certainly use it.

@CaptainEmacs, suppose I highjack a truck on its way to Borders Books and it has a thousand books inside. Suppose I read those books, probably published "all rights reserved". It isn't copyright law that I break.

@Buffy I am afraid I cannot at all follow your arguments here. It is simply evading the issue. Which is: can I use a copyrighted code for my PhD work, which is by definition public? I do not think this has been answered knowledgeably here. The example with the stolen truck is neither here nor there; it's a criminal matter, while copyright etc. are civil matters. These would be separate lawsuits even if in the same incident. The question is whether you get in trouble for using an published but not copylefted method. The Free Software movement constantly battles with these issues.

As for the ethics, as long as the citation is clear and unambiguous, it does not feel like there is a problem. I think the crux is the legal aspect.

@CaptainEmacs, what is it, exactly, that you think copyright law protects and prevents? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States. It is about publishing and displaying the works of others and derived works based on them. It isn't at all about use. It isn't even about creation and use of derived works, only about publishing them. Read it. IIRC, the Berne convention is more permissive than US law.

@Buffy I am not a lawyer, and I take it you are neither. Perhaps we should await some qualified response here? I have followed for many years the developments around the Free Software movement and they were very careful to avoid a situation as the OP describes, precisely because of the difficulty and grey areas in the field. If you use a code privately, of course nobody can check that. If you write a PhD based on that, which effectively is public, that's different. I read the Wikipedia page as you demanded: it says "preparing a derivative work" is exclusive right of the copyright owner. Sorry.

No, it is not unethical. If the original authors didn't want you to use the code, they would not have made it public. In fact they're likely to be flattered that you find their code useful/interesting enough to make use of it.
Of course, you need to cite the original authors, since you're using their work.

It depends what license they released it under.

@Elin, not for use.

OP is not using, OP is modifying.   And licenses can be about use, it is just that some licenses are more focused on distribution, e.g. the GPL license to you gives you the license to redistribute under certain conditions. It also gives you license to run, study and modify.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
But what you suggest is fine unless the code has been patented. That is very unlikely, of course.
Distinguish between using something (permitted - unless patented) and republishing it (depends on license).
The only time in which you can't use something is when it has been patented but not licensed to you. I doubt that is the case here. But otherwise you can use what you find and you can use modifications of it. You just can't republish the work of others without some sort of permission such as a license.
Plagiarism is a different issue than publishing/copyright. If you cite the work you are correctly attributing it to the source and so avoid plagiarism.
Think of an analogy with mathematics. If I find a (copyright) formula in a math book, I can use it. I can even adapt it for other use. I can't claim that I created it (that would be plagiarism) and I can't republish it without permission. If this were not the case it would be impossible for mathematics to advance. Every formula or other idea would be an absolute block to every other mathematician.
Think of an analogy with poetry. If I find a poem published somewhere, I can adapt and rewrite it for my own purposes. I just can't republish it and I may not be able to publish my rewrite. But I can use it myself, perhaps for my own enjoyment.
Code is a bit different since it can be executed. If I find it and it isn't patented, I can execute it. I can also rewrite it for my own purposes. And I can execute that also. I just can't republish it necessarily. And whether I can publish the changed code depends on things.
For reproducibility purposes you can publish how you changed the original because that is your work, but you may not be able to publish the complete version you used since it is in part the work of another, but that depends on the license.

Patenting code is extremely problematic in my view. Unfortunately it is possible to do it in some places.
Note that I've assumed that the program code is published as text, not as an executable. I've also assumed that you have legal access to that text.

Note also, that I've assumed that it isn't a "trade secret". If that were the case then you wouldn't be able to even see it without (probably) signing an explicit license setting out terms. But holders of trade secrets have to do due diligence in keeping the work "secret".

You are assuming the author has legal access to the code/book/poem in the first place.  I wish you were right, but you're not.  Your profile says you are CS professor.  I would guess you have read the EULA on commercial software and seen all the restrictions it places.  Your institution probably pays for licenses that do not follow the rules you have described in your answer.

@AnonymousPhysicist, yes I make that assumption. I think that is fair for something (computer code) "published in a Masters thesis". It is quite different for things not published as source but only as executables.

@AnonymousPhysicist, Computer science textbooks are usually published with "all rights reserved". They contain code, like the "hello world" program. Is a student being unethical for entering that program and executing it? For adapting it to "hello universe"?

@AnonymousPhysicist, note that commercial entities use "trade secret" to protect their source code. By publishing executables the only way to "use" it is to circumvent copyright and the only use of the copy is to execute it. That isn't the same for the source code which has other uses, such as learning from it. If you have a legal copy of the source you can use it for all legal uses including execution. But you can't publish it or publish adaptations without license. Source code is just text.

@AnonymousPhysicist, also note that EULA agreements are about contract law, not copyright law. And, since they are restrictive, not permissive, some courts have ruled that some such "agreements" are not enforceable, being improper use of contract law. Confusing these things isn't helpful to the OP. Note that copyright license is, by its nature permissive. You can't impose added restrictions through a copyright license. Contract law is quite different.


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Use plural or singular first person in abstract of a talk on collaborative work?
When writing an abstract for a talk on a topic that I have collaborated on with others, should I be using the plural form, such as

"We have shown this and that ..."

or is it better to write it as:

"I will discuss this and that ..."

possible duplicate of Should I write "we" or "I" in my research statement?

This refers specifically to writing an abstract for a talk that I'm going to give, not a written document.

Use "we", because although only one person will be giving the talk, you are representing the work of multiple people.

The subject of course depends on the sentence, and in math either type of sentence is fine.  If the subject is who is talking, use first person singular (you do not need to use the royal "we").  If the subject is who did the work, use the plural.  Often I will vary the sentence structure so both "I" and "we" appear in the abstract.
Of course, you should certainly say who the work is joint with (if it does not automatically appear in the speaker info).  E.g., "I will discuss joint work with Charles Xavier, where we..."  Or just add a sentence to the end "This is joint work with Charles Xavier."

In general, I agree with jakebeal for the reason he gave. However, one of my colleagues was recently criticized for not using "I" in an abstract he submitted for a postdoc position. Apparently, some people like to see "I" as a way of differentiating between what was contributed by the person vs. what was done as a group (e.g., "I built the apparatus. We gathered data and analyzed it."). From your question, it's not clear in what environment your talk will be given, but in case it is indeed a job talk, you may consider using "I" at least once. Otherwise, I think "we" is appropriate.

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What's the benefit of delaying a tenure-track position for doing a postdoc (when you already have a tenure-track offer)?
I've seen candidates for tenure-track positions in computer science that managed to negotiate a starting date that is a year later than originally planned. During that additional year, they all seem to be doing a PostDoc in various places.
I'm wondering what the benefit of this is. Many departments provide you with a lighter teaching load during your first year, so it seems to me that the overhead with moving to a new place (for just a year), working on a postdoc salary, and then, before the 12 months are up, moving again, doesn't strike me as an efficient way to develop one's career.
Is there some big advantage of doing such a postdoc rather than immediately starting your tenure-track position that I'm missing?

Once you have a t-t position, you're in a race against time to get as many publications as you can before your tenure clock runs out.
A postdoc effectively gives you one more year of focused attention to research and publications before you have to start teaching.
Note that teaching can be highly disruptive to research and publications, especially in your first year.

Right.  Even if you get a light load your first tenure-track year, if you postpone, you get a year with very light or no teaching, and then a year with light teaching.

I see. A question aside, regarding tenure decisions, are only the publications considered from the start of your t-t position or since the beginning of your career?

It depends. You have to ask if your tenure clock resets when you start or not. I don't have any sense of what percentage reset or not. However, note that publication pipelines are often long so even if you submit an article in your postdoc year, it might not be published until well after you've taken the job.

@curiousacademic In theory, at least in my department, only since the start of the position.  In practice, at least in my department, such a clean separation is simply impossible.

In addition to postponing the tenure clock by a year, there's another benefit that can accrue from a postdoc: you get to learn a new area, and work with a new group of people, which will improve your group management and leadership experience, and broaden your knowledge base for the future.

I think there are three main benefits:

Delay the start of the clock. When a TT position starts, you have a fixed amount of time until your tenure case goes up for review. At that point, your whole portfolio of work and letters from scholars in your field and everything else will be evaluated. If you have more time to publish and build a reputation, you can do more in this regard and build a stronger portfolio and a stronger case for tenure.
Focus on research. Tenure cases are evaluated almost completely in terms of research productivity, quality, and impact. Post-docs are usually full-time research positions. TT jobs are largely teaching and service. In this sense, there are some ways that it's easier to build a tenure case without a tenure track job!
Work in another institution. If you have a job at University X but have an offer for a post-doc at University Y (perhaps a more prestigious institution) this way you can still take the job and add the CV line for Y. It's also a great way to build your network and start collaborations.

Of course, post-docs certainly not without costs once you have the TT job in hand. For example, post-docs generally can't apply for grants as principle investigators and this is something that often matters for tenure.

I have never heard of the restriction that postdocs cannot be PIs on grants. It must be specific to some funding agencies and/or grants.

In the mathematical sciences, postdocs can apply for both NSF and NSA grants as PIs.  I did a little googling, and it looked to me that more often than not postdocs can be PIs on NSF grants (but I did find an exception).  If there are fields in which postdocs are usually not eligible to be PIs on NS grants, it would be useful to know.

@PeteL.Clark: The rules I ran up against were from my institution rather than the funder. Basically, my sense is that schools don't want to have longer-term funding tied to a PIs without long term position. I did a post-doc year with an accepted TT job in the department where I would start the job and I had to get special written permission from the dean in order to apply for grants as a PI because my title was not on the list of titles that the OSP allowed to be a PI.

That's interesting.  In my department, certain postdocs are required by us to apply for grant support each year.

@PeteL.Clark: this is more a matter of how the university classifies postdocs, I believe. For example the Szegő Assistant Professors at Stanford are PI-eligible (the university considers them faculty), whereas C.L.E. Moore Instructors at MIT are not PI-eligible positions, though this can be gotten around in certain ways.

@TomChurch: When I was a postdoc at MIT, the policies changed.  The first two years when I applied for NSF grants, I had to have a faculty member as a nominal PI (though the NSF understood this and regarded me as the "real" PI), but the last year I was there they changed things and I was able to apply for an NSF grant as a PI.

@AndyPutman: Hmm, that's strange; I spoke to a Moore Instructor in either 2013 or 2014 who had needed to apply with a nominal PI. Perhaps she had been misinformed? In any case, it's good to let people know that this workaround is possible!

@TomChurch: My grant DMS-1005318 was awarded to me while I was at MIT (though I transferred it to Rice before it started), and I was allowed to apply for it without a nominal PI (this was during the 2009-2010 academic year).  But I was forced to use a nominal PI on a previous unsuccessful application.  The whole system there is very confusing, so it is not surprising to me that the OSR changes the requirements from year to year.

I can't comment so take it as a possible answer to what has already been correctly said. Usually, postdoc positions are tax-free (at least in Canada for a limited number of years). It is certainly not the main reason to delay tt but a rather pleasant one.

See http://www.checkmatescientist.net/2013/04/the-canadian-postdocs-guide-to-income.html and http://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/the-black-hole/2013-taxes-for-canadian-postdocs-the-goal-is-consistency/

Anyway, even if postdocs were tax-free (which they never were in the US, by the way), the salary for a TT position is more than enough to make up the difference.

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Does a low GPA in an unrelated (second) major affect math PhD admissions?
I'm a second year undergrad in Canada, double majoring in math and philosophy. I take philosophy only because it is a spare time interest in high school, but I'm planning to apply math PhD after my undergrad study.
The problem now is that, my philosophy grade is overall 3.3(77-79, B+), though my math grade is 4.0(85+,A).
I'm wondering whether or not my philosophy grade will affect my math PhD application (targeting a top 20 program in North America)?

I've edited the secondary question you added later out of this post because the Q&A model works best when you ask one question per post; but please feel free to ask the second question in a new, separate post.

For a math PhD program, the GPA in math is by far the most important.  Your overall GPA still counts for something, but GPA in a different major may not count for anything more: if you applied to my math PhD program (UGA), I don't think your philosophy GPA would specifically be considered by us.  If your overall GPA were something like 3.5 and your math GPA is 4.0: well, then you look like an overall good student who is outstanding at math.  That's what math PhD programs want!
Having said that: I note that (i) you intend to go to a math PhD program, (ii) you have a perfect(?) math GPA and a (perfectly respectable but) significantly lower GPA in your second major, and (iii) you describe your second major "as a spare time interest in high school".  I don't quite get it: you're not in high school anymore, so....tell me again why you're majoring in philosophy?


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Does living in university housing mean that they will own intellectual property you create there?
So I was wondering. Most IP policies at Universities state that you must work on inventions, software, etc. on your own time in order to keep your rights to it. Most also say that you can't use University facilities in the process. But if you live in student housing, wouldn't this count as a "University facility." So wouldn't it technically be impossible to patent something while keeping your rights?

Not a lawyer, but you lease residential housing. The university still owns it, but so long as you follow the agreements in the contract, I don't see why they can have any bounding on work you do in the room, especially when you're doing it on your own computer.

If there's a university in the world that has actually claimed ownership of a student's invention on the basis of them living in university housing, or even announced that it might do so, I'll eat my hat.

The only real answer is to read the specific IP agreement you sign with your university, or have a lawyer read it for you.  That said, I agree with Nate Eldredge that it is extremely unlikely that any university would even attempt to create such an arrangement, let alone succeed in enforcing it.

University IP policies generally have a separate category for intellectual property created using resources "usually and customarily provided" by the university. In every policy I've ever seen, even if the university generally retains ownership of IP created using university facilities, this excludes the above category (which would certainly include standard university housing).
For example, at the University of Illinois:

Traditional academic copyrightable works created using university resources usually and customarily provided are owned by the creators. Such works need not be licensed to the University.
When determining ownership and license rights in copyrightable works, "University resources usually and customarily provided" includes office space, library facilities, ordinary access to computers and networks, or salary.

At the University of Arkansas:

Creator is entitled to copyright ownership and right to revenues subject to compliance with conflict of interest and commitment policies.
This category applies when the faculty or staff member constructs the materials using nothing more than university resources usually and customarily provided. These include but may not be limited to office space, library facilities, ordinary access to computers and networks, faculty development workshops, or salary.
The author owns the copyright and is entitled to receive all revenues for commercialization, subject to the conflict of interest and commitment policies.

An alternative terminology for the same concept is to distinguish between "substantial" and non-substantial use of resources. For example, at Minnesota State:

Substantial Use of Resources. Substantial use exists when resources are provided beyond the normal professional, technology, and technical support supplied by the college, university, and/or system office to an individual or individuals for development of a project or program.

Or at CMU:

Substantial use of university facilities means extensive unreimbursed use of major university laboratory, studio or computational facilities, or human resources. The use of these facilities must be important to the creation of the intellectual property; merely incidental use of a facility does not constitute substantial use, nor does extensive use of a facility commonly available to all faculty or professional staff (such as libraries and offices), nor does extensive use of a specialized facility for routine tasks.

First of all, how should be defined "University facility" in this context? I don't think that housing would make part of the definition. They must consider labs, machines and so on.
Therefore, I believe that it is possible to patent something and still hold the intellectual property.
Anyhow, you should read carefully the IP policies at your university and find out what they actually call "university facility"

I am not a lawyer, so I don't know the answer of this question. But, let me ask you this: does the broad band or wifi counted as "university facility"?

It's not a easy question to answer since every university may define "facility" in a different way. In my personal opinion: it shouldn't count as "university facility".


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Why is my mood dictated so much by how well my research is going?
I'm a senior PhD student at an American university. I have found over the course of my degree that my mood has largely been influenced by how well my research is going. If I make a small break-through then I feel great - conversely, if I am struggling or have gotten stuck on something then it completely takes over me and my mood declines. I know that this isn't healthy and it isn't really fair to the people who care about me.
Does anyone else experience this? How can I make moves to lessen the impact of my research results on the quality of my life?

I think a large number of us experience the same thing.  I know I certainly do.  The solution, however, is complicated.  For myself, it manifests as depression / anxiety and I have worked with my family doctor to find the right balance of psychotherapy and medication to, as you say, "lessen the impact of my research results on the quality of my life".  It doesn't fix everything, but it helps even things out a bit.

Not quote the same but closely related: How should I deal with discouragement as a graduate student?

For what it's worth, I don't think it's specific to research. I know many people in other fields who experience something similar.

By the way, the question in the title is different than the one in the text.  My answer was geared at the one in the text.

@ff524 I think you're right that any professional doing highly skilled, creative work will get emotionally involved in their work and have it affect their mood. What makes academic research fairly unique is the time scale of months or years over which success is measured. A lawyer may be depressed after losing a case, but there will be other cases soon after. A doctor may have a patient die, but there will be other patients the next day, etc. With research, all you've got to go on as emotional fuel until your next success is your previous successes, which could be months or years in the past.

(continued) The only creative work I can think of that I think is susceptible to something similar to the emotional rollercoaster of research is writing. Writer's block seems to me very analogous to not making progress with your research, and can similarly lead to anxiety and depression due to the similarly long time scale in which success in writing (especially of novels) is measured. Most humans just aren't psychologically geared to go for long periods of time without any positive feedback on the things they spend must of their waking hours doing.

Would that we could master Kolinahr...

@Dan I don't have any personal experience with practice of law or medicine, but engineers and programmers can often spend months and years investing all their time and energy into a project. (Have you ever read "The Soul of a New Machine"? I recommend it.) Also: people doing startups, tech or otherwise, including those on the business side. All of these non-research professionals have a similar level of emotional investment in their work, also measured over a long time scale. I'm sure there are other examples.

@ff524 sure, I completely agree, but it still feels like there's a qualitative difference. With programming/engineering projects (I've worked on several of those), even when the project lasts a long time you still make tangible progress every day and can look back and see that a new module was created or improved, code was written, etc. With research (at least the kind that I'm familiar with) you can go for months without any concrete sign of progress, just exploring various leads that turn out to be dead ends. So yes, emotional investment is common but this feels quite different to me.

@ff524 p.s. thanks for the book recommendation, I'll check it out. And I also realize I'm thinking of research in a math/theoretical context so for someone who works in a lab the process may be more similar to an engineering/programming environment, where every day you can actually feel like you've done something. :-)

Why is my mood dictated so much by how well my research is going? Whose isn't?

Maybe it's the opposite, your mood dictates the amount of work done.

Is it really surprising that success makes you happy and failure makes you sad? Isn't this an obvious and fundamental part of being a human with emotions and self-awareness?

In running circles they say don't get too happy when it is downhill and too sad when uphill. Perhaps apply the same to research.

Keep track of the things that haven't worked. They are new research results too! Maybe not publishable, but still things that you have tried and rejected.

It may suggest that how you're going at hobbies, or how your personal relationships are faring, isn't affecting your mood much.

I'm reminded of a bumper sticker I saw: I hate golf! / I hate golf! / I hate golf! / NICE SHOT! / I love golf!

@DanRomik: As a mathematician with a (very) little experience working in a lab, I'd say the difference in this context is smaller than you might think.  There are plenty of days in a lab without any concrete sign of progress.  Yes, in a lab you you may do "something" every day, but likewise a mathematician can scribble thoughts on paper every day, and that's not the same as progress.

Because you care about your research, and you care about having the opportunity to continue doing research, and your research success (even if it's out of your control) determines your ability to continue doing research.

Exactly how do you know that this isn't healthy? As noted below, your handling of it is where health is more involved. Try hard not to forget that human minds have both rational and emotional aspects. Life would hardly be worthwhile without both.

When I meet someone aiming for something big, facing a failure and getting too sad about it I encourage him to watch this 4min video. It clearly demonstrates why failures are part of the path to success.

Does anyone else experience this?

Yes, I'm pretty sure we all do to some extent, and that it's one of the defining characteristics of being a researcher that you get so emotionally involved in your work and are so passionate about it that it has that effect. It can be both a curse and a blessing (see the fantastic question linked to by jakebeal in the comments). Hopefully if you are talented and work hard, it will be the latter more often than the former.
As for how to manage it:

get used to it (I mean that literally, not as a sarcastic admonition) - if you plan a career in academia there will always be ups and downs of this sort. At some point one learns to be patient and not to freak out every time the research isn't going great.

Always have other more "normal" work to do, like teaching, that can help you feel like you're doing something worthwhile even during those times when you're stumped with your research.

Caveat: the "normal" work might also go badly, and you might be more prone to perceive it as such if the research is not great.

@tomasz I think the idea (which is largely correct) is that those other "normal" work aspects, like teaching, are less likely to unexpectedly explode in your face, despite you doing most things right. They are more predictable - if you are an ok teacher in general, your next lecture is unlikely to be an utter disaster either.

I agree with others that this is natural, though I'm not sure I would say its unhealthy.  It's how you deal with your emotions that may be healthy or unhealthy.  Here are some suggestions, which have some overlap with other answers.

First, realize that your goal is to learn and understand things, not to get a result today.  The world's not going to come crashing down if it takes you months longer to solve something than you hoped, or even if you never solve it.  This can help you to enjoy the full range of research, of which "struggling in the dark" is a large part.  Barry Mazur's fond of saying "when something is hard, that means it's interesting."
Cathart. Talking to other people about your frustrations can help you deal with them, and also give perspect.  (Of course, you don't want to vent all the time.)
Try to find other things to do so that you feel productive.  This is one reason it's helpful to have multiple projects going on at one time, preferably each in various stages, which is common for senior researchers though less common for junior researchers.  Maybe you can spend time writing up notes on something, reading papers, or learning a relevant topic, to at least feel like you're accomplishing something.
I personally have not mastered separating work life and home life either (I'm also not sure it's necessary), and sometimes I come home down about work.  I find it helpful to have an engaging non-academic hobby, to get your mind completely off work for a time.  It could be something physical like sports, or less physical like novels/cinema.

You scared me for a second with "Barry Mazur was..."  Is he not still fond of saying this?

@PeteL.Clark Well, I wasn't sure, hence the past tense.  But I have a solution that shouldn't scare people!

For me, the simple attempt is to achieve at least one positive thing a day and hang on to that. If all else failed, I still have something that I can feel happy about. It might be as small as automating some mundane task that I repeatedly did manually, preparing a couple figures that will be useful for some presentation/publications, etc.
Obviously this assumes you have multiple parallel things running, but that is always good anyhow. (i.e. "not all eggs in one basket")

I found that if I left something unfinished at the end of the day, then the next day I was ready to finish it.

I tend to believe that (some) people choose research because it fills them with emotions, either positive or negative. This is a fuel for your interest in searching. The history of science contains a lot of descriptions of both alternating enthusiasm and depression (often in a milder form).
Tricks that work are often subject dependent. Examples are relaxation, a walk outside. It is often useful to have persons to talk to, and who listen. They know not need to understand what you stuck with. Speaking problemes out loud to somebody sometimes expel... something, and help you solve parts of the issues. I do that with colleagues, and offer them to do the same with me in return. Some collaborations arose from that.
As said by @Burak Ulgut, routine work may help too. When I am good at nothing, I do reference search and fill my reference management library, and leave my mind wander. It feels like gardening, very soothing, which I cannot do at work.
You also have to learn to treat yourself more gently. Savor little victories too, and remember that you often learn more by failures you understand than with illogical successes.
Finally, if all that does not work, or if it worsens, do not hesitate to seek for some mental condition. A lot of creators, artists, scientists, may have a form of mania. It could be hypomania (weak form),  that often  gets unnoticed, and light medicines can help you maintain some comfort. I learnt by my physician friend that some cured maniacs know how to underdose their medicines to remain in a slightly manic phase, and stay more creative and full of energy.
Warning, the backdraft can be severe, do not try this at home.

I am guessing that you identify with being a scientist and focus a lot on research. In this case, it is no wonder that a lot of your feeling of self-worth is tied to how the work is going.
Which is a problem if the work is not going well -- which given science, of course there are phases where this is the case (nobody has done it before!).
Strong suggestion to

Change the time perspective: Tie your work-related feelings of self worth not to the immediate work, but also to your prior work. A mishap in an experiment do not invalidate years of good work (had to be good, otherwise you would not work in science anymore).
Find other sources of self-confirmation (hobbies and the like, something you love to do and are good at). As the saying goes, never place all your eggs in one basket.

We're only human. To be born without such emotion would be impossible.
To me it sounds like you're more emotionally attached to your results than you are your performance (execution of process). This is extremely common in any line of work/study.
One thing we have to remember is that certain results are out of our control. We can't completely control when we are "winning" or "losing". All we can completely control is the amount of effort we exert.
Instead of totally focusing on the results your actions generate, how about becoming emotionally invested in your performance.
If you work smartly on a research problem all day, then you can feel good. It doesn't matter if you've gained the insight your after. You came, you did your best, you deserve to feel good.
Conversely, if you start researching for the day and find your result instantly, should you feel good? Hell yeah, we have to celebrate the wins we get.
But if you then go home straightaway to watch TV for the rest of the day, do you deserve to feel good? I don't think so. Not if your emotionally attached to your performance.
It's great that you've realized that this is a problem for yourself (most people never will). Now you can work on doing something about it. Got out there and become a better version of yourself.
Good day.
TLDR:
Results are out of our control.
Focus on your performance (execution of process).
Evaluate yourself. Justify emotions based on the amount of effort you exude.

I have noticed that meditation makes my mood much more stable. I don't get as upset anymore when something bad happens. There are meditation techniques to stop physical pain (have you seen monks committing suicide by burning them self to death), never freeze (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tummo#Scientific_investigation), need much less air when breathing (yogis put their head into a small hole for hours, with no air), etc etc etc. Meditation has tremendous effects on your mental abilities and health. Research shows that the brain will change if you meditate a lot, the cortex will thicken (that is where our higher cognitive abilities are). And of course, training does too.
Research have shown that traumatized women that trained and meditated quickly halved their mental problems in a couple of months. Better than medicine, and no negative effects.
Research shows that the only thing that creates new neurons in our brain, is physical exercise. You need to sweat for half an hour, then you create new neurons. But, these new fragile neurons will whither and die unless you exercise vigorously. But, research also shows that meditation feeds these fragile new neurons and grow them so they become full "adult" permanent neurons. So, physical exercise (running) and meditation 10 minutes a day. And in a couple of months nothing will break your peace of mind.
But meditation is a vast subject, monks study it for decades. The easiest meditation is Transcendental meditation. You just repeat a nonsensical word over and over again. That's it. When you reach trance, you will feel a tingling sensation in your limbs, feet and hands. If you are not feeling that, you are not in trance. Read upon transcendental meditation. But do not attend courses, Transcendental schools just try to rip you off money. I've never been to a course, I just repeat a word and listen to transcendental meditation instructions on youtube. That is enough, I get a tingling sensation.

I don't think it is related to academia rather to work in general.
If you are succesfull, you are happy about it. If you are failing, you are disappointed. No matter what you are doing.
In extreme we can identify extatic/neutral, neutral/frustrated, extatic/frustrated or poker-faced mood spectra for people encountered success/fail.
I suppose you are in the third group, so take it easy and try to accomplish a "small win" every day. Or you can divide the task into sequence of tasks and judge them separately.
If we took all the seriousness away, take the inspiration in this fictional man whose scientific outcomes were that he was either late (just bu couple of minutes, honestly) or he proved that something cannot be achieved the way he had chosen...

It's completely normal.
However, if you do not like the mood swings, you could just completely discourage yourself every time you have success, and then you have a consistently bad mood, with no swings (just kidding, of course!).
Perhaps more fitting is a principle of the Old Romans: "better a battle lost with everything done right, than a battle won by luck." I found that a very useful principle to follow.
You can not affect which breakthroughs you are going to have today or how well your daily progress is going to be. But, what you can do is to choose how you want to work, which pieces of work to concentrate on, how to switch activities when you find yourself stuck and similar.
Introducing a discipline of how to manage the different levels of your activity will put you in control and I predict, also your mood swings will subside when you are in control of what you choose to do (rather than depending on lucky breaks). Breakthroughs are often due to the right strategy being consistently applied with a healthy dose of self-scepticism. Good luck!

This is indeed common.
A partial solution is, as much as possible, to not let "how well your research is going" fluctuate so wildly.

Diversify. Have several threads of inquiry within a project, so that success or failure with any given one is not so destabilizing.
Be more scientific. It's of course forgivable to see negative results as failures (given the reward system) but in a purely scientific sense these are just as valuable. When doing something, be prepared for it to work or not work, and to extract information and further plans from either eventuality. If you are struggling, why? If you can get to the point of formulating your frustrations as questions, you are stronger: maybe you can answer it yourself, and if not you have a contained question to take to an advisor or colleague.

What is the likely cause for me to feel like I do?
There are many reasons why one can get too good or too bad results. Try and analyze the probable cause for the results. If you are doing research this can be split into two categories you will frequently encounter.
1) New tools one is not yet proficient in using. If one does not know how the tools are used one can easily misuse and also misinterpret output of the tools for good or bad which will affect emotions.
2) New knowledge one has not yet learned well enough to actually know what one is doing. Expect to be struggling for a bit once you try and get the hang of something you just learned about, and always start with easy examples you know what to expect from (ground-truth).
Hopefully you will over time learn that misunderstandings which boost (or lower) your spirit do happen once in a while. If some result seems too good (or bad) to be true it usually is for one reason or another (of the two above) , so you will learn some skepticism to dampen the worst of the roller-coaster.

Yes that is common.
This is due to a strong attachment towards the outcome of the work. [Can easily be understood from Bhagavad Gita]
How to remain detached with the results while still working dutifully?
Well, many people hence take on to various alternatives or "breaks". This might be getting intoxicated a little or munching or chatting (which I consider complicating the dependency or mood).
So that can be tried.
There are many tips on this which depends on time, place and circumstance.
At my office, I know my boss is not gonna kick me anyways. So I always give my best. But if project gets complicated, I slow down (as per his standards). He adds pressure, but I don't freak because I know, he cannot kick me (earlier I would). And what can be the worse? Getting fired? There are worse things that can happen than getting fired. But I try my best to get back in best form.
I know, somehow or the other, the obstacle will clear out. And I also know, another obstacle shall settle in, that's a part of our world. There are no permanent solutions. Only temporary patchworks here and there. And the more we responsibly fight these obstacles, the more we become experienced.
So we can work out many such techniques. To remain detached to the results of work is not an easy task and is a whole subject of spirituality (nicely elaborated in Bhagavad Gita As It Is) to become like that. Most go for the approach - ignorance is bliss. So see, whatever convenient. But very few out of thousands are cry about it [Denotes sincerity, not oddness].
Very few specific meditations help. Not of the types of feeling void and nothingness. They are like forgetting the temporary existence. But fact is, engage one has to ultimately and feel the same. While working, feeling frustrated, one cannot meditate on void. Better give up work and become a full time monk, which also is not very practical in this age. Go for Mantra meditation maybe if you are inclined to spirituality.

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


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If an editor appoints a non-expert reviewer by mistake, is there any way to convey this to the editor?
What to do if somebody is suspicious after reading the review report of a research paper that one of the reviewers may be his ex-coworker, who is not an expert in the subject of the paper?

The question seems to be predicated on two assumptions:
1) If the review was not blind and the OP knew that the reviewer was his Former Coworker, he could make a convincing case to the editor that FC was not qualified to review the paper.
2) Thus, because he suspects that the reviewer was FC, he wants to contact the editor to find out if this was the case.
The second assumption is really a mistaken one, I think: according to the principles of blind review, you shouldn't know the identity of the reviewer.  If you think you do, you should nevertheless act as if you don't, and if you have partial information, you should definitely not go around sleuthing to see if you can solve the case.  This is one of the basic cultural assumptions of peer review.  I think that if the author goes down this road, it is very likely that he will be told that his actions are inappropriate and will burn bridges with the editor and the journal.
I find the first assumption problematic too, in a more subtle way.  The reason that reviews are anonymous is that you should not be engaging in an ad hominem discussion of the reviewer.  Just because you know someone's identity doesn't mean that you are an authority on their academic and intellectual qualifications.  Maybe FC didn't know your subject well back when you knew him, in your opinion.  How do you know what he knows now?
Choosing a suitable person to be the referee is the editor's call, not the author's.  Calling attention to someone's identity -- even hypothetically, as in "I don't know who the reviewer was, but if it was FC..." -- as a strike against the referee report will be regarded by many as obnoxious.  If you have anything to say to the editor, it is about the referee report itself.  If the referee report contains a comment that through its specific brand of inexpertise suggests to you that it was made by FC, forget about the FC part and explain why the comment is definitively incorrect.  If you can point out clear errors in the referee report that are in the serious to egregious range -- i.e., a reasonable person would worry that they compromise the integrity of the verdict -- then you have a case for getting the report thrown out and/or getting an additional independent report.  More likely the situation is not so clearcut, and in my opinion you should still compose a polite response to the editor if you feel that a lack of expertise played a factor in the report, but you fully expect to resubmit your paper elsewhere.
Getting a bad (as in, less than skilled) referee report and having to resubmit elsewhere is quite a common feature of peer review.  Luckily there is a lot more than one journal, so you can just start fresh elsewhere, and doing so is usually a much better idea than trying to extract reparations from the editor and/or the referee.

I would be interested to hear about the logic behind the downvote.

First, I doubt any editor would appoint a reviewer by "mistake". Editors look for persons who are deemed to provide in-depth reviews on the manuscript or in some cases part of it. As editor it is of course difficult to keep track of co-workers so it is probably not uncommon that co-workers become assigned. If a reviewers feels they cannot provide a fair review, and one such instance can be if they feel to close to the author, they have a responsibility to decline the review. It is possible an editor appoints somebody relatively familiar with your work in the belief that they have insights that may be useful. This would be a poor assumption on the part of the editor and one I would deem as slightly lazy.
Despite these and other safety-measures reviewers that for one or another reason are unsuitable become appointed. Many journals therefore have opportunities for authors to signal non-preferred reviewers. It is also possible to add names of non-wanted reviewers in the submission letters. Such persons usually are ones with whom a personal conflict exists.
With all that in mind, it is not clear that the editor has made any mistake despite the fact that you look unfavourable on the choice and suspect that you know one of the reviewers. If you feel a review is off in some respect, you are free to signal this to the editor when you return a revised manuscript (assuming you received a revisions "verdict"). If your manuscript is rejected and the rejection is due to the reviewer you would see as non-preferable, you should contact the editor to see if you can discuss a "second chance". The problem here is that you need to have sound arguments for the problem arising from the reviewer. The fact that no indication of the non-preferred status of the reviewer is, form the view of the editor, a complicating factor; how is the editor to know? Suspecting you know the reviewer is not a very solid ground for changing the opinion.
So, the best you can do is to work with the reviews to improve the manuscript and provide good arguments for not following points where you believe reviewers do not have a strong point. So take the reviews in stride and simply argue for what you think are reasonable constructive changes to your manuscript.

"First, I doubt any editor would appoint a reviewer by "mistake"." I have been appointed as a reviewer by mistake at least once, and depending upon what that means, maybe more.  Once I got a referee request that was such a non sequitur that I immediately inquired about it, and was told that sorry, they had sent that paper to me by mistake and actually had wanted me to referee a different paper.  I could go on...Mistakes do happen.

(I agree that as an author, trying to explain to the editor that you think you know who the referee was and that they were not an appropriate choice is not the way to go.)

Regarding the comments of Peter Jackson, authors give some name of preferable reviewer. From the recommendation of one of the reviewers, editor may select a reviewer without through checking his field of expertization and recent past affiliation.

Regarding the comments of Rafael Max Wayld, how can I get a confirmation that my suspect is correct? Reviewer's name is always hided in peer-review process.

@PrabhatKoner: you can't. Reviewers are anonymous.

First of all, it is perfectly alright to review a coworker's article, unless they were involved in the research or provided assistance of some sort - in other words, they shouldn't be biased. If, as your question's title suggests, the reviewer is not an expert in the field, and the editor made the mistake of appointing him with this task, you could contact the editor asking why he did so. Mention that he is just your coworker and not an expert in this area. Instead of making quick judgments, wait for the review and go through it to see if it is acceptable by your own standards. It is very unlikely, I believe, that it would be worthless to a point were you might want to ask your editor to reject it, nevertheless you could always make a request to exclude that review from being published.
NOTE: Contact your editor and ask for advice.

" If, as your question's title suggests, the reviewer is not an expert in the field, and the editor made the mistake of appointing him with this task, you could contact the editor asking why he did so." This does not seem like useful advice, as the OP has no way of knowing whether the hypotheses are satisfied, and trying to find out violates the principle of blind review.  If after reflection the OP feels strongly that the review evinces a lack of expertise, he should send a letter expressing that politely to the editor and expect to resubmit to another journal.

Regarding the Pete L Clark comments: I have worked with him in a group for four years. He is expert in X field and I am expert in Y field.  I know his set of opinions in my work when we worked in common project. I put his name in acknowledgement due to the fact that his contribution is not enough to be a coauthor for this paper. My suspect is started when I notice the set of questions, language and tone are same in my review report. Most of his questions/comments are out of the context.

@Prabhat: I suggest that you edit your question to add information and context.  E.g.: "coworker" normally means someone who has the same employer as you.  If you were actually doing research alongside him, you should say a bit about that.  (If you were working in the same research group then I don't understand how you could be in different fields; maybe you could explain...)  If he contributed to the work and is clearly acknowledged so, then he is an inappropriate choice of a referee for the paper, and the editor should have known better.  Still I think the remedy is to submit elsewhere.

"Most of his questions/comments are out of the context." If that's the case you should bring that to the editor's attention, as I mention in my answer.  The issue of the identity of the reviewer is really secondary, unless you think there is a conflict of interest.  Do you feel that his report was not done in good faith?

Of course, it is conflict of interest.

@Prabhat: Your two line question seems to omit a lot of the nuances of your situation.  If you are not satisfied with the answers you've received so far, would you please go back and edit the question?

Pete: Regarding your question of different fields; according to my past publications, I am working on ill-posed inversion and according to his recent past publications record, he is expert in instrument calibration. But all are related to the remote sensing problems. I have a doubt that editor has known him before. I have already prepared 20 pages answer for his 10 pages comments. I am afraid that editor will not be interested to read a large document.


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How to find an (Undergrad) research assistant position in europe?
I am an undergraduate student in the Netherlands (and non-EU citizen). For some reason I  feel research assistantships (at my level, or even once you graduate) are more common in the US than in Europe. Perhaps I am not familiar with the lingo here though.
I was wondering where to look for, or what should characterise an RA position in Europe and how to find one at my level.
So far, all I have been able to do is volunteer at a lab (doing grunt work and getting some crappy data to play around with in return). But nothing serious that involves me in one of the projects of the laboratory, gets me close to collaborating in a publication (even if my name is not in it), or resembles what I think the definition of RA should be (since I am not collaborating on any research).
I am looking for a bit of clarity on where and what I should be looking for. Thanks!

Since you're in the NL, have you tried going to http://en.academicpositions.nl/ and searching for research assistant jobs? It may vary from field to field, but I'm not sure I'd characterise research assistant positions as being particularly uncommon in Europe.

Yes, but I have not found anything Undergrad Friendly there. I just feel that RA possibilities as undergraduate are very uncommon in Europe (compare to how widespread they seem in the US).

What do you mean "undergrad friendly?" Something where the only required qualification is an undergraduate degree? Something where you don't even need that?

@Ian_Fin Something to which an undergrad (i.e., somebody with only high school qualifications so far) might be appointed.

Grunt work that produces data sound like research to me. (Not necessarily interesting research, but it sounds like some research.)

I strongly wish this question were renamed to "... position in the Netherlands?" (although I do not want to make the edit myself, as it kind-of changes the OP's intent as originally written). In organisational aspects, "Europe" is rather too diverse (e.g. what counts as "undergrad"? What is an RA, and are RA and TA two different things or the same thing? Wh offers and hires RAs, university, department, single professor?) for the question to be answerable (in particular in such a way that is helpful to the OP, who is now, and probably for the time being, located in NL).

The Dutch term you are looking for is Studentassistent.
My experience in the Netherlands (some time ago and in the social sciences) is that these positions are fairly rare. Moreover they were rarely advertised. If someone had funding for such a position, a student was directly asked. At my current institution in Germany we have so much funding earmarked for "HiWis" we have trouble filling all the positions.
So I don't think it is a European thing; there are huge differences between countries and disciplines.

I believe that's the crux of the matter. "If someone had funding for such a position, a student was directly asked." If a Professor already knows hundreds of his students (both previous students and current ones), he will draw from that pool of students when he needs to. So at the very least, the OP needs to visit his Professors (and even visit other Professors he doesn't know) during office hours and make his interest known to them.

From what I've seen a "studentassistent" is generally a teaching assistant (Dutch wikipedia confirms this). Though I may just not have seen them in a research capacity due to differences between universities/departments/etc.

That is not quite true, but it does lead to a good point: No distinction is made between research and teaching assistents, they both have the same name. So you need to ask what your duties will be if you are interested in doing research and get offered a position as studentassistent.

@MaartenBuis That explains! Just not a thing in the departments I'm familiar with then : )

Such positions are likely to be extremely rare in The Netherlands (this possibly extends to a number of other European countries with similar bachelor-master structures).
As an undergraduate you are not expected to do much in terms of research. It is not unusual for the only research to be part of a bachelor's thesis, if that. This likely stems from there being no use in this from the perspective of Dutch higher education. You usually don't need research experience (never mind publications) to get into a masters program and it would be highly exceptional if you landed a PhD position without a masters degree.
Once in a masters' program (assuming it is research oriented) you will find more opportunities, though these may simply be research projects that are part of the program and not RA positions. If you do well in such a research project you should find your professor happy to work with you. And while at this level funded RA positions exist I don't believe they are common. And as @MaartenBuis mentions, a professor is likely to know who they want for such a position. Moreover, usually there will be plenty of students looking for a thesis topic that will work for free...

"what I think the definition of RA should be...."
It's possible you have a fundamental misunderstanding about research assistantships ("RAships"), at least as they are structured in the U.S.  I hope others will post to describe what the definition of "RA" is in other parts of the world.  Perhaps you could post some links if there's something you read on the internet that shaped your thinking about them.
I will describe what I know about the most common research positions for students in the U.S., for comparison purposes.

Here's my understanding of how RAships most typically work in the U.S.  My understanding of an RA position is that it is offered to a grad student.  Typically a professor with grant money would offer an RAship to a student he feels is very promising.  Typically, the student accepting the RAship would move from a teaching assistanship (TAship) to the RAship, and this would take 20 hours of grading and office hour duties off his To Do list each week, enabling him to focus more intensively on his research.  Most often, this type of RAship is offered when the student is a well-known quantity, for example after passing the basic (but substantial) PhD exams (which have different names at different institutions).
However, sometimes a professor will offer an RAship to an entering first-year student.
The RAship, similar to the TAship, comes with a stipend and a tuition deferral.  Meaning, you get a bare bones salary, and you get to register for classes at a cost of $0.  This is extremely important in the U.S.
My impression is that this tuition deferral is of much less importance (or relevance) in Europe.
An RA might be assigned to do very specific tasks for the advisor, to a greater or lesser degree, but never more than 20 hours per week (averaged out over the semester).  In any case, he will be expected to work hard on his own studies which are supposed to lead, eventually, if he's a beginner, or directly, if he is farther along, to a PhD thesis.  He will be expected to reporting regularly on his progress.  His advisor is supposed to be actively involved in mentoring and guidance throughout the research endeavor.
Separate from that, there are REUs in the U.S.: Research Experiences for Undergraduates.  I see these taking place in the summer, but I'll let you read about them to see if they are actually only done in the summer or not.
An REU, to be a successful experience for the student, needs to be carefully structured by the scientist mentor.

I imagine there are questions here at Academica SE about how to choose an advisor and how to choose a research project, that could be useful for you.  My guess is that this is the important thing for you.  (I am not sure that focusing on the financial aspects would be particularly helpful.)

In the Netherlands an RA as you describe it would make no sense: PhD students are either full time employees or get a full stipend and they don't pay tuition. This would be an explanation why the RA position does not exist in the Netherlands.

@MaartenBuis - Thanks for confirming that.  What is confusing for me in this question is the OP's undergrad status.  Can you clarify (perhaps in your answer) the difference between research positions for undergrads vs. grad students, in the countries you're familiar with?

Grad students in the Netherlands are paid to do their research. So the position "grad student" is all there is, there are no additional TA or RA positions.

The German situation is a bit more complex. A common model ( in the social sciences) is that the prof acquires funding for a gradstudent to work on a project for 50%, and (s)he gets paid for just that 50%. They are then expected to do their PhD research in the remaining 50%. I guess this is a bit similar to an RA.

Research positions at the undergrad level either involve repetitive simple tasks or a researcher wants to coach a promising student. The former can be helpful for the researcher, the latter just costs the researcher time (but has other rewards like seeing a promising student improve her or his chances). I do the latter, but I don't have the capacity to do more than one at the time.

@MaartenBuis - Yes, it takes time to do it well.  // I'm not sure the OP should be focusing so specifically on a "research assistantship" as an undergrad, but I'm not sure what would be the European equivalent of an REU.


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LOR from a Retired Professor
If my professor is retiring at the end of the semester, would his letter of recommendation carry weight when I apply for PhD programs eventually (later on)?

I don't see why it wouldn't. If your professor was fortunate enough to have a career at a university where he could properly retire from, then he must have had an outstanding reputation at his university and in his field.

I think the weight will have nothing to do with whether the professor is retired, and everything to do with the professor's own reputation (for instance the correlation between strong letters in the past and the success of students being recommended).


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How to write side-note reviews on assignments without sounding testy?
I'm an undergrad teaching assistant of a physic BSc student's lab. My job is reviewing the (usually 8-10 pages long) reports the students make, arriving in electronic format. During the review, I add short comments (1-2 sentences) to the document: things like "that's false because this and that", "this would've been better such and such", "you also could've check that and that", etc. The students then get their commented report back graded by the professor. Related to the course, I never meet the students in person.
The main purpose of these comments, among letting students know what they did wrong, is to help them improve their experimental skills. Observing and documenting everything reasonable, interpreting the results, thinking further, being consistent, etc. As such, there're usually a lot of comments on every student's report - usually 3-5/page - even on A-graded ones.
My concern is it's kind of hard to write even constructive comments of this kind without the possibility of sounding somewhat cantankerous. The relatively lot of "that"s bad, that's wrong/missing/false/etc" comments I make on small, but not unimportant errors set up a negative tone as is, and in this atmosphere even writing something like "that wasn't strictly in the task, but it's interesting to think about this and that" may come down as negative. I try to add as much positive comments as I can - but the simple "Good!", "Clever!", "I like the approach" kind of notes feel falsely in large amounts, especially when the student didn't really do anything outstanding, only did what he was told. Expanding them with something like "That's good work. You could also check that and that" also turns into education.
I'd like to avoid coming down too testy: it would kill the purpose, making students dismiss my comments as "nah, that guy finds error in everything". I want the students to feel that I actually want to help them, and I'm on their side. The professor - of course - told them the purpose of the reviews, but I know that when I did this same lab course (a year ago), there were still (silent) words like that about our teaching assistants.
How could I make my coments more encouraging, without sounding false?

My answer to How to find positive things in a code review? on Software Engineering SE has application here.

You may be looking for the term 'teaching assistant' (TA), which is relatively standard phrasing.

I just wrote testy comments, but I was dealing with a batch of kids who couldn't wrap their minds around the difference between a mathematical proof and an example. -_-

You are probably going to seem a bit testy to them in writing.  That is okay.  It's part of your job to show them where they are wrong.  Just make sure that when you talk to them in person you are constructive and upbeat.

I can see you've given some thought to balancing the negative with some positive.  That's good.  Note, you don't need to remark on every single thing they did right.
If you have a rubric, a list of elements you look for in each lab report, you may wish to put a check mark in the margin wherever you see that a required element is present.
Sometimes a student doesn't manage to get much of anything right.  In that case, it can be helpful to notice something positive about what they were trying to do, e.g. "Glad to see you caught this contradiction."
Try expressing things as questions, rather than statements.  Examples:

Can you also check such-and-so?  How does this fit in with etc.?

One of my professors would write in my proofs, instead of "Does not follow" or "Not relevant,"

How is this germane?

As a student, with certain graders, I was sometimes unsure whether a particular comment was positive or negative or just food for thought.  So try to avoid those misunderstandings, e.g. "Food for thought: etc." or "Enrichment idea: etc." or "Conclusion is correct; be careful to make clear the connection between…"
Be tactful — meaning, your belief that they are trying hard, and can get better with your guidance, should come through.  Example: "Watch out, need more digits here to avoid rounding error later on."
I suggest you arrange with the professor to visit the class briefly at or near the beginning of the semester, and maybe at the midpoint again, to introduce yourself and show a friendly face.  Convey to them that your job is to give them lots of specific feedback to help them improve their work.  This can help humanize things.


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How to apply for a faculty position elsewhere without revealing the conflict with current dept chair?
I am a new faculty member. My chair is simply crazy in my perspective.
I am an assistant professor. However, my teaching assignment is "offering individual statistical consulting/workshops", not "teaching any classes". This was indicated in my job description when I applied for this job. However, several times, she says, "you are not teaching" - so she says that I need to do what she asks me to do because she pays my salary (I really do not know why she pays).
What she wants me to do is to write research/funding proposals and articles, then put her as the PI/the first author although they are my research ideas/works. She has taken three studies so far. More seriously, when she took the first one, I refused it. Then she sent out an official letter including some other faculty, saying that she took my research proposal because it was originally her idea and I stole it. Worse still, she then forced me to write the paper for her.
My Ph.D. is in statistics. She said that I couldn't get tenured unless I change my research field into an education field which she wanted to do. Her point was again "paycheck" - I should do something because I am not teaching.
Worst of all, she claims I am a bad person and faculty member because I refuse her unethical requests as a researcher. Furthermore, she talks about me to all the other faculty members, causing them to hesitate to be friends with me. Whatever I say goes to the chair.
Anyway, I am leaving - what should I do to be free from the chair in the application procedure. I really do not want anyone to contact the chair as my referee. By the way, I wouldn't mention my chair in anywhere on my application documents.

Thank you for your help! I think that I figured out what I need to do now.

assitent professor that cannot become associate why?

Good search committee members are aware that many applicants do not want their current department to know that they are applying for a job. Search committee members should only be contacting your listed references. That said there are plenty of bad search committee members and plenty of search committees that accidentally let information leak out.
It is perfectly reasonable to not list your current chair, or anyone from your current department, as a reference. You should, however, list your current position on your CV. Not listing your chair as a reference does not mean your chair will not get an informal phone call, but there is nothing you can do about that. You should also know that when a department chair gives a reference, they often highlight the good aspects, and ignore the bad aspects, of people they want to get rid of and focus on the bad aspects of people they want to keep.

This chair might well not want OP to leave.  But I support this answer overall.

@aparente001 I agree, and I tried to keep my wording neutral. I just wanted to point out that the current chair has a conflict of interest when recommending current faculty members.


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Does knowing the language of the country of a prospective institution influence admission chances?
This question applies to universities in the Netherlands
If a given programme at an institution is being taught in English in full, would I be right in assuming that two otherwise identical applications (or as close as possible), differing only in whether the applicant knew the local language of the country where the institution is based, would also be ranked differently—with the applicant knowing the language being ranked better—despite the programme being listed as English-language without any assumptions of local language knowledge?

I'm going to guess that if you know English you can get along anywhere in Europe pretty well. I don't see why anyone would have additional requirements.

@Buffy the question wasn't specifically about it being a requirement, but whether it was a bonus or not. It's understood that knowing English is a sufficient criterion.

I doubt any selector would mark you down because you don't speak the local language on the evaluation sheet. At the same time, I would also assume that it's in the back of the mind of evaluators: After all, succeeding in a place isn't just tied to the language in which classes are taught. Knowing the local language has many other benefits:

You can participate in the coffee conversations of your peer students.
You will have an easier time having a large and supportive social environment.
You will likely be happier. It's hard living in a place where you don't speak the local language: Many otherwise mundane things (registering your residence, getting a driver's license, dealing with visa issues) are all difficult if you don't speak the language; they will eat your time, and they will in the long run also eat at your happiness. You will feel lonely and isolated.

Evaluators know all of this, and it will be on their minds when comparing applications even if there is no specific field on the evaluation sheet.
I'll add one other thing: Universities in Europe are largely funded by taxpayers. It is clear to everyone who works there that that comes with the obligation to educate the next generation of people living in the respective country. They do not necessarily have to come from that country, but it's a loss to the country to educate people who end up not staying in the long run, and someone who doesn't speak the local language isn't likely going to stay.

Regarding the last paragraph: I'm already aware, I'm writing this from an European background, so the process locally is functionally identical. Otherwise, those are good points.

Many universities teach in the local language(s). Being able to do this can be helpful. I guess this is more relevant when seeking a more advanced position; "admission" probably refers to PhD or master level or thereabouts.

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


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Doctoral Advising: No Available, Appropriate Chairs
I work at a regional university in the United States. Several years ago (before I arrived) our department admitted five years of doctoral students (approximately 50 students) as general admits to a distance doctoral program without assigning chairs.
Now those students are reaching comps and the dissertation. Four faculty left in the last year which is stressing our already over-capacity workloads.
Many students are interested in topics for which we have no faculty experts. We are going to hire a new faculty cohort in the next five years but there is no guarantee those faculty interests will match our students’.
Are faculty obligated to work with and graduate students we did not admit?
Is there a precedent for such a situation?

What's your field? This circumstance would be completely ridiculous in my field and the answer would be "Students can't work on arbitrary topics without faculty support so it would never get this far..." Though a "distance doctoral" program also sounds pretty suspect to me.. I'd also suggest omitting the "legally" obligated portion, in any case, typically questions that depend on institutional rules are not well-received.

What is legal or not depends on the country you're in and, possibly, on the agreement signed by the students at the moment of the enrollment. We cannot really tell.

It seems that somebody was not really thinking through the implications of admitting all those students. The fact that they are in a distance program is secondary - if you have a bunch of PhD students nearing graduation and a bunch of faculty left, what would you do for them?

I doubt that you have individual liability under the law, but the law varies. The university is very possibly open to lawsuit. Legal and moral responsibility don't always align very well, especially in a situation like this. The design of the program should have been very different, but that train has left the station. You have to deal with the crash as best you can. Even in the best case, the reputation of the place will suffer. And note that if there was negligence, then it wasn't a single act in time. What was done in the interim to fix the problem?

Admitting without having a supervisor aligned is bad practice. I have witnessed a case of that and it's not a pretty sight. Highly discouraged. Now that the horse has bolted, you will have to strongly suggest that the students pick their topic amongst the available supervisors with the least overload.

@CaptainEmacs True, but in some departments students are forbidden to have a supervisor until they have passed some milestones.

@AnonymousPhysicist Then they better cater for plan B's, and should have mitigation procedures in place.

Even if it's not "distance learning", there is an obvious hazard in admitting doctoral students that do not fit into the capacity of the faculty. It's irresponsible to the point of immorality. Ok, but/and once they're in your program, yes, your program has an ethical and even moral obligation to serve them well.
There is the complication that, if the students are by-accident allowed to toooo freely choose topics, that it is manifestly infeasible to properly advise them. Someone "should have" explained this to them at the outset. In doing a PhD, "distance" or otherwise, one cannot choose a topic first, and somehow insist that the faculty in the immediate vicinity supervise it. (Nor, of course, is it sane to try to do a project independent of an advisor, or significantly outside one's advisor's expertise. It's hard enough to do a PhD project even when one's advisor is an expert on the topic.)

Are faculty obligated to work with and graduate students we did not admit?

That's a good question which I can't answer for the US but can sorta answer for the UK so I'll put what I have here in case someone has the same question for a different location.
In most UK universities, with some subject specific variation, you can be assigned PhD students that you did not admit and did not agree to supervise, either by your line manager or by your head of subject/school/college, etc. You have the ability to protest, but in a situation where faculty have left, students have been abandoned, and there are a lot of students that need supervision, you risk appearing uncollegiate because, really, everyone is going to have to take one some of those people. Appearing uncollegiate will likely have an effect on your performance review, on your promotion pathway, and how your colleagues feel about you. Also your line manager and the higher ups, to some degree, get to tell you what your job is and if they tell you your job is supervising some PhD students, unless your contract is very specific, your job is supervising some PhD students.
Indeed, if you ask the University, they will likely say that PhD students are guaranteed supervision, but are not guaranteed supervision by experts in their exact topic. Students often are quite shocked to be told this when it comes up; faculty, of course, hate it too.

I think these are excellent points (for the UK system, as you say) and the last paragraph in particular is something that both students and staff are not always made aware of

They (and we) tend to find it out at points of extreme stress for everyone involved, usually when the student finds out the person they hoped to work with is not available.

@GrotesqueSI A comment from a current PhD candidate in the UK, and technically a distance learner: I am not shocked that my excellent supervisor is not NOW an expert in my  specific field of research because I have been researching it, with his guidance, to the point that I know it better than he does. Isn't that what original research is supposed to be about?

Unfortunately this is not unprescedented.  Usually, what happens is:

Too many students are admitted.
Something of value is extracted from the students.  Maybe they pay tuition or they serve as TAs for low pay.
The students who do not have supervisors all fail their comprehensive/qualifying exams.

If your department is doing this by accident, my only advice is to stop doing it.  If your department is doing it on purpose, then my advise is to start looking for a job in a different university that treats its students better.


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How to write a personal statement if I change my interest?
I was interested in deep learning and devoted most of my undergraduate time to it. However, as I learn more about this field, I discover it does not fit me: I hate tuning parameters and doing experiments. Developing concrete and explainable applications seems more appealing to me.
I am about to apply for grad schools in CS and the personal statements become a headache. I what to apply for professional programs but all my experiences are in AI.
If I don't write about them, I have nothing to say except for mundane course projects. If I write about them, how can I explain why I choose a program for future SDE? Should I do intern works for the time being and postpone my application to next year?
I am also considering programs that do not have a clear orientation to work or research. Should I focus on one topic, post two topics in a parallel manner, or, discuss my changed mind in my PS? I am afraid that changing mind would be considered as a lack of resolution and reliability.

"Developing concrete and explainable applications seems more appealing to me." So why are you applying for graduate school?  Isn't industry a better place to do that?

Are you in the US (or considering studying there) or elsewhere?

I am not in the US. I am curious about what education here is like and I also look for career opportunities. Applying for grad school is a way to do so.

I'm still confused about location. Where is "here" in your comment? I can offer advice for US study (maybe Canada) but not most other places.

What do SDE and PS stand for?

Sorry for the confusion I brought. "here" means the US. I am considering studying in the US.

A personal statement is set up to describe the development of your interests as they pertain to your graduate program. People apply to graduate programs for many reasons. The backgrounds of applicants may differ widely. The personal statement is an opportunity to tie together your experiences in such a way that they show the school that your skills and interests will likely lead to success in their program.
In your case, you need to talk about your previous experiences, show the research skills you mastered, and describe in positive terms how that led you to an interest in professional work. A few general tips:

List out how your experience in AI would help you in that school's CS program. Then, in your draft, describe previous projects in ways that highlight the transfer of skills. These can be general abilities - like time management and project delegation - or specific skills with development tools.
Think about the transition in positive terms. Don't focus on what you don't like in AI, because the purpose of a personal statement is not to write about why you don't study something else. Focus on what you like about software development. Then, as your overall narrative, convey from point to point how AI led you to pursue software development. (If you really have no positive reasons for pursuing CS, then you shouldn't be applying.)
Specify an achievable goal that the graduate degree would help you attain. In other words, if you go to this school and work with professors in X and Y areas to earn (for example) an MS, what do you plan to do? Setting such a goal will help flesh out your motivation.

I think the best personal statements are the honest ones. Your question here might be the first draft of yours. Describe what you studied, why you want to move on to something more concrete and immediately useful/fun. (Be a little less forceful than "hate tuning parameters".) You can explain why simple (perhaps not "mundane") course projects turned you in this direction.
If you can connect your future plans to the work of particular people at the school you are applying to your odds will improve. Tailor your cover letter as appropriate.

I am about to apply for grad schools in CS and the personal statements become a headache. I what to apply for professional programs but all my experiences are in AI.

You could advertise your experience and explain why you want to move, e.g.,

I devoted a significant amount of my undergraduate study to deep learning,
      with results including [[summarise results]]. I want to shift my focus to
      [[grad school topic]], since I favour [[benefits of new topic]] over
      [[disadvantages of old topic]].


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Why would a research professor want my CV and research statement if they cannot supervise students?
Recently I contacted a research professor at a major US university about being his student. After some days, I emailed the head of the school asking if research professors are allowed to supervise students, he replied no. Today I received a message from this research professor telling me that I need to send him CV and research statement, but why is that?

An answer to this will depend hugely on what "research professor" means, in your context. In the U.S., in many universities, being allowed to supervise grad students is "granted" as a separate thing from actual research work/function, and may be granted prior to tenure (for people on tenure track), but/and not to postdocs, for example. It's as much bureaucratic as it is scientific/intellectual. You should try to get some clarification...

Seems like a question only this research professor can answer. The only options are: (1) he misunderstood your request, (2) the department head misunderstood your question, or (3) he is a jerk who likes wasting your time by having you submit pointless research statements...

@cag51 Or (4), the research professor isn't officially allowed to supervise students, but has ways around that, for example by having another professor take that role while remaining a/the de facto advisor/mentor. Yes, getting clarification from the people or institution involved seems like the best path forward.

Normally in the US graduate admissions is up to a committee of the department, not to an individual professor. You need to be admitted before such conversations with a professor are meaningful. Perhaps the head of school just meant that it isn't in the professor's power to accept you and you need to apply normally.