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Writing and publishing a technical note about an R package
I prepared a developmental version of an R package specific to my field of study. Now I would like to encourage more people to use it and contribute code. My plan is to release a technical note describing the package in a field-specific journal. MATLAB is dominating my area of research so I don't think that usual R-specific channels (CRAN or The R Journal) would be appropriate to reach this scientific community.
However, I could not find R-specific guidelines to releasing technical notes about R packages. This relates not only to this particular journal but scientific journals in general.
To be precise, I would like to know:

it is a common practice to write a technical note about a package that's only available on GitHub (no CRAN version yet)
at what stage of development the package should be so that it can be
written up as a technical note
are there any guidelines to publishing technical notes about R packages

Can you think of any other considerations to keep in mind?
Thanks
I am aware of the submission guidelines to The R Journal but I think that my package is not aimed at the general public and it's at a rather early stage of development.
This question was previously posted on StackOverflow but the moderators suggested that I post it here.

This is a very specific question for a very specific software (R). Not sure whether Academia SE is the right place.

That's exactly what I thought, but the SO moderators closed the question and suggested I ask it here :/

Okay. As far as I know, R packages can be distributed using GitHub. I assume, that publishing a technical note about a R package publicly available on GitHub should be no big deal.

You may find this list from the Software Sustainability Institute's page to be useful: In which journals should I publish my software?. Also, are there any R-specific mailing lists, forums? It seems that your target audience may be well represented there.

@FuzzyLeapfrog The author used R in the title, but the question could be made more general as follows: "Writing and publishing a technical note about an scientific software package"

What is your technical subfield? Journals such as Source Code for Biology and Medicine exist for biology and medicine and similar journals probably exist your field as well.

My subfield is neuroscience and I have found a journal which is willing to accept the technical note. The question is what are the procedures for releasing a technical notes for R packages (if there are any specific ones). Alternatively, guidelines for releasing technical notes on any software package could be also useful.

@Roland that's my plan. I wanted to do it after a bit more testing and adding a couple more functions. What would be the main benefit of submitting to CRAN in terms of publishing the technical note? Would it make a package look more established?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because I don't see the connection to academia.

Obviously you will need to do a bit of work to find the most appropriate journal for your field, but publishing an article about an R package is completely acceptable. In fact, "An R package for reading EPANET files" by Eck was published in Environmental Modelling & Software which describes itself as follows,

Environmental Modelling & Software publishes contributions, in the
  form of research articles, reviews and short communications, on recent
  advances in environmental modelling and/or software. The aim is to
  improve our capacity to represent, understand, predict or manage the
  behaviour of environmental systems at all practical scales, and to
  communicate those improvements to a wide scientific and professional
  audience.

Thanks. I do realise that it is possible to release a technical note about an R package. I even found some examples but I wasn't sure how the authors tackled the writing or at what stage of software development it was done. If the communal wisdom of SE won't help, then I'll try to contact the authors.

@epo3 I'm actually working on a manuscript for EM&S for a Java package that I'm development. Let me know if you want my contact information since it is likely a conversation for outside of the SE.


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How faculty might assess a PhD applicant who already has a PhD degree?
What concerns/worries a potential PhD supervisor might have when he/she sees an application from someone who already has a PhD and applying for the second one? The fields of study are distantly related (engineering - physics).
What questions should be addressed in the initial letter by the applicant?
The first PhD is not a complete failure but an applicant wants to pursue his ultimate interests. The applicant has a postdoc position secured but has serious doubts working in the field that is not of major interest for him. Postdoc applications in the field of main interest didn't result in getting a position.

Najib Idrissi, thank you for the link! It's kind of pointless to begin a polemic with an old post from the different thread, still... Collecting degrees is not a goal for me - I will be happy with one, if I can do what makes me happy without having a PhD - I won't do PhD at all. If it helps not to tell that I already have a degree and it is legal - I will not tell.

It is that from my limited experience applying for postdocs and personal bias, the first degree doesn't open the doors I want to open. As mentioned in the link, it is rather sad situation but I'm afraid it could be even sadder to tie yourself to something that is not for you.
The story about Raoul Bott is an outlier, stories about people stuck with something they don't like are not.

Here are the concerns I would have:

Is this person seriously going to spend another N-years getting a second doctoral degree, and then go seek a postdoctoral position before pursuing the job they presumably want to have? If so, what is this going to do to their career, and do I want to be party to that?
How did this person get all the way through a PhD in something other than their "ultimate interest"? Do they know what their "ultimate interest" is now?
Did they try to switch fields mid-PhD, or get some credentializing in the field they wanted to be in. If so, how much? If not, why not?
Do I think this person has strong prospects in this field? They've failed to get a postdoc - was this the result of just a small number of applications, or genuinely a problem. Again, if their postdoc application was weak, do I think it could be salvaged?

Thank you for your reply! It is very useful to get perspective from the "other side".
It is not easy to address the second comment. I don't have a rational answer to this question. Basically, I feel bad quitting something half way. And you never know, should one give up when it is difficult or it is just something that everyone else has to deal with and you just will be a quitter. I decided to persevere.
There is no program related to the filed of interest where I'm right now. I took courses that remotely related - got to use what is available. I also steered current project towards interest

Regarding the last note. I got a postdoc in the field other than the field of interest. Some of the postdoc applications in the field of interest were turned down because "applicant has no experience in the field of proposed research".
Is it useful to include a short document with research ideas that are extension to the work done by the potential adviser when contacting him/her?

@InCheck If you're not coming into a postdoc from the field, your cover letter etc. should absolutely try to communicate "I have interesting and potentially useful thoughts in this area".

I think every PhD graduate was in your situation to some degree. Let me advise you to do not waste (you read it right!) your time for the second PhD degree. Nothing will come out of it. You could get a posdoc in the area that you like if it is applicable. Also you could find a job in the area of your interest. Again, don't waste your time, you already learned your lessons during your PhD degree and it is time to move on.

To bring in the key idea from the linked question:
I would expect one thought might be 'What does this person think a PhD is about?'
A PhD is not just about learning some new facts. That can be done by getting a book out of the library. A PhD is also about learning to be a researcher. Some of that will be the same for any subject - getting better at thinking carefully and reasoning well. Some of that will be shared between, say, sciences - getting better at research techniques, learning to write papers, style of teaching and presenting. The smaller part that is subject specific is often learned by doing a postdoc, or just as part of life as an academic.
Given that, I would think there needs to be a reason why a second PhD is the best way of acquiring new skills, rather than the alternatives.

I know of one person who has two PhDs in somewhat related fields. His first PhD was on pure mathematics, and he managed to complete his second PhD in 3 years in operations research. For this person, earning this second PhD allowed him to get a job in a business school which pays quite a bit more than a job at a math department. He was also able to complete his PhD faster than average (the average/median at his school was about 5 years).
I know another person who got a PhD in physics and is now studying for a PhD in finance. While the fields are related, I suspect he is doing so because a PhD in finance would open doors that would not open with a PhD in physics.
To summarize, it is not typical for a person to study a second PhD but some people choose to do so and it can work out for them.

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How to provide information about past students without violating FERPA
The instructions for supervisors of an NIH NRSA Fellowship say:

B. Sponsor's/Co-Sponsor’s Previous Fellows/Trainees Give the total number of predoctoral and postdoctoral individuals previously sponsored. Select up to five that are representative and, for those five, provide information on time spent in the lab their present employing organizations and position titles or occupations. Include this information for any co-sponsor as well.

While the instructions do not say the supervisor needs to provide names, even in the absence of a name, providing the information seem like it is treading close to a FERPA violation. It would be surprising if a reviewer would not be able to identify who the former students from the required information even in the absence of the name.
Do I need my former students to fill out some sort of FERPA statement? If so, can I make it them agreeing to some sort of blanket FERPA release a requirement for me to agree to supervise them?

Ask your Sponsored Research Office or equivalent. Given that this is a federal government requirement, either NIH or your university will have to make a call  on whether this information is covered by FERPA or not. If your SRO can't tell, they may have to call NIH for a ruling.

Usually a "sponsored individual" would have been employed in your lab as a research assistant or some similar title.  So one could argue that this is asking about those individuals in their capacity as employees; information about their employment might not be considered an "educational record" for the purposes of FERPA.  As @BillBarth says, you should consult with your institution, since they're the ones who will be sued if you are wrong, but it's hard for me to imagine that this hasn't already been considered and resolved.

Also, the information requested here (even including names) sounds to me like it falls under FERPA's class of "directory information".

@Nate Student employment records are considered education records if the job requires the holder to be a student.

I agree with Nate. For example, enrollment status, major field of study, degrees received are considered to be directory information and can be released without violating FERPA. Just don't go out of your way to provide the NIH with actual PII.

Intuitively I would think that if signed consents were needed, NIH would instruct you to include them in your application or, at least, to obtain them and keep them on file.
I checked a few universities and found that they publish an email address for addressing FERPA questions.  Also, there is a contact page for the compliance section of the Department of Education: http://familypolicy.ed.gov/content/family-policy-compliance-office-contact-information
On p. 9 of the instructions you linked to, there is a contact page.
I'm not sure if it's relevant, but on that same page, I read:

Collection of Personal Demographic Data
NIH collects personal data through the eRA Commons Personal Profile. The data is confidential, and
is maintained under the Privacy Act record system.
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/collection-of-personal-demographic-data.htm

The part of FERPA that looks like it might be relevant is here.
The basic idea that I got about this is that NIH commits to holding the personal information you share with it as close to its chest as your university does.  In other words, it commits to using the personal information you give it for internal purposes only.  My big-picture view of FERPA is that it provides protections to students from having their personal information publicly disseminated (subject to a ton of fine print).

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Method/tactic to extracting information from articles
I am generally curious to hear what sort of technique/method people have to extract information from scientific articles, in order to write e.g. introductions.
I for instance, normally read an article in PDF, then read again and highlight "important/relevant" information. I end up going a bit back and forth to actually combine the information with other sources in my own introduction.
I know most people know not to start reading method first, and rather start with abstract and intro/discussion and things like this; however, does anyone have any good tips on more efficient ways of organizing the information I find, to make it easier for my self to use later?

Hopefully the answers here would help me do the 'related work' section faster... Even when I'm familiar with the articles, I often reread them to interpret the work in my current context....

For your specific example (introductions), I generally need to get through lots and lots of papers to sum up the state of science on a topic, so I read the abstract and the conclusions to make this time-efficient. The abstract should have the main result of the paper with statistical values to back it up, while the conclusions should have statements about the implications of the study and calls for future research. If something doesn't seem right about either, one could investigate the meat of the paper to decide whether to throw it out or save it for reference. Then, I use a program like Endnote and keep notes for how I would cite the paper. This helps me cite while I write.
As a big disclaimer here, there are some papers that might be considered seminal or groundbreaking in a field... these should be read from beginning to end because they represent major advances or shifts in knowledge, approach, etc. That's my take!


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Having kids in the US with both parents doing a PhD
My wife and I are international students planning on applying for PhD programs in the US (at nearby universities, post-bachelor's, stat/AI/ML area). We would like to know how manageable it would be to have kids while in the middle of our PhD programs. This is different from similar questions that have been asked before because:

Both parents are international students on F-1 visas and hence may not have certain privileges that US citizens have (such as having family nearby to help with childcare)

Both parents will be doing PhDs (as opposed to one doing a PhD and the other being a stay-at-home parent)

The manageability would primarily rest on the financial support needed (our PhD salaries for TA-ships + some financial aid from our home country + possibly salary earned from internships during the PhD) and the childcare help needed (we don't have family nearby but one of our parents could come to the US on a tourist visa). I suppose the role of the wife's advisor will also be important since they would have to be sympathetic towards her taking some period of maternity leave off the PhD. Any perspective on this, especially from people who have had kids during their PhDs, would be greatly appreciated.

W.r.t. (a), I would venture that the vast majority of US citizens are in grad school far from family. At least in my own dept., that number would be about 4%.

Different but related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/45855/having-children-while-at-graduate-school

Let's keep this question about the US; discussion about the possibility of studying in Europe instead has been moved to chat.

Another factor to consider: small children get sick a lot, specially once they start going to daycare. That means parents get sick too, and will be unavailable often, at unpredictable times.

Being an immigrant, having gone through graduate school and having had one child, this question throws up all kinds of red flags for me.

Grad school is not a 40 hr/wk job. It's closer to 60 hr/wk, which will already put a great strain on your relationship with your partner. If you are in a hot field like stats or ML, your hours could be even longer. Children and partners require time, where will that time come from?
It is possible for one of your visas to be cancelled or one of your visa statuses to change in some other way that requires one of you to leave the country. If you have a child, you will then have to decide if the child stays or goes, which will bring innumerable complications either way.
The first 15-18 months of a new child will be harrowing, with much crying, many sleepless nights and constant, inescapable stress. I really, genuinely thought grad school had prepared me for having a child, but the latter was more difficult.
When childcare stress increases, it will probably be your wife who steps up first, probably at the cost of her grad school progress. This will create new stress in your relationship. Eventually, she may get too tired or just unhappy with the imbalance and you will have to take on a greater share of the childcare. Now, you have a problem with your wife and your grad school progress will also take a hit.
Children are not a model that can be tuned and left to work on their own. They require time every day, and especially so in the first years of their lives. If they do not get that time when they're young, it will affect them for the rest of their lives. There is simply no way around this. To some degree, you can make up for mistakes when they're younger as they get older, but it will require much more time and effort than if they had gotten the time they needed when they were young.

To be fair, I knew people who had kids in grad school, but it was always only one parent who was enrolled, and/or they had a lot of external support (church or family) and/or they were able to retain some time for their family.
Two parents who are both enrolled, both at risk of having to leave at a moment's notice, without any guaranteed external support..., it sounds like a very high risk venture with potentially catastrophic consequences. I would advise against it in the strongest possible terms.

Thanks for the post! Regarding 1, does the flexibility of grad school after the first year make a difference? As in work hours spent on research could be put in at any available time of the day as opposed to the fixed work hours of a regular job? Also for 2), is it likely that F-1 status could change within the 5 year duration of the PhD? Regarding 3,4,5, is it likely that these issues could be reduced in the case of parents doing regular jobs?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

@YuprikYuprik In answer to your follow-up comment, as I said, I knew families where one parent was a PhD student and the other a stay-at-home parent. The ones that had external support were stressed but made it. The ones that didn't have external support left permanent psychological scars on their kids that made them never want to do it again. If you and your partner are serious about PhD study and starting a family, I would suggest getting the PhDs first, finding jobs, solidifying your immigration statuses, and then starting a family. It would be much easier and less risky.

Comments were moved to chat; they can't be moved twice, so the second time around they just get deleted instead.

It does not matter what stage you are at in your career; having children is going to make your career harder.
Having children while you are young is likely to be physically easier.
It is highly unlikely that unpaid maternity leave would be denied.  Paid maternity leave is unlikely (in the US).
Financial circumstances vary greatly.  Let's consider two scenarios.

The near-best-case scenario is to get two $45,000 engineering PhD stipends at Stanford.  The university provides you a two bedroom apartment for $30,000/year.  The university provides a $20,000 grant for child care, but it costs $32,000/year.  You pay substantial income tax.  It probably works out okay.
You get two $13,000 psychology PhD stipends at University of Nebraska - Lincoln.  A two bedroom apartment is $10,000/year.  Health insurance is $6600/year.  Childcare is $12,500/year.  To survive in Lincoln, you have to have a car.  You need a third PhD student in your family to make this work.

Do not rely on a tourist visa for child care until that visa has been issued.  While the B-2 visa is issued for visiting family, visas can be denied simply because the applicant has family in the US.  There is a maximum stay.

You're not going to see too many stipends below $13K, but there are definitely places with $13K stipends and higher costs of living.

to make your career harder? You are an extremely optimist person, having children makes your life harder!
Disclaimer: I am not joking, I have offsprings and grand offsprings, in retrospect I would still complicate my life exactly the same way.

Assuming that financial circumstances work out, I wonder what your take would be on the childcare aspect of the proposition (given that both parents would be working mainly at home)?

I do not see why you would think you would be working mainly at home for a job you don't have yet.  The only benefit of working from home is you do not have to commute.  Working from home does not enable you to do something other than work at the same time you work.

I think there are very few universities left in the US that have subsidized housing for married students. If you were at such a place, with a dense core of married students living together, the childcare situation would be easier (my situation - previous century) as some spouses would be happy to do that for a small charge. Otherwise, childcare would be a big expense, potentially.
The advisor problem and maternity leave can probably be managed in a field like math, but possibly harder if constant presence in a scientific lab is required.
Some universities might provide subsidized day-care for children, but not infants. Also make sure that the health insurance enables what you want to do. That isn't obvious in the US as we don't have a national health plan comparable to, say, UK.
But, being in the same department (starting with bachelors degrees) will cause a scheduling issue as the early years of most programs are heavily course oriented and you would probably need to be in the same course at the same time - adding to the childcare issue. The purpose of the (advanced) courses is to get you through qualifying exams, so they aren't optional and there may not be a lot of flexibility unless you were off-by-one in years, with one of you starting a year earlier than the other. But that might bring up visa issues.
At different universities you will have a transportation problem unless you are either wealthy or live in a place with good public transport, which is rare and which also implies high housing costs. A lot of the US is very dependent on cars for transport.
With two TA positions finances should be generally fine, but scheduling worse.
I read this that you don't already have kids. If you can delay that for a few years it would be much easier and, with a couple or three years of experience, you will be in a better position to make a decision and to recognize the issues.
Once you reach the dissertation stage in statistics, I'd guess that the situation changes as you can think and work everywhere and anywhere, even with kids about. Also, if you are the male partner, plan on sharing the childcare burden.
Long ago it was much easier. I had two kids by the time I finished, but we were on the safe side of all the issues I brought up (and not international students). My spouse started studies later than I did. We were in subsidized on-campus housing (very cheap) and we were surrounded by lots of others (including international students) in similar circumstances. We were also in different fields so had different schedules.

Does "dissertation stage" refer to the period after the qualifying exams? And would this mean less scheduling issues due to not having to take classes?

@Trunk Wow! I was under the impression that UK and European unis do not provide much funding to masters/PhD students. Do you know if this benefit system is still in place and whether it is common in the UK? (In which case I could look into doing a MS there instead :)

Yes, exactly that, though with a TA, you still might need to deal with schedules depending on what your duties are. But in statistics, I assume you can work alone with periodic consultations with the advisor.

Note that none of what @Trunk describes for UK is likely available in the US, though medical insurance might be for doctoral students with TAs. And, I think they were referring to doctoral student stipends, not MS level. Maybe a clarification is in order. Note "MS holding" means post masters and spouses doing masters doesn't imply funding necessarily. I used to be aware of students from some countries driving "hot beemers", but they were already very wealthy and unlikely supported by the university. Many were actually undergrads.

@YuprikYuprik in Europe, MS funding is rare, but not unheard of. PhD positions are separate, and most often paid. How well depends on where.

I inferred from your answer that it would be best for us to pass qualifiers at our universities/university first and then the class-free, remote nature of the stat PhD would generally allow for enough time for childcare (shared alternately by both of us of course) and that finances would not generally be an issue with two PhD stipends. Is this summary accurate? :)

yes, that is the crux.

The career story in the most recent issue of Science (Oct 28, 2022) is coincidentally very relevant to this. It's from a married couple in academia that eventually ended up working together in the same institution while still maintaining separate labs. They've used their situation to support couples in your situation. The story is here: Better Together (I don't think it is paywalled).
My point: you may want to consider looking for advisors that are married and work in your field. They'll understand and be more sympathetic to your situation. Combined, they also might have more financial flexibility to get both of you hired together.

I had two kids during my PhD program, my spouse was a stay-at-home parent during this time.
I would strongly recommend looking at what support your target graduate schools have for parents/new parents. This varies greatly between schools. I went to Princeton for grad school, which provided 12 weeks leave for a new primary parent (new mother, primary caregiver of newly adopted kid) and an additional semester of funding for the primary parent, among other things. They've expanded financial support for students with children since I was there, and it's even better now.
I'm not saying this to say that Princeton should be a school you should choose (there are lots of factors going into that), but just providing an example of what at least one school does provide. (And I acknowledge that Princeton has more financial resources than many schools to be able to provide these things.)
And also, even though the school provided this support and required an advisor to be okay with it, that didn't mean that every advisor on campus would've been okay with it. I didn't hear any stories to this end (which is a good thing), but I imagine some advisors may be resentful to have a student take 12 weeks off even if the university is financially supporting them during that time.
With my spouse staying at home, we never had to look really hard at childcare options. But from what we have seen and heard, on-campus childcare options that would've been available to us skew towards the higher end of costs of all available childcare, on and off campus. But where we were at, public transportation options were limited, so those who used off-campus child care and didn't have cars spent a lot of time transporting everyone even for relatively nearby places.
Cost of living should be a major consideration. Having children means that your housing, food, and transportation costs will be more than your child-free counterparts, and locations with higher costs of living will only compound that effect. Living in New Jersey was expensive and so our housing options were extremely limited (we had to live in low-quality and small on-campus housing), while if we had gone to some other schools we probably could've rented a much larger place, maybe even a single-family house. There were reasons we made the choice we did, but different choices would've had different advantages financial-wise.
By the best study we could put together, we estimated about 4% of grad students at my university had children. There are disadvantages that come with that. We would have friends get Child Protective Services called on them by student neighbors for just normal kid crying, and a lot of students were more annoyed by the presence of children on campus and in housing than anything else. Other universities will have larger fractions of grad students with children, and I imagine will have fewer of these problems.
And in the end, I would advise at least one of you to visit the university and department(s) you'll be at. My wife was pregnant at the time that I was invited to visit departments who had accepted me, and I asked lots of questions about family support at such. The department I ultimately chose had lots of positive things to say and show about being okay with grad students having kids, and that played out in practice. My advisor was supportive of my having children, they would come visit me in my office regularly and it was never awkward, and they were always welcome at department parties and other functions. I know not all departments on campus were like this.
In the end, I'm glad I didn't wait to have children until after grad school, but having them in grad school was much more difficult than I imagined it would be. Having both parents pursue PhDs simultaneously adds a whole other dimension of difficulty and complexity that I can't even imagine what that will be like.
My undergrad research advisor had kids after he finished his PhD. When I told him that we would be having a kid my first year of graduate school, he told me that he wishes he would've started having kids in graduate school. That's his experience, I can't say that that would be everybody's experience, and I don't think he and his spouse were pursuing simultaneous PhDs (they both do have PhDs).
In end, having kids in graduate school definitely decreased the quality of my research output. I performed well enough to graduate without problem, but I had trouble managing my time and mental energies in a way to be completely successful as both a parent and a developing scientist. But I don't regret that sacrifice to have my kids when I did. But it was a sacrifice to the quality of my PhD for me. And in the end, I took a different career path post-grad-school than I imagined pre-grad-school so that I could have a better work/life balance. I "left the field" as my academic colleagues would say, and in that sense having kids in grad school took me completely away from the academics of it all. But I don't (usually) regret that either.
From my experience only pursuing one PhD while having kids, I don't see how pursuing two PhDs while having kids is practicable, unless one of you is willing to be the "primary caregiver" and give much more sacrifice than the other as far as the quality of their PhD education, or you both end up with extremely understanding advisors and programs. And even with that, it's likely that your PhDs may take significantly longer than they would otherwise.
From the kids' perspective, they think those years in the dinky apartment with a busy dad were great, they don't look back on those years with any bad memories. They loved where we lived and the friends we had there, and they were so young the "bad" aspects, at least to me, didn't affect them very much.

Suggestion: Regardless if embarking for Old Nassau, or not, I think the additional provision of a few links (at entry level) how child care at a grad school may look like could serve as a valuable reference to compare with:  https://hr.princeton.edu/thrive/wellness-resources/child-care-resources (though I disagree with the address, child care is not wellness as in going to a spa), and about the building which by 2017 replaced the previous one just across Broadmead of about the same capacity (in numbers): https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/09/14/university-opens-new-child-care-center

This is precisely the model of answer I was looking for. Thanks for relaying your personal experiences. In fact, this is one other option we were considering; I have a really high GPA and could probably get into a good grad school (certainly not as high as Princeton though) and my wife could come with me as a dependent, with the intention of having kids during the 5 years of my PhD and her pursuing a PhD afterwards. Perhaps this is what your undergrad advisor was thinking of.

...I am glad to hear that there are places where one person's PhD salary could support a spouse and a baby. Is this at least somewhat common in the US or exclusively limited to schools like Princeton?

@YuprikYuprik, I wouldn't say the PhD salary supported my whole family. We had some savings, and a bit (not a lot) of early inheritance that came in, and we did end up slowly drawing on savings the five years we were there.

@YuprikYuprik RE: "Is this at least somewhat common..." It probably depends on the program/field. In my field (a natural science), there were definitely many other universities where the stipend-to-cost-of-living ratio was better than Princeton's, even at many public universities. The stipend was not as high as Princeton's, but the cost of living was far lower.

I'm writing from my own experience and that of several family members doing PhD's in various circumstances (all in the UK). I suggest that a key aspect you and your wife should consider is how many years you may spend on your PhD's. The combination of unforeseen difficulties with your research itself and balancing your time with family and other commitments will perhaps result in your taking much longer than you anticipate.
If that seems possible then three issues arise: a) Would that be acceptable to you, given that it may mean delaying the start of your subsequent careers with consequent financial implications? b) Would it be acceptable to your universities, or do they have rules or expectations about the timescale within which they expect a PhD to be completed? c) Would it fit with your visa conditions? I can't answer those questions for you, but I would suggest that if your answer to any of these is no so that you are committed to a fixed timescale then you may be taking on a very demanding challenge by embarking on PhD's in your circumstances.

As for the issues you raise: a) It would be acceptable for both of us as long as it covers expenses for a frugal lifestyle until the end of the PhDs, b) and c) I don't know this yet but I know grad student friends who got accepted for PhDs with 6 years of funding but ended up doing 7 instead (with funding). I guess as long as the extension of the timescale is within an year it should be manageable but I should look into this more. Thanks for the suggestion!

lol no way, I was being paid 24k/year, had no dependents and didn't pay rent and I was still living close to the poverty line in my area.

Modern man has lost all perspective
This is a variation on a question I encounter maybe once every year or two and it makes me cringe every time.  People lived through the Great Depression in one or zero-bedroom houses and had families of six children while they scraped for work and food.  People lived in the middle ages labouring in fields all day without running water or a working sanitation system and they had families of ten children.  People lived in bondage in the Roman and Persian empires and managed to pump out a few children in between whippings.  People lived in caves before the wheel or language was invented and had families.  So yes, this same feat is manageable for two parents in the modern world living on a leafy university campus and doing academic research while sipping chai-lattes.
The point is, there is no perfect time to have children and there is no time at which conditions are so adverse that it is infeasible to have children.  The entire history of the human race attests to these facts.  If you want to have a family, have a family.  If it matters, I went through my PhD while raising two young daughters.  I was in different situation since I was a single parent (so one person doing PhD instead of two, but same essential issue).  Raising children while doing a PhD full-time is not trivial, but it is probably no more difficult than raising children while working a full-time job.  It is manageable and enjoyable if you are sensible about the trade-offs and make appropriate arrangements with supervisors, etc. to ensure that you are able to respond to childcare requirements.  You will probably find that you need to work some nights after the children go to bed.  With two people you will have the ability to juggle child-rearing duties to help each other out when needed.

"People lived through the Great Depression in one or zero-bedroom houses and had families of six children while they scraped for work and food" this is hardly a healthy or desirable way to live and clearly something OP is trying to avoid. By ignoring the implied requirement of wanting to not live in poverty/hardship this does not answer the question and is not a useful answer.

The hardship is in the situations that do not involve the (extremely favourable) circumstances of the OP.  The usefulness lies in pointing this out.

*The point is, there is no perfect time to have children and there is no time at which conditions are so adverse that it is infeasible to have children. * correct.

People lived through the Great Depression in one or zero-bedroom houses and had families of six children while they scraped for work and food.* wrong, Great Depression heroes did not have a choice, here we have someone that is dreaming of pursuing a PhD and do not want to end up enjoying the Great Depression lifestyle. I understand that science require sacrifice, but OP is doing a very reasonable (and rare) assesment!

@EarlGrey: Nothing in my answer suggests that OP will end up with a lifestyle like those in the Great Depression --- quite the contrary.

@Ben it is quite evident from your reply that you are not considering the difficulties of being on a F-1 visa in the US. The fact that you managed as a single parent with two young daughters is a remarkable sign of the support from social structures: what you forget in your analogy about middle ages is that a single-parent with two (or any number of young daughters) was, as a median person, surviving by bringing the young daughters to prostitution. I do not think it is your case, but I also think (and know by experience) that the US social system is closer to the middle ages than you think.

in short: don't let the suffering of the past be the benchmark for what a society can accept in the future. But feel free to use it as a personal benchmark.

You are aware that the 'success rate of raising children' in your examples was often on the order of 50% or even lower? Meaning families had 4, 6 or even more children precisely because they knew many would die before becoming adults and you needed that many to bring up 2 children all the way to adulthood.

@Ben In all the cases you cite, people lived in communities where free shared childcare was available.  In all historical situations where shared childcare was not available, most children died of malnutrition.  The lucky ones had surviving older children whose early childhood consisted of looking after the younger children and later working 16 hours a day alongside their parents.  I regularly see people posting what you've just said, and it makes me cringe every time.  If you're going to cite historical examples, know enough history to present them correctly.

-1 in that this is academia.se and not 'living in the MiddleAges.se'. Your point may be a valid one or not, but it does not fit here, nor does it answer the question. The OP is asking about the effects of having children (voluntarily/on purpose) while in grad school, with both parents attempting PhDs, not "can we have kids successfully while living in the Great Depression."

As a data scientist, you do know about selection bias, don’t you Ben? The problem with the “our ancestors survived [X], so can you - we have lost all perspective etc” argument is that the survivors of X you are taking as your purported proof that X can be survived are literally the ones who survived. What about those who didn’t? Or the ones who survived but at great cost to their and their children’s physical and mental well-being? Btw your argument could also be repeated with X being not wearing seat belts, smoking a lot of cigarettes, using leaded gasoline and paint, etc. …

… In other words, not wanting to repeat the experiences of people from the Great Depression era is not a sign of having lost perspective. To the contrary, it rather suggests having a good and healthy sense of perspective.

You have the "mother of all biases" https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/674:_Natural_Parenting

@DanRomik: Selection bias notwithstanding, present circumstances are so much more prosperous and favourable than any of the examples given that any danger of non-survival is effectively gone.  Yes, some of the people in the circumstances I mention died or did terribly, and yes there would be a survivorship bias in looking only at the survivors.  But surely people can see that the circumstances of a graduate student in a leafy modern campus circa 2022 is entirely removed from the hardships mentioned, which is the point.

Incidentally, for those who seem to think that giving my own experience is demonstrative of bias (I could just as easily say the same of anyone with contrary experience), I only mention this because the OP explicitly asks for perspectives from people who had kids while doing their PhD and states that such perspectives would be greatly appreciated.  If not for that I probably wouldn't have bothered mentioning it.

Yikes. If you insist on having the right to give an answer because you actually raised children during your PhD, then you should elaborate on what your obstacles were, not those of people died 100 years ago.

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


text:
Reneging a postdoctoral offer from Canada due to Canadian work permit delays
I was recently working as a postdoctoral researcher in the United States. My supervisor was in close collaboration with another professor in Canada and therefore I expressed interest in joining the team in Canada with which both professors responded positively.
I should mention here that I am a foreigner to both countries. Therefore, I had to apply for a work permit to move to Canada from the US. In addition, I require a full-job to remain in valid status in the US.
I applied for a Canadian work permit based on the job offer as early as I could---which was only three weeks before the tentative start date on the official letter. The processing times estimate on the Canadian website for such a process were two weeks at the time. Happily, I resigned from my US job to finalize my move and get ready for the visa.
Unfortunately, the visa has not yet arrived for another 4 weeks and my US status will expire soon unless I'm hired immediately. Therefore, I applied for a local postdoc position and received another offer. My previous supervisor in the US would not be able to re-hire me immediately and the current offer is the best option so far.
My question is as follows: I understand the resigning was a mistake in the first place. However, Is it justifiable, professionally and ethically, to accept another position in the US?  The position in Canada is ideal to me, but unfortunately, I have to commit to the US position for about a year if I sign.

Does "as early as I could" mean "immediately after accepting the position"?

Yes. I received an offer from Canada and I submitted all my documents including my physical exams in two days. I paid a significant amount of money to apply for a Canadian visa on time.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because no-one other than Canadian professor can answer that.

According to your comment, I edited the question.

Whether this specific Canadian professor would understand we, of course, cannot tell. Yet people tend to be understanding of delays due to bureaucratic visa issues, or things just not working out - especially if you communicate this clearly. I would suggest reaching out to that professor, laying out the situation and seeing if anything can be done. Perhaps they're willing to delay your start by a year, perhaps not. What you don't want to happen is the professor reaching out to you a month from now, asking when you're planning to show up, and you having to respond that actually you started a completely different position.
A sidenote is that you'd probably not be legally bound to a one-year commitment in the US, but I think you're right in not wanting to burn those bridges before they're even built.

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


text:
Tips on finding research groups that focus on credit scoring based on alternative data
Despite conducting a thorough Google search implementing all the tips provided in answers to this question, I still haven't managed to find a single active research group (at a university, or a public research institute) that focuses on credit scoring based on alternative data. (By alternative data I mostly refer to mobile phone data, psychometrics-related data, social network data, digital footprint data etc - virtually anything besides traditional credit history data provided by credit bureaus).
I did manage to find the famous Entrepreneurial Finance lab at Harvard University, however, they don't seem to be active or publishing anymore since they started an extremely successful spin-off company.
There seem to be many startups focusing on alternative data based credit scoring but their technology is of course proprietary and I can't find any relevant papers.
So what I'm looking for is a) tips on how to find relevant research groups given the circumstances outlined above or* b) a name or even better, a list of names of research groups/labs focusing on alternative data based credit scoring. (I'm doing some background reading before officially starting my PhD studies)

inclusive OR

EDIT: After taking into account Flyto's comment I've changed the question title in order to adhere to the policy.

Ask your supervisor, ask the Entrepreneurial Finance lab, ask LenddoEFL.

Perhaps they don't want to be found...

Hi BGa, welcome to Stackexchange. Your question (b) is a "shopping question", i.e. asking for recommendations for specific subject-based organisations, which tends to be discouraged around here (partly because the chance of somebody here knowing exactly the right specialism are rather small). Your question (a) is however a good one, so I recommend editing your title to reflect that aspect.

I'd strongly suggest looking also at the legal and ethical ramifications of these questions. It might explain why there's little research on the topic.

Flyto, thank you for the feedback - I've edited the question title.

I was about to close your question before reading the comments. The question “how do I find research groups doing research on a particular topic?” Is okay because the answers would outline a general approach; “how do I find research groups working on X?” is not, because it’s unlikely to help future visitors.


text:
Conference presentation as an advertisement for a paper
I have read in a few places, for example here, that a 20-minute presentation (or indeed, any presentation at a conference) is an advertisement for the paper or research program in question. I had never thought of it this way and have tended to worry that I have not been technical enough. I now see that this is probably a mistake.
I want to incorporate this advice, but I'm still faced the problem of determining the best way to translate a full-length paper into a 20 minute presentation. That is to say, I want to get some idea of the process by which a paper is "converted" into an "advertisement" for presentation. I am wondering about which of the following, for example, is advisable:

Presenting all of the arguments and objections in the paper, but in a more surface way.
Limiting the paper to a few key points.
Leaving certain questions open by spending more time motivating the question and then suggesting or gesturing at the answer that the paper gives (this fits with the idea of an advertisement).

I realise that answers will likely take be "all of the above" or "it depends", so really what I'm interested in are additional suggestions, some idea of priorities, and some way of figuring out given the situation how to make the decision.
P.S. My discipline is philosophy.

In certain conferences in engineering the alloted time for a presentation can be even less, about 15 min. Even less time to advertise your work.

The language of the question does not distinguish between the paper (a written document) and the presentation (a spoken performance).  You're not writing a paper that will be an advertisement for itself; you're giving a presentation that is an advertisement for a paper.

@JeffE duly noted

Actually, all three of those points apply and in fact what is recommended for a conference presentation.
Additional suggestions would be the following.

In case of an original research, focus on the overview of algorithms/procedures and its nuances with respect to the existing ones (if any) or the novelty involved without jumping right down to the algorithmic details.
For a survey paper, note only the highlights of the survey and studies that provide the most impact to the field in each sub-topic. Avoid jumping to rabbit holes and missing out the opportunity to cover the big picture.
Spend a bit more time on how your findings impact your area of research. Discuss the applications and scope and detail the conclusion. I see may participants miss this one out by just elaborating on the technical aspects of their implementation without conveying what is it applied for and how could it be applied.

I work in philosophy where there is no data as such, but I think these are good points that can translate into my field. I think the idea of focussing on how one's paper stands out against its background rather than conveying it in full is a good contribution.


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What is the impact of software development experience in a research lab on graduate admissions?
A little background
I graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science not too long ago. Unfortunately, I didn't understand the importance of formal research for grad admissions as an undergrad. I got a software development job in industry, but it has little relevance to my career path (not just my academic career path either).
As I looked around for opportunities to remedy this situation, I found a few jobs in academia as a software developer working in a lab. These seem to fall in some gray area in terms of research vs. software development. While these jobs aren't "research" jobs (in that you aren't the one making breakthroughs or responsible for writing papers, for example), they involve developing/integrating code relevant to research (e.g., creating programs for the researchers and/or assemble their code into a larger program). Obviously, the ship has sailed for me to do formal research as an undergrad.
Also
Before someone links to this, I read this post already and many other relevant posts on this site: Usefulness of prior industry experience before entering grad school?
My question is more specific. I can possibly be more specific as well, but I'm not sure how general I should/can make this question. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Formal Question
What impact could a software development job in a research lab have on grad school admissions (research masters and PhD in computer science) compared to a software development job in industry?

Not only is important, but the UK is trying to create a new job position in academic environment called "research software developer" , focused in people that are great code writers and understand research

I believe that a graduate school would look very favorably on a candidate who worked as a research lab technician and implemented the research challenges by writing code. To me this seems like a great path for you to strengthen your resume to apply to graduate schools.

Thanks for your opinion on this! I at least feel a little reassured now.


text:
Is there a consensus in philosophy and other humanities that PhD dissertations have to be at least 200 pages long?
I've read a blog post written by Robert Wolff saying that for a philosophy dissertation to be considered good, at least in American universities, it should be between 200 to 250 pages long.
We could respond, of course, that it is not necessarily the number of pages or word count that makes a thesis up to par. If this is so, can you please cite a dissertation wherein a student was able to defend his central claim in less than a hundred pages?

(1) Can you cite the blog post? (2) Is this individual's blog post actually going to impact what universities accept? In other words, why is this worth researching and discussing? (3) Why <100 when the post talks about 200-250? (4) Comment: the fact that someone was able to successfully defend a thesis in <100 pages doesn't mean it would meet some arbitrary criteria for being "good" according to Dr. Wolff (see "no true scotsman" fallacy).

I think that this quote applies https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/05/ce/44/05ce44feb1a91ee76e0afcabdef64e22.jpg

The statement comes from a 2010 blog post named "How to write a doctoral dissertation in philosophy": "An American dissertation in Philosophy should be about 200 to 250 pages long, and have five or six chapters." Note that Wolff is talking about Philosophy specifically, not about other humanities as it is indicated in the question title. In fact, he explicitly contrasts a Philosophy dissertation with those from Anthropology or History.

"If this is so, can you please site a dissertation wherein a student was able to defend his central claim in less than a hundred pages." Some purely technical ways to get there would be using smaller font sizes, smaller page margins, preferencing shorter synonymous words, getting rid of unnecessary particles, really small footnotes. More content oriented approaches could include not repeating yourself or scrutinizing content for if it is really necessary for the central claim.

"A dissertation is either good or long." (German saying.)

@DavidRicherby or perhaps the author of that answer did notice and was being facetious, but deleted the answer because facetiousness was inappropriate and/or people didn't realize the answer was tongue-in-cheek. I can't say as I don't have the rep to view deleted answers.

You might be interested in the existence of a 9 page thesis, though in maths.

The University of Minnesota library system maintaining electronic dissertations library contained 2,536 records for Phd students.
The range was incredibly variable (minimum of 21 pages, maximum of 2002), but most dissertations were around 100 to 200 pages.
The average number of pages per topic is :

Source: https://beckmw.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/how-long-is-the-average-dissertation/
In fact, it mostly depends on the research area, the university regulation and supervisor research 'style'.

Some areas have more or less entropy in the way that information is transmitted. For example, law tend to be more verbose than maths...

Unfortunately, the graph doesn't list Philosophy, which is what Wolff is talking about exclusively in his post. So, strictly speaking, the observation that the average page numbers vary substantially between disciplines doesn't really answer the question (unless we concede that the OP has misread the blog post by Wolff).

2002 pages sure puts things into perspective

It's not only the number of pages. Some faculties require a certain font size, other not. Changing the page margin or the space between lines can severely affect the number of pages.

@woliveirajr For maths it has been claimed that one sentence is enough!

@mbrig The 2002 pages probably included large tables of data and/or source code of computer programs.

@BenC That's not just a claim, it is a proof that one sentence can be enough. And a nice one, thanks for the link :)

The answer is no, there is no such consensus.
Page number is a very poor indicator of a document's quality unlike what some people seem to believe.
Don't worry about what a blogger says, talk to your adviser about her or his expectations in terms of the depth and length of your thesis, and how your current version stands with them.
Your adviser should know the standards for your institution and has a shared interest in your thesis meeting them.

-1 While your response seems like it ought to be true, I think it avoids answering the question. The asker is looking for proof of the existence of a high-quality short PhD thesis. Actually, they ask for a citation to one, which is a little more than just proof that it exists.

@TheoreticalPerson this answer addresses the question in the title. There is no universal standard as to what constitute an acceptable thesis, let alone a good one. So asking for an example is pointless.

Some people just deal better with a concrete example of X, than an assertion that there are overwhelming reasons why X surely must exist. Where in this case X is, "a short thesis that defends its main claim".

@CapeCode I'm not sure your second point really follows from your first. There may be no standard for a thesis, but there are many interesting observations that might be made from a short thesis that some professor considered "good enough".

The helpful chart supplied by @Krebto tells the story well: dissertations in the humanities are generally longer than those in the science and social sciences. The shortest humanities dissertations on the list are in English, at 220pp. History runs 295. In my experience, Philosophy is in between those two.
None of this says anything about intellectual quality, but it is a good indicator of expectations.


text:
How to paraphrase a paraphrased part?
Lets assume that A wrote an article in 1999 and A included a part taken from B's source written in 1998. How do I paraphrase that part, and how do I cite it?

Like this; Blablablablabla blabla (A, 1999).
Or like this; Blablablabla blabla (B, 1998).
Or something different?

Why not just quote B?

Why not include both?
Blablabla  (A, 1999, and B, 1998).

Is it the standard way of citing? I am not really interested in Academic Writing, but I have to write an assay talking about a topic's challenges and measurements in the final exam of a course. I just want to be sure that I won't end up writing something marked by plagiarism. @Regel

If you cite rigorously, it's not plagiarism. Just mark clearly where you use other people's ideas (by citing), and where you write direct quotes of other people's work (explanation + quotes + citation).

Citation does not require a quotation, but quotation does require citation.

Wetlab Walter has it right. I was just trying to say that quotes neet to be clearly marked as quotes.


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How does the family background mentioned in the statement of purpose affect a PhD application for admission in U.S.?
Suppose there are two students applying for math PhD programs in U.S
Student A mentioned in his  statement of purpose that he was born in a well-educated middle class family with both parents scientists/mathematicians. He chooses to pursue math because he grew up in  excellent family circumstance and his parents told him that "mathematics is the best field because it has an amazing internal consistency and a level of rigor and certainty unmatched by any other intellectual endeavor..."(quoted from Dr. Pete L. Clark)
Student B, however, mentioned in his statement of purpose that he was born in a poor family with bad-tempered, quarrelsome parents who had never gone to colleges. His motivation for pursuing math is that he believes that knowledge changes fate, doing math can help him find peace while his parents are fighting and math research doesn't cost much money.
Given that A and B have similar GPAs, test scores,LoRs, undergraduate institutes, etc., does

A has an advantage over B in graduate admission because he grew up in a well-educated family so that the committee believe that A is more likely to be successful as a research mathematician than B(for instance, A's parents have strong social networks which can help A to be successful in the future) OR
B has an advantage over A in graduate admission because the graduate committee believe that it is much more difficult for B to achieve what he has achieved today so that he has more potential to be successful in math?

A further question is that if an applicant's family background is so unusual(good or bad, like A or B) that it affects one's motivation for pursuing math, is it better to mention it(to increase one's chance of admittance) or not to mention it(just for safe)?

I'm just an undergrad, but if I were a member of the admission committee, I would choose neither of them because one of them wants to study math just because of his/her family, and the other just because s/he thinks math is a tool to find peace, in which case after learning it is not the case, s/he will not want to study math anymore.

It'll be interesting to hear from people who have been on admission committees, but I suspect that in practice, very little attention is paid to this part of the application, and neither of these two applicants would have any significant "advantage" over the other.  If the applicants' qualifications were otherwise identical, I would expect most departments to accept both or neither.

Actually, motivations and feelings aside, there is one significant factual difference between the applicants: A's parents went to college and B's did not.  Some institutions will give preference to "first-generation" students, and for that reason alone B might have an advantage.

@NateEldredge can you give example for such institutions ?

@onurcanbektas: Perhaps I should not have used the word "preference".  Certainly many institutions have stated policies of encouraging or supporting first-generation students (examples 1 2), and there is a widespread sense in higher education that such students ought to be encouraged, but I don't have any specific information about how this plays out in terms of graduate admissions.

Perhaps this is a cultural thing but I would never mention anything about my family background on any kind of application.

@onurcanbektas Concerning your first comment, why do you believe that the student A shouldn't be accepted? The parents of many successful mathematicians are also mathematicians. Indeed, it is always our family who have the crucial influence on us.

@astronat Could you please give some reasons why you don't want to include family background in the statement of purpose?

Because I want to be judged on my own merits and qualifications, not on the actions of my parents (even if it is unconcious bias). Furthermore, I want to use the limited space in a statement of purpose to describe why I want to research my subject, why I'm applying to that specific department and what I'm interested in researching, rather than waste time with what might be perceived as a 'sob story'.

Along those lines, see https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36725/can-an-emotional-letter-of-motivation-be-harmful-in-a-phd-application and https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55077/answering-why-do-you-want-to-become-a-research-mathematician-type-questions-i/55099#55099.

Some colleges ask for family background because they qualify for specific fellowships/scholarships/admission if students have a certain background, and in some cases the information is used just for statistics so they can report/monitor various demographics. Graduate admissions is largely a black-box with a high degree of variability, so it becomes largely impossible to say - or identify - if a specific case of reporting family background is/was helpful or hurtful. For more, see the book "Inside Graduate Admissions", and article "Kisses of Death in the Graduate School Application Process".

How a statement of purpose is read varies from department to department, and from person to person.  That said, I think for most people reading your statement, it wouldn't matter much.  Yes, many people are for socio-economic diversity in admissions, so scenario B could be slightly helpful, but really this might only make a difference in very borderline cases.  (Of course, you should be truthful, and not claim to be Pete Clark's offspring if you're not.)
What's important about the statement is that we get some sense of your motivation and goals, and possibly mathematical maturity.  It's also good if your expectations about grad school sound realistic.  By the time you are applying for PhD programs, between your academic history and your letters of recommendation and a statement about your motivation/goals, we should have a good sense of your likelihood of success in our program without any information about how you grew up.  We care more about where you are now rather than how you got there, so to speak.
My advice is, if you feel it's useful to explain where you came from to explain your motivation/goals, then by all means feel free to.  If not, there's no need to bring it up.

Thank you for your answer! I am just curious. How does one show his/her math maturity in the statement of purpose?

@TiWen This isn't something I would explicitly worry about--I think it's something that comes across naturally when you talk about mathematics.  E.g., if you describe how learning some specific topic made you realize the beauty of mathematics, how you explain that topic will give us some impression of how deeply you understand it.  In any case, we should get idea of it from your letters and transcript, but the statement is just another point of reference.


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How will the graduate committee regard two different TOEFL or GRE scores sent to them?
Suppose a student gets two GRE and toefl scores and he can't decide which scores are more suitable for sending, so he sent all of them anyway. The students may want to decide recipients of their scores even before they know their scores just to save money(ETS allows up to 4 free recipients but they must be decided before or on test dates).
His scores are:
GRE

V 152 Q 168 AW 3.5
V 158 Q 164 AW 3.0

The student improved his score a lot in verbal reasoning and dropped in Quantitative Reasoning and analytical writing since he focused too much on the preparation of verbal reasoning.
TOEFL

Reading 29 listening 27 Oral 20 Writing 25
Reading 27 listening 24 Oral 24 Writing 25

The total score of the first one is greater but the second one is better in speaking session, which is important for getting TAships.
My question is, in such cases, how will the graduate committee consider this student's scores. Will they feel annoyed by having to look at two ETS transcripts? Will they only look at the latest scores?

Who knows? There isn't some universal set of rules that graduate committees follow.  They are comprised of people, and different people may have different opinions.  Some might think the latest scores are the most meaningful, and ignore the others.  Some might think the earlier scores are more representative of the applicant's true abilities, and later increases are just cramming.  Some might look at the trend.  Some might average them.  Some might look at whichever is higher, or whichever is lower.  There's no way to answer your question.

@NateEldredge Thanks! I think your comment is a fine answer. But I have to say it is unfair to look at the lower scores since many students never send their bad scores as long as their don't care about the money

This mainly depend on what department you want to send application, for match,cs etc the quantitative reasoning is main interest for english, literature history the verbal and writing skills matter. Also if they are asking score as total and also for each module then its easy however some universities doesnot say about how they weight GRE score
As for toefl it also depends on the criteria set by the university e.g they can ask a total score of x with no less then y in each module. As when i was applying it was actually ielts and mentiones that ielts band 7 is required with no module less then 6.5, so if your score is crossing in any results the minimum criteria you can apply using that


text:
Is it appropriate to ask my professors what they think of me before I ask for letters of recommendations from them?
As some students know, sometimes it is not easy to determine whether a professor (restricted to the professors in U.S.) will write a strong letter of recommendation for a student. So the question is, is it appropriate to ask questions like:

What do you think of me compared to other students you taught in the previous semester?

Am I one of the best students in your class? Top 10%? Top20%?

I know these questions are sensitive. Maybe they will dislike me immediately once I ask these questions. I don't know, but I believe that most professors are kind and will be honest to students.
By the way, if I were the professor, I would certainly answer the questions honestly and let the student know if I should be in the their choices. I would not only say something like "you did well in my classes" or "you did better than most of the rest", but also tell them directly if they are in top 1%, 3%, 10% in my mind, but I still wonder what most professors in U.S. universities would think of this.

A number of people here have recommended the phrase "Would you be able to write me a strong letter of recommendation?"  I suggest browsing the [tag:recommendation-letter] tag.

@NateEldredge Thanks! Indeed I have been reading the threads with the recommendation-letter tags for more than one week. I still feel like it is necessary for me to post a direct and "sensitive" question like this unless it is duplicated(I haven't found a very similar question yet)

Closely related to my answer to your linked question:
I don't think it's either necessary or particularly productive to try to interrogate a professor and determine what letter they will write.  Simply tell the professor you're thinking of applying to Ph.D. programs and ask them something like:

Do you think that you would be able to write a strong letter of recommendation for me?

The "strong" is important here, because that's what will get you the honest opinion of whether the professor thinks well of you or not, and you don't want letters that are not strong.
If you try to ask the question indirectly, by asking things like "Am I in the top 10%?" then you are dancing around the question.  You know you're asking for a strong recommendation, and so does the professor, so you might as well just ask.
Only the most nasty and deceptive of professors will answer dishonestly---and they probably wouldn't have given you an honest answer to your other questions either.

Another problem, which for me would be more significant, is that telling the student something like "you're in the top 20% but not top 10%" indirectly reveals information about other students, and this might possibly cause problems for the professor if the comments are leaked and they get wide circulation and some other students wind up being very sensitive about this.

"If you try to ask the question indirectly, by asking things like "Am I in the top 10%?" then you are dancing around the question."  I'm not sure that this is quite true.  Many recommendation form directly ask such questions, so I would say that this question is more (in fact probably excessively) direct than "would you be able to write me a strong recommendation letter?"  I agree (with what I take to be your position) that, as a professor, I would rather be asked, and am more likely to answer, the latter.

@DaveLRenfro What do you mean by "some other students wind up being very sensitive about this"? In my university, the historic records about course registration and grading are made public to students. Students know how many A,B,C's which professor gave to students in which class he taught in which semester.

@TiWen This is not the case in many universities.

In other words: "Ask the question you want answered."

First, I 100% agree with jakebeal's answer.
I just want to elaborate a bit more on why questions of the type "how do I compare with my peers" or "am I in the top 10%" are entirely the wrong question to ask. Consider the following three cases:

Jason enrolled in a small, intensive seminar course. The class is known to have a heavy workload with lots of student participation and input. The professor is known to grade on an absolute/uncurved scale, and is happy to fail the entire class or give the entire class A+'s as the situation merits. The course has 10 students in it this semester. Jason worked really hard and impressed his professor, earning a well-deserved A-. There were two students who earned As, Maria in particular also won a Rhodes Scholarship for next year.
Would the professor say that Jason is in the top 10 or 20% of his class? No. But what would the professor write in the recommendation letter? He will explain that the course Jason took is a small seminar course, that even though his grades do not place him in the top 20%, this should not be counted against Jason, and that Jason is in fact a very hard working student that he regards highly.

Marshall enrolled in a large linear algebra course. He did great, his grades are consistently in the top of the class. He comes to office hours regularly and asks great questions. Through chatting with him, his instructor found out that Marshall had in fact enrolled in the Honors version of the same course last semester, but decided to drop the Honors version halfway through the semester because "he made a few dumb mistakes and got only a B+ on the first midterm".
When the undergraduate studies director came asking the instructor whether Marshall should be given an A+ for his stellar work in the linear algebra course, the instructor responds that she does not believe so, since Marshall only excelled because he already "knew" the material, and rather than challenging himself with the honors material he decided to go for the "easy A" for his transcript. And while he has certainly demonstrated work deserving of an A, she does not think Marshall should be rewarded with an A+ which is only given when student work goes above and beyond what is expected.

Tony took a large biochemistry class. He goes to lecture regularly, works very hard, and got perfect scores on pretty much every assignment and almost every lab. At the end of the semester Tony goes to the professor in charge of the course and ask where he places among his peers.
Prof: "What's your name again?"
Tony: "Tony Smith"
Prof: "Let me check" ... clicks away at a computer ... "just a moment" ... clicks more at a computer ... "ah! You seem to have the highest grades in my class. Congratulations."
Tony: "Will you write me a recommendation letter for Y Scholarship?"
Prof: "Well, I don't really have a reason to say no. But I don't really know you that well. Tell you what, let me check with your TA to see if we can say something nice about you. What's your name and which section are you in again?"

Sure, it would make everybody's life easier if you happen to be the best student your professor has ever taught. But if you are really a strong student, and the professor is willing to write you a strong recommendation letter, then he or she will definitely be willing to bend over backwards to justify your possible lower rankings when compared to your peers. On the other hand, if you are really not that strong a student, but merely a giant among midgets, then if you choose a professor entirely based on comparisons with your "peers" you may end up with a recommendation letter reflecting just that.

The moral of the story really is this: your ranking among your classmates in the class you took with a professor (or any of these sorts of peer comparison) are at best proxy metrics for how the professor think of you. But proxy indicators are only useful when the "thing" you really want to measure cannot be measured. In this case, however, the "thing" you really want to know is whether the professor will write you a strong letter, so don't go about playing with proxy indicators which can have all sorts of false positives or false negatives and ask the right question already.

I am confused. Why would the undergraduate studies director come ask a professor if Marshall deserved an A+?

These are all hypothetical scenarios with embellishments. If it makes you happier: assume the instructor is new to the school and is double checking with the UGS to make sure the grade assignments/curves he is giving is commensurate with the previous years.

Ah, I see. I didn't know if that was how grading worked at other universities than mine.

@Azor-Ahai: please don't take that as evidence of how grading worked at any university besides the imaginary one in my head when I came up with the scenario!

I would find it more than presumptive and too pushy to ask this right before, or in the midst of requesting a letter of reference.
My preferred approach was always where students would visit with me during office hours, engage me in thoughtful banter and dialog in class, perform favorably on written assignments, and ask for a letter of recommendation in the last half or last third of the semester.
This gives me a sufficient scope of the quality of your work, your character and personality, and importantly it should give me plenty of time to complete and submit the letter prior to whatever institutional deadlines you've communicated to me. Moreover, after you've invested your time in this, you will have a great sense of the favorableness of my letter, without putting me on the spot to verbalized it to you.

I agree with WW that your question is far too broad to have a serious answer. The moral of the questioner's need to post this question is that if you're thinking of grad or professional school, you need to get to know a couple of professors during your junior and senior years, blah, blah, blah. If you have had little interaction with the prof, then asking him/her for a letter is quite an imposition and you certainly are way off base to ask what s/he will say. If you've had a good amount of back-and-forth with him.her I think it's great to make an appointment and discuss your plans and what they think your chances are. This should give you a pretty good idea of what they think of you. From what I am reading, Letters of Recommendation are a large fraction of the typical profs workload, so my above comments seem a bit archaic. If the prof has no other information than your grades and a couple of question/answer exchanges during lectures, then you should expect a direct correlation between your RELATIVE grade and the strength of the recommendation. Given what I just said, I'm wondering why you are asking the question...


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Salary and Rank Discrepency: assistant profs with better records than associates in the same dept
Is there anything to be done when a department has hot young assistant professors with much stronger research records (in books and peer-reviewed publications) than the associate professors? Must the assistant professors just accept that they are less well ranked and less well paid than associates who have been less productive?

Stronger research records is one thing. Funding might be another. Universities need people who attract funding (NSF, Horizon 2020 for Europe) probably more than paper-producing machines.

Get to working on their promotions?

Most of the assistants also have more external grant money than the associates, so that's not the explanation. Working on their promotions sounds reasonable, but oddly enough the associates don't think there's a problem and so aren't motivated to do anything about it. And, the assistants are relatively powerless.

Not all assistant professors are less well paid than associate professors...

Prepare to watch the assistants leave for tenured positions elsewhere while your department collapses in on itself due to attrition?

To expand on StrongBad's point, salary inversion often refers to what happens when assistant professors are hired at a higher salary than existing associate professors. This can happen if the university changes its salary structure (for example to try to attract better faculty.) It is not uncommon for this to happen.

The salary inversion I'm talking about is in the opposite direction. The associates are better paid than the assistants, even though many (not all) of the assistants have more publications and more grant money than the associates. I suspect Bill Barth is correct, and the assistants will vote with their feet.

That is not how the term salary inversion is typically used. I have never heard the term rank inversion, but that might be a reasonable use.

I agree with @StrongBad: you are using the term "salary inversion" in precisely the opposite of the usual manner.  That's pretty confusing.  Underneath that I see a reasonable question, so I suggest you edit to clarify.

Do you have a suggestion for a better word? Inequity seems accurate, but perhaps unnecessarily inflammatory.

If the assistant professors are unhappy, they should apply for and get associate professor offers from another, more prestigious, university. Then the department will have to respond if it wants to keep them.

Differential?  Discrepancy?

Position in a university, and consequently salary, is not simply a function of being "hot and young", grant funding, and publications. But there are many other factors you may be missing. For example, the associate professors in your department may be teaching larger classes (under the assumption that the department tries to give the assistants smaller classes while they build a resume for their tenure decision); they may also, with more experience, be better teachers. And they will almost certainly have far higher service loads -- sitting on committees, mentoring, reviewing duties, etc. All of these are things that are valuable to a department and that is worth a certain amount of salary. But it's hardly visible from the outside, even though it definitely diminishes your ability to do research and publish a lot.
Finally, the associate professors have one less promotion to look forward to, and consequently a lower salary potential. For example, an assistant professor paid 5% less than an associate will earn 5% more after promotion, which translates into a quite significant sum over the remaining work life.
I do get your point, and there definitely are departments that have significantly improved and where the young crop is better than the old, and should expect to be paid better when comparing at the same stage in their careers. But it's hard to determine a "fair salary" between different ranks if all you reduce things to is grants & publications.

You seem to think that 'top' assistant professors carry the whole university.  They are one of many variables that play a role in the running and success of a university.  Who do you think pay the salary of professors? Hint: it's not high quality papers.  Answer: coursework students.  How do you get coursework students? for one, you have to teach well, have a well-run university; good admin, programs, reputation for teaching, community engagement, getting jobs, etc.  These 'other' people you seem to think the ass/prof are better than actually created the environment that allow the ass/prof to flourish.  Who do you think should get the higher pay?  The leach (newbie) or the host?

You seem to think that the assistant profs aren't teaching the 800-person service classes. You think wrong. In fact, the person I'm most thinking of (the assistant with the strongest research record) also teaches the dept's largest class. And teaches it every semester because its the dept's major service class. It is certainly true, however, that the associates carry more of the administrative burden. But, then this same person asked for consideration for early tenure (thereby opening them up to pick up some of that administrative burden), they were told they had to wait their turn...

...and that it didn't matter how good their record was. They just had to wait. That is the source of the intra-departmental frustration for that the assistant, as well as a few others who (having watched his request) haven't even asked.


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Should I Cite Logos?
I've read in the law that logos are protected by the United States Trademark law, not laws of copyright.  Essentially this means that you have immediate permission to use a logo that doesn't belong to you, without asking for direct permission from the logos owner (as long as you follow legal usage guidelines).  So my question is: Do I need to cite these logos I use if they do not have protection by copyright (thereby giving me usage privileges)?  And also do assume I would follow correct guidelines and include a standard legal disclaimer.

Why are you including the logos in the first place? What do you mean by "citing" a logo?

IBM®, for instance, says that you must call/contact them for permission to use a logo. At minimum, you may need to include trademark or registered trademark symbols (certainly in text, rather than after a logo) and an attribution statement.

Does this answer your question? Should I cite logos and clip-art in my thesis?

If you are using simply using the logos in place of the company name, there is no reason to cite them since you would not cite a company name. If you are intending on publishing the work, the publisher may want to see a signed release from the copyright and/or trademark holder.

Logos can be protected by both copyright and trademark. This is entirely orthogonal to the issue of citation. By academic convention, you are required to cite any work which contributed intellectually to your work. If I base my work on a paper from the 1800s, I am still required to cite it, even though it is likely to be long out of copyright. This is not a legal requirement, but a question of academic ethics.
Whether you are required to cite these logos will depend on whether they make an intellectual contribution to your work, and the common practices of the field in which you are working. It does not depend on whether the logos are under copyright or trademark.

I like your answer, however I would appreciate some clarification on what you would define as intellectual contribution.  A paper from any year makes sense as a source of intellectual contribution, however I'll be straight with you: These are logos of big companies, they do not further any opinion regarding the topic.  So please clarify if you believe something with no intellectual contribution, that you have legal access to without citation should be viewed as a required academic citation.

@JaredMassa For what purpose are you including the logos in your work?

MJeffryes: the only use for logos: display/visual engagement.  They simply are used in a list format rather than listing company titles.

@JaredMassa If the work is not "about" logos, (eg, an analysis of how logos have changed over the 20th century) then I cannot see how they could be making an intellectual contribution to the work. I would also suggest your proposed use of them is of questionable value: I think a journal publisher would likely tell you to use the names rather than the logos.

Good answer, also on the topic see: What is the difference between plagiarism and copyright infringement?


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Masters as a stepping stone to PHD
So I attend a small(top 20 ranked) liberal arts college. I want to pursue graduate school in Mathematics. I am currently a junior, so by the time I would be submitting my graduate applications next year, I would have completed only 1 course in real analysis, 1 course in abstract algebra, and 1 course in Complex Analysis. I am unable to take topology due to the very small number of math classes which my school offers Everything I hear suggests that this is not enough preparation for grad school.
Also, I will not have had any applied math courses beyond ODE at that point. In addition, looking at the sample GRE subject tests-I fear that it would be difficult for me to get a decent score if there are some questions about field theory, topology, etc. which I won't have the background to answer(although I understand the test is very difficult anyway). I also am unsure of which are of math I might most want to pursue at this point.
Anyway, would it be a good idea for me to start in master's program first? In that case, I would probably have to go somewhere in state. I live in New York, so that would might mean going to SUNY Albany, SUNY binghamton, etc., which are ranked in the 80s by US News. In a masters program, I would be able to obtain the desired preparation for grad school, explore applied math, and study for the GRE more, and try to go into grad school with more of an Idea of what I wanted to focus on. My other options for masters programs would be going to something at a Place Like Miami Ohio, North Dakota, University of Alaska Fairbanks which have funded terminal masters programs for people interested in strengthening their mathematics for graduate study.
There are also a few schools which offer post baccs in math, and I know Canadian universities do fund masters students, although their system is different in that they rarely admit students directly to PHD programs. Are these(and if any, which ones) masters programs a viable idea for trying to get into a better PHD program? Or would I need to get a masters program from a school which is ranked more highly?

I'm in chemistry, and I also went to a small, top-20 liberal arts school that did not offer much additional, higher-level coursework.
I experienced two main challenges:

Transitioning into graduate-level courses. This was difficult, because of not having experienced similar class-work before. However, the fundamentals you learn at liberal arts colleges are solid, and you've learned how to learn.
Transitioning to the difference in teaching quality. At most graduate programs, the course instructors are research faculty and their priority is research. It can take some time to adjust to how to learn in a class that was not well-constructed for learning.

That said, unless the masters programs are very different than the phd programs in mathematics,I think you'll encounter the same challenges in either the masters or the doctoral program. In chemistry and physics, masters students take the same coursework. Additionally, usually you have to write a thesis for a masters, so during your coursework there is more pressure to do successful research, since you only have ~2 years (instead of ~5-6, as in a PhD program). Also in my experience graduate schools only rarely grant course exemptions for masters work.
You have several options:

Apply directly to PhD program. If you do this, I highly recommend studying some of the advanced coursework over the summer before you start. MIT Open Courseware has some great materials for this.
Apply to a masters program at a less selective school, then apply to more selective PhD programs. In a less-selective school, the classes might start at a lower level, there might be more support for students, and you might be able to take advanced undergraduate coursework not offered at your undergraduate institution, if you need it.
Get a job or internship and take a few courses. You could take a gap-year in which you get a job or internship in your field. You'll grow your skills and content knowledge via that position, and you may also have time to take ~1 class at a time at a local university, online (through a university or a free service like coursera), or via independent study (like MIT OCW). This way you'll also earn money, if that's a concern. (Masters students may or may not be stipended.)

@bounder34, in your particular case I would not advise you to go with NMJD's option 1.  Option 2 sounds best.  As you get some more coursework under your belt, you'll gain self-confidence.  // If you can get funding, fantastic. // The problem with Option 1 is that you'd be on a conveyor belt to the basic PhD exams.  You might get that feeling of being on a treadmill that's set to too fast a pace.  Doing more coursework before the PhD would prevent that.