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How to lead a succesful academic book club?
I have started an academic book club but I somewhat have a hard time with it. We are reading a slightly complicated text, so I decided to do a slow-paced reading; but up until now, only one person attended each session. Others seemed to have drifted off, or to be too busy to attend regularly.
So I was wondering if any had some experience with organizing online book clubs, and could transmit some of its best tips to me?
In particular, I was wondering:

how I can recruit the best people?
Should I remove members if needed ? (not that it is needed at the moment, but some people who are in the group have not attended any reading session, so I was wondering if I should message them and remove them from the group if not participating? Also linked to this: should I post a group-rule ahead of time, mentioning that attendance is required to stay in the group?)
How do I keep people engaged?
How to decide what books to read? (Do I make a pre-selection? Should I do polls? What I was thinking of doing now, is discussing it during a meeting but I don't know if that is the best solution)
Should I make slides? Or should I just let the discussion go freely?

If anyone has any resources that they found useful, I'd love to know!
Thanks!

What do you mean by "recruit the best people"? What is best in this situation?

I will guess that if it needs a "leader", then it isn't sustainable. If you do too much it will make things worse, not better.

I mean reach people that are (a) really interested in my bookclub (and don't just attend just to please me) and (b) are going to invest themselves in it (and not just wait and see until I each time would take the lead, which would - on the long run - be quite annoying I think). I put my bookclub on Twitter for instance, and asked some friends, and some people joined, but I could see they just joined to join, without engaging more than that. I hope this clarifies things :)

Your question sounds like you're trying to set up a seminar class without having enough people interested in a seminar.
I think the real issue you have is finding people who share your interest. If people are interested in discussing the specific book or discussing books in general, they will put more effort into attending.
My suggestion is to start with 1 book and find other people who are interested in discussing it. Then set up a time (based on everyone's schedule) for that discussion. After that meeting, set up the next meeting to continue discussing that book. When you finish a book, form a group consensus on the next book and continue to setup meetings. You will probably have to initiate the discussion, but treat it as an equal discussion (unless they ask you to teach them about the book).
In other words, I feel like you're trying to organize a weekly meeting for people who aren't ready for or interested in committing to it. Instead try organizing 1 meeting at a time with a flexible schedule based on the participants' availability, and continue organizing 1 meeting at a time until it becomes a regular thing.

Thanks Elodin! Will think of it - I just think its kinda easier to set a fix schedule so that it's easy to remember. But I think we sometimes go through topics that are somewhat too 'heavy' for people who are interested, but not really really interested in it. Hard part is that I am really really interested, and so I want to discuss things that others might find somewhat superfluous.

You need to decide is how formal you want to make this meeting. At the moment it seems like you are in a situation where people are treating it as a casual event and hence the attendance is patchy, whereas you would prefer consistent attendance and engagement. If you want that, you need to make sure people see the event as a formal, scheduled part of the department's activities.
The first thing to do is add the meeting to the department's calendar. Furthermore, advertise it regularly via email (a week and a day prior to each meeting, perhaps). Depending on the subject matter under discussion, you could even advertise it more widely (to other, neighbouring, departments, for example). Another way to attract attendance is to get a senior member of the department, perhaps the head, to regularly attend and participate in the discussion. Provided this person carries the usual amount of respect amongst their colleagues and students, this will encourage other people to attend, as they realise that the department head is taking it seriously and hence they should too.
I would not remove people from the group if they don't attend. We're all adults, and the workplace isn't like an internet forum with a moderator to block certain users. Removing someone is only going to dissuade them from ever attending again in the future. It could be that they are just not that interested in the book you are covering at the moment.
In terms of selection of material, in my experience it is best to make a pre-selection (perhaps choose four books) that the group members can vote on. People will be more engaged if they have had a say in the selection process. Otherwise it just feels like a class at school with homework imposed by the teacher. But, don't make this a drawn out process. Send round the list and give everyone a week maximum to vote, and then send out the choice immediately after. Taking a long time over a selection will only move the reading group further down people's mental priority lists, again leading to lower attendance.
Finally, I would suggest making perhaps a single slide to summarise the book you have read and posing two or three questions to guide the subsequent discussion. Keep this general theme in mind as the discussion continues, and don't be afraid to steer people back to it if they go off topic, provided you warn them at the beginning that you will do so. This will also help with time-keeping: it's important that you don't let the meeting over-run, as this again will discourage people from attending in the future.
My number one piece of advice would be to enlist someone to co-moderate with you. It helps enormously to have someone to shortlist material with, as well as to hold each other accountable when completing the reading. Finally, and most importantly, having two moderators means that you avoid any awkward silences during the discussion, as the two of you can mention and answer the prompt questions you showed on your slide at the start.

You say "In terms of selection of material, in my experience...". What is your experience here? This all sounds to me like overkill. Something a manager would do.

This is great, thanks so much @astronat! I just finished my studies and hope to move on into academia - so I won't be able (at least for the moment) to involve a senior member, but I'll definitely refer to what you said later on. Thanks again!

These suggestions sound like running a seminar class, which is great if OP has a group of participants who want a seminar, but it doesn't sound like OP has that.

I do not have that, but I'd like to organize something resembling an online seminar in the long run maybe. :)


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How should I display my MPhys degree on my CV?
I am creating my CV for PhD applications in astroparticle physics. In my education section I decided to include only my university education, so my MPhys Physics degree.
Should I split it in 2 sections where I state my first 3-year marks and then in a 4th year mark or just leave it as MPhys Physics and my total average till now?
Also should I include all my experiments (which involved several sessions of labs and a long report)?
Lastly, what would be the best option if I have no previous experience of a job?

Should I split it in 2 sections where I state my first 3-year marks
  and then in a 4th year mark or just leave it as MPhys Physics and my
  total average till now?

This is not a good idea for two reasons: one, the MPhys is an integrated degree; you don't get BSc + MSc, so you shouldn't try to display it this way on your CV. Put your final classification and mark if you have them, or a predicted classification if you don't (i.e. predicted 1st, 2:1, 2:2 etc).
Secondly, most (if not all) of the institutions you apply to will ask for an official grade transcript provided by your university. This means that there is really no need to go into detail about individual marks on your CV, as they will all be displayed on the transcript.

Also should I include all my experiments (which involved several
  sessions of labs and a long report)?

Probably not. Listing every experiment you did as an undergrad will make your CV very cumbersome. Also, every physics undergrad I know did several sessions of labs and wrote long reports. Including this will not make your CV stand out. Pick one important experiment or project that you did well on and talk about that in your personal statement, if it is one of the factors that has motivated you to apply for a PhD.

Lastly, what would be the best option if I have no previous experience of a job?

If you don't have it, you can't write about it, but work experience in non-academic jobs is generally irrelevant for an academic CV anyway.
I'd advise you ask your personal tutor to read through your application materials, including your CV, before submitting. They will likely have some useful pointers, and it may help them too, if they are writing a reference for you.

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PhD programs: select a very specific one in order to narrow down my area of interest? or a more general one and specialise as a postdoc?
I have perhaps a common doubt, a common conundrum. I'm an MS graduate, and my goal is to become a researcher in a very specific area in biotechnology, which is a branch of neurotechnology.
I'm currently looking for a PhD degree, and by searching through programs at different institutions, I have found that the field that I want to work in is in fact quite new, so not many institutions are currently doing research in it. This leaves me with only very well known institutions like Caltech, Yale, and Johns Hopkins that are working in my field of interest.
I do not consider myself especially above average but I'm a very self-driven person. Even so, I know it will be hard get a scholarship to study in one of these very well known institutions.
So my question is, what is most advisable?

To spend one or two years studying in order to get the scholarship (and I might not get it), and focus my research into this one narrow specialism early on;
or, to enter a less demanding program, less expensive, still focussed on biotechnology, but not at all that narrow, perhaps in the Netherlands or Switzerland, and specialise later in my career.

I'm struggling to distil a question, can you make your question clearer?

I have edited the question substantially, feel free to edit or add to it if I have not captured what you are trying to ask, OP.

Why do you think you will need 1-2 years studying before applying to these institutions if you already have a Master's degree?

I'm confused by the phrase "less expensive", because if you are accepted into a PhD program at a place like Caltech or Yale the offer will come with funding that should be sufficient to live on (if you're frugal). It doesn't cost money to do a PhD in the U.S., you just have to accept a rather low salary.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by spending 1-2 years studying for a scholarship, but you must formally stay in academia. Your MS was your 1-2 years of prep for a Ph.D.
My suggestions would be as follows:
1) Apply to your ideal top-tier universities (Cal-tech, Yale, etc...). Spend a considerable amount of time on your application. Especially your statement of purpose since you do indeed have a clear goal to go there. Do well on your GRE. If not you will get filtered out before they really evaluate the rest of your application. I know they changed it since I took it but when I did it was a completely beatable test (at least the quantitative section). Practice. Practice. Practice.
2) Apply to the universities/labs that actively or recently collaborated with the labs you ultimately want to work with. Probably more than half the post docs in our lab came from collaborators (or competitors) labs.
3) Apply to your "fall-back" universities. You'll want to at least stay active in the field.
4) Do you best to attend conferences that your top-tiers will be at. Make contacts, friends, collaborations, etc...with members of the group you want to be with. As a Ph.D. student we ended up evaluating many of the Post-docs that applied to our lab. Know that what you mention to these members in passing will often come up during your evaluation. Be aware and make this an advantage.
Realize that you are probably a poor judge of your own talent (good or bad). Don't let the reason you didn't make it be that you didn't try.

ly impossible for us to give a good answer to this question - we can not predict the future and your situation is dependent on too many factors.
Therefore, my advice would be: Follow your gut feeling. Or take a dice. If the number is odd, go for the specific programm, if it's even, go for the broader one. If you feel bad after your rolled the dice, roll it again!!!

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Why does a degree take several years to complete?
The length of a bachelor's degree is often 4 years, a Master's about 2 years, and a PhD 4--forever years. This is pretty consistent across countries and disciplines give or take a year.
My question is: what is the rationale behind how long it takes to complete a degree? When or how was the current recommended length in years developed?

OK why 3-2-3. The question  is focused on the reason behind the duration

Based on the number of hours required to cover, either by instruction or self reading, the material.

This seems like an interesting historical question.  Today most American universities probably tend to follow this trend because it's the standard (and likely reinforced by various accreditation agencies), though it'd be interesting to see how these figures came to be.

"Medieval university", Wikipedia, claims that a Bachelor's+Master's used to take 6-years in medieval times.  It seems plausible that that may've trickled-down through history.

Supportive evidence is needed. (Nothing personal, though.)

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the question includes assumptions which are too broad, and no supportive evidence is provided.

Specifically for a U.S. bachelor's degree, four years is a learning requirement, not a duration requirement.  By that I mean that institutions are constrained, by accreditation, tradition, and sometimes by law or regulation, to require learning (work) that can be competed in four years by a student working at "full load."   Where I taught, there was a legal requirement that specified the number of credit hours needed for a degree.
Some, perhaps many, students take longer—often much longer—than four years, but they complete the same number of credit-hours as the student who finishes in 3-1/2 years.  Some degrees, e.g. architecture, are five-year programs.  Similar reasoning applies to masters' programs.
Note that, in the absence of such a learning requirement, a university could just hand out degrees.  We call those "diploma mills."
So, the answer with respect to undergraduate education in the U.S. and often elsewhere, is that the amount of learning (work) is established by tradition and often embodied in law or regulation.  Someone who can complete that work in fewer than four years is free to do so; someone who takes longer is similarly free to do so.
Doctoral programs are different; the work is set out, at least in general, and can often be completed in about three years, but the student is time-limited to seven or ten years to be sure actual progress is being made.

For some recent history: The Bologna Process started 1999 with the aim to reform and somehow unify the higher education in Europe and has created the European Higher Education Area. During this process many countries reformed their system of higher education and also established new degrees replacing old ones (for example Germany replaced their "Diplom" and "Magister" by Bachelor and Master degrees. The Bologna declaration does indeed state that the "completion of first cycle studies" (nowadays called Bachelor in most participating countries) should last at least three years and also that "The degree awarded after the first cycle shall also be relevant to the European labour market as an appropriate level of qualification."
So far for the history of the length of a Bachelor degree (at least in Germany). As for the rationale behind the three years, I could only guess (but I won't). The Wikipedia pages do give a pretty good starting point to find more information on this topic - for example you can find the ECTS User's Guide which gives a lot of information on how the degrees should be achieved. One thing is that 60 ECTS points should make n academic year (on average) and that each point should correspond to 25 to 30 hours of work… I don't know if any of these things or the respective documents answer your question, but this is basically the de facto answer to "Why 3 years for BSc and 2 years for MSc?" (at least for Europe).

As an aside, in Italy the reform of the Bologna process has been considered the beginnining of a decline in the quality of education, the mother of all evil. I've always wondered how this process has been perceived in other countries.

That's off topic in this thread, but anyway, the same is true for Germany.

Degrees are standardized by the institutions that give them out, so that they correspond to a certain amount of work; whether that is coursework, teaching, labwork, publications or literature study.
They not only say that you are qualified but also that you have done a certain amount of work. Now, one can (and probably should) take the notion that a certain amount of time invested into something measures your competence with a healthy portion of skepticism. But how else would that be quantified? You could make a case for grading, but that's a whole matter of speculation as well (just one such article, there are many out there).

So, when we assign grades to students, what are we really measuring?
  Are we measuring effort? Are we measuring the ability to memorize
  stuff? Are we measuring the ability to explain things eloquently? Are
  we measuring the ability to anticipate what will be on an exam?

At any point, there are several different programs out there which correspond to different levels of work, for example there are 1-year and 2-year Masters programs, and PhD varies anywhere between 4-6 as you mention it yourself. My PhD was 4.5 years, 1 year of it was supposed to be coursework, half year corresponding to teaching and other dept duties and the rest to be my own research.
Another important aspect is typically funding. I cannot say how it is in the US but in Europe (or at least Scandinavia) the PhD positions are typically tied to specific grants and they are then allocated budgets before the doctoral student even starts. That being the case, when the money runs out, you are expected to be done. :)

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List of publications for funding applications
What does a "List of publications" mean? I'm applying for a scholarship and it says I have to add that file, so I need to know what this file should contain and if it's necessary.

You need to be very careful when preparing grant and funding applications to prepare the list of publications according to the specifications provided. Failing to do so can lead to your proposal being rejected, often without going to reviewers first.
For instance, the National Science Foundation expects each researcher to provide no more than 10 publications in her CV for a given proposal: five publications that are "most relevant" to the proposed work, plus five others deemed "important in the researchers' career." The German Research Foundation, however, simply says no more than 10 publications per researcher, but doesn't break down the categories. Other funding agencies have similar but slightly different rules.

I would assume they mean the list of your published work as in journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters etc.

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To What Degree is Graduate School Acceptance Contingent on You Choosing a Specific Potential Adviser?
I applied to a graduate school in CS and got in. However, between application submission and acceptance a professor reached out to me and requested a phone conversation. It went well, as far as I could tell, and then a week after that I got an acceptance.
The problem is that I listed more theoretical people on my application and not him at all. While he does interesting work, it's decidedly applied work. There's nothing wrong with that, I'm still interested in the applied person, but I'm not sure if my acceptance offer (which comes with partial funding) is contingent on me working with this person.
How does this generally work? Am I stuck with this person because I didn't reach out to the other people? To what degree can I still 'pick' my advisor? Thanks!

This depends entirely on your program and the contents of the offer given to you. There are some general trends by field+country, but not enough to give you an answer for your specific situation. In my experience most programs have a lot of additional information on their websites (for example a "handbook" for students), which is a place you can start before contacting them to clarify.

@BryanKrause Well, it's CS and in the US. Also, this person's name isn't mentioned anywhere in the offer. Does that help? I'll look for a handbook in the meanwhile.

Did he give some indication that he was considering you for a spot in his group? I'm wondering if this could have just been an (informal) interview.

If you are accepted, then you are accepted. The prof is trying to "capture" you early, which is fine, but you don't have to agree to it. In the US you can generally choose a research advisor fairly late, especially if you come in with only a BA/BS degree.
There should be no problem at all if you don't want to work with them. But, it would be worth projecting a friendly and flexible face until you see more of the new program and get to meet a few people and (probably) take a few classes.
Your first goal will be to take enough advanced classes that you are successful in passing comprehensive exams. Then, you get more serious about research topics, and, for many, even research areas.
Note that in some other places, professors (PIs) actually hired their own graduate students. This is less common in the US and hardly ever in CS here. In the US, it is a department, not an individual, that accepts you, generally with the advice of a committee of faculty.
But if anything were contingent on anything else, then it would be explicitly spelled out. The prof is "reaching out" because you seem "interesting." Nothing more than that.


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What is the meaning of this poem on a professor's personal webpage?
I've found a few extremely high performing computer science professors listing The Satrapy, a relatively obscure poem, on their personal webpage. Does it have any special meaning with relation to CS/academia or is it just a coincidence?

This poem was an enjoyable read. I think it certainly does hold some relevance for computer scientists and academia as a whole. In the translation available here, the poem reads
Too bad that, cut out as you are
for grand and noble acts,
this unfair fate of yours
never offers encouragement, always denies you success;
that cheap habits get in your way,
pettiness, or indifference.
And how terrible the day you give in
(the day you let go and give in)
and take the road for Susa
and go to King Artaxerxes,
who, well-disposed, gives you a place at his court
and offers you satrapies and things like that—
things you don't want at all,
though, in despair, you accept them just the same.
You long for something else, ache for other things:
praise for the Demos and the Sophists,
that hard-won, that priceless acclaim—
the Agora, the Theatre, the Crowns of Laurel.
You can't get any of these from Artaxerxes,
you'll never find any of these in the satrapy,
and without them, what kind of life will you live?

The opening six lines describe the feeling that one is destined to be doing great things, but instead finds oneself working away without encouragement or success, and succumbing to bad habits. This could resonate with academics who perhaps entered their field of study dreaming that they'd solve the biggest open questions out there, but instead find that the reality is much harder and far less immediately rewarding.
The poem then contrasts the difficulty of this situation (in our analogy, working in academia) with the even worse choice of giving in and taking the easy option, which in the context of the poem is going to King Artaxerxes and being offered a place in his court. In our analogy, we could see this as leaving academia to work in a stable job in industry, where you will have a good income and an easy life.
The poem ends by questioning us, asking us that if we take the easy option, will we find the fulfilment we sought in the first place? And what kind of life would that be? I think these are questions that many academics have asked themselves.

Wonderful interpretation. It could also be that going to King Artaxerxes means you get tenure and, although now you officially have"made it", you also become responsible for all kinds of things that have little to do with research, which was what drove you to Academia in the first place. (Or perhaps the computer scientist was exiled from his home country, like Themistocles was exiled from Athens, and s_he dreams of making a difference there.)


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What day rate should I set for consulting work?
I am a final year social sciences PhD student in the UK. A professor reached out to me and asked if I am interested in a three-day consultant work for their project and if so, what my day rate is. I am definitely interested in the opportunity but I am not sure how much the day rate is as I haven't worked like this before (freelance consultant). Would it be polite to ask them to provide the day rate? Thanks.

Can you please clarify what country you live in and what your qualifications are?

oh sorry I didn't include in the post! I am in the UK and am a final year PhD student :)

If your university is unionized, the union contract might tell you about rates for short term work.

No, do not ask the professor to choose a rate
Speaking as an academic who has recently obtained his PhD and who earns his living from freelancing and consultancy, I would not recommend bouncing the question back to the professor. If he/she already had a particular rate in mind, he/she would have said so at the time of offering the work.
Instead, I would advise doing your own research into the "going rate" -- in other words, what other freelancers of comparable credentials and experience charge for the sort of engagement the professor is proposing. Many freelancers have websites or online profiles, and these will sometimes give an indication of what they would charge. You may also want to ascertain discreetly how the work will be funded (is the professor paying you out of his/her own pocket, or does he/she have funding from another source, and, if so, what?).
In the last few years, I have charged figures in the range £70-£240 for a day's freelance work, depending on the "going rate" for the type of work, how much time and skill I think it will demand, whether I have to travel (and stay overnight away from home), whether the assignment is funded by a private individual or by an institution, how well I know the customer (and how much work I have done for him/her in the past).
Discussing the price
Deciding upon a quotation for freelance consultancy is tricky, especially if you are doing it for the first time. You could avoid committing to an exact figure too early by asking to discuss the project by telephone in the first instance. It is perfectly reasonable to say that you want to know more about what sort of work is required before quoting a day rate, and discussing it by telephone may allow you to get a better sense of what the customer wants. A reasonable customer will see this as a good sign that you are interested in doing the work and have a professional attitude.
When it comes to actually agreeing a price, always put it in writing (electronic mail is fine), reiterating what was discussed by telephone. That way, you avoid misunderstandings later.
When you give a quotation, you could qualify it with a statement such as "I am assuming that ____. Obviously, the rate would be different if ___." or "Based on what you have described, my day rate would be around ____, but I would need more details on ___."
General pointers about freelancing

If you are doing unglamorous but highly skilled 'grunt' work (i.e.: if it is a so-called 'support' role), you can charge more. This applies especially in fields/endeavours where the 'headline acts' work for so-called "exposure" or volunteer for a "good cause". Last month, I provided a highly skilled 'support'-type contribution for a project where the 'headline acts' were not getting paid, but where I did get paid. Basically, if your name is going to be a tiny footnote in the acknowledgements, you should charge more than if your name is going to be on the list of authors (realistically, a couple of days' consultancy work is unlikely to be enough of a contribution to qualify for authorship/co-authorship).
As a freelancer, you have no job security, and this should be reflected in a (significantly) higher day rate than for a permanent employee. A good analogy can be seen in mobile telephone service providers, where 'pay-as-you-go' costs more per minute/SMS/MB than a 'pay a fixed monthly amount for a fixed allowance', but would be better value for those who do consume relatively few minutes/SMS/MB.
As a freelancer, you are responsible for your own pension arrangements, and this should be reflected in a higher day rate than for a permanent employee (who usually benefits from employer contributions to a pension scheme on top of his/her salary).
As a freelancer, you are responsible for collecting payment and declaring your income to HMRC in a tax return (assuming you make more than £1000 from all freelance work/enterprise in a tax year). Making an invoice, chasing up payment, and doing your tax return are time-consuming administrative chores that a freelancer has to do but an employee does not have to do (then again, the bureaucracy of some big organisations is even worse).
Be careful not to underestimate the difficulty of the job -- it is awkward to increase your fee significantly above what you quoted originally (unless the customer has made substantial extra requests). Speaking from personal experience, I have often found myself wishing I had demanded more money for an assignment after realising it was harder or more time-consuming than I had anticipated.
As a freelancer, you are responsible for your "continuing professional development" in your own (unpaid) time and at your own expense, unlike a permanent employee (whose employer will cover the cost and allow the employee to do it during salaried "work hours").

Since you want the work (perhaps for its own sake as for the money) and you have the three days free of other obligations, you should be fairly paid.
You don't need to live on the money from this gig.
Using @Buffy 's starting point,  $50K   annually is  $25  per hour, $600  for the three day job. Perhaps that's the annual salary you'd earn as a new UK PhD in social science, if you can find a job - I've no idea.
That's more than pay for routine data entry, but less than what consultants get who consult for a living.
Thank the professor for reaching out - it is a mark of confidence in you. Then I think I might cautiously ask for $1000 (in pounds). Come down if they say it's too much, say yes to more if they say it's too little.
Let us know what happens.

"You don't need to live on the money from this gig."  Pay is based on market rates, not the employee's needs.

@AnonymousPhysicist Agreed. But I can imagine taking a short job like this early in my career even a little underpaid for the experience, the connections, and what I might learn.

It depends on who will pay any necessary taxes, but assuming you do, take a fair annual compensation for your skills and qualifications and divide it by about 240 or 250.
If you have other expenses, then add those as well, computed similarly if necessary.
In the US there are about 250 working days in a typical work year (5 days times 50 weeks). Elsewhere it is a bit less, I think.
Some people can adjust it upwards substantially, others need to suggest a more moderate amount, but don't underestimate your worth.

The rate freelancers charge will usually reflect the lack of job security and possibility of periods of unemployment. I think your calculation of “fair annual salary divided by number of working days in a year” doesn’t take this into account. (E.g., if I’m a freelancer and only end up getting jobs for 200 days of the year, who will make up for the shortfall compared to what a salaried employee earns?)

I think @DanRomik's point is potentially relevant, in that "full-time" free-lancers need to bill at a rate to take into account "being unemployed" a considerable fraction of the time. I do not know the numbers...

@DanRomik, I think that only a very few people can charge based on a 200 day working year. You need extraordinary talent to make that acceptable, unlikely for a doctoral candidate. But you can also adjust it as needed. It is just a guideline.

https://workplace.stackexchange.com/q/19799/71681

@DanRomik, the medical and such, is why I suggested "compensation" not salary.

Good point regarding taxes.

In Germany (I don't know about UK) taxes are about half of salary. Independent contractors have to pay that separately, according to a colleague who does it. But they then get good health benefits, etc.


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What's the research criteria for PhD graduation?
I'm studying CS in USA. I'm wondering how many papers do PhDs need to graduate? Why isn't there a specific well-defined rule (i.e. you must have 4 papers in a high ranked conference, etc.)?
Ive heard that it's mainly your adviser's decision to let you graduate or not. So is it possible to find a super lax adviser that will let you graduate very early? Why don't professors let students graduate faster, so the professor can have more graduated PhD students which would make them look good on paper?

Specific “rules” get gamed. Leading to more ineffective rules. Real life has no specific rules.

Your dissertation is approved by a committee; usually the other professors on the committee will go along with what your advisors say, but they won't if the standards are unreasonably lax (and there are other solutions if they are unreasonably strong).  Also, having more students doesn't make you look better on paper; rather, it's having more successful after the PhD students that makes you look better.

Why do you want to graduate quickly? Isn't it better to pace yourself, gain a thorough understanding of your research topic and write a really good thesis?

Absolutely right @JonCuster People always find ways to satisfy the conditions to graduate early, with little knowledge in real-life.

A PhD is supposed to indicate that you are qualified to do independent and worthy research. This is not the same as publishing X papers in journals of quality Y: In some disciplines writing a thesis demonstrates this, in others one does so by publishing papers. But it is clear that even in the latter kind of discipline, if you were to write a spectacular paper that illustrates a great idea and sustained follow-up in terms of broad evaluation of how that idea works in practice, you will have demonstrated that you deserve a PhD. On the other hand, being fourth author on 7 papers where all you've done is tally up the numbers, it's equally clear that you have not demonstrated what is required to obtain a PhD.
In other words, the source of confusion in your question is that what you are asked to demonstrate for a PhD may be related, but is not equal to any specific publication requirement.
This also gets to your second question: Why don't (most) professors graduate students quickly? It's because professors' professional duty is to enforce the standards of their profession. They would be acting unprofessionally if they graduated students without the students satisfying the expectations of a PhD.

so when looking for an adviser, is it possible for me to to find one that will let me graduate faster?

You're asking the wrong question. It is certainly possible to find an adviser who is willing to let you graduate when you have demonstrated that you are worthy of holding a PhD, regardless of whether you have published 2, 4, or 8 papers. You should expect that no honorable adviser will let you graduate if you have not demonstrated that you are worthy of a PhD, even if you have published 8 papers.

What exactly is this worthiness? seems like some subjective criteria ready to be abused

@JobHunter69 Welcome to the real world. Nobody ever said that "critical thinking" and "independence" are easy to measure, yet that's what your future employers want you to have.

I'm already employed now. The hiring here is way more objective. In fact, more objective than university exams.

Sounds like you're in the right place already then.


text:
What should I put as the "subject" in an email request for masters research interviews?
I have to send emails to make an appointment with people to interview them for my Master's research. What would be the best "subject" to put in the email to get their attention and get a response?

What do you mean by "object"? Subject? Or something else? Please explain.

Sorry my first language is french we say "objet" . I think we say subject in english i will correct it. Thank you


text:
Too many people writing a letter of recommendation
I am an undergraduate student applying for a study abroad program that requires I submit two letters of recommendation. I just received the notice that the deadline for submission is in two weeks and in my frenzy to get the letters, I contacted a lot of TA's and professors. Since then, I've already had two TA's agree to write letters on my behalf, but an additional professor and TA also agreed to write letters for me. Is it rude for me to let them know that I've already found someone else? But I'm also worried that it's simply such a waste of time to let them continue with writing the letter. Any tips on how I can politely let them now it's not necessary anymore without jeopardizing my chances of potentially getting them to write letters for me in the future?

It's ruder to waste their time. Just send a simple email saying "Thank you for agreeing to write a letter for me, however I realised I accidentally asked too many people to write letters for me for this position, so you don't need to continue writing one for me. I would still like to ask you to write a letter for me in the future, if I decide to apply to other opportunities. Is that ok with you?".
Either they will agree, in which case great, or they'll say no, and eventually you will have to find someone else. My advice would be to ask your letter writers a long way in advance of the deadline, to avoid you having to rush around asking multiple people at the last minute. You will likely get a stronger letter that way too.

But prioritize letters from professors over TAs, other things being equal.


text:
Do I need to contact professors before sending my postdoc applications?
I intend to apply for a call for a postdoctoral position. Is it necessary to contact professors before sending my application formally? If so, which documents should be sent? Is my CV enough or should I also send a research statement?
My field is mathematics and I am applying to positions in France and Italy.

It's unclear if you mean cold-emailing professors for positions, or if you're planning to utilize the network that you've built from publishing and attending conferences.
I would highly recommend emailing other academics you've meet a conference that are already familiar with your work and letting them recommend postdocs to you.
Cold-emailing is unlikely to help much as professors are inundated with emails from prospective students who want a leg-up on acceptance, and your email is likely to get lost in the clutter.
EDIT:
The last sentence was unclear.  By cold-emailing, I meant looking up the email of the hiring manager/professor for the postdoc and sending them a follow-up email.
Most professors receive HUNDREDS of legitimate emails every day from the students they teach and advise, journal/conference submission request, other professors, or their side consulting business.  A "cold-email" is likely to get relegated to the spam box.

It sounds like the OP is applying for a postdoc that was advertised by a specific researcher. Cold emailing a thoughtful question about the position is not the same as cold-emailing a professor who has not advertised a postdoc position [we all get many ridiculous unsolicited emails to work in our labs]. If you are a good fit for the position they advertised, they will likely reply if you have a genuine question.

Probably should have made the last sentence more explicit.  By cold-emailing, I meant emailing the hiring professor.  Especially if the postdoc is at a university, the professor likely receives HUNDREDS of emails a day, many of those will require attention.

I disagree with most of the posts here. I am postdoc hunting and contacting professors I want to work with by mentioning that I am sending an application has helped me a lot. I am even applying to another field that is not my PhD one and I've even gotten Skype chats from top schools.  The key is to pay attention what they are doing as research and selling them a well thought proposal. Don't just sell your qualifications, you need to tell them you are creative and have initiative, thats why you should come up with a well thought plan. If they are interested, they often follow up and will back you.
 A format similar to this has worked for me.

Dear Dr. (professor),
I am applying to (postdoc posting), and  I am contacting you because I
  wish to join your research group since you do X and Y.
My skills and training are  (describe PhD experience and why it links
  to the professor's interests).
I want to work in (describe proposal in a couple of sentences), which
  is important because (reasons).
In the case you are interested I will attach my CV and a draft
  research proposal.
Looking forward to your reply.
Regards (your name)

I absolutely agree to what @sevensevens says about using your contacts you made through conferences and through your advisor or research group during your PhD. You have a much higher chance of getting a response from those contacts (any kind of response, be it positive or negative). I will talk about the case of when you are applying to public postdoc offers published on newsgroups, research group or university websites, and what @sevensevens calls "cold e-mails".
When I was applying to postdocs (computer science, two in question were in the UK - but I would've likely done same regardless of the country), I did send a couple of e-mails, in one case before, in the other case with the application. I think what @sevensevens says is mostly true; it is not likely to help much. I like to think of it as an equivalent of a follow-up phone call after dropping in your job application: polite, if it's short and timed correctly, but unlikely to make a big difference.
That is also how I would recommend phrasing it. Mine was a two-sentence e-mail, no attachments, along the lines:

I have just finished my PhD on topic X and am currently in a
  short-term post-doc doing Y. I am very interested to your open post-doc
  offer on topic Z as I think it matches my research interests well, and
  have submitted an application for it.

Try and phrase X, Y, Z in a way that shows as much understanding in the postdoc and research group you are applying to, but keep it short.
The other e-mail, which I sent before sending in the application, was due to the fact that the position was not a full-blown postdoc, but rather a short one-year position requiring less qualifications, nonetheless in a topic where I could see an even better match to my research. I sent a similar e-mail, additionally asking if I should still apply due to my (over)qualifications.
The result: I got a response to both e-mails. One of them was a short
"Thank you, I will look over your application.", and the other encouraged me to apply. I ended up being offered the short-term position, while not the other one; but I attribute that to the topic match and my CV as sent with the application and doubt the e-mails made a great difference. And the short-term position developed in a full-blown postdoc which extended beyond the initial year.


text:
Tips for being a good jury member for Master's defense
I am a 2nd year PhD student. My supervisor ask me to be a jury member in a Master's thesis defense presentation. This is a first for me, so I have some questions.

Any tips and guidelines I can follow?
What are the things I need to consider while reading the report?
What are the criteria I can use to evaluate their presentation?
I know I am the most junior person there, is it a good thing if I starte analyzing everything in detail?

I know sometimes it is frustrating when the student's work gets "judged" by how it is presented and not by the core of their contribution. I've experienced this feeling a lot every time I present, I don't want to make the same mistake. For example, I've seen presentations where each jury member talks only about the grammatical mistakes and doesn't ask a single question about the whole contribution.

I suggest that your first presumption about the student and his/her work is that it is well done. After all, it was taken under the direction of the advisor. However, depending on your field, it may not be possible for you to understand everything in the thesis. That is natural in Mathematics, for example, as people with different specialties use somewhat different thought processes. But, for a Master's level thesis you should understand most of it, at least in general.
Read the thesis and do a mark-up as you go. Work from a paper copy if possible. Be sure to mark things that you don't understand unless that amounts to nearly everything. Marking grammar etc is also helpful. Write your name on this document and at the end of the presentation session give it to the candidate. They will find it very helpful.
During the presentation, see if the questions you marked in the thesis are answered or not. It is easy to check them off as you go.
As to the questions you ask, since you are new at this, stick to asking for clarification on things you didn't understand in the work or in the presentation. Ask for simple, not complex, explanations. Some candidates won't be very good at this and will be overly pedantic since they, too, are new to this.
An experienced person (senior professor) might want to ask a more complex question of the candidate to explore either deeper knowledge of the topic or even general knowledge of the field, but I'd stay away from that sort of thing as a newcomer to this process.
You probably work on different problems than the candidate did so you have a somewhat different perspective. One thing you might suggest is future directions for the candidate. I would prefer to to this by annotating the markup rather than bringing it up in the presentation, however. You can be helpful.
Assume it is fine. Ask for clarifications. Be as helpful as you can. As a beginner, keep negative comments "offline" unless something is essentially wrong. But if you think something is seriously wrong, you can, perhaps, communicate that before the presentation. Perhaps to the candidate's professor through your own, rather than directly.

Thank you very much. I agree with everything you said. One last thing though, I feel my that supervisor invited me because there is some similarities with student's work and the work I did during Master's level thesis. Especially when I read the report, I have found that I can give remarks that might be helpful to the student. So, according to your answer, I should give those remarks after the presentation, and not as question that needs to be answered, right ?

@U.User, that is probably a judgement call. Afterwards is purely helpful. I'll just note that some people are less "quick" on their feet until they get a lot of practice. So it is less helpful if your question startles them in any way. That can be done on occasion, but I'd leave that to more experienced reviewers until you get more used to it. But if your remarks would be in the form of suggesting future work, rather than suggesting it was a missed opportunity in this work it should be fine.

I doubt that you are actually expected to say anything and if more experienced "players" are carrying the conversation forward, just let them.

Okay, well noted, thank again for your time and answers!

@Buffy - In the juries I've been, every member has a turn to make questions. Thus, every one is expected to have at least one reasonably interesting question at least.


text:
Does affirmative action apply towards international students as well?
I know that when picking and choosing students for a new cohort, many prominent US universities tend to use affirmative action to support those from less affluent backgrounds. Does this also hold when admitting international students, or deciding on which international student to provide scholarships? In other words, would a top school prefer to admit more students from Africa and China as opposed to Germany or Japan, and prefer to provide scholarships disproportionate to the number of students attending; i.e. more scholarships per capita for students from third world countries?

Seems likely to be institution dependent.

Are you referring to graduate or undergraduate admissions?"

Both undergraduate and graduate, but primarily undergraduate, where the lion's share of tuition revenue comes from. 2. But institutions usually have a small number of international students who receive full financial aid -- wouldn't that favor students who are not able to pay? Giving positive bias to wealthy students in that arena doesn't make much sense.

the examples "Africa and China" vs "Germany or Japan" make no sense, as affirmative action in the US discriminates most strongly against students of Asian decent.   The question is hypothesizing that chinese international students would be favored by an affirmative action system, which doesn't make sense.  The examples should be e.g. Africa/Latin America vs Europe and Asia.

@Aqualone OP's example makes perfect sense under their description of affirmative action as being applied based on the affluence of the applicant's background. Japan is a more affluent country per capita than China. If their understanding is wrong, it is better that you address this in an answer than attempt changing the question itself.

@Anyon ok, I can indeed write an answer, but it wouldn't be really answering the question.  Would I would really like to do is to ask another question specifically about race-based affirmative action, with the example countries I suggested.  However, stackexchange frowns heavily on "duplicate" questions, which is why I tried to edit this one instead.

This is not a complete answer, but I would like to point out that the question is misguided.  Affirmative action in the US is primarily race-based. Affirmative action based on socioeconomic status in theory exists, but is at best implemented sporadically.  (In fact, much of the opposite still exists with legacy admissions.)
In the race-based affirmative action system, Asian* and White/Caucasian (i.e. European-descent) students are disadvantaged by the system, while Black/African-American and Hispanic/Latino students are favored.
Asian-Americans are usually the most disfavoured group under affirmative action, as despite being a minority, they are not an "underrepresented" minority.  In fact, the recent supreme court case was primarily from a group advocating for Asian-Americans, not White Americans.
To address the question here, affirmative action as practiced for American students probably does not apply to international students, as the racial grouping of students usually only applies to domestic students.  In fact, when looking up statistics on demographics of US-university student populations, often "international" is listed as a separate category. So it could be that admissions officers are trained to treat all international applicants equally.
In general, affirmative action exists to increase diversity and to benefit underrepresented groups.  So to that end, if international student affirmative action exists at all, it probably would not favour students from e.g. China or India, who are overrepresented in the US. (In the case of China, given the recent geopolitical tensions between the US and China, it is hard to imagine being from China being any advantage; if anything, there has been frequent talk in the US these days of restricting students from China.)

*"Asian" usually means either East Asian (China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc.) or South Asian (Indian subcontinent).

For all metrics that matter to the University bottom line (minority serving institution status and access to funding streams which that entails), international students are all under one similar category regardless of country of origin.

Affirmative action first was required from government contractors "to ensure to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated [fairly] during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin" by J. F. Kennedy (see wikipedia). For university admission, affirmative action is now based on self-identification of applications as belonging to a certain racial category in order to allow the admission process to achieve a student body that reflects the racial makeup more representative of the population at large. Since many institutions are free to implement admissions as they see fit within general guidelines, a general answer cannot be given, but at least some will ask international applicants to self-identify racially and some might take the answer into consideration. This would give an advantage to international applicants of Hispanic heritage or Black-African heritage.

Thomas, I just don't think this is a reasonable modern answer to this question after Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard this year. Race based affirmative action is now de facto banned nationwide.

@user176372 De facto or just de jure?  Shortly after the decision had been announced, Attorney General Garland said in a statement that "the Department of Justice remains committed to promoting student diversity in higher education using all available legal tools. In the coming weeks, we will work with the Department of Education to provide resources to college and universities on what admissions practices and programs remain lawful following the Court’s decision."

@Michael_1812 Speculative until we have a couple years of numbers. The UC system is extremely robust, however, and has been dealing with a similar legal situation since 1998. Even with 25+ years' experience they haven't engineered a return to the previous status quo: https://www.npr.org/2023/06/30/1185226895/heres-what-happened-when-affirmative-action-ended-at-california-public-colleges

@user176372 Thank you for the interesting reference.


text:
How to handle PhD student who expects help with technical problems?
I am a postdoc supervising a PhD student in Computer Science.
Unfortunately, I have a lot on my plate and I cannot help him with the solution of the technical problems (they require a lot of time to solve them). The PhD student often gives me some tasks and I execute them to help him go forward with his research.
What are the suggestions you have? Should I talk about it with my Professor and maybe find a more suitable advisor for him?
Honestly, in my experience, I did not meet many PhD students who receive technical help from a Postdoc, but I could be wrong of course.
I would just like to do the best for him and for me.
Thanks for your ideas.

The use of "pretends" seems odd. Did you mean "needs"?

You can arrange technical seminars where students from the group exchange insights, methods, ideas. You can also give him pointers. You can - once - show him how to do things, but then expect him to proceed on their own. If they are not able to do this, they may have to take courses on their own.

@GoodDeeds based on false friends in other languages, I think they mean "demands" or "expects"

Strategically, it might be a good idea to prioritize helping the PhD student. You might gain some second authorships on papers, credit for PhD student supervision (which you will need for your next career step), and make a potential collaborator for life. It's a win-win situation.

Honestly, in my experience, I did not meet many PhD students who receive technical help from a Postdoc, but I could be wrong of course.

It's a sign of a well-managed group if PhD students have access to experienced people who can give them technical guidance. In a small group, that person can be the PI. In a big group, PIs often hire post-docs to do that job for them.

... and in some groups, it's swim-or-sink. It's possible that OP's previous experiences relate more to these kinds of groups.

Excellent answer!
PS.: I was in that student situation...

@xLeitix, Exactly!

From the perspective of a masters student, so bare that in mind. I think the question you would want to ask yourself is the following: "Does the student need your help with technical solutions or want your help with technical solutions?" Assuming it's need, and depending on the situational context, and assuming that it is not an urgent matter, then you could try to help that student by helping them to think through the technical aspects of the problem or perhaps providing a resource that you are familiar with because it sounds that you are at least familiar with the material. If the student is in the want category, then you will need to think about a way to make that student understand that expedience is not always the best path forward.
This could also be a learning opportunity for you as well to figure out how you can be a better advisor in the relationship and in this moment. It could be as simple as telling the student that, if they put some serious effort into the problem, that you believe in their capabilities to solve their problem - a boost of confidence from a peer can really go a long way for a student.
But the student-advisor is a relationship that cuts both ways, and like any relationship, requires a significant degree of communication and transparency to make things work. If you took on the responsibility to advise the student, then I believe you have an obligation to that student to communicate openly with them. But again, I think from a students perspective, the advisor is there to help students work through a struggle and adapt a researchers mentality.

As I said in one of the comments, I was in that student situation somehow. My suggestions would be:

Try to help the student to integrate in the group (if you're somehow part of the same research group)
Try to help the student with tasks that could take you a day or two, that would otherwise take him/her ages... (just because he/she doesn't have the necessary experience). It's very frustrating. This will be like a non-zero-sum game, from the game theory perspective; the student will obviously win time and confidence, but you can also gain experience (and maybe you will even understand things better), there's also the gain of the group because it should be in the group interest to have very qualified people.
Try to communicate with him/her. Communication is always the key. Of course you will always have a lot on your plate (and so do other people) but "teaching duties" or student supervision should not be neglected either. This should be a serios task on its own. Successfully supervising a student shows that you can manage your time properly, that you understand your field, that you can take responsabilities.
Try to leave your personal problems at home (husband/wife/kids related issues). It's simply not professional not to be able to separate the job problems from family problems.
Try to discuss with your Professor to find someone else (maybe more prepared or maybe not that busy as you) to replace you if you think you cannot handle the situation. Definitely it's not okay to just leave the student drown; otherwise I am definitely sure that the student will just leave the group in the end anyway.

Of course all I am saying is valid only if the student demands are reasonable. You should not do his/her work, you should just help him/her here and there with some advice, some details.

IMHO a key question here is what level of technical problems we're talking about.

A PhD student is fully qualified professional (via their MSc or BSc) in their field.

Thus, the student should be expected to solve the level of technical problems that they could also encounter in their (hypothetical) every-day-life as working professional on their own. One actually expects someone who pursues a PhD to be above average in their field.
This does not mean that they should not ask, but they should do what is required after high-level, general guidance.
There may be exceptions, e.g. if delicate machinery is involved so the institute guideline is that a student will not touch the instrument without someone experienced supervising them until they have suffient experience.
This seems not to be the situation here - but it may be worth while checking with the student whether they come from a group where they weren't allowed to do anything on their own.
OTOH, if we're talking interdisciplinary projects, a student cannot be expected to perform at such a level in a field that is not theirs and in which they neither have working experience.
In such a situation there should be a plan how to get them to the level that is needed, and how much they need to be taught (and by whom) vs. how much they need to catch up by themselves. This is something that should be discussed with student and official supervisor.
Also many e.g. laboratory* techniques are best learned in dedicated teaching sessions. This is in no way restricted to PhD students, it's the same with experienced professionals/researchers who want to learn new techniques.
* I'm chemist, but I'd tend to approach e.g. version control along the same lines.

I've occasionally encountered phD students (who no doubt will become great managers) that trained their supervising postdocs extremely well. To the point where everyone else was commenting about student's tame postdoc who'd jump as soon as student would command "jump".

The PhD student often gives me some tasks and I execute them

rings a bell in that respect.
One sentence/idiom that've found helpful in avoiding to get into such a relationship is refusing to do their work with "Thinking [working] yourself is what makes you clever [experienced]."
(I may say, though, that I  more frequently encountered shy students who did not ask and would be stuck for far too long.)

Once you know what their work is (should be), you can happily do your part but refuse to do their work. If your part is still not doable due to your overall workloady, that is something you need to bring up with your supervisor (the classical advise is when they tell you e.g. to teach the student techique xy, to acknowledge by "Sure. What other task should I postpone or drop instead?".

IMHO supervising (including teaching) PhD students is a normal part of a postdoc job.
Still, discussing what in detail is expected of you in that respect is something you can and should discuss with your professor, but at the moment the question does not sound to me as if the student should get some other supervisor (who'd as like as not be just as drowned in work as you are).

"A PhD student is fully qualified professional (via their MSc or BSc) in their field." That made me laugh, thank you.  "IMHO supervising (including teaching) PhD students is a normal part of a postdoc job." Its actaully written in the job specification for many postdocs, certainly any I employ. Teaching a student well is often significantly more effort than just doing the work, but it this is a short-term fix that doesn't pay off inthe long run.


text:
Reference in a poster
I am presenting a poster in an international conference based on a work that is yet to be published. Should I include this work in the references of the poster?

What do you mean by " based on"? Is it a next step after that work, or a preliminary step towards it?

I am presenting the findings that we have so far. This will also appear in the paper that is yet to be submitted for publication.

Contrary to another answer here, I'll suggest that, yes, you should make a reference to the work in progress. This will enable anyone seeing the poster to be on the lookout for the later, more complete, work.
If you have a working title for the finished work, especially one unlikely to change, then list it that way and mark it in the citation as "in progress" and/or "to be submitted". If it has been submitted, but not yet published, mark it as "submitted" or, if it has been accepted, as "to appear...".
If you don't have a working title, you can just indicate somewhere that this is incomplete work, still in progress. Again, this is just a service to those who might be especially interested in following up on the work.

It's unlikely to hurt, but unless the author list and/or working title of the paper is clearly different from the poster's, it seems rather redundant to have an "in progress" reference. It is certainly worth noting on the poster if the work has been accepted, but I've often seen this done as a note under the title rather than in a list of references.

Usually (in my field), the point of a poster is to share works-in-progress. People occasionally present previously published work but it is much less common. So I doubt that anyone would be looking for a reference to a full paper on a poster.
Plus, if there isn't a publication, there really isn't anything to reference. You are presenting that work as a poster. It would be a bit circular to reference a hypothetical future publication in a poster presenting part of the same project. If you have a pre-print it might be nice to include a link or reference to that, but it doesn't sounds like you're that far along.
So no, unless I'm misunderstanding your situation, you should not include a reference to the current project.

If the reference is to a paper that we might get around to submitting when we're done, then no. Maybe there's another conference presentation to reference? If it's really in the process of preparation, then yes, if you want to advertise it. If it's your paper, then it's even good form to have a sign up sheet to be sent a copy once it's ready.
If it's to work that everybody knows about but you know may take forever if that (my field has a few of those), you can reference "procrastinating friend of mine, unpublished".


text:
Reusing a codebook/technique in a new publication
I have published a paper, hereby referred as "the first paper", where I lay out a conceptual framework that categorises and evaluates, let's say, policies. This article got published with a detailed codebook, including the categories, unit of analysis, examples, etc.
Now I have written another article. I inspect a similar set of policies, but from different actors. However, I simply re-used the categories and techniques I used in the first paper. I cite the first paper, of course, in the methodology part of the new paper. When I presented this paper in a conference, someone said that I should put all the information about coding/categories in the appendix.
Well, this codebook already exists in the first one's appendix. Now that I am getting ready to send the new paper for publication I am trying to understand what to do...
Do I simply put a footnote/endnote saying the details of coding exists in the appendix of the first article? Do I rewrite the whole codebook for the second one and cite the first article in the appendix again? How to navigate re-using same categorisation/codebook/research design (developed by myself) in two different articles?

Do you hold copyright to the first paper?

It is not open access and behind a paywall, so I'd say no.

Ask the editor of the second journal.

As an analogy, psychologists routinely use the same questionnaire over and over again. (As just one example, take Beck's Depression Inventory.) These are well established in the literature, and nobody would put the BDI into a new publication. If you really need it, you know where and how to get it.
In this specific case, of course the BDI is copyrighted. So as Buffy notes, there is the added question of whether you even have the right to re-publish material, or whether you signed that right away with the first paper.
Bottom line: I personally would submit the second paper without the codebook, but of course with a prominent pointer as to where it was first published. Then see what the reviewer and the editors say. If they truly want it in an appendix, you can start worrying about copyright. (I don't think anyone would make this a reason to reject the paper.) And conversely, as a reviewer or AE, I would never recommend reprinting material like this - to the contrary, if someone included material for republication, I would expect a convincing explanation for why they would do that, because it raises the question of whether anything was changed between the first and the second publication.

I mean, the first paper (with the codebook) is already published in a peer-reviewed journal. The second one is in the works. I was thinking of adding a footnote saying, "For details of the coding process and codebook, please see the appendix in Rhyso (2023)". Wouldn't that be sufficient?

Yes, that is precisely what I am recommending.

@Buffy: thank you for pointing that out. Edited.

My problem is that... well then the anonymity is out of the window? Isn't this a problem?

Well, you can always write "we used the codebook introduced by rhyso (2024)". The reviewers will strongly suspect you are the same author, or at least that there is a nonempty intersection between the two papers' author lists. But you could have reused someone else's prior work, that happens all the time. And there really is no way around it. Simply reprinting the codebook without attributing the earlier paper is absolutely not an option.

Both solo authored articles :)

There are two considerations, copyright and self plagiarism. You need to respect the first and avoid the second.
The question of "usage" of the technique in research is different. Yes, you can reuse the technique as it is, essentially, an idea. And ideas, even copyrighted ones are free to use. Patents are a different matter, however, but you don't suggest that is an issue.
There is also the question, related to usage, as to whether the second paper will be treated by a publisher as "sufficiently novel" to warrant publication. But that is up to them to decide.
The rest of this focuses on how you write the second paper.
My recommendation is that you don't duplicate the appendix without permission of the copyright holder, but that you the original paper and point to its appendix. Following that, you can use excerpts (suitably labelled) from it to help explain things in the second paper, or paraphrase what is there, again with citation. This is standard copyright practice.
Don't try to rewrite that appendix with different words but the same intellectual content in the new paper. Especially without citing the original. That would be self plagiarism. A reader wants and needs full context of ideas and if they were originally expressed in the first paper, then you need to cite that.
You could, of course, ask the copyright holder for permission to duplicate the appendix, citing it as "with permission". This avoids all problems.
One issue with copyright is that when a new publication infringes in such a way as to reduce the value (usually economic value) of the original, copyright holders are likely to object. Reproducing it without permission in your case seems like it would have precisely that effect.

I am thinking of submitting without any mention of the codebook and adding it (the reference) in the latter rounds of review/editing.

Depending on what else you say, you might be flirting with self plagiarism. Citation is likely a better choice.

Well I use the same sources to explain where the categorisation comes from, but these are somewhat commonly used works for my field. So I paraphrase it and I even provide a "this method is used different applications" sentence and cite my own work. Just not the codebook, directly.

Just a note that paraphrasing isn't a defense.

If I use the same design I have in another article, I still have to explain the design and where it comes from - that's the paraphrasing part, and I refer to my own article as well? There are plenty other article that use very similar methods. I can't see the part where this goes into the self-plagiarism route?

Just a clarification, I am referring to research design section-not to a codebook/appendix


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Whether to upload a conference paper?
I am going to a (large) conference this summer, and participants are expected to upload their papers so the chair, the discussant and the conference-goers can read them beforehand. Today, I received an email reminding us to upload the papers before the deadline and noted that if anybody has reservations about uploading, they can send their papers directly to the chair and the discussant. They also mentioned that the paper won't be published anywhere and will just be available to the conference people (they can obviously download it, etc).
I was a little intrigued because I had never had reservations, and now I am thinking about whether I should. After the conference, I will send this paper to the journal(s).
Hence, the question, why would anybody have reservations about uploading their conference paper? What are the pros and cons, if there are any?

I would guess that it doesn't really matter unless you discuss things in the paper but anticipate filing a patent (especially in the US, where the rules have changed). Either uploading for conference attendees or just for the committee establish your priority as well as making your copyright visible. You have evidence of priority if it is needed.
You will be making the ideas public in any presentation in any case.
For patents in the US, the recent "First to File" rules complicate this for patentable things ("devices"). In that case, see a lawyer before you publicize your ideas.


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Can he/she get admission for Phd in U.S/European university?
If someone have done Post -Graduation from not reputed institution (India) and have   not done  any project /Thesis in Msc  and Msc percentage/mark also low  ?
Can he/she get admission  for Phd  in U.S/European university ?
Notes : Department  is Mathematics

Is your question actually whether one "can" get an admission (i.e., is it possible) or whether it's likely? It's certainly possible by regulation, but if there is no real redeeming qualities in your CV getting accepted is unlikely.

thanks for correction@xLeitix  im   not getting  its  certainly possible  by  regulation  can u elaborate more

It is impossible to say with only the information given. It would probably be difficult, however, but more for low marks that the other facts.
The candidate needs to show, in application materials, a high probability of success. Nothing you state makes that success obvious. But letters of recommendation are also important and there can be reasons for low grades that aren't so much related to ability in mathematics. Even extreme focus on a research topic could cause poor performance elsewhere.
A committee would need to consider the entire package. The competition is also fierce and many in the pool won't have the same negative aspects.
It might be marginally easier to do this in the US than in EU as the doctoral education process can be longer and have more room to make up deficits.
But it isn't promising as stated.

thanks u @Buffy one more doubts  :    if some  one  have good  score in GRE   but  not have  project/thesis  during Msc.......Can  he/she  eligible  for  Phd in US

Lots of MS programs in the US don't involve a thesis, so that is less of an issue. The GRE will help, if only a bit. The subject test in mathematics is more important than the basic test, of course.


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Is there a reason why the Nobel Prize in physics 2024 is awarded to a computer scientist instead of a physicist?
Is there a reason why the Nobel Prize in physics 2024 is awarded to a computer scientist instead of a physicist?
This is  an  insult to the people who are working on the real physics. A Nobel Prize in Physics should be awarded to scientists carrying out real physics research, encouraging those who work hard on fundamental research.

I kinda figured the Nobel Committee announced their reasoning, instead of just throwing a name out there. Did you read it?

What according to you is "real physics" and who gets to decide that?

It seems like the other "real physicists" want to capture and claim this sort of work as part of physics rather than having only a very narrow view of what it means to be "physics".

@quantacad Machine Learning and AI have nothing to do with physics

Such things can be a tool to unlock the answers to difficult questions that are asked by physicists, especially when a lot of data seems to obscure the answers rather than reveal them. "..nothing to do with physics" is far too strong.

Sidecomment: besides what Buffy correctly said, there are also people using statistical physics tools to understand why and how neural networks acutally work/generalize properly... and all that.

@BryanKrause an obligatory xkcd https://xkcd.com/435/

Probably a way better fit for the Physics stack.

I quote the concluding remarks in the report on why they were given the Nobel Prize in Physics:

With their breakthroughs, that stand on the foundations of physical science, they have showed a completely new way for us to use computers to aid and to guide us to tackle many of the challenges our society face. Simply put, thanks to their work Humanity now has a new item in its toolbox, which we can choose to use for good purposes. Machine learning based on ANNs is currently revolutionizing science, engineering and daily life. The field is already on its way to enable breakthroughs toward building a sustainable society, e.g. by helping to identify new functional materials. How deep learning by ANNs will be used in the future depends on how we humans choose to use these incredibly potent tools, already present in many aspects of our lives.

A small side comment who also uses the results from their work: on a personal level, I also think it is rather unconventional to be called within Physics. But only that, not wrong or inappropriate. Perhaps no other Physics discovery really climbed the mark?! Who knows...

That logic makes about as much sense to as awarding a Nobel prize in physics to the first person to use differential equations to study economics.

The Nobel Prize website explains why the Nobel committee considers the work to count as physics.
It seems from reading this that they regard the discovery as one primarily of information theory, very much in the mold of Shannon. They also talk a lot about the connections with statistical physics and the Boltzmann distribution.
It's worth noting that the Nobel committees have long had a fairly broad interpretation of the disciplinary boundaries. For example a case could be made for 7 of the last 10 laureates in chemistry actually being in (non-medical) biology, rather than chemistry.

If you look at Wikipedia's article on the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, there is a section on the "Scope of the Award".

In recent years, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry has drawn criticism from chemists who feel that the prize is more frequently awarded to non-chemists than to chemists. In the 30 years leading up to 2012, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded ten times for work classified as biochemistry or molecular biology, and once to a materials scientist. In the ten years leading up to 2012, only four prizes were awarded for work strictly in chemistry. Commenting on the scope of the award, The Economist explained that the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is bound by Nobel's bequest, which specifies awards only in physics, chemistry, literature, medicine, and peace. Biology was in its infancy in Nobel's day and no award was established. The Economist argued there is no Nobel Prize for mathematics either, another major discipline, and added that Nobel's stipulation of no more than three winners is not readily applicable to modern physics, where progress is typically made through huge collaborations rather than by individuals alone.

As you can see, some chemists are annoyed too that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry appears to be going to non-chemists quite often. The reason appears to be:

Nobel's will was applicable to the science of his day, but not modern science, where progress is not made by individual scientists.
Nobel specified only three science disciplines. For whatever reason, Nobel didn't establish a prize for biology & mathematics (and computer science), which of course doesn't mean those disciplines are insignificant.
(Reading between the lines) It seems the Nobel committee feel that they should be honoring progress in all science, not just the three that Nobel specified. This is why they honored biochemists & material scientists. Since deep learning represents a genuine breakthrough, they decided to award a prize for it, even though it's not really physics.

You could argue of course that the Nobel Prize in Physics should be awarded to physics only, blame Nobel for there being no computer science award, too bad for computer scientists who already have the Turing award anyway, etc. etc. If enough people agree with you, that might get the Nobel committee to change their policies.
PS: For this case at least, the motivation was from physics, and it was invented to understand certain phases of matter


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What are the steps to becoming a great mathematician?
My goal is to become a great mathematician.
Here's my question:
What are the steps to becoming a great mathematician?
In order to become a great mathematician, what qualities should I possess? Should I develop any particular personality traits?
Is it mandatory to win a field medal/Abel prize to be a great mathematician.?

Solve important problems. Publish great mathematics.

Looking ahead, it might be helpful to do a bit of self-reflecting on why you see this for yourself. Love, energy, and talent are three ingredients.

You might want to think about how you would define "great". Do you want the mathematical community at large to classify you as great or would you be satisfied with meeting more personal goals?

See also Terence Tao's article What is Good Mathematics?

@JW I'm referring to a distinguished mathematician

@jasmine: Buffy and JW are saying that, to be a great/distinguished/recognized mathematician, you’ll need to do great/distinguished/recognized work in the fields you end up in. Good luck to you!

Impressing your PhD advisor is a reasonable first step.

okay@Aruralreader. In addition, I'd like to know what character traits/personality/quality makes great mathematicians

@jasmine, there are plenty of informative biographies. Why not start with Constance Reid’s Hilbert, Courant, Julia Robinson, and Neyman?

@Aruralreader okay I will  read the biography

Here I take the narrow perspective that a "great mathematician" is one who ultimately is considered to have made a great contribution to the body of mathematical knowledge.  Again, as is forgotten in so many answers to similar questions, it is worth saying that it is impossible to give a good, empirically based answer ... the best one can do is look at those people who are recognized as great mathematicians and try to determine, inductively, what traits and life-circumstances they share.
Here's my list

Win the ovarian lottery. No matter her innate potentialities and abilities, the chances that a female born today in Eritrea will become a great mathematician is vanishingly small in comparison with the very small possibility of a male born today in the United Staes.
Hope that the ovarian lottery not only endowed you with good life circumstances, but also a modicum of smarts
Work hard but don't work alone. Mathematics today is very much a community effort. Although some results are hailed as if they were the solitary work of a lone genius, it is rarely the case. Even Andrew Wiles, whose work on the Fermat problem involved a great deal of out-of-sight solitary work, not only built on a vast edifice of mathematics built by others but ultimately sought help from another mathematician to help plug the holes.
Get into a good university, find a mentor whose approach meshes with your own, and seek assistance when you get stuck. Working on problems diligently is clearly an important part of becoming a mathematician, but there is no shame and a great deal to be gained by seeking someone else's viewpoint when you are utterly stuck (particularly as a student).
To become well recognized, and hence to make a contribution to the vast body of mathematical knowledge, you must publish.
Remember, that your goal was to become a great mathematician. Most great mathematicians do not receive the Abel Prize, the Fields Medal or the MacArthur award. Euclid died before they were available (if he ever actually existed); So too did Emmy Noether and countless others ... and now there are far to many great mathematicians for all of them to be awarded one of the limited number of (distracting and essentially irrelevant) prizes available.


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Is it an advantage to be a resident of the state in which you are applying to PhD programs at state universities?
I just moved to a new state (California) for a temporary job and am planning to apply to graduate school (physics PhD programs) at state schools here. If I want, I can establish residency here; this would be somewhat expensive and a take a bit of time, so I have not been particularly motivated to do so. I had assumed that since my tuition would be covered anyways in a PhD program, there was no advantage to being in-state. However, my supervisor raised the possibility that it might be to my benefit when applying to California grad schools to be a California resident; is this true? Does residency have an effect on PhD program admissions at state schools?

What expenses does establishing residency occur beyond living there for your temporary job?

Things like getting a new driver's license, re-registering a car, etc, have associated fees.  Legally you are probably required to do those things whether you care about establishing residency or not, but in practice, if you don't care about residency, you might let them slide.

At my institution, graduate students who are TA's and RA's are granted immediate residency.  However, I know that things are different in some other states.  I think you'll find considerable variation from one state to another.

If you moved to California for a job, you might be required to do things like get a California driver's license anyway.  (I'm not a lawyer; this isn't legal advice.  But don't get stopped for speeding with a local address and an out-of-state license.)

I had assumed that since my tuition would be covered anyways in a PhD program, there was no advantage to being in-state.

There's no financial advantage to you.  There might be one to the department.
I believe that one common arrangement is that the department's budget is charged for the normal amount of your tuition, whether in-state or out-of-state.  Although it's just money moving between internal university accounts, it makes a difference to the department.
I went to grad school at a University of California campus, and there was a rule that if you had come from another state, you had to establish California residency within your first year, so that the department only had to pay the out-of-state rate for one year.  So if you plan to attend a California university, you'll likely have to go through that bureaucratic hassle eventually anyway; might as well get started now.
Being in-state also means that the department gets to pay the lower rate from the beginning, so you'd be a bit cheaper to support than an out-of-state student.  I don't know whether departments actually make this an explicit factor in admissions, and I would guess that they don't, but it could make a very slight difference at the margin.

In my department, the department had a fixed number of waivers - basically, tokens that said "You count as in-state." Because establishing residency in the state was hard, first year grad students automatically got one, as did foreign students. After your first year, there was a strong suggestion that you establish residency, because the waivers might not be available.

@Fomite: it helps if you say which state (so we can understand how hard establishing residency was), and whether the college was public or private (policies vary), etc.

@smci I don't know of any private university with different in- and out-of-state tuition. In this case, that statement applies to public universities in WA and NC.

I won't repeat the points raised in Nate Eldredge's excellent answer, but I will point out a couple of other considerations. First, in general, I very much doubt that there is much of an academic advantage; that is, I doubt that you would be more likely to be accepted based on your residency status. Departments would normally make offers based on the quality of your application, not on how much you would have to pay.
Second, although Nate Eldredge said, "there's no financial advantage to you", that might not always be accurate. Some institutions might offer only in-state financial assistance; out-of-state students might have to make up the difference themselves. I have no idea how frequent that might be the case, but in my personal case as an international student in Louisiana, USA, my graduate assistantship did not waive the international student tuition supplement; I had to pay that out of my own pocket (although the assistantship did provide sufficient funds to cover that, it reduced my net receipts by thousands of dollars). Yes, I realize that my personal situation concerned international fees while yours concerns domestic but out-of-state fees, but I nevertheless recommend that you verify the specific situation in any school that you want to apply to; do not assume that they would always fully cover out-of-state tuition charges.

When I was in graduate school in Texas, my graduate program was flagged during a review for having too many non-Texan students and too many international students. After the review, the program tried to  recruit more Texan students (and was successful).
However, I suspect that this experience is an outlier.


text:
study phd and second master at the same time at same program
I am a phd student at Civil/Structural engineering program outside of Canada but now I want to study second master of Structural engineering (my research area will be difference from my first master) in Canada. I want to know if I can study both phd and master at the same time? my phd courses are finished and I am in phd research duration.

This sounds like a terrible idea. A PhD is a full time job. And a second MSc won't do much once you've completed your PhD.


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Why are university drop out rates in the United Kingdom relatively low?
The drop out rates for America and Germany in University are similar at about 30%. I believe a common explanation for both is that there is not enough screening for the people  who go into college.
However, googling tells me that in the UK it is about 5% ish. Why is their dropout rate so low?

Also, drop out from what? Undergraduate university programs? High schools?

Giving a single number is unlikely to provide meaningful information. The "drop out rate" for an undergraduate math program at UCLA is probably much lower than for a math program at some community colleges in the US. The drop out rate for a Bachelor math program at an arbitrary German university is probably higher than for many (though certainly not all) other subjects at the same university. The drop out rate for a Master's program in math at a German university will typically be much lower than for a Bachelor's program.

I am wondering how changes of program a counted in those statistics. I know a considerable number of people who realized within the first year or so that they can probably slog through their degree in A, but that they would be happier with a related degree in B instead (e.g. physics to engineering). In Germany that would mean simply dropping A and enrolling in B (often no more work than filling out some paperwork), usually transferring some or even most credits. Technically those people dropped out of the program, but not really of the system.

I see Google hits showing rates from <1% at Oxford/Cambridge to >30% at some other places. Does it average to 5%-ish? Maybe. Does that count any institutions comparable to US community colleges? No clue...

I searched in general, rather than for top schools. I think top schools for all places would agree, except on those which there is no thing as top schools (Eg: Germany)

The comparison between the dropout rates for British and German universities is a topic I have talked about with many collegagues familiar with both systems. The core reason seems to be that what is deemed an acceptable dropout rate in the UK is much, much lower than in Germany.
This then leads to all kinds of different actions and policies that lead to the actual dropout rates being so much lower.
British universites that can afford to be picky are usually very selective, and will only admit students they are confident will do well. On the other hand, for many subjects (eg math, CS), German universities will admit almost anyone with Abitur, and then just sort them out in the first year.
British universities tend to offer quite a bit of support for (weaker) students. How much and the nature varies - most universities couldn't afford the immense attention paid to individual students at Oxbridge, but there is bound to be some effort. I've never heard of comparable attempts at German universities.
Lest I give the impression that I consider the British approach superior, UK universities that cannot afford to be that picky in admissions will just lower the standards to the point where almost everyone they do admit will pass (with whatever support they can offer). German professors tend to have much more latitude to only let those pass they deem worthy.

Correct me if I’m wrong but the German system recognizes and values technical degrees to a much greater extent, so one does not need a university education to afford a reasonable lifestyle.

A friend of mine who attended a Swiss university said something about how they are legally required to accept everyone who meets the entry requirements. To not have crazy class sizes, the first year exams are very hard, and a lot of students are weeded out ("drop out"). Maybe that applies to Germany too?

@Allure here ist the question that yields the answers concerning the "weeding out" system in Germany. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/183700/why-are-low-pass-rates-below-50-for-exams-considered-acceptable-in-germany/183701#183701

Regarding the last paragraph: I am not particular familiar with the British system, but after all I have heard the main reason for this is that students are treated as paying customers in Britain (as well as in the US) that you want to retain for money, while in Germany, the benefits of retaining bad students are much smaller.

+1 Maybe, though, could you add a few examples which kind of support British universities (other than Cambridge and Oxbridge) offer for weaker students?

In one of the universities I worked at, students could fail 1 module per year and leave it unfinished, and still graduate. I suspect this is not true in Germany. In many UK universities, the first year doesn't count to your degree grade, so marking is lax too, you don't fail a student unless they REALLY deserve it.

Having worked at German universities I can attest to most of this: In Germany funding programs are often attached to enrollment numbers, not necessarily graduation numbers.  There are no enrollment-tests for many degrees and enrollment is usually free, so many people enroll first and then realize it's not what they want or not what they're good at.

@AnderBiguri Also in Germany: You have to pass every single course in your required curriculum to graduate - students usually have up to 4 chances of passing a test (3 written, 1 oral) - but after that you will have failed this course permanently and can not attain the graduation in this degree anymore. But you can still change to a different degree (e.g. Computer Science instead of Web Design) which don't require the exact course you failed and even transfer your already passed exams to the new degree.

One thing I'm wondering is if the pass/fail barrier is lower in UK universities. It might be quite hard to get a first class honours undergraduate degree, but you can still stick it out and get an upper/lower second or a third down to only 40% of a maximum grade.

@Crazymoomin I don't think that these values have any independent meaning. When setting an exam, I know where the boundaries are, and thus (try to) allocate marks to questions accordingly.

@Arno It's still possible that UK universities might prefer a student to graduate with a lower grade than drop out.