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Status of a manuscript whose required reviews are completed
I have submitted a paper to a good math journal in first week of May 2024. After a month (+ a week at most), the online system shows the status “Required reviews completed”. However, to this day, I haven't received any email from the  journal regarding the review report.
I wonder whether I should send a polite email to inquire about the status of manuscript.
I am aware that getting review reports within three months in the field of mathematics (especially pure math) is not the norm, but it is not something that has never happened before.
So, what should be the correct course of action in this case?

I'm just speculating, but one possibility, particularly if the journal is using an online system not adapted to mathematics, is that the status does not reflect the workflow of the actual journal.  In particular, if the journal (like many top math journals) uses a system where they solicit quick opinions from one or two experts before sending out the paper for a careful detailed read, the system may say "Required reviews completed" when the quick opinions have been received, because that's the way the editors find it most convenient to interact with the online system.

I suspect that the editor in charge is either yet unaware of this or is too busy. Alternatively, the review(s) may not be sufficiently helpful. In any case, the editor should act and change the status.
Yes, a polite inquiry is a sensible way forward.

The same thing happened to me when I submitted to Chem Comms—I assume the editor just never checked, despite the reviews being handed in over a week prior. We got the result a day or so after poking the journal for a response (politely, of course).

Glad to hear that you got your response after a polite email. I have two more papers whose status is unknown to me. I dropped two polite emails (1 month apart)  to the editor to know the status of first paper. However, I got no reply from the editor.

It's worth pointing out that the status changes whenever all required reviews are completed, not when all reviews solicited have arrived. For example, if your journal only needs one review per paper, and there are two agreed reviewers, then as soon as one reviewer submits their review the status changes. However, most editors will wait for the second review, hence there is no decision.
That said, there's effectively no drawback to asking for a status update (unless you do it so often they start getting annoyed), so you might as well do it.


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How much time chief editors usually take to make final decision on a manuscript?
I have a manuscript submitted to a good (SCIE indexed) maths journal. I received a minor revision on May 27, 2024. I submitted the revised version on June 1, 2024, addressing all the reviewers' comments. My manuscript again went under review (as shown by the online system) and when I checked on June 13, the online status was changed to “under final decision.” Since then, there is no change in online status and I haven't received a decision yet.
I wonder if this is a common practice or an isolated case.
I acknowledge that editors are very busy people, doing a voluntary service, which I honestly appreciate. However, I am confused whether I should raise a polite inquiry with the journal or wait for some more days.

As outlined in the canonical journal workflow question as well as this answer, an editorial decision taking six or more weeks is atypical. But given the time of year, perhaps those involved could be on vacation?

@Anyon This might be a possibility. However, looking at the track record of the journal, I am confident that the journal is going to publish it's July issue within two days. So, is it possible for a journal to release an issue without consent from EiC?

Unlikely that you are in the July issue. Part of the delay could even be finding a slot in a future issue that matches the length of your paper (print journals). A long paper might be reason enough for a delay.

@Buffy Perhaps, you are right. My paper is of medium length (22 pages). May be I should just wait for the decision.

"So, is it possible for a journal to release an issue without consent from EiC?" I'd assume that the EiC has given consent much earlier; the technical release itself may also take some time. I have seen many editorial decisions taking longer than six weeks by the way. People may go on holidays and have other things to do, and then a queue of submissions may build up that takes time to process.

@ChristianHennig I understand that. My only concern was what if the paper  “fell between the cracks.”

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Why does my advisor / professor discourage all collaboration?
So I have had this advisor for about 8 months now. Literally all students in my department talk very highly of him: his previous graduate students (master's) have gone on to have successful careers in PhD programs or are top data scientists who earn six figures.
I just took his class this fall. He prohibited all collaboration for homework, and we were not allowed to ask him questions either, unless we thought there was a typo on the problem or similar. Also, we were not allowed to discuss the material with others i.e. we cannot study for exams together or even talk about the book we were using. Or any of the topics. According to him, "collaboration is for undergraduates who struggle". So yeah.
Well, moving forward with his research. He refuses to read anything I write if it has a typo or I've made a mistake with citation. He won't read anything I've done, if he sees an imperfection. He also has strictly told me not to discuss my research with others / seek help elsewhere. Him I can ask questions, but only on papers / reading that I should do. Nothing about how to learn to program something or if I have a difficulty understanding a theorem. He always tells me "you're a master's student, you should do this on your own, you're not an undergraduate anymore".
Also, he has questioned the legitimacy of my undergraduate degree a few times due to me not being able to prove something he finds "trivial".
Now he wants me to learn programming in C, which we never discussed when I began my research. He compares me to his previous students, claiming how so and so worked 95+ hours per week on their master's thesis for 12 months after finishing all their classes. He idealizes cultures where studying is prioritized over everything, even one's mental health.
I am frankly getting tired of this, and contemplating on switching advisors. Am I just going crazy, or are his remarks completely out of line as an advisor? Is collaboration and similar stuff really that bad and makes you lazy and incapable of doing stuff on your own?

When you talk about the success of his previous grad students, are you talking of all those who entered the program, or only of those who completed it? I suspect there might be a significant difference, in which case his apparently sterling record might have more to do with survivor bias than him being a good teacher.

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This sounds familiar to everyone who enters industry. This sounds like first day of work (including being tasked with learning a new programming language/app you've never seen before)

@slebetman: My first day on first job: "How about you design an API for the new audio system." "Will do, boss!" <moves briskly to Google what "API" stands for>

"collaboration is for undergraduates who struggle" - sounds like a complete idiot without any idea how real world research works.

This sounds pretty extreme, even for the "sink or swim" school of education. If you can meet the extreme standard without going crazy you will probably turn out ok, if a bit of a workaholic. But the road will be hard and painful.
But, given your sense of it, you should probably move quickly to the exits. Not everyone is like that. Some of us actually try to be supportive.

As for the "why" of it, he just seems to demand perfection and won't compromise in any way.

If one can survive this, one is likely to be successful, if leaving a bit of sanity on the road on the way. It is not surprising that this prof is successful, but such a style is for few. If it is not for you, leave while you can. Don't feel bad about this, this is not the only route to success.

If one can survive this, one is likely to be successful regardless and there's no rational reason to leave said sanity on the road.

The situation makes me wonder if this was the interaction from day 1, or this is what it developed into

If one is to survive this, one might be successful. However, one will probably less successful than one would be if one had gotten proper support. Let's not forget that last part.

@DonQuiKong [citation needed]. You are misleading potential viewers with an unfair and uncalled for judgement against the professor in question. If you cannot backup this claim, please remove your comment.

Let's go through the points:

Perfection: To some degree, I agree with that. Training to avoid mistakes in the first place, to provide clean work at every milestone is a good habit, as long as it does not interfere with getting the work done at all. It can, of course, and like in this case, be exaggerated, but sometimes one finds that the more disciplined one is in making sure one has done the best to produce a clean job, the more it becomes ingrained as a second personality to not accept second best. Of course, few people can uphold it to a practical 100% level, but of course if one can do so, there is no surprise they get top jobs or earn a lot of money: if a consultant can regularly deliver practically perfect work under time pressure, one is worth every bit of that. In academia, the time pressure is less, but if one has consistently high standards, this will create a reputation for reliability. Which is quite a high currency.

Independence: This is slightly more contentious, but still can make sense. To some extent, it means that you are able to work on your own, depend on your own judgement and are required to understand things for yourself. It will grow your knowledge and competence as individual. Given that our world is increasingly requiring collaboration, this may look like an obsolete expectation, and perhaps it is. However, if you, as an individual, master this, it makes you stand out from the crowd. As academic, it is increasingly frowned upon to work as individual, while it used to be a sign of particular competence few decades ago to be able to do so. Of course, this is not everybody's style, and in my own opinion, everyone should choose their favourite position on the cooperation slider (as long as it does not interfere with academic assessment misconduct, of course; or one leeches the work of other people to advance oneself).

Work schedule: Clearly, there are people who are ready and able to work the 13-14 hours a day every day of the week. That's a very particular breed of people. Top-level politicians, with all sneer they get from the public, belong to that type. However, the fact that one can not uphold this should not mean that one does something wrong. This is simply a biological limitation. There is a good reason why reasonable countries have a guideline of a 40-hour week distributed on 5 days; it can vary a bit, but not far; for most people, productivity simply drops drastically beyond that (not talking about quality of life). So, if you cannot fulfil the work effort expectation of this supervisor, there is nothing wrong with you, but this group is not for you, and you better switch group, the earlier the better.

This supervisor certainly earned his fearsome reputation and success and those who managed to survive his "Navy Seals" approach to research certainly did so, too. But this is definitely not the only route to success, and may also not be the right route, either, depending on which type of science one is aiming for.
What is important is for you to realise that there is no shame in deciding that this is not for you if you cannot uphold this schedule until the end. Identify what you want to do and who would be doing this, not just because someone's group has a "guaranteed reputation", but because you like the work they do and their style of work matches yours.
Caveat: If the prof is professional, he should be rational and cool about your switch. Mismatch of styles happen, that's the way it is.
However, be prepared for the following. There is a distinct possibility that, should you indeed resolve to switch, this prof will react in one of two ways which you should both ignore: either they will try to put you down and say something along the lines that he "always knew your work was unsatisfactory and it's better for you to leave"; or they will actually try to keep you because essentially what they did to you was what some call "tough love" and "black pedagogy".
If any of these two should happen, do not pay attention to it and do not fall for it.
In the first case, they try to justify their own "failure" to get you over the goal line at the expense of putting you down. Do not get goaded by that. Just take your leave from them in a professional way.
The second case, I think, would be even more despicable (and it occurs, make no mistake): it means they actually liked your work and they tried to get you get better by treating you badly. Once you have come to the conclusion that the above schedule is not sustainable and have committed to the switch, do not be tempted to give in to this and to try further. As discussed above, this mode of operation is this guy's recipe for success - do not expect things to change if you then again decide to stay. You have already sunk 8 months of your life, things will continue to go the way they went before.
TL;DR Decide if this style is for you, at least until completion. If it's not, find a different group to work with and do not look back.
EDIT As Prof. Santa Claus says in a comment, "perfection" in the sense of a text (reasonably) free of spelling errors or non-compiling code is a default minimum expectation.
When I return corrections to a student and then with every correction iteration, there is still a considerable chance that I will find new errors introduced, not in the new material added, but in the parts that have been read but those that are being corrected, this is one of the few things that can seriously test my tolerance. It's ok to make mistakes first time around, but once one fixes them, one needs to take care. I am, of course, not saying that this is the case for OP, just make sure it's not you doing these things.

(+1) Once you have come to the conclusion that the above schedule is not sustainable and have committed to the switch, do not be tempted to give in to this and to try further. What if the OP and the professor agree some middle-ground regarding their expectations?

@user2768 Good point. I was inferring from the description of OP that this prof is unlikely to make compromises. They are where they are because of an uncompromising attitude. But of course, if the prof makes an acceptable offer, why not. What I think, however, if it is indeed "black pedagogy" they apply, that they will return to the pattern once the student has returned. Also note, the student is unwise to leave before having secured a place in a different group; retracting that switch might damage their reputation with their second prof.

I must confess, I do strongly disagree with "perfection in the sense of spelling errors ... is a default minimum expectation". Certainly the code should compile! (Don't send latex code though; just send the pdf!) Do I want a student to spend ages polishing a draft which I haven't yet critiqued to find every spelling mistake? (It takes ages.) Or do I not care if they've written "One otbains..." a few times. I'd rather give them feedback, them implement this feedback, then at the end make it perfect. Research isn't about typing insanely accurately. I would about the research quality

Of course, if the document is absolutely littered with typos and badly formatted things which actually hinder the reading, I would be concerned. This would show a lack of basic care. But I want to see good [insert subject]. Providing the typos are relatively sparse and do not at all impact my reading of the draft and giving critiques, I do not care. I work with international collaborators who aren't great at English sometimes. I care about the maths they send, not the English. That can be sorted at the end. One optimisation. Don't spend time 100% optimising stuff you may then delete/reformat

Agree with Sam OT - fix spelling mistakes that your spell checker points out, always. Just get rid of the annoying red squiggles. But if you're writing a draft paragraph that you might cut or completely rewrite entirely in the final version, there is also a reasonable upper bound on how much effort should go into the spelling.

I guess it probably just depends on how much one considers "a lot". If it is, as you say, affecting your reading then yes, it is bad---eg if it changed the meaning of a sentence, maybe missing a "not"! But your original statement was saying "perfections... is a default minimum expectation". I do do feel that if I wrote a sentence with a mistake like this one, it isn't detremental to your understanding. (I certainly shouldn't ignore the red line under detremental but correct it to detrimental!)

I mean, you should write the answer as you feel is best, not how I do :-) I 100% agree with your comments regarding that conference paper. I reviewed CS conference paper---I had ~130 comments on the 18 pages and overall I really liked the paper; most were just stupid typos! Very bad. But this is a conference paper, not a student sending a draft to a supervisor. Something like code is more important to be correct (so that it runs without errors, etc) than, say, typos in paragraphs in a maths paper.

I'd like to point out that just because a staff member takes on a lot of students doesn't mean her students' time is less valuable than hers. She can't simply take on additional work and then say to her students/collaborators that she thus has less time for them. Yes students do more on a paper than supervisors---but the supervisor should be guiding them. (A little different, but collaborator of mine one time explicitly told me that I should investigate something, not him, as his time is more valuable that mine as he is more senior and has more people requesting his time. In short, "Nope!`")

In a purely utilitarian world, yes. In a purely deontological world, no. One's answer depends (partially) on where one lies on this scale. I guess I lie further towards deontology, than you. We just have a different viewpoint on these things :-) it's almost like it's ok for two humans to disagree on something for which there is not an absolute answer! :-D

Regarding how important fixing typos is: I recommend the story about Van Halen and brown M&Ms.

I would switch advisors, if I were you.
I can understand him only answering questions for papers that you should be reading; this keeps your thesis focused.  Learning to program can be good for you to start.  The no-collaboration rule seems a bit extreme.
Please take care of your mental health.  Find time to socialize with your classmates, have a hobby, and practice mindfulness.

With an average of 14-15 expected work hours a day including weekends, there is not much time left for classmates, hobby, mindfulness. I think first priority, if one stays, should be sleeping and eating well.

I can identify with your advisor. On the other hand, his statement "collaboration is for undergraduates who struggle" makes me wonder if he may not be especially articulate in justifying his methods or empathetic in implementing them.
This answer is similar to that by Captain Emacs.  It is largely subjective, based on my time in the US Navy (on a submarine as a reactor operator), later as a medical student and psychiatry resident/attending, and I'm now on my third career as a data analyst (not a data scientist).
Part of what he may be trying to instill in your work habits is the idea of attention to detail. It's critical in any kind of work, but especially important in STEM fields.  You don't want to be the person responsible for crashing a Mars lander because you used Imperial units instead of metric. That may be one reason he's strict about typos or citations. He may feel that attention to detail is a skill you could improve on.  It's a common criticism.
If I can add anything to this discussion, it is that learning to perform a skill is not the same as performing a skill. In education, you will very often do things for pedagogical purposes that you may not do in a real-world situation.  The idea that you shouldn't learn a shortcut until you master the brute-force method expresses this idea.  The idea that struggling to discovery an answer on your own leads to a better, deeper, richer, longer-lasting learning and promotes creativity and "higher order thinking" captures this idea.  At a real job, you will certainly collaborate with others.  But you should at least be able to perform an entire task on your own (if it's considered a "data scientist" skill).  And in education, you need to be able to demonstrate that capability.  True, your advisor may be taking this idea to an extreme.  But also consider that taking ownership of a task is an important step in maturity and (in my experience) one that is often difficult when students make the transition into independent professionals. It was difficult for me.
Short personal anecdote: When I was in college, I would have conversations with my younger brother who was in high school.  Sometimes he would ask me a question and my reply was, "I'm not going to tell you because I know that is something you can figure out, and you will feel proud when you do."  And my prediction never failed to come true.
Even when you don't know the answer and truly can't figure it out yourself, learning how to find an answer on your own (other than just asking someone or a simple web search) is another skill that a professional needs to have (and a student needs to acquire). His style may be more Drill Instructor than coach, but he may be trying to engender (and get you to practice) perseverance.  You will need that skill no matter what you do in life.
Should you stay with this advisor? I don't have a suggestion there.  The other answers on this page will give you something to think about.  I just wanted to give what I think your advisor's view may be (even if he uses different words to describe it).  If this answer isn't what you need, maybe it will benefit someone else who comes to this page in the future.

This sounds very much like the famous Moore method.

"That student is taught the best who is told the least." Moore, quote
in Parker (2005: vii).

Further:

The way the course is conducted varies from instructor to instructor,
but the content of the course is usually presented in whole or in part
by the students themselves. Instead of using a textbook, the students
are given a list of definitions and theorems which they are to prove
and present in class, leading them through the subject material. The
Moore method typically limits the amount of material that a class is
able to cover, but its advocates claim that it induces a depth of
understanding that listening to lectures cannot give.

Likewise, the primary badge of Moore's method is that an abnormally large number of his graduates went on to become top-performing faculty and researchers later on. Personally it's not a method I would want to use (also I've read he kept a gun in his desk and at least once used it to cow a classroom).
But if it's not a good fit for you, then you should leave and find another advisor.
(The linked article has a rather long list of college faculty who currently use the Moore method, I wonder if OP's advisor is on there?)

Your advisor seems to be the academic analogue of Marissa Mayer:

Managing a giant tech company is a lifestyle that leaves little time for sleep. Luckily, Mayer appears to be able to do without much. On multiple occasions, she's flaunted her habit of getting less than four hours a night and famously said that during her first five years at Google, she pulled an all-nighter every week. "I don’t really believe in burnout,” she said in a 2013 speech at New York’s 92nd Street Y.

At Google, she reportedly clocked in 130-hour weeks, a feat managed by taking naps at her desk and scheduling "strategic" showers.

One unfortunate and ill-timed nap aside, she expects her employees to push as hard as she does. According to New York Magazine, Mayer can be dismissive of people who "want eight hours of sleep a night, three meals a day."

Working for someone like her would for me be asking for problems.

Napoleon who would try to sleep as little as possible (he tried and failed to completely get along without it), notoriously fell asleep during the battle of Waterloo at a critical moment, and could not be wakened, leading to an ill-conceived attack. So much for the myth of "don't need sleep". Unless there is this rare medical condition, but even these people need rest.

How does this answer the question?

@pipe What someone's body and mind can tolerate on the long run differs from person to person, If you are the rare person who can work 130 hours per week and get plenty of rest by sleeping 4 hours per day, then working only 90 hours a day means that you are underperforming. Marissa Mayer will not hire you if 90 hours per week is your limit. So, it's all relative, you have to see what is possible within the limits of your body and mind. Like Marissa Mayer, the advisor  will only work with people who are immune to burnout.

Collaboration can be a source of cheating for cheaters. Education is about learning independent thought and critical thinking, not formed from the opinions of others but by you. Just work hard, and let the rest of stuff roll off. Be respectful of your advisor and stay focused on you.

Note that OP is working on a research degree, and working in collaborations is a critical part of research. Advice that makes sense for college or high school students may not make sense for grad students.

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What level of questions and guidance are appropriate for a research assistant?
I recently graduated from my undergraduate studies in May. As soon as I graduated, I began a job as a research assistant at my university. This was mainly to continue projects that I had yet to finish and to gain experience that will help me apply to graduate school. I accepted this job to continue working in a group I had worked in for most of my undergraduate career.
I am aware that undergraduate students are not held to high standards in a research setting. I am also aware that graduate students are mostly expected to operate independently with check-ins at regular frequency (I hear weekly is normal?). However, I am not sure what is appropriate for a post bachelor research assistant. I have a feeling that I should be operating much more independently than I am.
The problem is that my advisor often tells me what to do, but I don't feel I have been exposed to "how" to do things. Thus, my question is two-fold:

What is the appropriate level of independence for my position?
How can I achieve this level of independence on my own?

@realkevlar The grammatical "corrections" made to this post seem unwarranted. For instance, what is wrong with "I have graduated" as opposde to "I graduated"?

the grammatical changes were suggested just to sharpen the writing, the post still has merit

The very unsatisfying answer to your question is that it depends.
I've seen post-(under)graduate research assistants who are basically just lab techs i.e., they have very little independence. I have also seen research assistants who are working on their own projects at a level similar to a grad student. Where you fall on that spectrum will depend on your knowledge/skills, the expectations of your PI, what your plans are for grad school, and what type of projects your lab is working on.
There isn't really any trick to gaining independence. Take initiative, ask questions, get help if you need it, whatever.
To start, you should talk to your PI and see what their expectations are. At baseline, if you have your own projects, you should try to take ownership of those. That just means working on them consistently and not waiting to be told what to do/given assignments. If you don't know what to do next, ask rather than waiting for someone to notice the project is stalling. Set up a regular meeting with your PI (don't make them chase you down for updates). If you're on someone else's project, let them take the lead and just do the work you are given.
As long as your proactive, you'll learn the "how" and "why" with time (that's the point of grad school too).


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How to manage/avoid stress during manuscript writing?
I have written a few manuscripts so far, and those have already been published in some ordinary peer-reviewed journals. However, I feel stressed so much when I write my new manuscript. How should this stress be handled or overcome? I feel that other researchers also feel similar to me.

It would help if you could say why you feel stressed while writing. It could for example be time pressure, the feeling of exterior expectations, the fear to fail or whatever. In each case an answer would be different…

@Dirk I would say, my expectation to publish in highly reputed journals is the first criterion followed by time constrains.

A few things that have really helped reduce the stress in writing for me:

Writing the introduction first and the abstract last. Hopefully, the background to your research won't significantly change during the writing process, so your introduction should be pretty static during the whole writing process. On the other hand, I've found that as I write a paper, what I believe to be the important aspects of the paper often changes with the writing process. As such, my first idea of what the abstract should be is often completely different than the final abstract.
Starting with a skeleton of the manuscript (i.e. titles of sections and subsections, with an explicit plan of what should go where). This allows you to break up all the writing and work in separate chunks. I found that I was surprised how much stress is involved in moving paragraphs around and trying to keep a good flow to the paper.
Starting with putting words on paper (that is, LaTeX, Word, etc.) with little concern for quality! My first draft is always going to be horrible, so my first goal is to put all the ideas down, just to get all the ideas on the paper. I'll worry how it looks later. Plus, there's nothing more frustrating than putting a lot of work in the "perfect paragraph", ultimately to decide it is not necessary for the manuscript.
Working in consistent, but divided blocks. I have to take the train for 2 hours everyday to get to work and back. But I'm amazed how much using these two blocks of time seems to help the quality (and reduce the stress) of my writing! When I try to write everything in huge blocks, my patience and attention to detail drops, leading to a sloppy writing. But when I consistently work in small blocks, my overall patience level is much higher.

Your problem is common to many researchers, I think. However, the solutions are very different for each and everyone. My key concepts to avoid stress while writing, especially articles at the moment, consists of the following steps and ideas:

Strict time management. I set deadlines for every step I have to take. Like 1 week literature search, 1 week literature examination and reading, 1 week to construct a thesis and a research question etc. (or how long you need)
I try to create a structure of the article beforehand and extend it during the process of writing the paper. In the structure (I make a table of contents) I add bullet points to remember what important things I have to go through.
I continuously read and revise the mansucript I have already written.
When writing with co-authors I try to work together with them in one space, rather than skyping now and then. However, your time management is only as good as theirs, when you have to cooperate. So: direct communication with opennenss and honesty is important.
Never ever I plan to use extensions of deadlines. I only make use of extensions if things really are in trouble. Inform the persons who are awaiting your manuscript in time that you won't make the deadline.

All in all, the strategies against stress can also include recreational sports after an afternoon of writing. Or explicitly doing other things so that no other tasks are left behind. The perfect strategy is quite individual I think.

Always make sure you have other productive work to do (proofread the current version, assemble next paper, check your growing bibliography database for accuracy, do some additional experiments, ...). Nothing is more demoralizing than sitting in front of a blank screen and not being able to write, and having nothing else worthwhile to do.

I find it really helps me to start by doing a really bad draft version. The aim of it is just to get your ideas and points down on paper but you give yourself the permission for it to be terrible. Use bad spelling, bad structure, bad diagrams - it doesn't matter. It doesn't have to make sense to anyone but you at this stage. The focus is just on what you want to say and the message/conclusion you want to get across.
Once you've got all you points written in a bad draft, you can focus solely on fixing up the language, diagrams, structure and make it in a nice, publishable paper.
Breaking it down into these two stages helps me because I find trying to do both things (get my message across and write something of publishable quality) at the same time is really hard and stressful without years of experience (which I don't have yet).

Yes! Write, write, write. Get something on the paper. Get more of it on the paper. Does it make sense? No? Doesn't matter, edit later. And consider the edit a puzzle where it is enjoyable to move around the pieces until they fit. It's not an afterthought, but the main work (as it is in movies!), so  consider it fun. Writing is like programming, except you do not program a CPU to follow your commands, but the brains of your readers to follow your thoughts. Understanding this can turn writing from a chore to a pleasure.

Tough call, but this one was my favorite and the OP did not weigh in on the matter.

I find perfectionism to be the thief of time in most cases whenever I get to work on a paper.
It is less stressful and more productive to prepare manuscript iteratively.

This is something I learnt from my advisor and was very helpful for me (as I consider myself a big picture person and am more scared of words than tables and figures):

We used to first put all the story which we are going to tell by only putting together final tables and figures
Once we know what story we are telling from data it becomes very easy to have coherent theme
Another big thing was create an excel sheet where I put in just broad overview of literature I reviewed. It contained column on relevant feature and one comment on what and why were we doing things differently. This was done prior to even starting the analysis.
Once I had these two items, writing the story became very easy

This comment might only be relevant for people working with data rather than theoretical papers.

Note: this answer to an old but newly bountied question may be properly deleted as self serving shameless commerce, but I think it's still worth posting.
Check out Joan Bolker's Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day.
It's not just about writing a dissertation, and doesn't prescribe strategies. Its goal is to help you discover what works for you.

Along the lines of other answers, I would suggest two things:

Devoting oneself to just outputting a really horrible first draft--just keep typing without worry over quality and generate an outline or draft that one can build off of—is the way to break through writer's block, in my experience, additionally getting organised is so helpful, I make lists of what all I need to get done in a day using my calendar (time blocking) to make sure I'm making steady progress.
hobbies: for me, this is exercise or lifting, which takes up my excess energy, anxiety, or mental space, leaving me less space for worry

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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How are the effects of published errors accounted for?
Imagine a researcher publishing a paper that contains a key error in some fact or figure. This error slips through review and ends up being cited in future papers. Later, the original researcher notices the error and publishes a correction. Is there any process for dealing with the network of papers that cited his information and now have faulty premises? Or does this not happen enough in the real world to be of concern?

real-life case: https://retractionwatch.com/2023/06/09/how-a-now-retracted-study-got-published-in-the-first-place-leading-to-a-3-8-million-nih-grant/
-2017: publish flawed study;
-2018-2022: get multimillions grant to perform follow up study;
-2023: retract original paper from 2017 saying "We are sorry it was flawed, we will do it better soon"

Or this one: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2023/06/21/ted-talking-data-fakers-who-write-books-about-lying-and-rule-breaking-whats-up-with-that/ Post fraudulent study about honesty. Someone else publishes a much larger study with evidence of no effect. Fraud study gets lots of citation, author publishes popular books. Failure to replicate gets few citations. Retract 1/3rd of fraud study. Later find that another 1/3rd is also fraud.

This has good answers: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/167236/why-is-post-publication-peer-review-not-taking-off

There is no process. Yet the literature is full of errors. It has been credibly claimed that most published papers are false. (And most false papers fall into obscurity without ever being corrected or retracted.) Any researcher who wants to rely on previously published claims had better check these claims.

If you read the linked paper by Ioannidis, you will see that despite claiming the opposite, it doesn't anywhere show that "most published research findings are false". It doesn't look at any actual research findings at all, instead it uses an extremely simplified model for the research process that relies on debatable parameter choices. In this sense what is claimed there may itself be a false "research finding", if it counts as a "finding" at all (Ioannidis doesn't really discuss what "counts", which is one of the shortcomings of his approach). Agree with the last sentence though.

Another attempt at testing the reliability of research, this one in psychology: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.17433 .


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Does having a CV with papers following both alphabetical order and order by contribution alter its quality?
I'm a Phd student working in the areas of mathematical physics and biology. It is known that papers in pure and applied mathematics follow alphabetical ordering, and it does not matter if your name shows first or last. However, my supervisor told me that when it comes to particular areas of applied mathematics, such as mathematical physics or mathematical biology, there are as many authors who follow order by contributions as there are of those who follow alphabetical order. Based on these facts, my supervisor has told me that we will follow both approaches in our papers since ordering does not matter in mathematics anyway.
My name is ahead of my supervisor's alphabetically. However, for some papers, my supervisor was first. For other papers, I was first. This resulted in a mixed order in the publications listed on my CV. Does this alter its quality, meaning the recruiter will tend to not value papers in which I was a second author?

This depends on whether the recruiter is aware of conventions and cares enough to take them into account appropriately.

On my CV, I don't list myself among the authors of a joint paper; since it's my CV, people understand that I'm an author of these papers. My format is "Title (with so-and-so) ...", where "so-and-so" stands for the list of the other authors, ordered as in the paper.

@AndreasBlass Post your comment as an answer.

@AndreasBlass This looks like a reasonable convention for fields where the ordering is usually alphabetic but seems like a very bad choice in fields where the order matters. In lab science there is a huge difference between first author papers and all other papers, if your CV deliberately hides that information that would almost certainly be seen as a negative.

I am 15 years past my PhD, and work in the same areas: Applied Mathematics, Mathematical Physics, and Computational Chemistry.
On my CV, I list papers as "Title, Journal (with Co-Authors in alphabetical order)". I also add a link to AMS Culture statement to explain why the author's list is alphabetical.
However, I must add, that the struggle is real, as this problem still bites me occasionally, when people casually ask me why all my papers are rarely first-authored, or make vague comments implying my application to X was not successful because my publication track may not be recognised by people from certain areas.

It sounds as though all your papers use alphabetical ordering, which is not the situation OP is asking about. (Or do you really list co-authors alphabetically even when that is not the order they appear on the paper?)

@EspeciallyLime I usually write with 1 or 2 co-authors.

One option which seems workable to me is a variation on Andreas Blass' comment. List all your publications chronologically as (with X, Y, Z...), but

have some clear way of indicating which papers for which you are first author (or joint first author), and
have a different way of indicating papers that do not have a "first author".

Obviously the meanings of the symbols you use for this should be clearly set out above the list of papers.
I am assuming first author vs not is much more important than your exact position, but in some fields in might also be worth distinguishing "last author".
I should say that I am not really in this position, since I have very few papers in authors-by-contribution fields and am not first author on any of those. So I don't bother distinguishing them.

I suggest making two different lists of publications:

one of publications that follow the alphabetical order (math. physics, I suppose)
and one where the first authorship shows who actually did all the work matters (biology, I suppose).

You can add an explanation to the first category, explaining the authorship conventions in mathematics.

Many people working in applied mathematics (myself includes) use non-alphabetical author order -- and everyone in mathematics departments knows that that is common.
In practice, this means that when you are first author on a non-alphabetical author list, you get a minor bonus by people reading your CV. And that you get a minor malus (negative bonus) for those where you are not. For papers with alphabetically ordered author lists, nobody knows the better, and so you get an average weight.
In the end, it's not likely not matter very much overall one way the other. You can probably guard against ignorants by adding a note at the top of your list of publications saying that author order of your publications follows the convention of the field you are publishing in for any given paper, which may or may not be alphabetical.


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Can I pursue a PhD program that is different from my MA?
I have a Master's Degree in Translation, and I am wondering if it's possible to pursue a PhD in TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language). They're in the same field, but different programs.

What country or countries?

I don't see why you can't do that PhD!

If you feel qualified and the research is compelling to you is the best indicator of if a programme suits you. As described, it seems you are most likely qualified, so applying should not be a concern (given the limited information provided about your specific situation). Understanding the faculty you'd be working with, and the projects available to you is also a good indication if the program is suited both to your interests and skillset.


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Acceptance in PhD Program With Unfortunate Background
So here is my situation: I am applying for a PhD for Fall 2022. Not too long I found ago that my ex boyfriend had used my name online to post all kinds of crap. This includes revenge porn, as well as racist and anti-semitic comments. I have filed police reports, but all of this is still attached to my name (which is a very rare name btw) and available online, and probably will never go away. I am so scared of not being admitted because of this. Is there anything I can do?

I am more concerned with the racist comments made under my name than the nudes to be honest.

That makes sense.  In both cases, I think the overall advice is the same as in the linked question:  sensible people will understand you do not control what other people post on the internet.

The pictures and the posts are rather different issues. Whether there are nude pictures of an applicant available on the internet is no business of an admissions committee, regardless of how they got there. This aspect is covered well in another question:
Can leaked nude pictures damage one's academic career?
For the racist comments however, the fact that you did not write them is essential. If you had written them, it would be very legitimate to hold it against you. If these show up on the first page of Google results for your name, you may want to include a statement with your applications that horrific comments with your name attached to them exist on the internet, and that you neither wrote them nor agreed with them.

I don't entirely agree that this is a duplicate.
I would put a note somewhere in your application materials that you have been a victim of online abuse and that online information about you is likely invalid. You don't need to give details. People understand the persistence of such things.
If anyone asks about it, say in an interview, just refer them too the police department to which you made complaint.
No one should hold you responsible for the acts of others, especially an abusive former partner. But it is better if others give the defense than if you try to explain it yourself.
If any of your recommenders are aware of the situation, perhaps they can make a similar statement, without details. And especially, speak to your lack of racist actions or attitudes.


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Losing one's teaching assistantship due to weird circumstances
So my best friend is sort of in a strange situation. We are in the same graduate program. Here's the story.
Last semester I was stuck in a class with a professor with an extremely weird way of running the class. We were not allowed to discuss the homework with anyone, study together for exams or collaborate in any way. We got a huge amount of homework per week, and he was a very harsh grader. Exams were incredibly difficult and we only were given 3 minutes to upload the file to be graded. Combined with the entire Covid-19 situation, this was getting too much on my mental health, but I was at the point where I could not drop the class due to my full time requirement.
I noticed other people in the class were getting very stressed out as well, one student (has straight A's in all other graduate courses) even told me that the class was making her suicidal. We consulted a few staff members in the department and some older graduate students and thought the best thing to do was to talk to the department chair.
Some of the older graduate students told us though that this particular professor is known for retaliating against students who criticize him or his teaching methods. Therefore we got my friend who was not in the class to talk about this to the department chair. He wanted to just voice a concern to him, and ask for any help or advice.
My friend did not say anything bad about the professor, period. He just said he is concerned for us and our mental health, and described the amount of work the professor was giving us and how he has previously encouraged his students to compromise their free time and even sleeping to do the work.
Instead of being helpful, the department chair yelled at my friend, and told him that he does not understand how prestigious the particular professor is and how he is a great asset to the department. He also told my friend how he did a very "childish and ridiculous" thing by approaching the department chair instead of directly talking to the professor about these concerns. We did not do this because he knew that the does not take criticism that well at all (he has advised my undergraduate research and told me how I should not pursue graduate school and how he did not see potential in me).
Well, nothing changed. Some people pulled through the course with a pass, most people ended up with a C or below though. Well, life goes on, but the department chair did not renew my friend's teaching assistantship for the spring semester, even though he got a straight 4.0 GPA and great teaching reviews. No reason was given to him when he emailed to the department. Everyone else who lost their assistantship were sent an email about this. He never was. Could these two instances be related? Is there anything we could do at this point?

I'm really sorry to hear this - I'm a student myself and I definitely hate this happening to anyone. Having faced inappropriate behaviors of professors (not as bad as your case: e.g., not reading summer research application from anyone he/she doesn't know, although the application is required to be open by the department), I have eventually decided that I'm not in the best position to solve this issue. All I can do is to be a better professor or chair myself, if I ever become one. Instead, talk to someone that you CAN TRUST in the department (not the chair) to feel better emotionally.

Your university or student's union should have an ombudsman to mediate this type of conflict. Which country are you in?

This seems like speculation calling for more speculation.

From what you've described, the situation sounds abusive. Whatever you decide to do, don't let anyone convince you that this is normal or okay. Best wishes.

@astronat: I wouldn't necessarily trust an ombud(wo)man in this institutition. May make the situation only worse.


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Getting into a doctorate program with B-
So I am doing a master's degree in mathematics in a large state school that is not very high ranked. I am planning to go for a doctorate, but not necessarily at a top school, but still an R1 school. My undergraduate degree is from Europe, and my GPA is not that great, since there was a lot of grade deflation in that school. However, it is a very good school, in top 80 on the planet.
Now, my master's GPA is quite good (3.7) right now, but the problem is: I have a B- in a core class, which is real analysis / measure theory. My previous analysis grades are pretty much all A's. I've taken other classes as well, such as algebra, number theory, topology, probability, statistics, advanced linear algebra, numerical analysis and have pretty much all A's in those. My question is: how much would this one B- affect my chances of admission?

Does this answer your question? How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students?


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changing groups in grad school
I am going to apply for a physics PhD in the fall of 2024.
I have trouble finalizing the main research area to mention in SOP because I am interested both in HEP experiments and theory.
Suppose I wrote my interest in hep experiment in SOP, but after being being admitted to grad school,, I got attracted to hep theory.. Can I choose a a hep theory group to research?
Or vice versa?
Do I have this freedom in grad school,, or should I think more carefully and write it in SOP?

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

It’s Ok to mention two areas of interest in your SOP. But I will strongly recommend to start doing your research immediately in terms of the what you would want to do. Changing groups can lead to wastage of a semester in some cases. Some programs allow the first semester students to come in and try out different groups and then make their final decision. Other schools may not have this as an option. Beyond the research interest you might also want to investigate the job potential, group culture, advisors personality (as compared to your personality), kind of jobs that you will get after graduating. You are going to spend 4-5 years in the program and your life trajectory will depend partially on this choice. I will do my homework carefully and think beyond just the topic of choice but other factors as well. Good luck!

This will vary. If you are funded by one group it might be difficult to move to another. If you are funded generally by the department, say as a TA, then it is easier and requires the agreement of the leaders of both groups, though the one you are entering is most important.
Leaving a group and leaving essential work undone can also be limiting, so you want to avoid that.
Group PIs would much rather have enthusiastic members of course, so it is probably possible.
But yes, your SOP should be well thought out. It is (IMO) OK to list more than one interest, especially if the application is to the department and not directly to a PI. It can even be advantageous depending on whether different groups have different needs that you don't know about.


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What are my options post PHD as a blissfully ignorant, neurodivergent candidate about to graduate with few marketable skills?
I entered academia despite my suboptimal "stats" (GPA, research experience, etc.) because I was allured by the idea of focusing on a research project. Even my Master's advisor noted how I jumped into the literature head-on (despite other metrics in my Master's program as questionable — GRE scores, GPA - by both him and the program director). I got into a PhD program at an R2 in Experimental Psychology despite this (they took 10 people out of 88 from 2015-2016 to 2020-2021 so not exactly competitive).
My first advisor at this Ph.D. program was someone whose research interests overlapped with mine. She was also the founder of a program at my high school that trained teachers on how to instruct neurodivergent individuals. Since I graduated from a high school class of eight students, an advisor-advisee match like this was unheard of and blew my mind at the time I applied to the program. I had to bite my tongue each time I recalled what we had in common, so there was no conflict of interest prior to admission to the program. In the end, she dumped me as an advisee due to a misunderstanding, and her exit from the program.
I had challenges at the bachelor's and Master's levels, not with fulfilling the raw requirements, but everything else that was an unwritten expectation I had to fulfill and no one told me about until it became a problem. Even though I'm in a better position now (full-time instructor NTT for a year at a SLAC and I got a fellowship on top of that), I can't bring myself to do anything else other than data collection for my dissertation even though my new advisor has been fantastic and wants me to do more projects with him.
I do not have any publications or a lot of "hard skills" that would make me a shoe-in for a lot of places post PhD (not even a postdoc). Participating in a system that's more exclusive than inclusive has been painful. I did not even know what an R1 or R2 was at the time I applied to programs at all. I had one offer in the end with someone whose research interests overlapped with mine at the time before she left the program, but I now have to fight an uphill battle since my PhD is not exactly from a recognizable name like an R1. I was blissfully ignorant of how all of this worked and I wish someone could've gone back to me at the time I finished my Master's (2020) to convince me to extend to my program and do an internship or something else instead of this PhD. I need to finish this program and graduate, as per my fellowship obligations, but I am terrified of the post PhD world compared to if I just had my master's. I set myself up for misery.
Does anyone have any advice for my situation? What can I find that's less ambiguous work wise?

Use your university's career services office.  2.  Apply for jobs.  3. How to effectively deal with Imposter Syndrome and feelings of inadequacy: "I've somehow convinced everyone that I'm actually good at this"

What if I don't have Imposter's Syndrome though? I seriously think that all evidence I have up until this point elucidates that I was not ready at all.

If you post questions on this site, it is likely you have imposter syndrome.  I think no more evidence is needed.

Does this answer your question? What to do after failing out of grad school?

@Allure Your answer to that question of the guy failing out has helpful info but I'm honestly not sure how I'm supposed to take that given I'm not exactly on track to failing graduate school. I'm just finishing with the bare minimum in this case.

Yes, but it's very similar - in both cases you look for a job, using the skills you did learn as the selling point. It's obviously better to graduate successfully than to fail out, so you've already done better in that sense.

@Allure I see now. That's fair. Not sure of this helps (and I may edit my post accordingly), but I'm going to get reevaluation results for neurodivergent, psychiatric, and psychological conditions soon. Although I could sell my skills for research assistant positions, I'm not confident I could fulfill all of those duties with how much my poor stress management affects my ability to function. All therapy I've had over the years has failed sadly and that's because my body can only tolerate stress to a certain point and I need to minimize stressful work (which is sadly most post Ph.D jobs).

There are some jobs in academia which are low-stress (and low-pay), ones of a "specialist", a person who has just one valuable skill and uses it exclusively and repeatedly, e.g. CRISPR gene editing. You have to talk to an expert to see if they can help you to identify such a skill if you have one.

@MoisheKohan It is interesting you mention that since I've considered Research Assistant positions in the past. I personally don't mind doing literature reviews and doing the other "grunt work" involved with research. It's just the leadership stuff that comes with many positions is where I find my body turns against me once its stressed.

I don't think "neurodivergent" is a particularly useful label for identifying suitable career directions, it's too much of an umbrella and does not speak to your specific skills and abilities, while perhaps making too much of an assumption that there is some other "neurotypical" group that has little difficulty with the problem you describe.
The general difficulty you describe, of feeling a mismatch between your PhD training and potential careers post-PhD, is very common, perhaps near ubiquitous. For most people, their PhD is training for research in a very narrow field under direction of a supervisor who themselves has fairly narrow experience. Some PhD programs are now recognizing how few graduates will actually continue in academia and are providing more direct help in identifying skills applicable to other careers, but most graduates are left to figure it out on their own.
If you're struggling with the open-ended and self-directed parts of academic research, I think you will find almost every job outside of academia is more directed/less ambiguous. But, still, that does not help you identify a career path that will work for you. Like was suggested in the comments, I would recommend looking at whatever career resources are available at your institution. Even resources that are intended more for undergraduate students may be useful to you. At a minimum, hopefully you can meet with a career counsellor who can help you identify job skills that you have (even if you are not recognizing these) and how to convert these to phrases that will work on a resume. They will also be able to help you take some of your general preferences in working style to help narrow the sorts of jobs that you should apply for.
Other resources may include past graduates of your program, who now have jobs outside of academia. What jobs are those? Even if you aren't interested in their specific jobs, might they be willing to speak to you about other opportunities where they work or in their general area? How did they communicate skills they learned during their PhD? You could do the same falling back on your masters degree and looking at where people from that degree ended up.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

I feel what you are saying. I went through my PhD feeling like I was nothing exceptional and I come from a very small university. I think I am the second student attempting a PhD from my master program. I had a difficult experience during my PhD: learning rough skills, dealing with covid, struggling to build soft skills in a world that was basically shut down are only some of the troubles I had to face. Let's just say that all this has left me exahusted and with the desire to leave the academia. I don't know if applying for all the job offers that can "potentially" match my profile and my interests is a good idea, but... By looking around I discovered that I am not alone. There is a huge amount of PhDs who are willing to leave the academia and to transition to industry. Of course, often we are not supported by the university and we might encounter the skepticism of our advisors and coauthors (mine tried to convince me to stay, they were very polite but I feel uncomfortable every time they bring up the issue). I doubt I can be very helpful, but it could be useful to build a community of PhDs in our situation or at least to build contacts with other people who are attemping going to industry. By looking around I have discovered that we are a big groupso you might be in an uncomfortable position but you are not alone.

Ok.
First, the bad news: you are in a deep hole.
Second, the good news: if -- IF -- you can "tread water" professionally for 2 years, you will be in much better shape than the average job seeker.
Regarding the hole... There is no such thing as a 'shoe-in'. America produces dozens of PhDs per open position, both in academia and in wider industry positions. You are competing against candidates who do have soft and hard skills, publications, and... a lot of stuff you won't have. Today, in September 2023, you are competing against A LOT of them (roughly 500 applicants per industry data scientist opening, and they have skills).
The suggestion is to stop the bleeding today and focus on two years down the road. Once you have some job experience, your PhD will actually be worth something. Today, as you sit, your PhD is worth zero.
Make a choice. Are you staying in academia? Then your best bet will be nepotism. You must know someone somewhere who can place you anywhere. The nice part about academia is that they are somewhat insulated from the wider economy. If you are entering industry or government, do what everyone else does and get in line. You'll probably be at the back of that line, but once you enter that line, your PhD will start to pay dividends in advancing. Those dividends should compound like interest.
Alternatively, if you are unable to maintain some level of professional appointment, your PhD will be a loss, and everything will be for nothing.
Ask yourself where you want to be in 4 years, with your PhD in mind. That process starts today. Work backward from that vision of success and log professional experience. You'll just have to start at the bottom, like everyone else.
And learn to code Python and SQL. It's not hard.
Good luck, friend. God bless.

I definitely don't want to stay in academia because this full-time instructor position is already super stressful for me. I'm most likely going to get a diagnosis of PTSD from my graduate school experience too based on a psychological evaluation. I'm going to see if vocational rehabilitation can help me but I truly dislike the position I'm in right now. I really wish I didn't get a Ph.D at all since I had no idea how self directed it really was and that's something I've not done well with at all.

Please use proper capitalisation and grammar in your answer.

@zzmondo1 if it makes you feel any better youre not the only person to feel this way when finishing.

@user156207 Regretting the path I took? I'm certain that's normal. Sadly though, I only have the baseline for a lot of jobs. I'm seriously hoping I get approved for vocational rehabilitation services sometime in the future since this is beyond burnout sadly.

I know this answer is harsh and not all encompassing, but there are strong points in it. I was a weak candidate and lucked out by connections (not exactly nepotism though). But I also had the other end too, rejected from almost every job due to poor resume/skills. Took one I didn't really want for a few years---worked extremely hard and built my skill set and personal/social skills and self confidence. With enough patience and hard work for a few years, built my resume and now am a big success (by my own metrics). This answer aligns well with my own experience.

@jdods That's good you found something. My colleagues got in their jobs largely through connections too. Here's hoping I can do that too. I'm also hoping this full time instructor gig at a SLAC can open some connection doors too.

@zzmondo1 take advantage of that SLAC experience and do your best to excel at it and go above and beyond. Learn as much about student success and administration at possible. Hone your teaching. Master the course material and what students tend to struggle with and how to help them. It might be exhausting and brutal, but that's literally what it took for me. (Assuming you want a teaching job, but this advice might still help if you are going for R1 ultimately.)

@jdods I don't want a teaching job given the market right now but I do want to succeed for sure. I'm exhausted right now since this is my first time doing full time teaching (I was an adjunct previously) but I was told that being exhausted was going to be standard so that doesn't feel out of place to me at all. Fact I even got this gig at a SLAC is a miracle and I want to be as grateful as possible.


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How to find examples of evolved/extended papers for a particular journal?
My evolved/extended paper for IEEE T-RO was rejected due to a lack of additional research impact from the original conference proceeding. In order to improve my submission, I'd like to find examples of papers that have been extended from conference proceedings in this particular journal and compare the extended paper with the conference proceeding. Is there a combination of search terms I can use, either on IEEE Xplore or elsewhere, to find evolved/extended papers along with the original conference proceedings?

We can't suggest search terms and strategies in your particular area, where you know more than we do.

@EthanBolker I would surmise there may be terms that are common to repositories across multiple disciplines and fields, so I think it's worth asking.


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Difference between the name used on different documents
All my academic documents have my first and middle names only (e.g., A B), but in my passport includes a surname including first and middle names plus surname (eg. A B C). Basically, all my academic documents don't have a surname, which differs from my passport. But the first and middle names are the same in both the academic and passport documents. Would this be an issue for applying for further studies abroad?

No, it will not. It is not uncommon for author names to differ from passports.

Thatz mean it wouldn't create an issue?

What do you mean by "academic documents"? Diplomas? Transcripts? Or just authorship of papers and such.

Many variations on this question have been posted previously. Some examples: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/56457/shortening-my-name-on-papers https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/63023/if-the-name-i-used-on-the-publication-is-different-from-my-legal-name-which-one https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/98379/will-having-a-different-academic-name-than-official-name-hurt

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8603/if-i-publish-under-a-pseudonym-can-i-still-take-credit-for-my-work Some of these may apply more closely to your situation than others. You can find even more by searching "different name" or something similar.

No, that shouldn't be an issue. It is common for academics to slightly change names (e.g., marriage, divorce, etc.). The industry, and journals are prepared to handle this.

I think the question is about the impact on applications for graduate study, not journal submissions.


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Seeking Mentorship Late in PhD: Strategies and Criteria for Finding the Right Mentor
I am a 4th year Ph.D student working in a lab where independence is highly valued, and collaboration with other labs is minimal. My supervisor prefers focusing on our research without much external engagement, as he believes research at the frontier should always be alone. While I've gained substantial research and scientific knowledge under his guidance, I've come to realize that broader mentorship really benefits my career development, especially considering my conflicting interests with my current supervisor and my future steps post-Ph.D.
Recently, I noticed that people with a successful career commonly had mentor(s) who give them vital and unbiased advice and life wisdom at career crossroads, especially when these folks were early career. I recalled a past "dark and bitter" time in my PhD journey when I really struggled to navigate around obstacles and get rid of them, maybe just by luck. Thus, I really believe the potential value of having a mentor even more.
I understand that it may be a little bit late as a 4th year PhD student to seek mentorship. However, I am thinking about having one as my PhD journey approaches it's end. My questions to the community are:

What's the standard for picking up a good mentor?
How to create an opportunity to meet potential mentor, and leave them with a positive impression and finally make them accept you as their mentee?
How to maintain a long lasting mentorship with him/her down the road?

(Maybe I can even meet my future mentor here, who knows?!)

Yes, you should seek out mentors other than your advisor. It's critical to build a network of mentors who can help you with the various aspects of academia as well as life. Here are some relevant articles:
There is no guru
New style of mentoring
Web of mentors
The theme is that you should not expect one mentor to be the "go to" person for everything, and you should instead seek to build a network of mentors. To answer your questions:

Start with people you know, like a professor who seems particularly good at winning grants, a professor whose teaching style you admire, a friend who seems to have a great work-life balance, etc. Think also about people whose papers you have read and who you would like to develop a deeper relationship with. Consider emailing them and trying to meet them (e.g., at a conference) to see if you can build a mentorship relationship with them.

I'd say start with lower stakes. Instead of "will you be my mentor?" aim for just having a conversation, then a second conversation, and build that relationship little by little. An email goes a long way, e.g., explaining that you've enjoyed X interaction with them and would like to talk about that deeper, or you haven't met them yet but enjoyed their paper Y and hope to get a chance to discuss it someday, etc.

I think good communication is the key to any mentorship relationship. But I'd set the bar lower here. You wouldn't start any relationship (friendship, romantic, mentorship, etc.) by insisting that it last forever. Build the relationship one day at a time, and embrace the idea that, throughout your life, you will have lots of mentors, who serve different roles in your development, and if a mentorship relationship changes (e.g., if your grant-writing mentor moves away and can't really talk any more), then you're prepared to find another person you can talk to about grants.

It sounds like your PhD advisor has been clear about what kind of mentorship he is willing to offer (research only) and that has been valuable to your development so far. But, to have a successful career and a happy life, you'll need more than that, so it's a great time to start building relationships with other folks who can help you in the next stages of your development.

Thank you so much! You gave a clear path to go.


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Is doing undergraduate research during an ongoing semester worth it?
I have been interested in pursuing undergraduate research opportunities and have been going to experimental chemistry labs since my freshman year. However, something bugs me quite a bit. The fact is that in my institute, undergraduates who are interested in experimental chemistry (I don't know about the theoretical guys; they are in a different league altogether, XD) are assigned to a PhD student. The undergrad does manual work on the project the PhD student is working on in the hopes that they will get authorship by virtue of their work. In most cases, there is no intellectual contribution by the undergraduate. This, coupled with semester studies, leads to most undergrads having an erratic schedule. An example of this would be a student who is attending the lab during a hectic semester. They would go for about 3 hours each day and for 3 to 4 days a week, doing nothing more than running a chromatography column and then returning after a day or two and then being absent for about 2 weeks before the mid-semester exams.
My question is simple: Is pursuing undergrad research during the ongoing semester worth it? I know there are people who give more time to the labs during the semester—possibly 5 to 6 hours a day for more days a week—for working on the PhD student's project in hope of getting an authorship in the paper. But can efficient research be done with such an erratic schedule and with no well-defined project on hand?
I know there already is an answer to a similar question - Is it better to do undergraduate research in the summer, or during the school year?.
But I am more interested in knowing if it is even worth doing this type of research during the semester with such a schedule, as I don't see myself being very productive.
P.S.: All the research I am talking about does not give the student any credits.

The title and body of your question don't really seem to match: if you're concerned about manual labor without intellectual contribution, it doesn't seem to matter if that occurs during a semester or the summer, does it?

I found it very worthwhile back in the day. You need to learn how to do basic things in a lab. You likely, right now, do not have the ability to have significant intellectual contributions. And learning how to schedule your time to provide for regular lab time is a useful skill to learn.

Your decision, in large part, has to be based on what your goal is. I'm assuming that you're interested in pursuing some sort of post-graduate work in chemistry (or some sort of related field), so I'm basing my answer off of that assumption.
Generally, undergraduate research is looked upon quite favorably by potential graduate advisors and/or graduate admissions committees in the natural, physical, and behavioral sciences. Most even consider this a requirement. Many undergraduates do research working directly with a PhD student, or also in conjunction with a faculty member or faculty advisor. It's even more valuable if you're able to be an author on a poster or a paper associated with that research. (I've served on both individual advisor admissions committees as well as departmental admissions committees, so I speak from direct experience).
The schedule you described doesn't seem out of the ordinary, especially if it's a time-limited engagement of one semester. My experience is in a natural/behavioral science field, which had a similar schedule when I was an undergraduate. I'd suggest working out a clear schedule (hours/times) and defined scope of work with goals for this experience before you commit, so you can feel confident what you're signing up for.
I would suggest, though, that beyond the one semester, you try to stay involved in research activities throughout your undergraduate time (perhaps in a way that is more sustainable, schedule-wise). I'd also highly suggest that you try to arrange the research to "count" for some sort of credit to your degree. In the US (and Canada, the UK, and parts of Europe), you can count these types of activities as "independent study" credit, which would count as a course credit, so it recognizes your time. That would likely make your time that much more worth it for your research activities.
Best of luck!


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Importance of campus for mathematicians
I am a graduate student in mathematics, currently working from home due to the COVID crisis. Even though , yea, pure mathematicians can work from home, but I really miss the campus and the environment which drove me to be better.
Do other mathematicians think the same on this platform?

Voting to close as opinion-based -- this site is designed for Q&A rather than forum-style discussions. And I think everyone, not just pure mathematicians, misses campus life.

My degree (pure math) is from long ago and almost all my work was done working alone, though I had an office at the U. There were two exceptions. One was that the coffee lounge was both a good place for a break and a good place to bounce ideas around. The second was that we had a periodic seminar of a few faculty and students interested in the specific research area.
But both of these (other than someone else making coffee) are doable in the modern world with internet connections. There is no reason to give up the "contact" with others if you have access to email and zoom. Even the seminar environment can be replicated effectively.
One issue for some is the possible distractions of having family around as you work. I had two children by the time I finished, so working at home (pre internet) would have been pretty difficult, even though the work I did was mostly in my own head and not collaborative.

I suspect that in applied math, closer contact with colleagues is more important than in pure, but I don't have experience with that.
But, the world is as it is. We all need to learn better ways to cope with that.

Yes I agree with the Applied Math comment.

I'm writing from the perspective of a computer science Masters student, so somewhat similar vantage point.
At the start of the past semester it became clear that most classes would be online, apart from a handful of on-site lab sessions with lots of socially distanced lab space. However, the masters program attracts a lot of students from different directions (the local bachelor, other bachelors transferring into CS, and foreign students) so a lot of the students didn't know each other.
However, most courses had a couple of team assignments. Faced with the prospect of having to team up with people sight-unseen, I proposed an outdoor picnic for a meet and greet among students. About twenty people attended and this resulted in various teams for various classes. It was a very positive experience. The team I formed for one particular class became the most successful one and we also discussed the work for various other couses, as well as things like how to navigate life in the Netherlands for the foreign member of our team.
Another thing that was quite helpful is that the department head set up a Discord server aimed primarily at students, with lecturers advised to stay out so students could talk freely. With channels for each course this helped students troubleshoot each other and get some of the classroom feeling of everyone anxiously preparing for a scary exam.
The moral of this story: lots of students are the same position as you, and would like a safe social venue. But someone is going to have to take the initiative and get it started. That could be you. It's not actually that hard, because lots of other people want you to succeed.


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My CS teacher thinks I'm cheating for some reason, what do I say?
I took a computer science test today and finished it by using lists, and it worked fine. We didn't actually learn lists yet, but I sort of understood how they worked, so I used them anyway. My cs teacher just came into my breakout room and asked me the functions of the code, and I explained it, and for some reason he thinks I cheated?? What?
I showed him my history and there wasn't anything suspicious about it. I just figured out the answer within 10 minutes which was apparently really fast. I quite literally explained each function of each individual word, and he just said "I'll think about it." I have a meeting with admin and parents real soon, and I don't know what to say, because I didn't use any outside sources. I already explained the functions of my code, and even though I may have been a bit suspicious since I used code we haven't learned yet, he never said we couldn't, and even said it was fine when he entered my breakout room.
He also doesn't have any proof that I cheated off of anyone, so I'm pretty sure I'm fine, but I'm still really worried. What am I supposed to do?

I once solved an exam problem in far shorter time than envisaged by anyone by using a technique nobody thought of. Of course, that was in class, and not on a computer and so cheating could not be suspected, but, students that get the material may regularly break out from the narrow template of a marking scheme. Say where you learned your stuff from originally, but remind them, nobody can learn to use this stuff on the fly in an exam. Insist on being innocent, but keep your cool. Remember, you can always raise an appeal, but if you keep calm and collected, maybe it will not need come to that.

As a note to the future, usually the point of exams is to assess whether you've mastered material that the course covered. When a student uses more-advanced results or techniques (and so short-circuits the expect skill demonstration), that is often a sign that they're cheating, esp. in the context of online exams. In the rare cases where that's legitimately done, the instructor may not know how to respond/grade it. It's quite possible that (more experienced) teachers in the future may not give you any credit if you skip out on proving that you've mastered the contents of the course.

"I have a meeting with admin and parents" Is this at the university level?

You seem to have done exactly the right thing, explaining your work. Just keep insisting that you didn't cheat. It isn't your job to prove your innocence.
And no, there is nothing wrong about learning things other than what has appeared already in lectures.
I'll guess that the professor had an idea about what answers "should be" based on the current point in the course and didn't anticipate using tools not yet introduced. But unless there are clear instructions to the contrary, there is nothing wrong with using what you know.
If you are really accused, then next steps might be to see a student support office or escalate to the department head. But hopefully it won't come to that.


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What to do when my requests for feedback are denied?
As a medical resident, feedback is crucial for personal development. In my experience, the attending is often too busy to provide feedback on a patient interaction, even when I explicitly ask for it. Does anyone have any suggestions/strategies/tips on what I can do to get ANY feedback when my request is turned down?

Do your fellow residents experience the same problem? If that's the case maybe a well thought out discussion with the director of residents (or some such) might help. If the problem is just yours I don't know what to suggest.

I think not only for "personal" development, but professional, surely. :)


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Earning Additional Income as a (citizen) PhD student in Natural Sciences at a US Institution
I'm used to the UK system, where it is common for PhDs to take on studentships, and supervision roles to supplement their funding while pursuing their PhD. I've been told this is not common in the US (where I will be completing my PhD). My institution regulates that we can only work for the university up to 20 hours per week, so finding another position within the institution is not possible. Would it be feasible to find part-time consulting jobs or something similar as a PhD student with experience in quantitative social science?

US citizen, so full access to the job market luckily

In my math dept at an R1 in the U.S., we did formerly have a policy that supposedly prohibited funded grad students from doing any outside work... but we have dropped that in the last 10-20 years. It's just ridiculous to pretend to control such stuff, when we do not, and never did, pay grad assistants any sort of living wage...

I wonder how many public universities in the US actually pay grad students a living wage. So many grad students have been on strike the past few years.

When universities do not pay a living wage, it means that students must find money from one of two sources: (1) parents and/or working spouse, or (2) extra work.
You mention that you have US citizenship, which helps a lot, since non-citizens can only get work within university walls.
Within university walls, these are typical sources of income:

TAing, which means teaching undergrads. Usually labs.
Research assistantships: a professor pays you with grant money to do research, that might be related or unrelated to your own research. For example: doing bench work at a wet lab, or conducting field surveys for a sociologist.
Working at student residencies, e.g., managing a floor of undergrads as a live-in supervisor (also called RAing). Sometimes the pay is just getting a free apartment, but in places like NYC, this perk alone is worth thousands a month.
Hourly paid work, e.g. library stacks, event hosting, catering, secretarial, etc.

There are some limitations on the jobs you can take as a student. You really need to check with your university.
Outside the university walls, these are some sources of income:

Consulting. I'm a Biologist and did several lucrative consulting gigs while in grad school. The difficult part is finding the clients, but the money is really good and the job is easy.
Writing. The industry pays well for technical writing tasks. A lot of it is ghostwriting for wealthy execs.
Teaching. For example, as an adjunct at another college. They usually prefer ABDs (all but dissertations) for this. This can be lucrative if the topic is not too far from your own field, as it reduces prep time.
Just regular jobs like barista, server, etc. Being a server seems to be popular, as tips can be substantial if you find the right restaurant. I worked for many years in the trades, and still do occasional work. It pays really well, but you must obviously have the required skills to start with. During my time as a grad student I met 3 other students who earned money through sex work (I think there was an article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed a few years ago about adjuncts doing sex work, but I can't find it now.) I don't think the latter is common, but just to show you the wide range of work grad students engage in.

This is genuinely useful, I'd be interested to know how people work this into their schedules generally (for context I am in Environmental Science)

University finance person here. When you refer to a 20 hour restriction, this actually comes from the federal government. It has to do with classifying students as "non-employees".  The idea is that the remainder of your time is spent on classwork.  There are some benefits that can come from not being classed as an employee, administratively, so it's a common choice for institutions of higher education to do.
While you can in theory get additional work both in and out of your institution, please note that you need to disclose this to your PI. If the job is within your institution and you are being paid on federal grants, this will reduce your certifiable effort. The PI may not want to allow that, and that is their prerogative.  Student funding is complex and at the end of the day, it is low, as you are not "full-time".  Yes, you are engaged full-time, but it is partially to your benefit, which is why the government does not automatically consider students employees, and thus your pay only represents a partial effort.
Think of it another way. As a PI, is it more efficient to hire a fully trained postdoc or two grad students? Once you consider also paying tuition remission for the students (another form of compensation), grad students are already very costly given that they come untrained.
Start by discussing with your PI.  There is no shame in having an open conversation, unless you convey you will lower your commitment to the PI.  You are not the first to feel the pay cannot support you. I live in a major metropolitan area, and the students make close to what I got in my first job 13 years ago. However, when you add the tuition benefit, and the fact that they are untrained and unable to work "full-time", they cost more to support than you realize. Any PI who has written grant applications can explain how difficult it already is to support students.
Looking outside the institution will give you the most freedom. Staying within the institution will come with rules attached depending on your funding source. That may not be up to your PI. At my institution, grad student salaries are capped by the student union. There can be a lot in play that needs to be considered.  [I should clarify that there is a restriction to 20 hrs on your current position. If you are not a foreign student, you can seek an additional job at the institution, e.g., washing glassware. This shouldn't count against the 20 hr restriction, but your institution's policy prevails.]

tuition remission for the students (another form of compensation) Talk about accounting fantasy. Sadly the only "form of compensation" my local supermarket takes is US currency.

I don't disagree, but the IRS and NIH in particular do have feelings on tuition as compensation. NIH adds salary and tuition remission costs together and compares that total to the zero year postdoc number. They will slash budgets that exceed that number. I don't make the rules.
https://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2010/06/01/3-what-is-the-cap-on-graduate-student-compensation-2/


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How long do you ideally spend on reviewing a journal submission as a reviewer?
I am new to volunteering as a peer reviewer for a journal. I want to be helpful to the authors, but recognise that my time is valuable. I'm just wondering, how do you think about limits to time spent reviewing papers if you have experience doing so? Are there aspects of the paper in question you would consider? Are there considerations prior to accepting a review? Sorry if this is an open-ended question.
For reference, I work in environmental science and climate adaptation policy

It really depends on the research area and on the paper, so you may want to narrow down your question. For instance, in my area, math, it can take me between a couple of hours on one extreme and a year at the other extreme.

fair point Moishe, I work in climate and environmental policy

You should edit your question, accordingly since comments are meant to be ephemeral.

Some related questions: How much time should one spend refereeing a paper?, How much time should I spend on reviewing a paper?, How much time should you spend on reviewing a paper? How much time do academics in fact spend refereeing the research of others, on average?, When is it appropriate to decline a review request?


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Institutional email for mathematical organization
I'm a member of a mathematical organization which is not tied to any university, but rather has members from several different institutions (who are mathematicians). Furthermore, the organization even has its own journal that it publishes.
Currently, I am affiliated with a university, and this is the institutional email that I use. However, I was wondering if it was possible for the organization to create its own institutional email. For example, I would like to link my Google Scholar account or Arxiv account to this email.
What are some possible ways to implement this idea?
Thanks in advance!

Are you asking about whether Google Scholar or arXiv would recognize it as an institutional domain? Because otherwise this question is not at all specific to academia; any organization or individual can set up their own email addresses, of course.

@Anyon Yes, this is what I was asking. More specifically, what needs to be done in order for it to be recognized as an institutional domain.

Recognized by whom? Journals? These days any email is accepted. You see Gmail addresses all the time for corresponding authors.

@cheer Perhaps in some areas, but not mine.

If the organization has a website, it must be hosted somewhere. They likely pay for shared hosting. Most shared hosting providers include free email addresses linked to the domain name. If not, they do for a small fee. When you use this address as author, the paper will be automatically linked to this address. Then you just have to link your Google scholar profile to this address (I don't like Google scholar, just mention it because it's what the OP asked.)

The "small fee" might be something like $5/user/month. If the org has hundreds of members, they might balk at paying this fee since members already have emails from their home institutions. For example, the Society for Neuroscience does not provide emails to its members.

@jerlich Fees like that are possible but it is equally possible and afaik more common that the generic hosting of a website for say $20/month already comes with 20 or 100 free email addresses. Depends on the provider, if you have an exceptionally greedy one it might be worth changing.

It often depends on storage. Emails that simply forward on to someplace else (gmail or ISP-provided email or personal domains, etc.) are often bundled practically unlimited with a domain (never truly "unlimited", but if it is 1,000 or 10,000 then it might as well be unlimited for most situations). But storage costs and POP/IMAP hosting costs, so typically there will be a limit on hosted email accounts either in terms on number of accounts or total storage (in GB) or both. But on top of all that, it is still a policy decision as to whether to give out lots of accounts or not.

Yes, organizations can have their own email servers. ACM.org does, for example. It is also possible to contract out the service to a larger organization like Microsoft but still maintain an institutional domain: steppenwolf@mathgeeks.org, say. Money is needed, of course.


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Have you used online participant recruitment services such as Prolific and MTurk? Which service do you use?
I am looking to get feedback from people who have used online participant recruitment services such as Prolific and MTurk for participant recruitment. We have been using MTurk, but I am looking to get feedback about alternatives.

please provide additional context for people to be able to answer your question. What specifically do you want to know?

Recruitment for what, exactly?

I support labs who use these tools and some others for human subject payments but what is your concern?  I believe my researchers choose them for different types of experiments. They work in HCI.  I'm not sure why, but people seem to be moving away from MTurk and towards Prolific.  I would try setting if folks in the field of HCI can offer perspective.  There may be background given in their publications about which service they chose. Use these sites as keywords in Google Scholar and you should get some interesting things.