text:
What should I do when getting a C in a core graduate course as an undergraduate planning to apply for grad school in applied math?
I'm a third year undergraduate student planning to apply for graduate school in applied math. I have done REU in applied math and had one conference paper. I had decent grades in my undergraduate math courses: mainly A's and A+'s and only a few A-'s. However, I ended up with a C in my first graduate course(Real analysis), which is really discouraging to me. In fact, out of all 20 people in the class, including all the graduate students, only 2 ppl got A and the rest are split into B's and C's. I was originally planning to continue with the sequence (the B part of the course), work harder and get a B or above grade, but after the professor told me that he is going to have even higher standards this semester, that being said, only people who get nearly perfect scores deserve to pass the course, I'm not so sure now. Based on his new standards, only the two people who got A last semester can pass the course and the rest of us would have failed, which is totally insane. I wonder if I should continue with this course, study really hard and try to pass the course, and hopefully get a better grade, or simply drop the class and try some other grad classes? Also how bad does getting a C in a core graduate class hurts and how else can I make up for it? I'm going to apply for grad school next year so I'm short on time, any advice will be appreciated! I'm really desperate right now.

This is in very similar to How important are pure math grades for applied math graduate schools?, possibly a duplicate.

If you have only 1 course with a bad grade, it's not so bad, whereas if you fail the second semester (or still get a C) it looks considerably worse.  You should still be able to get into a good school.  Just you the best you can in other advanced courses, and try to get to know professors so you can get good recommendation letters.

Thank you for the advice Kimball, this is exactly what I'm afraid of. However I wonder if it will seem like I do not have the perseverance to study math by quitting after receiving a bad grade.

It doesn't sound like you're quitting (in your pursuit of math), and I don't think most admissions committees would read it that way.  You just took one semester of grad analysis, and didn't do so well.  In fact it makes sense not to take the second semester until you master the material in the first semester.


text:
Stress and anxiety while waiting for PhD viva
I submitted my PhD thesis more than a month ago. I was told by the Postgraduate Department that I would have my oral examination in six weeks. It's been six weeks already and I haven't heard any news. I heard from former students that in some cases, the viva could take up to three months to be held.
I am so stressful right now. I have been unemployed for more than 6 months now and I am running out of money. Currently, I am living with my parents to cover my expenses. While they welcome my living with them, they seem to be disappointed that I have yet to land a job. Not to mention I have to worry about my viva as well. I have unsuccessfully applied for jobs while waiting for the viva. Most employers didn't want to hire me because they viewed me as overqualified and they thought I would leave the job once I obtained my Ph.D.
I have reached out to my supervisor to get the information when my viva will be but she said it all depended on examiners. It's so disappointing to know how unprofessional my examiners are. I know they are busy with their work but to think that I paid a large sum of money to get my thesis examined, it's just so unacceptable. Does anyone know what should I do?
EDIT: Large sum of money refers to thesis examination fee. My university increased thesis examination fee by two-fold to get faster feedback from examiners. Although my university has changed its policy in viva examination by making it faster hence increment in thesis fee, it still disappointing to find out that it stays the same.

Are there any rules at your university? In mine, the examination committee had X weeks (somewhere between 4 and 8) to do their work and return the result.
On a different note, what do you mean with "[you] paid a large sum of money to get [your] thesis examined"?

Yes, usually 5 weeks and it has been agreed upon. I paid large fee (almost a semester's tuition fee) for thesis examination fee. Recently my university increased the fee to get thesis examined faster. However, I am so disappointed that they non-chalantly delayed my viva although the university policy has changed with changes/increment in thesis fee

Can you clarify what exactly is your question? Is it about dealing with the stress of the situation (as implied by the title), getting the viva arranged as soon as possible, making a complaint, or something else? "What should I do?" is too broad a question, you have not specified what you would like the outcome to be.

Unfortunately, there isn't all that much you can do except to have the people responsible for ensuring reviews are turned in contact the examiners and get them to turn in their reviews of the thesis.
Complaining to the examiners directly will do little good, and your thesis supervisor may or may not have the clout to get your examiners to turn in their reviews.
However, you should be applying for Ph.D.-appropriate jobs right now, so that you're able to move into something once the oral examination is finished. Supervisors of jobs normally taken by Ph.D. recipients will typically recognize that there might be some delays in getting the degree, but will still hire people close to finishing their degree.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
In dilemma of choosing supervisor for postdoctoral research
I don't know whether this question has been posted previously or not. I just successfully defended my PhD thesis and right now I am unofficially a PhD holder. I have applied to several institutions for postdoctoral research and so far I have been received two offers. One of the offers was from my current PhD supervisor and another one was from a reputable senior professor in my field. Although I really enjoyed working with my current supervisor, I don't think I have challenged myself enough in research. The research I conducted during my PhD study was a "safe" research and nothing groundbreaking was coming from it. My current supervisor is a nice professor who always listens to my problems, understands my plight as a researcher and always acts as a good boss to me. However, she's not a very good expert in my field and sometime she was clueless with what I was talking and she didn't encourage me to go for risky research during my PhD time. She also doesn't open to ideas of collaboration with experts from other countries as she likes to control everything. However, she has been a very pleasant person throughout my PhD journey.
On the other hand, another senior professor from other institution is a very respected professor from my field. He has a very big lab with many PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. However I have heard a lot of nasty things regarding his treatment to his students. I don't know whether I'll be ready to work with.
So right now I am in a dilemma to choose between these two as my postdoctoral supervisor. What should I do?

"My current supervisor is a nice professor who always listens to my problems, understands my plight as a researcher and always acts as a good boss to me."  This is the same person as "supervisor continues to boss me around long after I left the university" https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/97184/supervisor-continues-to-boss-me-around-long-after-i-left-the-university ??

I have two supervisors: Main supervisor and co-supervisor. Both of them have exact equal powers against me

"heard a lot of nasty things regarding his treatment to his students" -- I have colleagues who are what you called 'senior professor'.  They are only nasty to students who don't perform.  Unfortunately, their bar is super high, where say most people will be happy with one top journal/conference a year, they may demand a few times that.  In essence, they want a clone of them, and only work with people who are a clone of them.

However I have heard a lot of nasty things regarding his treatment to his students.

If you think these rumors are true, do not go work for him.  If you work for him, you are endorsing his behavior and his reputation will impact your reputation.

One of the offers was from my current PhD supervisor

There is a general expectation that a postdoctoral job should broaden your range of experience.  If your postdoc supervisor is the same as your PhD supervisor, there will be a perception* that you did not acquire new skills.  There may also be a perception that you did not move because you could not find a position that would broaden your skills.  It also makes it look like your adviser could not help you find a job elsewhere.
In summary, I recommend you keep applying for postdoc positions.  However, if you are one of the most famous institutions in your field, it would be acceptable to stay put, as relocation is less expected in this case.
*I do not endorse this view because it discriminates against people who are unable to move.  But I think it is a widely held belief.

Have you been offered an interview with the other professor? If so, I would suggest going to this interview: interacting with this person directly will give you a more accurate sense of whether or not you want to work with them than things you "have heard" about them.
Attending an interview will in no way "lock you in" into accepting the position (you might not even be offered the position after the interview). I did turn down an offer after an interview, partly because I realized I couldn't have a healthy professional relationship with this PI, and partly because I wanted to do my postdoc abroad (this interview was in my home country).

Having continued on with my PhD supervisors for a Postdoc, I would suggest not following that path for too long. Not only will some of your skills/perspectives be limited, but it will be difficult to make your own name in the field and you supervisors will get a larger share of credit for your discoveries. For some of them, it will be hard to see you become more senior and will still think of you as their PhD student. It will be difficult to challenge their views as you grow and are capable of your own scientific opinions.
I'd continue to keep seaching for other postdoc positions.

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

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


text:
Paper accepted subject to minor changes – should I comply if I do not consider them minor?
My paper met acceptance (through email notification from editor) with one reviewer requiring a minor change which is not minor according to my perception and would revise all my figures and results. The detail is:
Editor’s comments:
Your manuscript entitled "xxxxxxxxxxxx" has been accepted for publication in IEEE xxxxxxxxx.  The comments of the reviewers who reviewed your manuscript are included at the foot of this letter.  We ask that you make changes to your manuscript based on those comments, before uploading final files.
Reviewer 1 comments
Recommendation: Accept (minor edits)
Comments:
I  think the authors have either answered all my questions or made the relevant revision concerning the suggestions raised by the reviewer. I have no further comments
Additional Questions:
Does the paper contribute to the body of knowledge?: Yes
Is the paper technically sound?: Yes
Is the subject matter presented in a comprehensive manner?: Yes
Are the references provided applicable and sufficient?: Yes
Reviewer: 2

Recommendation: Accept (minor edits)
Comments:
The responses of the authors are satisfactory. But they can incorporate the sensing error parameter to bring more realistic scenario in their model.
Additional Questions:
Does the paper contribute to the body of knowledge?: Yes
Is the paper technically sound?: Yes
Is the subject matter presented in a comprehensive manner?: yes
Are the references provided applicable and sufficient?: Yes

Should I mention that I will undertake the recommendation in my future work? If I do so, can it lead to rejection of my paper after acceptance?

Ask the editor. You'd be making a mistake not to.

The crucial part here is what the editor wrote: They may have made it very clear that the proposed change is a requirement for acceptance; they may have made it very clear that it is not; they may not have been clear at all. Can you please [edit] your question to clarify?

The question is revised to a more comprehensive form, please.

What is your field? Conventions may differ in this point.

Communication and networking

In general, it is not accept until a full accept.  If the reviewer thinks that the 'sensing error parameter' is critical to the main idea, then not incorporating it will result in a rejection.  Can you argue that the model is already realistic? If not, you could incorporate this error parameter in the simulation (an additional curve to your figures) or in your math analysis (if you have any).

Just a few cents. Straight to the point. Seems that it is IEEE Access- according to the policy in IEEE Access, there is a binary decision. So the editor chooses to accept the paper. It is accepted. Now, it’s your turn to address some of the comments if you can. It says that ‘before uploading the final files’. Here, final file refers to camera ready version uploading via submission system, these files will directly go to the publication department, not to any other reviewers and editors.

Whether you should comply or not should be ruled by asking yourself if doing so will improve your work. If you come to the conclusion that it would improve the paper, you really should follow the advice. Most other considerations such as if it is a lot of work should be very low (if at all) on your list.
As a self-confident researcher the quality of your work should be in your focus. It is therefore never mandatory to follow reviewer advice, but it is mandatory to explain the reasons if you decide against it. If there are good reasons not to do as requested, you can explain it accordingly to the editor. In any case, the editor is the one to convince, so you could discuss your question with her/him.

'the editor is the one to convince' -> nowadays that's not true.  Editors are simply 'robots' that wait for all reviewers to click the accept button before they click the accept button themselves.

@ProfSantaClaus That is not at all my experience with editors.

@BryanKrause perhaps the volume of papers has something to do with it.  The top journals in my area get a few hundreds to thousands of submissions each month.

Rule of thumb number 1 for replying to referees: Never say "no" if it can be avoided. If I had your case, I would include a discussion (a few lines) of the inclusion of said parameter, and highlight it as a topic for a future article. Then I would thank the referee profusely for giving this suggestion, that it would be a challenging thing to do, and that this is something I would consider further in the future.
Given that the paper is already accepted with minor changes, I would not expect the referee to push back on this.

From the sounds of it your paper is not accepted, the referee has recommended acceptance but the editor must finally accept it before it's formally accepeted (at which point the only changes allowed would be formtting issues and typos). As you have minor edits it maybe the referee thinks the changes are small and thus may not want to read the paper again, in which case you only need to convince the editor that the work is not minor. They can then decided whether to ask the referee (or not) for thier opinion on whether to accept without the changes.

"formtting issues and typos" dang Rob, they got you.

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


text:
Will taking a post-doc position harm my future chances in industry?
I am 29 years old and am about to finish my PhD thesis in the field of remote sensing (i.e. somewhere between computer sciences and geosciences in a broad sense or applied signal and image processing in a more narrow sense) at a university in central Europe.
Due to the fact that there are only few tenure positions available in science and I would rather stay in my (economically strong) home region, I want to find a position in industry in the long term. However, I have received an interesting offer for a post-doc / scientist position in a new-to-be-founded research group with great funding and cutting edge research in the applied signal processing field.
My question now is: Will some additional years in academia harm my chances concerning a job in industry?
Some additional points to consider:

in the post-doc position, I would be the deputy of the group leader (who is soon to receive a full professor/tenure position)
I'd be responsible for staff management and some budget issues (about 20% of time)
I'd have the chance to travel to international conferences
the application the signal processing research is carried out for is not directly industry-relevant
I have received an invitation to an interview for an R&D job at an automotive company, but it is scheduled only in 3 weeks, while I have to decide for the post-doc offer sooner rather than later

So what did you decide? give us an update!

I did a postdoc,  but did not move on to industry. Instead, I have my own lab as a tenured full professor. :)

good for you ... please add the necessary disclaimer:
https://xkcd.com/1827/
:D

I can not talk directly about remote sensing, but in computer science, a postdoc does not harm your chances to go into industry directly ...
... but unfortunately it will also likely not help you much when applying for an industry job. That is, I would expect that your CV for an industrial job is about as strong after the postdoc than before. Given that there are opportunity costs for working in a postdoc for (presumably) multiple years (lower salary, lost opportunity to build up experience that is more directly helpful in industry jobs, etc.), you will certainly pay for doing this postdoc if you look at the grander picture (lifetime earnings, etc.).

I would be the deputy of the group leader (who is soon to receive a full professor / tenure position) - I'd be responsible for staff management and some budget issues (about 20% of time)

This sounds like you will have actual management experience after your postdoc. If you find the right company, these are certainly points that will help your case afterwards. However, some of my colleagues have made the experience that there are a surprisingly large number of companies in central europe that summarily dismiss everything you do at a university as "not really management" (mostly due to a lack of understanding that university labs also have to deal with budgets, hiring, people issues, etc.). Not sure how representative these word-of-mouth tales are, but it is something to keep in mind.

Nice, +1. Re your last paragraph: postdocs and professors do get some management experience, but they are still scientists/researchers first and managers second, whereas managers in industry are managers first and engineers/salespeople/whatever second. The difference is nontrivial. How many postdocs read Peter Drucker?

I recently saw on a public Tweeter of a HR of a software company "No, a PhD in CS does not count as previous experience". So I guess it is true in some cases.

@Davidmh: What exactly do you mean with "it is true in some cases"? Do you want to prove that the time in academia is generally not considered as experience? Or that the post-doc time is the first experience since PhD time is not counted as experience?

@Michael I mean that some recruiters do not consider academia as actual experience, as the example above. Now, it is little more than an anecdote and I have no idea how frequent they are. I have heard of companies that do appreciate PhDs, too.

@Davidmh Well, then in this respect it's too late anyway. ;) That's why the question actually is whether a couple of additional post-doc years will cause additional "disappreciation" or not.

@Davidmh: It depends a lot on how the PhD time is presented, and how it was spent exactly. For instance, I imagine a PhD who has been funded exclusively from a scholarship and only done user studies and written papers on them to have less chances of convincing HR people they have some experience than PhDs who were funded from an external project that was conducted collaboratively with representatives of research and industry.

@StephanKolassa: "managers in industry are managers first" - certainly, but this sounds like the actual management level of the company, rather than, say, a member of development staff with some "responsibility over subordinates". Is that the kind of position the OP would be going for immediately? Wouldn't they rather start out as something like a technical team lead, whose tasks in that particular role indeed focus on the management aspects, but who "in profession and background" still is an engineer/salesman/whatever first?

@O.R.Mapper: I am skeptical that a company would immediately hire a postdoc for a technical team lead position, either. After all, after a postdoc, you are not an engineer/salesman/whatever by training, you are a scientist. Few companies have an explicit need for scientists. (If they do, a postdoc from the relevant field could indeed have a chance of starting out as a technical team lead, immediately.) I think they'd rather hire someone as an engineer, then maybe promote after two years. At which point a postdoc won't make much of a difference compared to three more years' experience.

At least in the life sciences areas related to medicinal chemistry and drug discovery, it's possible to gain a benefit from doing a postdoc with a PI who him/herself has great industry contacts. Off the top of my head, I think some factors to consider are:

If you are looking to get into a subspeciality within your field where the PI has a strong reputation in the industry, and you are looking to strengthen your credentials within that subspecialty with your publication record and networking, I think a postdoc is a good idea.
You want to focus on a more basic research area in your future career, then a strong postdoc where you guide much of your own research is a good idea. If you're not interested in self-directed basic research, maybe not.
If your postdoc efforts will be diluted substantially by administrative tasks as you imply, I'd be a little concerned and try to get this clarified. You would be taking this job to improve your academic and research credentials, and few people will give you much credit for doing even a superior job in the administrative role of your job. If this will restrict your ability to effectively do your "real" work, I'd be inclined to reject this offer.
You say that this is a new group, implying that it's with a new young PI. This could go either way, but you should definitely be selfish and trying to honestly estimate the productivity that you would achieve in a new group with a new PI in this field. If you don't see yourself with a good likelihood of excelling in the field, I would consider declining. An "average" postdoc will not distinguish you in any way in your future job search, but an excellent postdoc might.

Some postdoc positions are created basically as a way to pay less while also not really offering the upside of outstanding research and publication opportunities that you'd really seek out in a good postdoc fit. Your administrative requirements sound like a red flag to me that this position really isn't suited for a postdoc, but that of course is for you to decide. If you're considering a postdoc, you should consider how you could distinguish yourself to future employers who might be interested in your outstanding research ideas and implementation, and they'll see that through high profile publications and conference presentations that you make. If you're unlikely able to do this, then I'd argue that you're not likely to benefit from a postdoc.

Thank you very much for your valuable input. I figure that there'd be a strong chance for high-level journal publications and conference presentations. However, and that's probably the downside, it's in the field of remote sensing, where most of the business is done in research institutions and organizations on the national or even European level rather than in private businesses. Thus, it might be a non-optimal choice with respect to industry-networking, while being an almost optimal choice for scientific networking...

authors: Белякова Анастасия


text:
Could citing a database like libgen get one into trouble?
Databases like libgen are considered illegal in most countries, I understand. So, if someone acknowledges libgen as the database from which a book has been retrieved on the Reference List, could he/she get into trouble?
This is in cases, where you have to cite the database, apart from the book. Suppose, you cite an e-book or an online article, you have to include the database too in certain referencing systems.

Why would you want to cite libgen as opposed to just citing the book?

I am afraid this question is based on an incorrect understanding as a premise: there are, as far as I know, no cases in which you have to cite the source where you obtained a certain book. Have you ever read "source: university of Stanford library" in a citation section, for instance? I am voting to close this question as unclear until you provide an explicit example or otherwise improve it.

Related, if not duplicate: Citing paywalled articles accessed via illegal web sharing, Should I let my professor know that I cited a text written by him…that I pirated from online.

@FedericoPoloni APA style requires the URL for e books. If you only used the e book you need to cite the e book, even if there is a paper version available.

@Wrzlprmft in both the linked questions you are getting an online version of the printed version of the material. Ebooks are often not identical to the printed version (at a minimum the generally the page numbering is different). Therefore some citation styles require the URL, which makes this question very different.

@StrongBad What do you mean with "the URL for an e-book"? An e-book often is a pdf / epub / etc. file; it doesn't come with a URL. Many books have an associated official web page on the editor's website; maybe you mean that, but then you can cite it no matter where you got the book. Could you give an explicit example of an e-book that you would have trouble citing?

@FedericoPoloni APA is clear, they want the retrieved from URL. You cannot cite an alternative URL if you didn't go there since you cannot be sure it is the same version.

@StrongBad Suppose I send you a pdf copy of an e-book via e-mail. What should you write in the citation according to APA?

If you really need to, you can use the ISBN to search for another source that you can use instead. This is similar to Wikipedia. Professors don't allow Wikipedia as a source but they won't complain if you find something on Wikipedia and then research the source found on Wikipedia. I assume it was easier for you to find the information on libgen but now that you have the information, it shouldn't be hard to find that information using the ISBN or exact title from a legit source.

@FedericoPoloni Please do not vote for "unclear" because you don't like the question.  The question is completely clear, and was before it was edited.  I'm not claiming it is a good question, though.

@AnonymousPhysicist I'm following the guideline suggested in my answer here on meta. It is at +32 votes (+34/-2) currently, so I would say there is some consensus that it's a reasonable policy.

@FedericoPoloni That was a very different situation, and you will notice a contradictory answer with more votes above it.

@AnonymousPhysicist I don't think the other answer is contradictory, and I think that the situation is very similar.

The databases are illegal in that they violate copyright law. The owner of the database is clearly in violation of the law, but users of the database are generally not. That said, I can imagine some authors would be upset to see a published link to a pirated version of their book. Why not just go to the library and confirm that the printed version matches the online version.

Will there ever be a Capitol Records, Inc. v. Thomas-Rasset of academic e-books...?

@smci Not if we stand up and fight it.  And if we really believe that everyone should have access to a good library, then that's what we'll do.

@Diagon: United States v. Aaron Swartz case (JSTOR), I suppose. Except sadly he committed suicide, so we won't know the outcome.

@smci - I think the fight's going to be in the streets; and that's a matter of solidarity.  Courts will be forced to follow along later.


text:
How to do research after Ph.D when you have less time?
I have joined an institute as an assistant professor from some time. I have done my PhD in computational mathematics. I am very much interested in research and spend lot of time and I really enjoy it. During my Ph.D I have done my research independently as well as some time with Ph.D supervisor. During my Ph.D  I use to spend large amount of my time in research. The problem is now I have been involved in academic and other activities, so I am not able to spend that amount of time. I am not able to collaborate with others as there is no collaborator in the university.
Question : How to do research after Ph.D when you have less time?

it may help to tell us at country you are in. Where I'm located the way to gain more research time is to apply for and be granted large external research grants which pay a portion of your salary and buy you out of teaching and admin. I have one starting nect month that ensures 75% of my time is research.

There are a few ideas. The first is to set aside some time each week for your own research. A few hours in a block, perhaps.
The next is to keep a research notebook (or a small pack of index cards) with you at all times so that you can (a) review existing cards and (b) jot down any ideas that occur. Especially keep ideas for things that might be explored when you have he time.
Third, and very important, is to develop a circle of collaborators wherever you can find them. If not possible at your own university, perhaps at a nearby one. But there are also conferences that you can probably attend and meet people with similar interests. Follow up with authors of papers you find interesting. Modern communication makes even international collaboration quite easy if you all write a common language.
Doctoral study is very intense and most people have few obligations other than the research. That changes for many upon graduation, especially if teaching is a big part of the job. But you can also interest a few advanced undergraduates in your research, perhaps.

Thanks professor ⚘

One of the biggest shocks of becoming faculty is that actually doing research is no longer the biggest part of your job.
Certainly for me, the main source of collaboration for research as a faculty member is the graduate students I mentor. With a few hours a week, advising others on their work is a really efficient use of time, and then, when time allows or it is really necessary, I get the pleasure of helping them directly with a particularly difficult problem.
Other than that, I collaborate with people a many different universities, both in different cities in the same country and in other countries. Skype, Slack, various file sharing platforms all make long-distance collaboration perfectly possible in the modern age.


text:
Filtering By Date Among "Related articles" in Google Scholar
As seen in the below screen shot, the "Related articles" page does not provide the items that permit one to filter only for articles that meet some date criterion.  How can one achieve the desired result of filtering related articles according to some date criterion?

Is it even clear that that is possible?

It's not clear but since there is a years menu presented by default for other searches, I thought perhaps there was a feature hidden somewhere like an advanced search or some sort of search modifiers I was missing.


text:
Is it normal as a researcher publishing a new theory or model to keep having uncertainties and self doubt?
Even if your theory or model has been proven by experimentation and accepted for publication... is it normal to still doubt oneself and have uncertainty in their proposed theory/model?
Or does this mean there's really something wrong in the theory?
EDIT: And what happens if one day you discover that your theory can be broken.. but, after you had already published it?

It's healthy to doubt. Only crackpots don't. Be sceptical, seek for ways to "fail" your theory. If it survives these attacks, you have something nice on your hands. If it survives some, but not others, you can formulate conditions under which your theory works.

@CaptainEmacs Very wise answer. Thank you. If you don't mind, read my edit in question.

Well, if it is broken after 20 years, say, you had contributed to progress. Or look at Sommerfeld who created a relativistic version of Bohr's model, and could explain a lot of phenomena which Bohr couldn't. The theory was soon made obsolete by the much more general Quantum Theory, but what if they hadn't found it so early? Also, who knows whether it did not provide additional insights? It was a good piece of science, even if it was soon made obsolete. That's totally fine. Not everyone is granted with putting their hands on a General Relativity Theory, more insightful than even its originator.

@CaptainEmacs Thank you Captain. Appreciate your insightful comments.

Is it normal as a [person] [doing a thing] to keep having uncertainties and doubts? — Yes!

@CaptainEmacs I just wanted to say thank you for lifting part of my anxiety about this and giving me very valuable comments. Much Appreciated Captain. I know I thanked you before, but I still remember your words and wanted to personally thank you again.

@Rain Don't mention it - we all have been there (at least, if we are lucky, we may believe we have something new that lasts at least a few years). This is part of the fun. Continue enjoying science!

This means that you are proud about your work, and know that it is really a breakthrough.
I too had these uncertainties when I was publishing a new model. This was the first time I felt that way even though this was my fifth paper. What I realised is that the previous work I published was not revolutionary in a way that would attract negative discussions and critics. I was simply confirming the theories of others. These were "safe" publications, the kind that would easily be accepted and cited, and could not affect my career. I believe science was build by "bold" contributions, and that the "safe" ones will eventually be forgotten.
Any theory will be broken, sooner or later. Do not worry about that. Insist on logic and rigour when writing your manuscript.


text:
Should Textbook chapters Contain a "Summary" Section
I am far enough along with an introductory textbook in the computing field that it looks like I might finish.  For each chapter so far, I've written a final "Summary" section that recapitulates the most important points.  I've begun to worry that students will read the summary sections only and thereby miss the other gems of knowledge in my deathless prose.  (After all, the summary can't contain everything, and if something isn't important, why include it at all?)
It is my intention that the summaries reinforce the most important points in each chapter and so are an aid to learning for the student who has read the chapter.  My worry is that there will be students who believe, incorrectly, that a page or two of summary covers the whole chapter.
Is there research, pro or con, about the usefulness / harmfulness of summary sections in textbooks?  (I've looked and haven't found anything, but I'm a computer scientist and so am out of my field.)

I don't know of research or best practices, so keeping this to a maybe obvious comment: it seems like the deathless prose is more of an issue of concern than the presence or absence of a summary section.

@BryanKrause  I'm not sure I understand your comment.  The chapter on digital logic is 22 pages long; it starts with Boolean algebra and ends with edge-triggered storage devices and the importance of the clock signal.  The chapter summary is a page and a quarter.  The student who reads the summary only will miss, among many other things, shifters and De Morgan's theorem.  The student who reads the chapter and the summary will have Boolean algebra, computation with combinational circuits, and the utility of clock signals emphasized.

If someone can read the summary and understand the topics it includes without reading the rest of the chapter, then much of the rest of the chapter is a waste of time and space for the student and the writer, except for the parts that were omitted from the summary. Similarly, if the rest of the chapter is such a slog that a student would prefer to abandon it for the simple glimpse they can get from the summary, then the chapter needs improvement.

@BryanKrause  OK... assuming I know what's important and what's a waste of time for the student, then the summary is a waste of my time, eh?  (And the contrary assumption, that I don't know what's important, means the whole exercise is a waste of my time.)

I think you're putting words in my mouth. A summary (in any piece of writing, whether a textbook, essay, blog, or SE answer) should serve to reinforce and restate key points from the previous section. If it is sufficient to understand the topic from the summary alone, then the summary is either too detailed or the preceding text is too pedantic.

@BryanKrause I apologize for putting words in your mouth, or appearing to do so.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

I've been struggling with this for months.  I think I've found the answer to my implied question in the words of another textbook author, Ken Saladin.
"...tell students what they should know about, but not what to know about it."
Following Saladin's advice, I've re-titled the summary sections Summary of Learning Objectives. Each summary section now starts with the following:

This section of the chapter tells you the things you should know about, but not what you should know about them. To test your knowledge, discuss the following concepts and topics with a study partner or in writing, ideally from memory.

That's nearly a direct quote from Saladin's suggestion.  I hope the first sentence will dissuade students from thinking they can read the summaries only.
I suggest those interested in the question read Dr. Saladin's entire, but short, blog post: https://blog.taaonline.net/2020/02/textbook-pedagogy-improving-chapter-summaries-encourages-collaborative-learning/

A very good way of putting it. Of course, students "committed to minimizing their effort" will still misunderstand their own best interest, etc. But, yes, explaining the significance/point of summaries is an undeniable good (as is giving summaries, in my opinion).


text:
Professor doesn't reply to email even after I talked to him
A professor pitched his project that needs research assistants at an event in my department on Monday. I talked to him after the event about 5 five mins, telling him my background and that I am really interested. I sent him my CV after the event on Monday evening. Now that Tuesday has passed. I still didn't get any reply from the professor. What should I do now? Email him again or go to his office directly (now it is the exam period so he probably doesn't have office hours anymore)?

Why are you so impatient?  Do you think this person only has your email in his or her inbox?

Sorry it is just because I got ignored a few times by other professors during this semester.

Wait. As Buffy said, a day is virtually no time at all. The professor may be trying to give others a chance to respond, or may just be busy with other things. While your zeal is admirable, overdoing it will raise red flags. If he invited applications on Monday, I would wait at least until Friday before following up. Depending on the local culture, dropping by his office in person on Friday (or the following week) may be a good idea; otherwise, I would (again on/after Friday) just send a brief e-mail saying that you are still interested and that you hope to discuss the position with him soon.

Thanks for your advice. But do you think it is appropriate to just show up in his office on Friday (now that it is exam period, he doesn't hold his usual office hours (Mondays) anymore)?

I guess I am just nervous. Because I get ignored a few times by other professors this semester (like cold call). And now that he has a project that needs RAs. I think I should have a good shot.

A day is no time at all during busy academic periods. But trying to find him is probably a good bet. Some things are best done face to face. He probably won't have made any decisions yet and a visit might help him decide.
But an immediate email probably won't get you anywhere.
Perhaps someone in the department office can set you up with an appointment.
But if a week passes and you haven't made contact, then email should be fine.

Thank you! So a follow up email restating my interest?

Also, is there a possibility that he missed my email? For example, he thought he would reply the next day but he ended up forgetting.


text:
How will C+ and many B+ during online school affect PhD admissions?
I'm finishing my second year at a top research university in mathematics, and my major gpa is still a 3.99, however my grades in other subjects have suffered tremendously due to the pandemic stress and online learning (B+ in a physics class, C+ and B+ in CS classes etc.) I have been completely burned out by zoom classes. My overall GPA is currently at a 3.7 but it used to be a 3.9 and it is only decent because I still have high grades in math, including rigorous honors courses. Before covid, I didn't know I wanted to pursue a PhD in mathematics but I started doing mathematical research a few months ago and found out that it is what I want to do with my life. But I have become increasingly worried about my declining performance during covid. I know that many PhD applicants have 4.0s overall and many more stellar qualifications from undergrad, so I am worried that I am nowhere near good enough at the moment. I guess I would like to know how lenient or strict PhD admissions are with online school grades.

There is very little experience. The first generation of applications who have been marginally affected have applied just now. So I think it is still too early for definite answers.

I agree with Maarten but as someone who regularly reviews grad school applications, I can say that I would probably pay more careful attention to letters of recommendation in this situation.  That said, grades outside of math aren't of primary importance, as Buffy says.

The nature of the question suggests that this is in the US, so I'll assume that.
If your lesser grades are outside your major (math) and you otherwise have a good/great application including stellar letters of recommendation, then I think grades elsewhere will matter very little. Given the pandemic, even less.
Don't worry too much about it, but make sure everything else is first class. You can't do anything about the past in any case.


text:
Course design: basics first or teach "as you go"
I am going to offer an elective course which I am free to design. The topic is a bit special, but we can assume I give a robotics course. I will teach a fair amount of probability theory which I need to solve problems in robotics. Therefore I have to teach both and there are, I think, two ways:
1. Teach probability theory first, then robotics.
This is what all my professors did as I was studying. The problem here is, that there is no concrete application to robotics at the time I teach probability theory. Examples are "made up" and so is the homework.
2. Teach robotics and introduce the necessary probability theory when needed.
The students see immediately why it is necessary to learn probability theory. They can directly apply the theory to solve their real problem in robotics. However, it interrupts the robotic topic. The first time I need (parts of) probability theory takes two weeks. Then we would do robotics again and apply the new concepts. Then, after 2/3 of the course comes probability theory again, as we need a further different topics to solve more problems. Maybe once more.
Are there any good resources on howto teach courses like this?

Do (2) but make the probability notes independent from the other notes such that they can be read in a selfcontained way.

@user111388 Good idea.

I assume you know your students better than I do, but this would depend to a certain amount on what sorts of things they expect. At base, it seems like they are expecting/wanting a course in robotics. Starting out with something different might disappoint them and turn them against you in a way that could be hard to "make up" later. This implies doing statistics/probability "just in time".
However, students who are used to, and comfortable with, highly theoretical courses might be fine with "basics first."
But another alternative is to give them, early on, a set of readings on probability that you advertise as being essential a bit later in the course, while you focus on the robotics part. The better students might spend some time scanning, at least, those readings, making it easier to do the probability stuff when it becomes essential. You might even be able to find a vehicle for responding to questions on the readings without cutting too much into the time you spend on robotics early on.
And, of course, if their expectation is that robotics is just "applied probability" then theory first would likely be better.
But, think first of the student expectations and work to satisfy that as much as is reasonable.

Context always helps me to learn something. By giving the robotics topic first, you provide context on the probability, which makes it less abstract and easier to understand, which is very useful for the practically minded learners.
For the theoretical learners, switching contexts from robotics, to probability and then back to robotics should be easy enough.
The biggest problem I had in my university education was always "why". By showing the context first, you address that for free, and can use examples that your students should understand.
Also, if you give something to get started with on robotics, an excited student can carry on with that in their own time while also learning probability, instead of twiddling their thumbs waiting for the robotics part, resenting that they have to do the theory first.

Motivating the students to learn probability theory is important, so if you can do it well, I think the "just in time" method (option 2) is the better method.  There are challenges with teaching a subject like probability theory in a piecemeal way, but you might be able to teach the parts you need effectively using examples in robotics.  If you can do this well then the robotics course might even serve to whet the appetites of your students to learn probability theory more systemtically in a full course.

The evidence-based approach is to do both:  If you teach something early and teach it again later, students will build long term memory.

+1 and thanks for the reminder that a spiral approach is usually best. Each return to a topic takes the student deeper.


text:
Is it acceptable to submit papers anonymously to Computer Science conferences that don't ask for anonymity?
Normally, a CS conference will give a clear indication in its Call For Paper (or in its submittion instruction) if the peer review of the conference is blind. However, if an author forget the anonymity requirement and submit a named paper, the result may be a merciless rejection even without any peer review. I have encountered such a thing, so I am just wondering is it acceptable to submit a anonymous paper to a conference even if the conference does not ask for it ? whether an anonymous paper would cause some trouble to the reviewers or the Program Committee of a conference if the peer review is not blind? Of course, the submittion system of a conference would record the information of all authors, including their names.

Why would he do that? To prove a point?

To avoid the mistake if the review is blind and I miss it

So you are suggesting to send everything at every conference without your name, just in case one of those hundreds CS conferences requires a blind review? That makes no sense. Would not it be easier to read more carefully the respective CFP?

Maybe I am not speaking clearly, but a submission system would record the information of the authors of the paper, including the names, and I just submit a anonymous paper file (".pdf" or ".doc")

It will look like you took your previous rejection from a conference with blind submissions and resubmitted precisely the same document, without addressing any of the comments that you got or without even bothering to re-format the paper so that it follows the submission guidelines of the current conference. Most likely it will also be somewhat off-topic for this conference. Not the best possible first impression that you can give.

Let me rephrase: So you are suggesting to send anonymized PDFs at every conference, just in case one of those hundreds CS conferences requires a blind review? That makes no sense. Would not it be easier to read more carefully the respective CFP?

Thanks for your suggestion, JukkaSuomela and Alexandros. Over half of the top CS conferences require the blind review, and I certainly will re-format the same paper for different conferences, since they focus on different fields and apply different templates. I just want to develop a good 'habit' to avoid the same mistake when submitting a paper.

The habit you should cultivate is following the directions in the call for papers.

To restate, your concern is that you might accidentally submit an unblinded paper to a conference that wants blinded submissions, and have it rejected for failing to follow the guidelines.  You therefore propose to send blinded submissions to all conferences.  If you send a blinded submission to a conference that wants unblinded submissions, isn't it just as likely that they would similarly reject it for failing to follow the guidelines?

@NateEldredge Almost the same meaning. But I guess a blinded submission is  unlikely to be rejected even if the conference wants unblinded submissions. I am wondering whether a blinded submission would cause some unnecessary trouble for the reviewers or the Program Committee of this conference.

This is not a good idea. You just have to read every Call for Papers carefully and submit according to the instructions. That being said, I'm surprised that your program chair didn't ask you to resubmit with proper blinding instead of outright rejecting your paper. Submission errors happen, and authors are frequently given the opportunity to resubmit as long as the content isn't changed. The latter fact might be a little hard if the self-references weren't originally blinded, but I would think that most program chairs would have worked with you on this.

Thanks for your empathy. I am also surprised and regretful about the rejection, since my careless wastes all authors' plenty of time and effort. I think I should form a good habit to re-read the submission guideline carefully before the final submission, rather than simply submitting the anonymous paper.

At least if the CfP was very clear about the blindness requirement (thus making any unintentional mistake by the authors reasonably unlikely), I can imagine the non-blind submission was not so much seen as a "submission error [that] happen[s]", but as a possible deliberate attempt to get an unfair advantage over other submissions by means of personal or affiliation reputation and thus the program chair saw no point in rewarding that behaviour with a slight deadline extension to fix the issue.

@O.R.Mapper, I suppose that a program chair could choose to be that uncharitable, but why? If someone was a known repeat offender in this area, I could see using an outright rejection, but for a first offense, give me a break.

@BillBarth: Well, why give (assumed) offenders an extra bonus as a reward for their attempted fraud, compared to the other submitters who played fair? As I said, this is only valid if the blindness requirement was made really clear beforehand, in an impossible to miss way, in which case a deliberate act (or at least an unexcusable degree of sloppiness) might be assumed.

@O.R.Mapper revealing your true identity is not fraud.  Possibly unfair, but not fraud.

@AnonymousPhysicist: If the rules for submitting explicitly specify that authors are required to blind their submission so the reviewers do not have a chance to learn about their true identity, then revealing one's true identity is a direct violation of the submission rules. Granted, fraud may not be the correct term for the kind of violation committed.

@O.R.Mapper, what's the supposed bonus here? A slight amount of extra time because the blinding process was ignored? As long as the PC requires that no additional content be modified except that required to do the blinding, I think that's sufficient to make the process fair. A stern warning to follow the rules next time should also be sufficient to keep people from abusing the process.

@BillBarth: "As long as the PC requires that no additional content be modified" - true, that prevents the possible abuse, and just means the PC has to to some diffing, which they may or may not be willing to do.

I'm not surprised. Conferences I submit to do warn in their instructions to authors that submissions that haven't been anonymized will be rejected without review, and a conference I review for has, as the first question in the review form, "Is the submission anonymous?" (with instructions to stop the review there if the answer is 'no')

@ff524, interesting. Still seems overly punitive. I've definitely reviewed papers which had the names taken off the front but did a poor job of blinding the self-cites. How would this conference treat such a work? If the review successfully breaks the blind is it anonymous?


text:
What is important in a job description?
I am applying for a masters programme in Computer Science in the UK.
In the application I am asked to provide a description of any jobs I had so far.
What is important in such a job description, i.e. what information should I include?
How long should it be?
There is an html form with a text field but the maximum length is unspecified.

Is this for a CV/fill-in-the-blank? A text-field? If possible, provide us info on how much we can write. A 100 character textbox vs. 1000 will allow for much different levels of detail.

just edited the post

If I was on a graduate committee, I would want to know

How long you held the job.
What your responsibilities were: e.g. if I was an aide in an undergrad class, did I grade homework? Did I teach the class sometimes? Did I have contact with students? Did I write tests?
How did this job prepare you for admittance into the graduate program. What relevant skills did you obtain?
If the person that oversaw you in the said job is known to the application committee, perhaps say who you worked for. Or if it is a company, say who the company is. There is a huge difference between "Software Engineer" at a company with 5000 employees and "Software Engineer" at a start-up in someone's basement.

there are 3 jobs i deem relevant: first as a penetration tester, second as a software developer (bachelor thesis) and third as an aide in an undergrad class

These all sound relevant to me. Good luck.


text:
What to look for when doing research for an institution-specific statement of purpose
I am applying for a taught MSc programme in software engineering.
I understand that my SoP should be specific to the programme/institution I am applying to.
However the guides I have read so far only told me that I should do some research. And not what I should look for.
So far I have researched the following: Academic interests of the professors, if there are famous professors (answer: no), rankings and content of the lectures.
I have also read the prospectus, but found that it didn't add anything new. I.e. it contained marketing nonsense, the list of lectures, administrative information and some pictures.
Now I am out ideas.
There is also the point that I, personally, don't care about famous professors, the academic interests of the professor or how my school is ranked. Of course that is because it's a taught course and only takes a year. In a research degree I would want to get a specific research topic.
I choose the programmes I am applying for to 70% on the module description, 20% on the location and 10% on if the title sounds impressive. And yes, I am serious about the last one. That title will be the first thing every HR person sees.
That means that this research does not reflect my personality very well.

The institution-specific parts of your statement are like the garnish on an already-existing delicious plate of food. Your statement of purpose needs to fulfil its basic reason for existing, which is to explain to the people in charge of admissions why you should be admitted. You can do this by describing why you want to take the course, why you are likely to do well in it, and what you hope to achieve once you have your diploma in hand.
When tailoring this statement to a specific university, look for opportunities to point out areas where your desires match what the institution provides. Examples would be things like the department being strong in an area which is important for your career, or having links with employers in a sector where you would like to work. You've read the module descriptions, and that apparently forms 70% of your decision, so I suggest you start from there.
In short, to write a statement of purpose, you first need to understand what your purpose is. Then you will be in a position to link your purpose to what the institution does.


text:
What should go in a CV for first teaching position at a community college?
I am looking to apply for a teaching position near my town at a local community college. It's a part time position teaching mathematics (and from my research its up to highschool/first year calculus).
I am currently a PhD student and have never applied for an academic position like this. The job posting only requires a resume/cover letter and nothing about a teaching philosophy statement.
The question is regarding my CV or resume. I think at this point in my life, my CV is my resume. Here are the relevant sections (in this order) I have in my CV right now:

Education
Teaching experience (minimal, just TA duties, no formal experience)
Professional experience (my two full time jobs I worked after bachelors)
Workshops/Certificates (workshops I've attended, certificates from coursera/edx)
Relevant coursework (a summarized listing of my courses, for example writing "Real Analysis" instead of "Real analysis 1, real analysis 2" and similarly "singe, multivariable, and vector calculus" instead of "math 100, math 120, math 220")
A list of my programming languages. (in categories such as "general: C++/java..", "mathematical: matlab, maple, R" ... )
Activities and interests (my memberships and associations with clubs such as the AMS (American mathematical society).
supervisor (my two supervisors and their emails)

This ends up being a nice clean two pages. My cover letter (which I have yet to write) will be at most one page.
So the question is.. is my CV properly formatted? What do I do about my lack of teaching experience and how do I address that?

This question is perhaps off-topic here...I think it falls under "preparation for a non-academic career" (quoted from the tour page).

@varun, in the United States, community colleges are undergraduate institutions.  The asker is referring to the fact that the instruction is at high school level (it is remedial), not that the institution is a high school.  Therefore, this question is academic.  However, this question is excessively narrow.

A bit narrow, perhaps, but statistically significant, if not conceptually...

@Anonymous Physicist, thanks for the correction.

I taught at a community college when I was a graduate student.  In my case, I expect I was the only applicant because the pay was very low.  I have a few points of advice.  Most likely, you have to have at least a master's degree to get the job.  So be sure to let them know that you have one.
Do not list totally irrelevant qualifications to the material you are teaching.  For example, programming languages are not relevant.  Do mention any informal teaching experience you have (Most likely you have at least explained things to other people before.).  Do explain what you achieved when you were a TA.  Do mention experience with course management systems.  Also, let them know why you want to teach at the community college.
It probably would not hurt to send a teaching philosophy, if you can write one, though it was not requested.
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/tips-faculty-job-seekers-community-colleges

Noting that the linked advice is for someone applying to a full-time position, not part-time teaching; the latter is likely to barely be vetted at all (in my experience). But getting some experience teaching first is definitely a good thing.

I would disagree a bit with @AnonymousPhsicist's answer, in that many community college math departments have taken on (and very reasonably so!) a broader enterprise, relating to computing in particular, and more explicitly statistical things than in the past.
That is, the future of general mathematics (as opposed to fancier research-related versions) that will be useful to most people must include both "programming" issues and, in many situations, "statistical" issues.
That is, no one cares about, or needs, extensive computations by hand, though it is a very good thing to have extracted from those misguided by-hand courses a sensibility about reality, if one hadn't that previously.
One awkwardness will be the possible disconnect between the mathematics relevant to any of your students' lives and the traditional curriculum. Depending enormously on the situation you find yourself in, the disconnect could be stunningly awful... or it could be very mild. In particular, the "mythology" of that math dept would determine whether or not your computing and other experience is a plus, or is "heresy". (Note: some low-wattage contexts are more doctrinaire and angry about ... change... than higher-status places!)
As in all cases of deconstruction of "episodes", stop and think about the questioner's context, and so on...

Downvoted because it's unclear how the questioner could act on these observations without knowing specifics of the school environment (which is likely unavailable). Moreover, the vetting for a part-time CC position is likely so cursory that none of this will be an issue (insider baseball). For example, my interviews to start CC part-time teaching were 5 and 15 minutes respectively.

The answer from Anonymous Physicist is right on target (except perhaps the part about omitting your experience with computing, as Paul pointed out).  I have no opinion about the rest of Paul's post because I had trouble understanding it.
I'd like to make a few additional suggestions.

You should tighten up your CV for applying to jobs like this.  Try to get it down to one page.  Even if you can't, it is still valuable to get it more succinct.  For example, you do not need to tell them that you took Calc I, II and III.  From your existing degree(s) and current educational status, this is obvious and goes without saying.
Your teaching philosophy can be included in your cover letter, but please be concise -- aim for no more than one paragraph.  Make sure it comes across as being grounded in practical experience.  (As Anon P said, it's okay if this is largely informal.)
Also in your cover letter, you can pull out your main selling point(s), and tailor your application to the particular institution you are applying to.  How do you know what spin to give your application?  By digging around in the college's website and reading articles in the local press about the college; by visiting the college; by calling up the dean of mathematics and finding out more about the position.

One thing I can think of that might make your application less than ideal is that they might be afraid you would leave after a couple of years.  (This might or might not bother them.)

My answer is: You're probably fine as-is. You've likely already put more thought into writing up this question than most community-college teaching applicants.
You may be surprised or shocked by how cursory the vetting process is. In my experience, getting an initial part-time math/computer-science teaching position at community colleges (in two different major cities), with a Master's degree, involved respectively a 5-minute and a 15-minute interview. (In the former case the interviewer was also on the phone the whole time.) In many places the adjunct instructors are so numerous, and have such high turnover, that very little time can be spent for vetting.
Years later (I'm now a full-time lecturer at the latter institution) I was told by the department chair who hired me from out-of-state that what clinched my interview was an unusually literate cover letter. Your mileage is likely to vary greatly.


text:
Would a legitimate journal send unsolicited email to an author offering to feature an article in their own publication, for a fee?
I have received an email from a journal in the field of engineering saying that they found an article of mine and want to feature it in their own publications for a fee.  I cannot tell if this is something legit or something they send to everyone they can find.  I have Googled, but there is not much information on them.  How can I tell?

For general advice on assessing the reputability of a journal, also see How do you judge the quality of a journal and How to identify predatory publishers/journals

Another warning sign: Googled but not much information on them.  Pretty much every legitimate journal (and many bad ones too) shows up copiously online with lots of easy-to-find information.

Absolutely not.
While open-source journals can charge authors to help recoup the publishing costs in the absence of paid subscriptions, it is completely dishonest for a journal to "republish" a work that has already appeared in print. It is even more dishonest for them to charge you to do it. At best this is just an advertising service; at worst it's a scam.
I wouldn't even dignify the email with a response. Send that email into your junk folder.

Conclusion ++ It’s not, however, dishonest to reprint works when copyrights are not violated… Anthologies, for example, would be proscribed if it were.

aeismail's answer is 100% correct in general.
However, the place that emailed you isn't a journal, and doesn't claim to be (at least, not on their website). It's a website that prints the citation and abstract of articles published in other journals, with a link to the original article on the original publisher's website. Presumably (based on your experience), they allow people to pay to have their abstract "featured" on the website.
This is not necessarily dishonest on their part - they may be permitted to reproduce the meta-information of a published article, which is what they are putting on the website.
However, it will be of zero benefit to you to pay to have your article "featured" in this way.

authors: سعيد السبيعي


text:
What is the relationship between impact factor and journal ranking
As a second year graduate student, it's become increasingly difficult for me to figure out what journals are the most prestigious.  My research is very interdisciplinary, and so journals from many different fields would be suitable for my work.
Initially, I took Impact Factor as a good proxy for journal ranking.  However, I've come to learn that IF doesn't necessarily reflect the whole story.  It seems that number of citations (for an individual publication), regardless of journal, appears to be the most important metric.
However, barring that, I assume most people (in the interest of career success), would still like to publish in the best journal they can get in.
Consider a journal like Physical Review Letters.  It has an impact factor of 7.7.  However, a relatively new journal like Advanced Energy Materials has an impact factor of 14.3, almost double that of PRL.  However, I've always heard that PRL is one of the best physics journals that you can publish in (heck, Einstein's EPR experiment was published there).  So if I had an article that would be appropriate for submission to both, which would be the better one to get in?
Then there's something like Nature Physics, with its 20.6 Impact Factor, which suggests getting in here would be a more significant achievement that either of the other two.  But by how much?  Surely not by three times?
(Part of the problem is that Research Gate gives you a total IF score for all your publications, which I think biases that number more than it should be.)

The best persons to answer the specific question held in the title are scientific librarians. Drop by your institution's library and they should be able to provide: data on ranking and impact of journals (possibly available for download on their website), explanation about these metrics and recommendations about good publishing strategies.

If you are a graduate student, I would say the best thing is to ask faculty members in your department where they think you could/should publish.

This is a particularly difficult question for interdisciplinary research, because different fields have radically different citation customs and publication time-tables, which leads to the same impact factor meaning very different things. Impact factor also has numerous other problems.
Moreover, absolute ranking of a journal is in many cases less important than reaching the audience that you want to talk to, particularly in interdisciplinary research and especially if you want to reach an application community.
Rather than focusing on impact factor, I would recommend using the following method to determine how to rank journals as possible publication targets:

Pick half a dozen researchers who you highly respect and want to be the audience for this paper.
Look at the journals that they publish in.  The more frequently a journal appears, the better it is as a target for this audience.

This can also help you distinguish between targets for broad and narrow papers.  For example, you might have a methodology paper that speaks to a very particular sub-discipline.  A journal specifically for that sub-discipline may have a much lower impact factor, but may be a much better place to place the paper and it may actually end up having much higher impact and citations than if it is in a "better" venue where it is mostly read by people for whom it is irrelevant.

This works like a charm for me. It is also the venue (journal/conference) where I get the most valuable review over my work.

The only problem with this is that publishing in top journals is more difficult, so they might show up less than lower-prestige journals. You might also want to look at the journals of the articles that those researchers cite.

+1 for "reaching the audience that you want to talk to". A paper in a highly ranked journal that's never read by your audience < A paper in a lower ranked journal read by your audience that gets picked up.

If you are interdisciplinary in the sense that you would call yourself a "Theoretical __________", "Quantitative ________", "Computational __________", or an "Applied Mathematician", then if you rank journals by impact factor you will artificially be biased against very good theoretical journals.
As a general rule of thumb (with several exceptions of course) the more theoretical the journal the lower the impact factor. The reason for this is because theoretical work is often more self contained. You cite a book or a few papers for the mathematical techniques or theorems you use, and not much else. Discussions and intros are short, the derivations are the crux of the paper, and the culture is that it is up to the reader to evaluate the importance of the results. It is not uncommon for a math paper to have less than 10 references.
For experimental papers you have to cite a lot of papers just to argue that your results are important. In addition, there are often many similar data sets that your result might shine light on or that contradict or confirm your result. In such cases you'd have to cite them all. Intros and discussions are often long and in many cases are viewed as the most important parts of the paper. It is not uncommon for an experimental biology paper to have 50-100 references.
In my field a good theory journal would have an impact factor above 2 and good applications journal would have an impact factor above 5. You have different audiences reading each. The reason I bring this up is that you mention as your example a general physics journal that accepts a lot of theory papers (i.e. papers with proofs) and one that seems to be more experimentally driven (and as an aside in a very hot field right now). The point is impact factors can be useful in comparing papers within a subfield but are not so good at comparing papers across fields.
If my result is of the form:

Here is this theoretical result and it explains data from experiments or what we observe in the real world...
Here is this theoretical result and it shows that all these experiments people are doing are missing the point. We should be doing these experiments instead...
Here is this theoretical result and it means this for how we should be building ...

Then I want to publish in the applications or general science journal to reach a wider non-theoretical audience because the whole point of the result is its implications
If my result is of the form:

We built this mathematical model which can be used to describe real world system; it has some really interesting behavior, but its unclear if this behavior is relevant to the system the model can be used to study
We studied a mathematical model and proved X Y and Z. People have been using this model for a while and numerically have showed that it does a "good job" at ... we prove it actually does do a good job at ....

Then I would publish in a theory journal because the people you want to reach is other theorists who are comfortable with math. You want to get down into the gritty details.
Your philosophy may be different, but the point is that it is about reaching your target audience not the impact factor.

I generally agree with the arguments made by @jakebeal and @MHH, and just want to make another point which the other answers don't state clearly. Within a field such as physics, some topics are more hot and receive more attention both within the field but also from other areas of science, which will translate into more citations. It is therefore common for some narrower journals that focus on hot topics to have higher impact factors than good, prestigious generalist journals that span the entire field. This is because generalist journals publish good science (hopefully) in both hot topics and all other subtopics, including subtopics that have lower citation rates (and e.g. theoretical work generally have lower citation rates, see also the answer from @MHH).
I don't know the journal ecosystem in physics, but can imagine that Physical Review Letters publish in all fields of Physics, while Advanced Energy Materials only publish in a narrower subfield, and this can be the reason for the difference in impact factor (which might not then correlate to the overall "prestige" in physics). A similar situation is found in the field of Ecology, where some journals related to Global change have higher impact factors than more traditional ecology journals with a broader scope, which arguably doesn't relate to a difference in journal prestige.

Nature is also broad as PRL and maintains a perfect impact factor. Diversity is only one dimension.

@0x90 Yes, and The New England Journal of Medicine again has a much higher impact factor than Nature (while being more specialized...). However, my main point is that subfield specialization makes a difference, everything else equal. But of course other factors are also important, most obviously the selectivity and focus on novelty that is typical of Nature and Science (and The New England Journal of Medicine).

In my experience / research field, impact factor somewhat correlates with the prestige of the journal, but there can be exceptions (most notably when comparing across disciplines). Keep in mind that 'impact factor' is not the only metric, and may not even be the best metric. One may even get conflicting answers based on one's choice of metric.  Here's an example to illustrate this point.
Based on impact factor:
Nature > Nature Materials > Physical Review Letters > Physical Review B.

Based on 2011 eigenfactor:
Nature > Physical Review Letters > Physical Review B > Nature Materials.

Based on Google Scholar's h5-index rankings:
Nature > Physical Review Letters > Nature Materials > Physical Review B.

So which metric is closer to the truth?  It likely depends on who you ask, and it depends on which field they are in.  Consider asking people from the research community you are in (and especially those who are in the places where you intend to apply for a job in future).  Keep in mind that journal impact factor is not the only criteria. Other criteria that could be just as important (or even more important) include: referrals, who you worked with, what was your contribution to the paper, how well you are able to defend your work, whether your skills fit in with the rest of the organization, how established are you in the field.
Note: when talking to people, one should also consider that impact factor tends to be more controversial when comparing across fields (the eigenfactor system tries to correct for this). Some fields may have higher citation counts than others because: they tend to cite each other more often, there are more researchers, they publish more or often, or some combination of all 3. What happens when a particular department has people specialising in multiple fields (where some fields have significantly higher citation averages and journal impact factors than others)? Trying to equalise the playing field across multiple disciplines is not a straightforward task (and what happens if the department does not really try to equalise the playing field?).

According to Google Scholar, they have placed Physical Review Letters as the top journal in Physics & Mathematics based on h5-index and h5-median. See the ranking here

Metrics to consider are (some already mentioned):

Eigenfactor
Article Influence
Impact Factor
5 year impact factor
Source-Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP)
SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)
CiteScore
H5 Index


text:
High-stakes tests: How messy can an optical scan sheet be and still be readable?
A student has traditionally been given a 504 accommodation to be permitted to mark answers to multiple choice questions directly in the test booklet, for a proctor to transfer the answers to the bubble sheet (optical scan sheet).  Now he's in a situation where this accommodation has been rejected.
If you're curious, his difficulty with bubble sheets has to do with ADHD, OCD, anxiety and sensory integration disorder.  He sometimes presses too hard, sometimes too light.  It is inherently hard for him to bubble neatly, but he also obsesses about it, and this ends up wearing him out mentally, leaving him less able to concentrate on the content of the test questions.
Well, okay, he lost the battle (for the accommodation) and will regroup for the war (e.g. updated neuropsych testing has already been scheduled), but in the meantime, there is a high-stakes test on Tuesday and I have to figure out just how messy the bubbles can be, and still be readable.  This will help lower the anxiety for the student.  (Today is Saturday.)
What I have found so far: "Most systems accommodate for human error in filling in ovals imprecisely, as long as they do not stray into the other ovals and the oval is almost completely filled."  (Wikipedia)
I need images showing the threshold.  A messy but acceptable bubble and a messy bubble that the scanner coughed on.
Here is a screenshot of what the bubbles look like for this particular high-stakes test:

I feel like the answer to this depends on the machine, not sure how we can answer how accurate the machine can be.

Do you have access to the machine? You could try a number of different bubbling "techniques", say ten each way, to see what the accuracy is. At the end of the day, I would hope that if the Scantron is returned to the student graded, and they can demonstrate that it misgraded a number of questions, that a standard academic grievance should be sufficient to restore the proper grade. (While a professor might be a dick about such things, from what I've heard talking to the disability resource center at my university, department heads and up to be more reasonable)

I believe this will be more answerable and in scope if you change this from "How does this machine work?" to "How do I deal with this problem, given that we have to use the machine?"

@guifa - Access to the machine?  Look, I had evaluations.  I had the evaluators in the meeting.  But I lost.  These people are beyond unreasonable.  There are good guys and bad guys in this world. // No, the Scantron will not be returned to the student graded. // We are waay beyond standard academic grievances.

@jakebeal - I have a strategy to deal with the problem, in general terms, I just need some technical information so when the student practices bubbling, I can compare the results against the images and say, this one is fine, this one will cause a hiccup. // If there's a different SE site that would get me a quicker answer, I'm all ears.  We have to figure this out by tomorrow afternoon.

@aparente001 Our Scantron machines just sit out in the open, it's not like students get any advantage by seeing them, even if someone from the disability office were blocked, I figure a sympathetic professor who did have access could run some test tests through. Although not the point of this question, is it the disability office that's blocking the accomodation or the professor that refuses to allow the accomodation deemed necessary by the disability office?

@guifa - It's complicated. // The machines aren't out in the open.  // Do you feel like doing a couple of tests with your machine?  I'll understand if you don't have time or interest.

@aparente I probably could either late Sunday or sometime Monday. I'm out of town this weekend and not sure if I'll be in the office Sunday, but I'm happy to try something out. I hate when professors won't make incredibly reasonable accomodations.

@guifa - Very nice of you....  Maybe I'll have found some additional information between now and then.  // Strangely, this exam requires that the bubbles be filled in with pen -- black or blue.

Scantrons put to the test: http://www.thechurchillobserver.com/features/2012/05/01/scantrons-put-to-the-test/

@AaronBrick - Imagine a 3yo trying not to go outside the lines.  Now imagine you are a teenager with a similar lack of control over what your number 2 pencil does; now imagine you have an anxiety disorder, and your exam performance is affected by your OCD about the mess you're making of the bubble sheet.  It distracts you from doing your best with the exam.


text:
VERY bad GRE score -- subject test in English literature
I desperately need help.
I am applying to PhD in English and I am applying to the top ten programs in the USA. Generally, I have very good chances, because

I am working with very well-known professors (all across the country) who are quite the stars academically so far as my specialty is concerned. The recommendation letters will be very strong. My prospective schools know my professors personally.
I am multilingual
I emailed all my prospective supervisors and I received very enthusiastic responses both from the US ans the UK.
My writing sample is very strong and I use my own translation of a passage written in Latin. (My professors confirm that my writing sample is good)

The problem: I went to the GRE test sleep-deprived and I had a terrible flu. I completely failed to see (and I know this is exceedingly stupid) that there is another side of the answer sheet until the last 15 minutes, resulting in half of the exam left blank.
Should I not apply?
Have anyone had a similar experience, but ended up receiving an offer?
Please, please help.

Ask your mentors (letter writers/possible supervisors). In some fields (my old one, say) the GRE was a cut-off hurdle which allowed administration to sort out some candidates which would never reach professors. Your mentors know if something similar applies to you (in which case you should probably wait for the next test), or if not, or if they can get you through by personal intervention despite a low score should the score matter.

Then apply next year. In the mean time, train yourself to be cautious all the time.

As it stands, the questions in this question are either a poll or a too dependent on individual factors. There is no discernible request for general information we can answer here. Voting to close.

I finally voted to close because I am convinced the asker is in a unique situation - wants to get into  top 10 PhD program in English in US/UK with poor score in GRE and reluctant to admit the quality of the English wrting is below what he/she is supposed to have. (Please see the comment below P.L. Clark's answer).

I have removed a number of comments relating to now-corrected typos. Please keep any discussion focused on the OP's actual question.

I know, but you could have pointed out my TYPOS and OVERSIGHTS more respectively and less sarcastically. Notice that I just thanked the others for their criticism, although scathing. You, however, seems to take delight in putting others down for whatever reason. It speaks of an extremely vacant schedule, good sire.

I'll have some suggestion for you. You have two options: apply this year or don't apply this year. If you apply this year, you know you have little hope to get into top 10. So, shoot for top 100. Or you have another option: apply for a masters degree in English. If you don't apply this year, take practice GRE exams until you are absolutely sure you won't make the same mistake. In the mean time, do research on the subject you were going to do as if you were in one of those top 10  PhD programs so that it would be much easier for you when you enter the top 10 PhD program next year.

One of the most valuable things you can get from a site like this is honest feedback from academics who do not know you personally.  Because you are applying to a PhD program in English and claim to have a very strong writing sample, I think it is absolutely appropriate and on-topic to discuss the impression your writing makes.  So I will begin with that.
From looking at the original, unedited post it is my distinct impression that you are not a native speaker of English and that you frequently do not write as a college-educated native speaker of English would.  In your rather short writing sample, I noticed the following issues:

"I am applying to PhD in English" This is not grammatically correct, as there is a missing article.  A native speaker would say something like "I am applying to a PhD program in English".
"who are quite stars academically" This looks like a grammatical error: an adverb modifying a noun.  For sure it is not a construction a native speaker would use.  If you were a foreign spy infiltrating an anglophone country, this one sentence would be the end of you.
"My writing sample is very strong and I use my own translation of a passage written in Latin." There is a missing comma.  More subtly, present tense would probably not be used by a native speaker here: instead they would use the past tense or the past perfect or say something like "In my writing sample, I use..."
"I had a terrible flue" A strange misspelling that cannot be justified as a pure typo.  (E.g. the original also contains "ans", which I didn't mention as it is clearly a true typo for "and".)  This is another mistake that might seem minor to a non-native speaker but is one that a native speaker would simply never make.  Honestly, I can picture English faculty making jokes about this kind of student writing.
"I completely failed to see (and I know this exceedingly stupid) that there is another side of the answer sheet" More tense problems: if not ungrammatical than at least non-native.
"resulting in half of the exam left blank" A native speaker would say being left blank.
"Does anyone have had a similar experience, but ended up receiving an offer?" This is a really worrisome sentence: it is not even within a few words of being grammatically correct.

I am a professor in an American mathematics department, and if I saw writing like this I would look carefully at the TOEFL and GRE verbal scores.  If they were sufficient then I would expect the student to have no serious language issues as a student of mathematics.  In an English literature department, especially one in the top ten, I expect that writing like this would really sink an application.
Back to your question: I don't know how seriously the English subject exam is taken in English literature programs.  But any program which requires this exam must take it at least somewhat seriously -- by requiring it, they are excluding applicants who would not take it, and no program would do that lightly -- so a low score has got to be a negative.  Moreover the defining feature of top ten programs is that they have their pick of the litter.  So my honest appraisal is that I expect that you will not get into a top ten program with your profile.  Now I am not in an English department so this advice must be discounted accordingly, and I hope that someone with such experience will come along and also answer your question.  (Unfortunately this site is overwhelmingly populated by STEM-type academics.)  So for instance I also don't really understand why a translation from Latin would make for an especially strong writing sample for English literature...but maybe I am missing something here.
Anyway, here is my advice:
Although I am skeptical about your chances, I think we can agree that they are much greater than if you do not apply at all.  Rationally speaking I see no reason for you not to apply.  If you get in, great, and please feel free to come back here and set me straight.  If you do not get in, then since you have already corresponded with faculty at these institutions it is likely that you can get some useful feedback for an application in a future year.
Assuming that you need to apply again, my advice is:

Give yourself your best chance to nail the GREs. I am working with some undergraduates who took the GREs just now, and they spent a lot of time taking practice exams.  If you are intimately familiar with the format of the exam, even sleep-deprived and ill you will probably not make the mistake you made.
Make sure that absolutely all of your writing would be viewed by all impartial observers as having the level of English proficiency of a university-educated native speaker of English.  For this I recommend that you get several university-educated native speakers of English to read your application.  To be blunt about it, if you are currently enrolled in a non-anglophone university, then your professors may not be qualified to vet your writing in this way.
See if you can find writing samples from current and/or recently graduated PhD students at top ten English departments in the US and/or the UK.  If your writing sample is very dissimilar in form from these, that's worrisome.  If it is similar in form and all your native language helpers think it's as good or better as the successful samples, you're in good shape.

Good luck.
(Added: It might be relevant to mention that while none of my degrees were in English language or literature, both of my parents were professors of English at two-year colleges.  So when I made a grammatical or usage mistake I would get called out for it...in, I think, approximately the same way that happens in English departments.  So I will guess that my level of sensitivity to issues like this is, while not identical to that of an English professor, probably in the right ballpark.)

Thank you for your answer. I am not trying to find excuses, but I should clarify that when I wrote this, I had just returned from the exam. Needless to say, I was devastated. I wrote my question, and then posted it without a single revision, hoping to get some help as quickly as I could. I am grateful to you for pointing out the grammatical errors, but they are  oversights (inexcusable, yes, but oversights) due to my hastiness and the fact that I was extremely sad. I greatly appreciate your answer, Dr. Clark.

This response seems a bit abusive. This question has been put on hold, but I thought it worth saying: I work with people who are considered highly bilingual (i.e. it's their job to be bilingual), and this person's writing seems fine (and even good), esp. for a forum posting. We should not assume that this person's academic writing is anything like what they post hastily and informally in a forum. It also seems to discredit the person's report that they have full support from their professors. It is unlikely her professors would write her letters to programs if she were not qualified.


text:
Coadvisor assigning seemingly superfluous tasks
Context: I am a fourth-year graduate student in mathematics at a university in the US.
One of my colleagues in applied mathematics has two advisors, one in mathematics and one in chemistry.  He's trying to graduate this semester, and he (understandably) wants to devote the majority of his time to writing his thesis, applying to jobs, etc.
Unfortunately, his chemistry advisor seems to be taking advantage of him.  She is continuously asking that he perform all sorts of calculations for her that have nothing to do with his research.  These calculations are not particularly difficult, they just happen to be beyond the mathematical capability of his advisor.  He suspects that she does not consider them important enough that she would do them herself in the case that she could.
As he still needs her to serve as a reference, he is somewhat limited in how he can handle this situation.  His past attempts to refuse or delay working on these "projects" have usually been met with significant resistance.  Any suggestions for how he might proceed are much appreciated.

I don't think that first line "context" is necessary as 0% of this question actually involves who you are.

You are mostly correct.  But someone inevitably always asks where the university is located, and I also wanted to be clear about my relation to this student.

Better describe the situation of your friend. He might be a second-year graduate student in physics and chemistry, for all we know.

As stated above, he's an applied math student who's planning to graduate soon.  (My university has both applied and pure math programs.)  He happens to be a sixth year student.

These calculations are not particularly difficult

If this is true, make this calculation more efficient by, for instance, writing a program or software macro to handle them. When the supervisor asks again, give a due date that is longer than the time he actually needs to do that task. For instance, it takes 1 hour, and after automation it'd take 15 minutes. Tell her 1.5 to 2.0 hours. The earlier stage they are in, the more he can over-estimate the required time to get some breathing room for other tasks pertinent to his study.
He can also consider teaching other people of her lab or team to do the calculation. Make a brief instruction presentation and teach all of them to do it. She may be less likely to call on him again.
The way I dealt with mine may not be the ideal for him: I usually just do the tasks even it may mean some of my research time is reduced. For instance, I spent time writing proposal, making and checking others' presentations and abstracts, training graduate students, etc. just to help my supervisor. For i) if my supervisor is not stressed, our lives are easier, and ii) after looking at my supervisor's overall workload, I just couldn't help but wanted to help. I wanted to aspire to be a graduate student who can take care of own's stuff and with some leftover effort to help. And till now I am still glad that I did.

I think the second paragraph is the best idea.  I don't think being dishonest about the required time is particularly fruitful.


text:
How important is it for your website to have a unique domain when applying for academic jobs?
I am a PhD mathematics student in the United States, and I plan to apply for jobs at liberal arts institutions over the upcoming months.
I currently have a personal website on Weebly.com, which is a service that offers free web-hosting.  The URL they've assigned me is myname.weebly.com.
Would potential employers consider this URL unprofessional?  It would be printed on my CV and business cards, possibly other places as well.  I can pay Weebly $8/month to have a custom URL, but I'd rather not do that if no one would care.  If it makes any difference, I know that myname.com is currently available through Weebly.

You probably have the ability to host a website through your current department, at a url like http://math.wossamotta.edu/gradstudents/yourname/.  That's what most PhD students on the job market do.

Also see How necessary is buying a domain when I'm just a graduated student?, Should I host my academic website under my institution domain or under a domain of my own ?

Re myname.com, see http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/55416/19607

Every website has a unique URL.  I think you're wondering about having your own domain.

@DavidKetcheson It looks like someone edited my original title.  I've changed it to reflect your comment, thanks.