text:
Does APA style satisfy AEA style requirements?
I see the AEA templates as well as APA guidelines. I'm in the process of assessing the question myself, but I'm wondering if anyone has a quick answer: If I format my paper according to APA guidelines will this also satisfy AEA style requirements?
To add context to a paper I'm working on: I do have tables and equations, but I do not have second or third level headings. Only first-level headings.
I'm interested in contributing this work PubCSS and I'm wondering if I will need two distinct style sheets, or if I can get away with a single one. It would be even better if I can get away with 0 new style sheets! PubCSS already supports ACM and IEEE style, so if anyone is familiar with those then I would be curious what differences, if any, exist between those, APA, and AEA.

tentative finding: AEA and IEEE both use Chicago Style: https://github.com/thomaspark/pubcss/issues/20

No, AEA uses a modified Chicago style. APA formatting will not meet this criteria. PubCSS is currently some distance from being able to implement an AEA paper in CSS. At the moment, I recommend sticking with the AEA-provided LaTeX template.


text:
Publishing someone's argument
What if this happens:
Say I contacted a researcher R in my field about particular question I had.  They answered the question in a private email to me.  Their sketch of the argument was about 5 sentences long, and it can be turned into a rigorous proof.  I really like the result.  However, R has been unresponsive for 2 months and has not replied to any of my subsequent emails where I make various offers and seek their advice.
Would it be unethical to include their argument as a small part of a publication I'm preparing, assuming I give credit to R?  What constitutes proper credit in this case?  A sentence in the introduction when I first mention the result?  A sentence preceding the proof?  In Acknowledgements?

In most places a citation (ack) would be enough. For a citation, list it as a "private communication". That is normally enough. You avoid plagiarism because you properly credit the idea.
There may be a few places, though I can't name them, where it requires specific permission to do this. It isn't needed in the US, but seek local guidance elsewhere.
Most likely you will be paraphrasing the communication rather than quoting it. Quoting a communication in full may have different rules, even if it is only a few sentences. To do more, you need permission.
One way to get permission, or at least acceptance, is to send the person a copy of your finished paper, saying that it is about to be submitted and asking for any advice on it. If they have issues with how you have presented their ideas they have a chance to correct them.

I think permission should be explicitly granted, regardless of whether it is "required" in some formal sense. Give a call to the person in question and ask them explicitly. I don't like the "private communication" citations. They are essentially useless: impossible to verify, and there is no actual document being referenced. My advice would be to mention them in the acknowledgments,  in the appropriate part of the introduction, add another acknowledgement in a sentence immediately preceding the statement of the result, and of course in the heading of the result itself. Papers are not ...

... usually read linearly, and it is better to be a bit redundant to ensure the authorship of the result is made transparent to anyone looking at the paper.

Write the paper, attributing the person in the way you feel most suitable. I would write that the person in question provided an outline/idea of the proof of proposition this and that, and include something to this effect in the acknowledgements, close to the result, and maybe in the introduction if the result is a major one for the paper.
Send an email the person with the attached draft, writing that you finished a preprint/paper using their idea, is the attribution fine or (if earned) do they want coauthorship? Maybe also write that you'll be submitting the paper to a preprint server/journal/conference in two weeks (or whatever), so you would prefer an answer by then. If not, you'll submit the paper as is.
Give the email a descriptive but short title. If you are fairly unknown to the person, try to not write a title which looks like spam or crankery.
If they do not react and you are still uncertain about the attribution, you may try calling or visiting or some other means of communication.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Ethics of not including a contributor as coauthor?
Someone (call him Peter) contributed to part of a paper I've written.
 This occurred over the course of numerous emails (we've never met in person). I am including those results in the paper, and Peter is aware of this.  I asked Peter multiple times to be coauthor but he never responded to that request. I'm ready to submit the paper now.
(1) Can I submit the paper? I should be able to add Peter as coauthor if he   responds while the paper is being reviewed.
(2) Do I have to submit the paper with Peter's name, or can I submit with a a simple acknowledgement?

This has been asked in various guises on here, with all possible answers.

Did you send him the ms at any stage?

The contributor has not meet all the requirements of ICJME (cf. This question of mine) since they have not presumably been part of the writing process. As you have given them the opportunity  (assuming your emails went through) to participate, you have met your ethical requirements. That said, I would pick up the phone and call them and get a verbal confirmation.

I think you are over emphasizing the "writing process". But if the other person has never seen the paper, nor had an opportunity to revise or suggest revisions, then I would probably agree.

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


text:
Will a top journal at least read my introduction?
I'm currently preparing an article for a very good journals in mathematics (AMS, Acta, Advances, etc.). I have never had a result worthy of these journals until now.  I would like to know whether I can count on the editors to at least read my one-page introduction before making a decision. Or could they stop after the abstract?  The reason I ask is currently my abstract is very short and gives zero background.  If someone were to only read it, they could undervalue my paper.

Why did you write an abstract that leads people to undervalue your paper?

There will typically be a maximum length for any abstract: use it. The well written abstract allows the expert to determine if the paper is at all relevant for her own research. Journals receive many, many submissions, so do not give them any reason to do a desk reject of your paper.

Can you include a cover letter with your submission?

@CarlChristian That's an answer to the question and should be written in the section marked Answers, otherwise the whole point of Stack Exchange is undermined.

@pipe "Man single-handedly undermines Stack Exchange with one comment"

@MCMastery Pretty funny, but maybe not as funny if you knew how many people who ignores the "Avoid answering questions in comments" just because they want their opinion seen before every other answer.

@BenCrowell OP is presumably worried that the editor would "desk reject" the manuscript and not send it out for review at all. I think all journals do that sometimes to avoid wasting everyone's time, but top journals will do it more often.

No, there's no such guarantee.  A top journal gets an awful lot of submissions, and you can expect them to be aggressive in rejecting papers which do not make a strong case for their importance, in the way that involves the least work for the editors.
If the editor, after reading the abstract, does not understand why the results would be highly interesting and significant, I would fully expect them to reject the paper without reading the introduction or any other part of the paper. (I can even imagine cases where they could make such a judgment by only reading the title.) As such, your abstract definitely should provide motivation for your results, such that a reader who is generally familiar with the area can see why they are of interest.
If your abstract just states the result ("we show that every snark is a boojum"), then it had better be such a well-known topic that every reader in the field would immediately know why it is of interest to know that every snark is a boojum.  If that is not the case, then your abstract should briefly explain why people should care, perhaps relating it to previous work.  ("Previous work of Smith showed that every reticulated snark is a boojum.  In this paper, we show that the assumption of reticulation is unnecessary, thus resolving a conjecture of Jones.")

To my knowledge search engines for scientific publications like SCOPUS or ISI Web of Science don't even index any words of your manuscript apart from the abstract and the title (google scholar is indexing everything). Therefore, if the online submission system or journal guidelines for submission don't allow you to write a submission letter to further explain, why you think your manuscript is of high importance, then, as Nate pointed out, only title and abstract are read at all.
Therefore, writing a concise abstract and putting the right keywords into (-> search engines) it is crucial to get at all one foot into the review process.
On the other side I have read abstracts which consist of not much more then 1-2 lines/one sentence. The author is then mostly a famous professor who knows that he is known and his paper enters the review process. Still, I think when then a 3-4 pages manuscript is following for the sake of finding his manuscript via a search engine with some keywords, it would be nice to write a longer abstract.
Top journals are also more inclined to take a deeper look on a submission if the topic is trendy and more researchers care about it or work on it.
I also doubt that manuscripts are read in a linear way, from title to conclusion. With so much literature to choose and to read, the editor might overjump your introduction and look into the conclusion first. That's how I read published papers, I rather overfly the whole paper (conclusion paragraph, graphs,...) before deciding to read it completely from the beginning.

Why is it relevant which parts are indexed? And the final part does not really apply to math, since papers rarely have a section for conclusions.

@TobiasKildetoft I guess the point is that at least one significant piece of academia believes that the abstract alone should be enough to tell you if a paper is worth spending time on, so one could make inferences about other parts of academia. I think one can make better arguments (especially, more subject-specific ones: as a theoretical computer scientist, I've never used Scopus or ISI, so I'm guessing mathematicians don't, either) but it's not completely irrelevant.

@TobiasKildetoft a problem on this site is that, and maybe every question should be tagged therefore math/cs/psychology, all (I feel many) the standards applied in math don't apply in other branches of STEM. So reading such Q&A here and applying those advices could have bad outcomes...And of course, editors also read an abstract like a search engine indexing their journal does it to improve it, called SEO. Good SEO, advertising, fancy graphics,....high impact journals, nature science etc.

@DavidRicherby An important distinction is that those indexing engines will for the most part not be able to show more than the abstract anyway, since it will be behind a paywall. And this is of course not the case for paper submissions.

I am almost certain that editors of good subject specific journals (at least in math) will be completely ignorant of any sort of SEO practices and not have them in mind at all when deciding the fate of a submission. As for the subject: The question asks specifically about math. Answering in a way that applies to another area is fine (imo), but ought to be labelled with what area it applies to then.

@TobiasKildetoft I agree, math is probably the exclusion of the rule to my answer, but the rule applies to most STEM branches apart of math and I think there is also rarely purely mathematical content published in nature, science. It would be good as said, readers on stackexchange could see in title (math) or tag, from which branch the questions is coming, otherwise this gets a redundant mess to browse/search/read imho


text:
Bad advisor + a research area that interesets me or an active advisor + research topic that doesn't interest me?
I'm a beginning Master's student in Mathematics, I'm passionate about Mathematical Analysis and want to have my Master's thesis on some topic in Mathematical Analysis. Problem is, in my Department, the professors who work in this area are very few and they have a bad reputation. On the other hand, professors who work in Computational Mathematics and Numerical Optimization are more active in research and have a good reputation. I can't really decide whether is it more important to choose a potential supervisor and learn from him the elements of research in a research topic I'm not interested in or should I take the risk and stick to the topic I'm passionate about?. If I chose the research area which I'm passionate about there's a huge probability that my supervisor will not offer any guidance at all or even any interest in reading my thesis.
I understand that the question is rather subjective as it depends on the personality of the student in the end. However, I'm looking forward to hearing other's analysis on the situation and if anyone had a similar experience or a challenge like this and how did they end up doing?
Thank you all for your time reading my post.

Why have you gone to a department where the professors who work in your area are few and have a bad reputation?

I had no other option. I live in a developed country where research in the theoretical aspects of Mathematics is not rich. And I can't afford to study overseas yet. It is a tough deal I'm facing.

Are you planning on going into industry or academia afterwards?  If it's the former, then employers probably won't look beyond the university name.  They won't care who your supervisor was.  But if it's the latter, you'll need to get a good repulation in the field.

There are two core decisions which need to fit: topic and supervisor. Do not compromise on them. For a Master, you may be a bit more flexible on them, but be warned: it is not a good idea, you will end up working uphill.

I'm going to assume that by "bad reputation" that you don't mean that they actively impede and harass students. Avoid such advisors like the plague - which they are. The following only refers to situations in which "bad" means that they aren't very active in the field and are without much of a publication record.
If you really can't move to a more compatible place, then ask yourself how self directed are you and how much drive do you have to get it done on your own? If you have an advisor in analysis (my original field, actually) who is a decent person who will respond to your questions and concerns, even while not providing a lot of guidance, then you could probably be successful. It would be good training, actually, for an academic career, which you eventually need to be able to carry on by yourself. But it would take a lot of reading to find a good problem.
However, if you aren't that self directed and need a lot of guidance, then it might be best to choose an advisor from a related subfield if you can find one who will give you the external direction you need. It is a tradeoff, as are many things in life.
But study for Master's degree isn't forever. A lot of it is coursework most places and it isn't usually necessary to specialize so completely that you can't still keep a bit of generality in your program. (Yes, there are places in which that isn't true and where specialization is all, but not everywhere.)
Another option, if you have a good, compatible advisor, is to also seek advice on some aspects of your study via the internet from authors who write in your field. International collaboration is feasible now where it wasn't in the past.
My suggestion, then, is that the human qualities of an advisor, and a willingness to help you can be as important as an international reputation in the field.
But when/if it comes time to study for a doctorate, pick a place where you get more support for your field.

Note that this advice would be much less valuable for a doctoral advisor. There, the student probably needs more guidance.


text:
What to do with a thesis adviser that doesn't respond to emails or offer any help?
I am a master student in computational mathematics, my thesis adviser assigned me a problem in a subfield that is outside his expertise. He is lazy and doesn't know much about the problem he assigned to me that later, after few months, I found that it is even not posed properly, I redefined it myself and of course, I am doubtful. I need an opinion, a discussion and whenever I request a meeting, I don't benefit from it and he says wrong information because he is ignorant about this area he got me in and he avoids me intentionally because he knows I will ask him and he doesn't have answers. I stopped visiting him, he and the other adviser because I don't benefit from the stupid meetings.
Now, even that I am working all by myself, I am sending him emails and he ignores me completely. We are now in quarantine so I can't go to his office even.
Now, what do you advise me to do?
I really came too far now. I can't quit. I have tried to ask other authors who work in the same area, no one responds.
Should I continue anyway by myself? or not?

Seem to have read this before, perhaps you can search on here for similar posts and the answers to those.

Surely there is someone at your university who oversees the organisation of the Master's degree or graduate studies in general. It might be good to talk to them about your options based on how long you have left in your degree.

Under normal circumstances, I would answer "Find out when they're in their office, and go there in person."  But the current pandemic makes that unworkable.

You are a bit stuck. It would be a shame to abandon work already done if it shows promise of successful completion.
But there are really two things that you should require from your advisor. First, they need to approve of your thesis when complete. Second they need to write you a good letter of recommendation for the next stage of your career.
Everything else is nice, but not essential. If you are capable of doing the work on your own and can achieve those two things, nothing else will matter.
I'm more concerned, actually, that no one responds to your request for help. Perhaps if you take a different approach with external professionals it would be more successful. My preference would be short introductions and very simple explanations about what you are working on. Make it easy for anyone to make the first response. If you send too much it is more likely to get ignored.
Quit and restart elsewhere only if no other option is open to you. Given the current pandemic (early 2020) no one will think poorly of you if you need to start over. It will delay your career, but not necessarily end it.


text:
I did everything on my own regarding my B.Sc. thesis. My supervisor did nothing. I want to publish it without his name
My B.Sc. thesis advisor did nothing regarding my B.Sc. thesis. I chose the topic, I have done everything on my own. He didn't even read the work or provided me with any guidance or any advice. Just passive aggression is all I gained from him.
However. I want to try to publish it. But since he didn't contribute even the slightest I don't want to put his name upon it. Also, the work I submitted at the university has some minor mistakes. So if I considered publishing it, I will change some minor details. So is it ethical or it will get me into troubles?

Who formulated the problem that is solved in your thesis?

Unfortunately this is becoming increasingly common. False advisors who provide a couple signatures, play dead while standing in the way for years and demand lifelong reverence in return. Problem is, modern academia is more about politics than ethics or science. Decide carefully based on your next steps and how much you need this person to advance.

@Scientist "Unfortunately false generalisations become increasingly common". Sorry to hear that you had bad experiences, all of us had them, but it does not mean that this is worse or better than in the past. There are very nasty people, or very nice ones, and you find them all; a tour through history of science will show that to you. Academia always has been about politics in addition (sometimes to the detriment of) science.

Why did you pick this advisor? Or was he allocated to you?

The basic rule is that you can publish your own work without limitation. You can also correct previous versions, such as drafts, or even work submitted for class or a degree.
However, there are two considerations.
The first, is that in some fields, questions can be raised about "contributions". In a chemistry lab, that is grant funded and has a lot of participants and a PI who wrote and manages the grant, it is considered proper to include many (all) of those participants, often as co-author. If you are in such a field, and depended on such things, then you need to consider the contributions that made your work possible, even if the contributions were indirect.
The second consideration is purely political, but not ethical or legal. An advisor who likes you and your work can do you a lot of good in the future, especially if you want to aim for an academic career. In such cases either an acknowledgement (even if unearned) of an advisor, or even including him/her as a co-author, might just do yourself some good in the future. An adversarial relationship with an advisor, especially when you need them for letters and such is a career killer. Having a faculty member, advisor or not, who dislikes you, whether validly or not, won't help you and could hurt.
But the advisor needs to weigh in on whether s/he wants to be a co-author. It is improper to include someone who hasn't agreed. You don't need permission for an acknowledgement, however.
My approach would be to tell the advisor that you want to publish an updated version of the work. Ask for advice in doing this. You don't need to offer co-authorship, but if it is requested, my advice would be to submit. If nothing more, the name, assuming the person has a good reputation generally, will add a bit of weight to the paper, since you are a novice at this. It can be an introduction to the bigger world.
If the advisor agrees that it can/should be published, you can ask if s/he wants to participate in improving it or if you should just go on your own. The answer you get should be instructive.
One danger here is that some people will try to take it over. Before you start on improvements, make sure that you know how authorship will work. Do this at the beginning, and keep a record of the interchange so that misunderstandings don't occur later. This is one sort of transaction where (saved) emails can be a good thing.
If you get advice not to publish it you will need to explore the reasons. It may be that the work isn't "ripe" enough for publication, even if it was fine for the degree.

I’d tread lightly. If the advisor truly did not contribute or read it then you can try to broach the topic very diplomatically. Say something like: I want to get this project published and I think I have some valuable results. I’d really LOVE you to get involved with the project so we can submit it to a good venue. If not I completely understand and would like a chance at submitting this work myself.
If the advisor was truly uninvolved they won’t care enough to bother. In addition they may offer valuable contributions still in terms of polishing the writing (I don’t know you but I’ve never met anyone who was able to write a good paper alone on their first attempt). They can also help pick a venue, guide the literature review etc. if they haven’t already done do.
I will also advise that contributing to a paper can come in many forms. Somehow I can’t believe that the advisor contributed literally nothing of value to the paper.

"Somehow I can’t believe that the advisor contributed literally nothing of value to the paper."  Maybe.  But I would say the standard for an advisor is somehow much lower than for labmates.  Have often seen advisors with low to zero contribution added as last author and more senior students who did a fair amount of mentoring and suggestion on the project not attributed at all unless they did physical work.

Somehow I can’t believe that the advisor contributed literally nothing of value to the paper. — I can easily believe that the advisor contributed nothing of  sufficient value to justify co-authorship.

You could consider to just send it in on your own.  It might be a bit of an FU move. But if you are going to go that path, probably you are better off with a fait accompli versus asking for permission or making it easier for him to dispute something.
In theory everyone on a paper should have a significant contribution.  But bottom line in our culture is that advisors (at least in the experimental sciences) commonly add their names to papers where they did none of the work, were just administrators.  You have to decide if you want to fight city hall on that or not.
I would think for a bachelor's thesis it might be even easier given that you weren't funded, etc.  Also perhaps you have minimal plans to play the academic politics game.
Finally, you should consider if you really have a publishable result and are capable of writing it up well enough for a journal.  It does affect how much you want to get into a potential fight or if you even need the prof to help you some.

There is also the opposite: students who don't realize how much help they've had. Spending a lot of time on Academia.SE I've seen a lot of people come through who start off with "my advisor did nothing" and then on further prodding it turns out that "nothing" included suggesting the research question, giving suggestions on the approach, providing resources, etc. and the person asking the question turns out to just either not understand how research works or have expected their advisor to do their work for them. Without knowing the situation it's hard for us to judge hearing one side.

Providing resources is not actual science work by most journals.  It's funding.  I would also contest "suggested the topic" as significant contribution.  Somehow this only applies to Ph.D. advisors, not labmates or external parties.  (I could suggest a long list of good studies, but that doesn't mean I should be coauthor.

Of COURSE the individual circumstances vary.  But I maintain that many advisor names go on papers where they would not absent the funding and power structure and tribal customs.  It's OK.  Just how the world works.

Standards for authorship vary by field, but often knowing what to study and how to approach it is more of an intellectual contribution than actually completing the work. By resources I didn't mean simply financial resources but other things like data and software, the collection and writing of which can be a substantial contribution to a work.


text:
What if I got an idea that has been recently published, should I invest time considering it?
I got an idea for my master's work but when I did some research it turned out that someone published it in 2016. Should I stick to my idea as maybe I can do some improvements or at least I can give other interpretations or raise some questions or should I leave it behind. Can you propose me some solutions?
Thank you!

I got an idea for my master's work but [it has already been] published...Should I [develop the] idea...or should I leave it behind. Your questions seems highly personally and doesn't seen like something we can answer. Perhaps you can rephrase? Add more context? Or ...

Have you discussed it with your advisor?

No, I do not have an advisor yet.

@HybridAlien I see. Well, it's worth discussing it with potential advisors then. The details will matter - some research ideas are much more fertile than others.

Assuming that you want to work in this small sub area, you can pursue it. You are a bit behind the frontier if work was published a few years ago and you need to get up to that frontier if you want to advance it. That will take some effort and such efforts are worth it, just to develop your mind.
But you also have new information that will help you get to the frontier quickly: the new paper and other recent work.
On the other hand, leaving everything else aside to pursue ground that you know others are already plowing, seems sub-optimal. I'd suggest pursuit, but not that exclusively. Develop a lot of ideas shallowly (and keep notes) so that you can pursue a few of them deeply.


text:
I have found that academia is not for me. Expected last year of my Ph.D soon. Any advice on transitioning out?
I am an upcoming fourth year Ph.D student in Applied Experimental Psychology with an accepted MA in Experimental Psychology who has realized that academia is just not for me. The notion that all of my work can be discarded in an instant and negatively affect my program progress is what bothered me in particular. The notion that research could also be developed and completed, only for publications to possibly never accept it, also bothers me. I've also had awful advising at both the MA and early on in my Ph.D program as well. Although my new advisor is excellent, I have seen so much of what can go wrong in academia that I can only find the energy to work on my dissertation and whatever other work will come from my upcoming fellowship.
As of now, I can only find the energy to work on my dissertation as my only research project, looking for post Ph.D jobs, working on an online UX certificate, and prepping for my full-time instructor teaching load for next academic year. This leads me to why I am posting and why I mentioned all of the prior points. What I can start to do in order to plan for transitioning to non-academic jobs with my Ph.D? My main sellable skills are the usual basic data analysis (correlations and regressions mainly), reading and editing Python code, experiment building and creation (Experiment Builder, E-Prime), and grant writing (I obtained a $35,000 fellowship for my final academic year). Those who have seen my previous posts likely saw that I am concerned about my CV and how underdeveloped it is compared to other candidates. I now realize that its my characteristic narrow focus (or "hyperfocus" as its called in some circles) that's partially responsible for my underdeveloped CV. I can still attribute my poor advising in my first four years of graduate school as the other reason for this though.
I will tell my current advisor about my priorities at some point. However, will it still benefit me to work on publications (I have none), different research projects, and other things that are normally academic CV builders? I am not sure what is translatable to industry but I want to work translatable things as much as possible.

Go to your campus Career Center or whatever it is called.  2) Unfortunately I think industry will be even less accommodating to your neurodivergence as academia.

@AlexanderWoo Ah, so you read my first post then. I am about to contact my Career Center. However, I've had issues with them in the past not understanding what I do since they appear to be undergraduate oriented. I am at an R2 so there's not much support for graduate students in general.

The best advice will likely come from either professors in your (or related) department(s), and recently graduated PhD students in your field. It seems highly unlikely that all recent graduates remained in academia. Campus career centers don't seem to serve undergraduates very well (which would be a question itself), much less grad students.

Some Ph.D. topics have many employment opportunities outside academia.  I do not know about "experimental psychology".  But I imagine candidates with a Ph.D. have more possibilities than those without.  Alternate: there are academic positions at non-research colleges and universities.  You would do teaching and (later) administration, not research.

Research projects are useful in that they are projects. They teach project management and execution. Make sure you are good on those skills and will have good examples to discuss in interviews. Also look at job descriptions for positions you would want. Figure out what required skills you could include on a resume and which you need to add.

You're asking a community of people who have failed to transition out of academia.  Why would you expect us to have any good answers?

@AlexanderWoo Some of us did transition out of academia, but hang around here for reasons ranging from "remind myself why I left" to "work in academia-adjacent areas which don't have their own dedicated SE".

While I don't want to discourage you from transitioning out of academia if you are unhappy, I would want to say that in "the real world" you have even less guarantees of good work leading to praise, glory, and career progression than in academia. School is pretty much the only time in your life where you can be reasonably sure that if you properly do the assignments you will get your reward (aka a good grade). The rest of all of our lives is a lot more chaotic.

@xLeitix That perspective is super helpful. Edit: It is worth noting that I might also just be burned out and am looking for some fresh work too. I've had issues with employment for most of my life. I also had academic issues early in my undergrad that tanked my overall GPA to a 3.3 (major was 3.5 though). Master's I also did (3.48 GPA), but this was related to dental issues I had to explain. Final classes in my Ph.D pre quals were all As and A-'s though. I got into a Ph.D program since I had relevant lab experience and my program didn't mind graduate GPA if I dodged probation.

@zzmondo1 It's completely understandable that after your PhD you are looking for something else to do. I would say this is true for the vast majority of people.

In another question, you mentioned:

my neurodivergent conditions (e.g., autism, ADHD-I, emotion
dysregulation, etc.)

I'd suggest adding that info to your question here as it's potentially relevant.
Depending on where you are, there may be programs that assist neurodivergent people in finding employment. For instance, Dandelions is a program that works to place neurodivergent people in IT careers. I'm not recommending (nor anti-recommending) that particular program, but I'd encourage you to check out what programs might be available to you and contact any that appeal. Workplace SE might be an appropriate place to ask about such programs.
As well as industry, consider government work. I don't think there is any area that's perfect for ND people, but some government agencies can be pretty good, and may have disability programs. I work in a R&D area of government; it has its annoyances, but I get to do interesting research without the "publish or perish" pressures of academia, and with better job security.

I now realize that its my characteristic narrow focus (or "hyperfocus" as its called in some circles) that's partially responsible for my underdeveloped CV. I can still attribute my poor advising in my first four years of graduate school as the other reason for this though.

You can, but I'm not sure that will be helpful. In general, potential employers are more interested in what skills you can/can't demonstrate than in the reasons why. Focussing on how somebody else let you down can often backfire; fairly or unfairly, it'll often be interpreted as making excuses. Every job will have difficult people and obstacles, and employers will usually be looking for people who can resolve those obstacles. This is something that can be tough for us ND people - my own PhD dragged out a couple of years longer than it ought've because other people were holding up something I needed and I hadn't figured out how to deal with that situation.
I would recommend focussing instead on what you can do to fix those gaps. Even the fact that you've identified them as gaps and are taking steps to work on them gives a prospective employer some evidence that you're capable of taking the initiative in working past obstacles.

will it still benefit me to work on publications (I have none), different research projects, and other things that are normally academic CV builders? I am not sure what is translatable to industry but I want to work translatable things as much as possible.

Different industries will have different priorities. Publications and research projects will be more important for R&D-type jobs than for, say, generic IT. But just about any employer will be glad to see evidence that you have the ability to complete complex projects, especially in the face of adversity.
From my perspective, as somebody who has been in a similar position to you, and then later in my career ended up interviewing candidates from academia, these candidates are often technically strong but weak in team skills, and perhaps narrow in communication skills (good at academic writing, weaker at other aspects of communication).
If you can demonstrate your ability to work with others (e.g. organise a conference or a seminar series) and show ability to communicate outside academic papers, that's likely to be a plus. Successful grant writing is good here as it shows ability to influence others, not just to tell them stuff, and if you can show ability to communicate with non-technical audiences even better. This is particularly important if people know you're autistic, as autistics often get stereotyped as being unable to communicate effectively.
Beyond that, I think most advice would be industry-specific.


text:
How to Constructively Deal with Email Invitations to Scam Conferences or Journals?
Today I received the following email which was entitled the same as one of my publications:

Dear Dr. Ian,
I followed your research works which were of extremely high standard. I would like to invite you to the World Pediatrics Webinar 2021 which aims to accelerate scientific discoveries and major milestones in the field of Pediatrics. The conference will be held during June 08-09, 2021.
Conference Website: https://www.▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮-▮▮▮▮▮▮▮.com/
You can directly contact me through Whatsapp: +37▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮
Please let me know your interest so that we can discuss further. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Ian Watson | Program Manger
World Pediatrics Webinar 2021

I get a few of these scam conference or predatory journal emails a week. It takes about 500 milliseconds to recognize the scam. First, that paper was not of extremely high standard. Second, Whatsapp, really? I dutifully report them as junk to my organization's email platform, but they keep coming.
I've found a couple of tangentially related questions:

How to warn others about a conference-related scam?
How to make sure that a conference is not a scam when you are invited as a speaker?

The first has to do with a specific scam associated with a particular conference and the second is about identifying the scam.
In contrast, my question is about how to deal with the problem once identified, productively.

What arguments can I make to my academic institution's IT department that blocking these emails should be a priority?
If I can't convince my IT department to block the emails for everyone, is there an authority I can complain to? Google? The website's hosting provider? The payment processor?

In addition to the annoyance (which spread over an organization sized number of individuals is considerable and detracts from meaningful academic pursuits), academics fall for prey to deceptive practices all the time [1] [2]. This means potentially hundreds  wasted on registration fees, which are frequently paid by funds provided by taxpayers or charitable organizations.

A couple more related questions: How can corresponding authors protect themselves from academic spam?, Is it wise to try to remove myself from predator mailinglists?

Since nuking from orbit is not an option (I hope), marking as spam in a good email program and never seeing stuff from them again is the simplest path.

"Respected professor"/"eminent professor"/"extremely high standard"/etc. are a clear signal that this is not a journal that is used to get voluntary submissions.

Indeed @CaptainEmacs, which is why I question the "creating a high performance filter is too difficult" argument.

I think the junk folder is the best solution, even if it isn't especially satisfying. I've found that unsubscribing from such lists can be effective sometimes, but not always. And the worst offenders are less likely to actually honor an unsubscribe.
But the institution is probably in a poor position to handle this problem as some judgement is required and false positives could cause issues. It can also be field dependent and the university may not want to deal with all of the possible variations. If a scam outfit learns they are being blocked then they have an incentive to make the appeals more subtle, which makes the problem harder.
You may want a more effective email client. Some can be programmed to automatically trash mails from individual senders or with specific phrasing. Some will learn from your actions and repeat them if new, similar, mail comes in future, though training them may take more that one or two tries.
And if you send out a mass email to your circle of contacts warning about some scam, it might just be treated as additional noise in the inbox of the recipient.

Sadly the problem is like the armor v. ordinance issue of the late middle ages onward. An advance in one generates an advance in the other, resulting ultimately in Mutual Assured Destruction of the atomic era.


text:
Asking a professor for a bonus
I did bad on the midterm exam not because I did not understand the material well enough but I was anxious on the exam day and did not get enough sleep the night before.
I feel terrible about my grade. Is it professional to do extra work (maybe solve some problems) and ask him for a bonus?

related: Should I e-mail my professor after completely blanking on my final exam?

Some professors will allow this, some will not, and some will get angry that you're even thinking they will allow extra credit.
See this for examples of what replies you might get. You'll have to decide whether you want to risk asking the question.

+1 for the article, especially for "So explain to the single mother who has struggled to take care of a sick child why you and not she deserves extra credit. Explain to the honor student who is taking 21 hours this semester and working in the dining hall why you and not she deserves extra credit."

That article you linked to is excellent.

It is not professional. Most professors are highly aggravated by these kinds of requests. Highly successful people are usually quite surprised to hear that other students ever thought it was possible or necessary to ask to bend the rules in this fashion.

What level class is this and what sort of school? Some colleges will have more of a culture of flexibility about these things. However, my starting point would be that unless there's something mentioned in the syllabus, the answer is very likely going to be no; most people have a general attitude of a) not making special exceptions and b) aren't inclined to give extra credit for what is likely going to be mediocre work. A more useful way of responding is probably  to instead go to the professor's office hours and go over the test with them, and make sure you understand the material. This is especially important because in many circumstances, later material builds on earlier material so it is vital to have a good command of the early material before you go on to the later material.

+1 for explicitly mentioning the syllabus. I usually announce, at the start of the term, how I intend to compute grades. I then feel obligated to do what I said I'd do and not make ad hoc modifications.


text:
How to do a masters proposal?
Suppose that I have an idea "not fully developed" of course but a sketch somehow. If I want to convince an advisor by it and let him take me seriously. What should I do?
My field of study is Mathematics. I only got an intuition that might work or not. Should I make sure that the proposal is valid before I talk to my advisor or what should I do exactly? any ideas would be appreciated.
Thanks!

Formalize the problem and identify any trivial cases.
Figure out where a result similar to your idea would be published and try to find it. Have a list of the places that you looked and where you didn't find your result. This will allow you to tell your professor something along the lines of "Professor, I checked ...noteworthy journals in your exact area... as well as ...famous textbooks in the area of study... And I didn't find this result."
Know why your idea is intuitively correct. Try to find counterexamples.
Outline your plan of action.
Be able to tell your professor why you want to work with him/her. Is it because you two work well together or because he/she is a major person in the field?
Bonus: State why your result would be (or could be) meaningful.

+1, but note that, by its very nature, it is difficult to impossible to tell beforehand (a) whether an idea has merit and (b) that it is amenable to solution. Only work will give you the answers. Therefore your proposal will be tentative. Your advisor may have more insight than you and might be able to give an assessment, but maybe not. Therefore, don't worry that you have only minor "results" and "hints". But the writer here gives a good outline of the attack.

Clear writing is clear thinking.  Go ahead and write it up  (see if there is a set format, but if not, do a 1-3 page memorandum).  If you do the 3 pager, make sure it is clear AT THE BEGINNING what the idea is.  (People have limited time to read.)
I recommend to do some minimum of literature research.  Does not have to be 100% on the idea itself, but could be closely parallel or smaller steps in same direction.  Once you have it written up, others can evaluate it more easily.  Doesn't mean it will be a great idea or not, but the act of writing it up, will make it easier to engage with and even to criticize more thoughtfully.
Good luck.


text:
what to do in 2 year gap before CS PhD
I am currently an undergraduate student in computer science, rising senior.
I have had extensive research experiences throughout college at competitive universities and research companies (but no publications).
I do not feel prepared to pursue graduate school right after college (due to burnout, health concerns, and general need to prepare for PhD requirements such as recommendations, GRE, etc).
I also come from a low income family, and I would like to take a couple of years to save money, as well as improve my math skills and explore the subfield of CS I would really like to pursue in graduate school.
I know there is some debate surrounding the role of gap years in students’ will to pursue grad school, but I am certain this is the best choice for me.
I would like some advice on what sorts of roles to pursue post-college.
The answer to this question hasn’t been so straightforward for me because I have a couple of conditions that are especially relevant to my needs and aspirations:

I want something that offers a competitive salary (80k-100k a year in the Boston area)
I want to start working immediately after I graduate college
Unfortunately, I do not have the option of pursuing an unrelated activity for the 2 year duration (like, say, backpacking in Europe or
  teaching in China) due to my financial circumstances
I want to remain a competitive grad school applicant

I’ve considered a couple of options:

Working as a software engineer at a company

Though I have limited experience in development (because every role
  I’ve ever had since the beginning of college has been
  research-oriented), I think I can use the coming year to update my
  engineering skills and land a role.
Pro: This sort of role would likely offer a more competitive salary
Con: I’m not sure it would make me more competitive candidate for
  graduate school

Working in research at a university or national laboratory

Because I have extensive research experience from college, I think I
  have a good chance at landing a role like this.
Pro: I think this would make me more competitive for graduate school
Con: The salary would likely not be competitive

Working in research at a research company

This would be the best option, but the hardest to land.
Pros: Likely offers a competitive salary, and will likely make me more
  competitive for graduate school
Con: I don't think I can land a role like this easily after college, as they usually require at least a masters degree and favorably a PhD, with extensive research experience

I would just like some advice on this situation. Are there some other options I could consider? Is a software engineering role my best bet? If you've been in this situation and in this particular field, what has been your experience? What did you decide to do?

Hm, $80-100k starting salary straight out of undergrad? I imagine that's possible with the right background, but it's an ambitious goal.

@WolfgangBangerth Not for someone with a CS degree living in Boston.

A software engineering position probably doesn't improve your competitiveness for graduate school, unless your graduate school wants you to code (which isn't a requirement for a PhD in computer science). Is coding something you'd be interested in? If so, then the software engineering route would be advantageous. Perhaps more importantly, the software engineering route will make you more competitive to a research company after graduate school.

Thanks for your answer. Yes, actually my impression was that if I pursue a PhD in CS, I would have to code at least some of the time. Are there circumstances under which this is not true (i.e. if the work is more theoretical in nature)? And yes, ultimately, I think I will end up at a research company post-PhD

Coding is not a requirement for a PhD, even for application focused sub-fields in CS (or Physics or Bioinformatics or or ...). There's probably a more in-depth discussion of coding/research elsewhere on this site (I couldn't find any in-depth discussion with a single search, but I did find something), perhaps you can search for something and add a comment linking to the articles you find.

Coding is not a requirement for a PhD — In computer science?! Unless you’re doing hardcore theory (like me), yeah, it is.

@JeffE I know lots of graduates that didn't code in computer science...

Try for #3, but if you can't get it, do #1 before doing #2. It might not help with your grad school applications, but it won't hurt either, and it gives you a completely different perspective. For example:

You learn a new skill. Sure, doing research teaches you things as well, but this is a new field that broadens your horizons.
You might decide against going to grad school completely (and who can blame you, given that $80k/year is a lot higher than whatever stipend you get as a grad school student).
Even if you do go to grad school, there's a good chance you end up in industry after you finish your studies, simply because of the strong competition for academic positions. If this happens, having some industry work experience is going to count a lot for your job applications.
You're further empowered to tailor your grad school experience to what you know is needed in industry. For example, you could decide to learn X instead of Y because you know from your experience that X was core to your day job while Y was much more fringe.

Thanks for your answer. Yes, at this stage, I feel certain that I will end up in industry after graduate school. In that case, something like #1 and #3 would be more favorable

Well, since I saw many very intelligent PhD candidates whoi did not succeed in implementing their ideas in an efficient manner, I would tend towards the software engineering solution. If you manage to do a bit research (e.g. 80% SE, 20% research), you can demonstrate that you are interested in an academic carreer.
But in fact all options are fine, and it will be a metter of luck, personal circumstances and opportunities which one is the best.

Thank you for your answer. Would that 20% research be within my job or outside of work? If it is within, what kind of role would provide me that balance? And what sorts of companies would offer that sort of work?

It does not matter whether it's inside or outside.

You needn't attend graduate school to get a PhD, you can work at a research company and complete your PhD whilst working for them. Perhaps you can reconsider your options with this possibility. (NB: Not all research companies will offer this route.)

Thanks, I actually did not know this was an option. Do you have an example of a company that offers this?

Just look at the large technology companies. I have several in mind, but I don't know whether they are currently offering such positions. (The technology industry is so fast paced that my information is probably already obsolete, at least in part.) A quick search led me to http://naturalscience.careers/the-best-of-both-worlds-a-phd-in-industry/ and https://www.enago.com/academy/industrial-phd-or-academic-research-phd-which-program-should-you-choose/, they both seem relevant (I didn't read much beyond the opening sentences) regarding the general notion, rather than specific companies

I don’t know of any companies that offer this route in computer science. (But I’d be happy to be enlightened.)

@JeffE Microsoft. (But, as mentioned, perform a fresh search, I don't know whether they still do, especially as they reduced their R&D team several years ago.)


text:
Advice needed : Reaching out to your past PhD advisor for a post doc opportunity
I graduated with a Ph.D. in a STEM field from a good university in the US a few months ago. Thinking that I will benefit from a diverse experience, I did not continue under my professor for a postdoc position. I was jobless for the last few months, since much fewer job openings are currently available in my field. To add to the troubles, my employment authorization card (I am an international student) arrived very late due to the pandemic situation, which rendered me helpless. Now that reality has dawned on me, I was thinking of reaching out to my professor for support for the next few months while I keep searching for a job. A disclosure: my performance while working under him wasn't up to his expectation. But, he is a very nice guy and may show some mercy on me. Call it anxiety or fear of rejection, I have not taken any steps towards that yet. I Will greatly appreciate some insights on how I should approach this situation.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/126889/transitioning-from-a-phd-to-postdoc-is-it-acceptable-to-stay-with-the-phd-advis

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/149759/is-relocating-necessary-in-academia

I think that reaching out and asking never hurts. The worst case is that they say no. Just explain your current situation, and why you're reaching out so late.
Do expect a rejection, not because of any issues they may have had with you in the past, but rather because postdocs are not cheap, and taking on an unplanned group member is never easy to do. This has nothing to do with your performance, just that hiring someone requires a budget and time to work with them.
If they agree to interview you and discuss your options, explain your plan for how to make things work this time around: alleviate any concerns they might have about hiring you. Treat this like you would any other interview, and come prepared.
You should not expect them to take you out of the kindness of their heart.
Show them how you can make their research better.
If you do an impressive enough job at that interview, and they have no opening, they may still offer you options that do not require them to hire you. For example, there may be teaching positions in the university or relevant industry jobs that they may be aware of and whose profile you fit.
Good luck!

And also ask them what other opportunities they might know about and would recommend you for.

Thank you all for your valuable suggestions.

@Buffy is that not covered in my last paragraph?


text:
How to read papers of professors?
This is a question that has been in my mind for a month now. I am a final year M.Sc student in mathematics and applying for graduate school this year. But for applying to graduate schools, let's say in Europe, it is recommended that you should study the papers of Professors to whom you are applying. My question is how to go about reading the papers? Let's say I am interested in doing research on a particular topic (let's say X) and I have only taken a basic course on that topic X. I should have done my M.Sc thesis in X but in my university, nobody is working on X. Also, I didn't know I am interested in X until the last year otherwise I would have done some internships on this topic. With this background, there is no way I could understand the papers of a Professor who is working on the subject X for years. This is certainly not a problem in the US as you don't have to apply to a Professor, but in Europe, I think in most of the cases, you have to directly apply to a Professor. So, what to do in this case?
Thanks in advance!
Sorry for my bad English.

Being able to read papers is just as important in the U.S. How do you have any idea you are interested in X if you can't read about it?

@BryanKrause Presumably by having learned about the fundamentals of the subject from textbooks. Being able to actually read a research paper in math is not something one is expected to be able to do until quite a bit into the PhD, and even then only in the somewhat narrow area of ones PhD.

@TobiasKildetoft Got it. That seems very particular to math, then, and as an outsider seems to me like an incredibly dangerous thing for a field.

@BryanKrause Not dangerous, just a realistic (if perhaps over cautious) assessment of how maths works.You are dealing with objects for which there is no physical equivalent, so in some areas you may be several layers of terminology away from anything an outsider can make any sense of.

@JessicaB That's kind of my point, though...stuff in other fields can get pretty esoteric, too, but there is an expectation that a given work contains enough to get someone up to speed on terminology if they are at least familiar with the general area. Limiting a subfield to too few people who can understand it seems like a good way to get overly isolated from reality (even mathematical reality..). Particularly if, as your comment elsewhere mentions, it's necessary to go into multiple languages for those terms.

@BryanKrause - Papers do have enough for someone to get up to speed if they are familiar with the general area.  It's just that mathematics has lots and lots of 'general areas', and each of them is very small in terms of number of people.  Mathematics as a whole isn't aiming to study one particular thing or kind of thing (a single mathematical reality as it were); it is the practice of making art out of logic, and artistic diversity is a good thing.

@AlexanderWoo That's great perspective, thank you!

@BryanKrause In addition to Alexander's point, it's also about when you know enough to be able to pick up new areas (to some extent) on your own. A researcher who wanted to understand a paper in a different subfield could do so a lot faster than a masters student.

Don't expect to understand the whole paper. Many researchers won't manage that either anyway, without a fair amount of time. Read the introduction. That should be written in simpler/less technical words, and give you an idea of what's going on. If that's still too hard, identify the main words in the title/abstract, and see if there are corresponding articles of Wikipedia (which isn't reliable enough to quote, but in many areas is actually pretty accurate).

First an answer that is (half) joking. Try to read the paper. If that fails your  understanding, get the papers cited in the references and try to read those. Proceed recursively deeper until either (a) you understand the paper(s) or (b) you reach Euclid. In case of (b) you should probably find another field. In case of (a) work forward again to the original paper.
While there is some truth to the above, appalling as it sounds, note that the farther you go back the broader is the coverage of the papers, generally speaking. The research frontier (where the professor wrote the paper) is very narrow in mathematics. But it has a lot of background that goes into getting to that frontier. If you understand that background, or at least some of it, you are doing well. The research edge is like the tip of a funnel, with a wider body of knowledge behind it. Textbooks stand a fair ways back from the frontier, but maybe a bit closer to the edge than they are to Euclid. If you have a good general understanding of the broader field (analysis, say, or algebra) you won't have to go back too far.
I'll note that this is much easier to do now than it was fifty years ago. Then, to trace back a chain of citations you had to go to a physical library and for many of the papers ask the librarian to get you a copy from some, yet bigger, library. Now, the more recent stuff is available online, though you may still need to have the librarian get you a copy to avoid charges imposed by publishers.
It is a hard job to get started in this. Having done it once, however, for a narrow field, the outlines of what is known in that sub-domain will become clearer to you and you won't need to repeat this too often. Moreover, the funnel narrows fairly quickly so there is, perhaps, less to understand than you might fear.
In my own case, the number of steps back from the edge to what you could find in good analysis textbooks was only half a dozen steps, if you had the right insights. The essential papers you needed to read to get the insight was, again, only half a dozen or so. With those insights I can explain the essence of my work (very old now) to good undergraduates, though not with all the details. OTOH, it is probably the professor him/herself that will give you those insights.

I don't think this would be helpful in my (sub)field. Going back a couple of papers often means you switch into German, or Russian. Or you get back to before suitable terminology existed, or matched what we used today. Euclid might well be the first recognisable thing you find, and that wouldn't be unreasonable for a MSc student.


text:
Whether to submit mixed GRE scores?
I wrote the GRE recently and got very divergent scores. I scored exceptionally high in Verbal reasoning (168/170, which is 98th percentile) but exceptionally low in quantitative reasoning (147/170, which is 25th percentile). I will be applying to political science programs which have quantiative components, but to a subfield (with a research topic) completely unrelated to quantitative methods. Wondering if anyone has any advice on whether I should send in my scores to schools who have made it optional, since the high verbal score might help my application quite a bit, or if it is not worth the risk of being doomed via my low quant score.
Thanks

Will you need to pass quantitative classes or qualifying exams?


text:
How to structure a Research Proposal for an MPhil
I'm in the midst of applying for an MPhil in the UK and the terminology for this application is a bit different than what I'm used to. The course website is asking for a research proposal, and I'm looking for some advice on how to structure this. They're asking that the proposal be between 600-1000 words, that it include a 'rationale', a brief 'historiography', and an indication of sources likely to be used.
What I'm wondering specifically is how to format the "sources likely to be used" section. Am I supposed to do this in full bibliographic format? Or is a simple "Author: Title(Year), Title (Year), Title (Year); Author: Title (Year), Title (Year), etc." good enough. I find putting my sources in full bibliographic format is putting me way over the word count, and making it so that the sources likely to be used is larger than the rationale and the historiography combined.
A second issue is that I'm not sure if I should have a works cited for the proposal itself, for points I've made within. If so, there's so much overlap between it and my "sources likely to be used" that I figure I should just combine them? Everything I've cited in the proposal I'm likely to use in my research.
Lastly, in terms of number of sources, is one supposed to be quite thorough, listing all of the primary and secondary sources they think they might use? Because in full bibliographic format that itself is about 600 words when I do it, if not more. And if not, how does one possibly limit themselves to 2-4, or even 5-10, potential sources for an entire masters thesis.
Any input appreciated!

What field/topic? Which university? This sounds extremely specific to the university and course; have you tried searching for examples or even getting in touch with students or tutors on that course? Perhaps an admissions tutor could clarify these points, especially regarding the word count.


text:
Thoughts on unfunded programs for better job prospects?
When applying to graduate programs, the typical sentiment is that it is unwise to go into debt for a graduate degree because, due to lost wages from not working/not advancing a career for 5-6 years, one comes out of a program 'doubly in the hole', so to speak. Since even a funded program has real world costs in lost wages, these costs should not be compounded by paying large tuition amounts, especially in pursuit of a tenuous job market that is likely to leave one jobless in the end.
But, for someone who wants to go into academia in the humanities or social sciences where jobs are so scarce, is this really wise? Say someone could get into a masters program at a top school, perhaps one in the UK or the US, which isn't funded but is regarded extremely highly in one's field, isn't it worthwhile to take on debt for a program like this because it secures a significantly higher likelihood of academic job prospects (vis-a-vis better chances for admissions into top-level PhD programs)? Isn't that a better move than taking a funded offer from a decent but not outstanding school, and then very likely not getting a job after? It seems to me that one can take on the explicit debt of a student loan, or the implicit debt of a funded program with unreliable job prospects. The former gives a much better chance at paying back losses, but the latter?
Would love to hear from someone who has tried this route with success. Sometimes it feels like the only people who offer this advice (never pay to do graduate research) are professors who got their degrees 15+ years ago when the job market was less abysmal, and people who went into a mid-level funded program and couldn't find work after. I wonder if there is also a group of those who paid for opportunities (MA programs, visiting student programs) at top universities and managed, through resume additions and/or networking connections, to get themselves into PhD programs with better placement records, who are now employed and paying off their debt, and who we don't hear from.

I cannot speak to the humanities, but this is absolutely true for the social sciences.

Which part is true?

What country are you asking about?

I have US and CAN most in mind, but input from all places welcome and sought after.


text:
Can a Letter of Recommendation be effective without much coursework
I'm applying to grad schools this coming fall and have 2/3 letter writers lined up, and am just trying to make a decision about the third. I took two classes with this third letter writer about two years ago, one survey course and one directed reading. We spent a lot of time in her office hours chatting and she got to know me as a student, and I achieved A+ in both courses.
However, both of those courses were two years ago, and we haven't had much interaction in the interim as I've been completing credits for my other major. I was planning to take a seminar with her this fall so as to get a third course in with her, and also one which is more recent so that I'll be fresh in her memory. But, the course conflicts with pretty much everything else I was hoping to take this academic year, including some courses much more directly related to my research interests.
Was hoping to solicit some thoughts on whether a LOR can be effective a) without much coursework and b) with not-so-recent coursework, providing that the coursework which was done was completed with great marks and lots of professor-student interaction. In other words, even with glowing comments, will a committee always look negatively on letters based on out of date courses (completed in 2nd year, for instance) and not that many of them, to boot?
Thanks

I think that a recommendation letter will be impactful even if the professor/lecturer writing it has taught the course or interacted with the student a decent time ago.
There are more important things pertaining to the strength or value of a recommendation letter (which is not praise from the person (since that must already be present anyway)) but things like:

The relevancy of the professor’s field to the field of your future work for which the recommendation letter is written for.
The amount of interaction with the person.
The current state of interaction with the person.
Any achievements that are recognized highly by this person and are mentioned in the letter (relevant to your area of study/work).

In general, the reason why it is not recommended to get letters from the faculty in your first or second year of undergraduate study is because they may be professors teaching general classes, which might not be relevant anymore or not specific enough to your current interests.
If however you believe that the work you did with a professor 2-3 years ago is still highly relevant to your application, then don’t hesitate to get a recommendation letter from them.


text:
Is "BAC+n" understood in Finland?
I am from France and want to find an internship in Finland.
Can I use "BAC+n" on my resume? Will it be understood or should I use something else? Maybe the terms License and Master are enough since it is supposedly known in all Europe but this is relatively recent so I think it would hurt to add BAC+5.

Generally speaking, I'd say that "BAC+n" wouldn't be understood by anyone not familiar with the French system.

I second what Massimo says.  I assumed you were talking about some sort of new-fangled not-meat form of bacon.

I am not a Finn; but I grew up 200 km from France, and I have no idea what it means either.
You can count on everyone in the academic world understanding only the three words bachelor, master, phd. Everything else, nope, unless they are familiar with how that country's university system works. So make sure you put one or more of those three words on your CV.

I am Finnish and have never heard the term "BAC+n", and have little idea what it would mean. Maybe it is related to bachelor's degree, with "n" signifying quality by some measurment? I have a PhD, but no experience hiring people or accepting students or interns.

The post describes my state of knowledge before reading the other answer, obviously.


text:
Chances of Getting into Neuroscience PhD program
I have a 3.46 overall gpa ( I'm retaking organic chemistry, so it should be closer to a 3.6 or a 3.7 by the time I graduate) and a 3.7 in my Biology major. My gre scores are pretty shoddy, not gonna lie. While I'm retaking it later on in the month, I'm currently in the 82nd and 86th percentiles for my verbal and writing respectively, but my quant is only in the 30th percentile. I have A's and B+'s in all my math courses, and I even work as a calculus tutor at my school. I have been doing independent research for the past 2 years and I've even participated in a 10 week research program at another university. I'm so worried that I won't get in anywhere. I really want to be out west, either at the University of Washington or OHSU but any funded program that has good research mentors will do. Do I have even a slight chance of getting in somewhere?

The only valid answer for this sort of question will come from the admissions process at the institutions you apply to. Make application to a couple of the institutions high on your list. You can also get some feedback from your current advisor or another local professor who knows your actual situation.

While answering the actual question could only be done speculatively, being a PhD candidate in bioinformatics at OHSU (and knowing a number of individuals in the neuroscience program), I feel I should offer some basic guidance.
The only barrier you have is your math GRE score, and yes, no mincing of words, it’s not good. That said, you clearly have a lot of mathematical experience that seems positive — good grades in your coursework and even tutoring other students. My sense is that all hope is not lost.
Study the specific math questions posed on the GRE, study the test generally. Take practice tests and, if you can afford it, hire a tutor and/or take a prep class. As someone who’s taken the GRE and done well enough, I’d say the test is as much about knowledge, comprehension, and logic as it is about strategy. Practice the test under the appropriate time limits for each section and devise a strategy that works for you.
At the end of the day, your goal should be to retake the GRE (there is absolutely no shame in this) and aim to have the test match your apparent mathematical ability. It seems to me your current score on the math section is a fluke — and I’m sure the admissions committee would place it in that bucket if you retook the test and scored substantially higher. At a minimum, aim for the 75th percentile, but don’t be discouraged if you can’t quite hit the mark. Good luck!


text:
Benefits to home country while pursuing Masters in pure Mathematics abroad
I am a senior undergrad from India applying for Masters in Pure Mathematics in the UK. Due to my weak financial condition, my masters depends on a scholarship that I will be interviewed for in a month. The scholarship is called Commonwealth Master's Scholarship and it is highly competitive.

While applying for this scholarship, there is a section about how my study in the UK will benefit my home country once I am back, and what developments can be initiated. This is easier to write when one goes for courses like Resources Management, Bio-chemistry, Bio-technology etc. Such fields require sophisticated labs and modern technology which India lacks. Students specific to these courses can learn these key attributes and then implement the scheme, once they are back. But what should a pure mathematician write in this case, given that, my research interests are mostly Measure theory and Functional Analysis and they bear no significance to the market or to the lives of common people, at least as of now.

I am not certain if this platform allows for such personal questions, but given the stake is my career, I decided to seek advice from here. In case this is irrelevant, please comment below.
Thank you.

Studying pure math seems to imply that you want to teach eventually, perhaps after pursuing a doctorate. If that is the case, and you intend to enter academia in India you have the basis for saying quite a lot.
On the other hand, if you intend to enter industry in some capacity then you can write about the benefits of the economic activity. Even if you won't be applying the specific topics you learn, your mathematical sophistication should be improved by the study, making you a better candidate either for academia or industry.
It only seems problematic to me if you don't intend to return at all, or to leave again permanently.


text:
risk of shifting to online learning permanently
My university, like many others, has recently moved to remote teaching in response to the corona virus situation. In my department, the faculty have taken the lead on finding and adopting solutions to the difficulties posed by the transition. I am a postdoc and not directly involved in a lot of the big changes. But I wonder if the faculty are sealing their fate, being so helpful when there is a counterparty, the administration, that may not have the faculty's best interests at heart (note, I have no direct knowledge either way).
Specifically, barring any big disasters in remote teaching these next weeks/months, I would guess 1) smaller schools close to insolvency, many of which have closed these last few years, would instead have an opportunity to cut costs by dispensing with or heavily decreasing in-person instruction, without facing the PR issues or other pushback that would otherwise bring, and 2) even in schools with secure finances, or where it is unrealistic to get rid of in-person instruction, professors would lose a lot of bargaining power in any negotiations with the administration, since they will be regarded as that much less necessarily. Possibly the next few weeks/months will demonstrate that the professors are in fact less necessary, and remote learning is perhaps preferable. I am not really asking about that, my question is more selfish as someone going on the job market soon. Are these outcomes likely? This type of concern must be on the radar of professors' unions, no?

What about the outcry from students who pay or paid for face-to-face tuition? They might accept it for this situation but permanently? Got any lawyers handy - you’ll need them...

While remote learning has its place, thinking that it is a 1-for-1 replacement for in person interaction flies in the face of decades of research and experience in communication effectiveness.

Are you assuming that this semester of forced remote learning will be a success? What is more likely, in my view, is that it will be a fiasco almost everywhere, and students will realize that it is much more difficult to learn stuff from a video without proper support. After all, MOOCs have been available for years already, and they have not put universities out of business yet.

Is online learning at an established university that much cheaper? Faculty and TAs are continuing to get paid the same rate, buildings will continue to exist and cost about the same to maintain. Why would faculty be seen as less necessary? They still need them to teach. Finally, I agree with Federico that this is probably going to be a disaster and students will realize they want to be in classes, to say nothing of classes where it's necesasry.

@FedericoPoloni I am not assuming that ("I am not really asking about that").  It could be a fiasco but not so much that administrators don't take the opportunity to cut costs or gain leverage. Conversely things could hum along and professors unions could ensure that everything goes back to normal. So I guess my question is as much about institutional actors and their likely responses.

@SolarMike I don't know where students stand on this, but I wouldn't depend on them to keep in person instruction afloat, especially if the alternative is lower tuition.

@Hasse1987 already heard the complaint from a few students “we paid for in-class face-to-face” tuition.

@AzorAhai Online teaching can get rid of the buildings.  Faculty can be hired in locations with a low cost of living, reducing salaries.

@AnonymousPhysicist I don't think universities tearing down their buildings is a very likely outcome to this scenario.

@AzorAhai Buildings can be sold or abandoned.  Some universities rent most of their buildings.  Tearing down is irrelevant.

Well, based on the 3 institutions I have close contact with, their attempts in the past few weeks hardly represent a shining example of hugely successful online learning! It feels more like the Keystone Kops!
That bit of snark out of the way, effective teaching in the online/MOOC/e-channel, etc. is not easy, and making the transition between a face to face course and an effective online course requires a lot of thought and a lot of design a prep, which of course no-one has has time to do this time around. So my snark was not meant as a true criticism, but at the same time, it means that mainstream universities' efforts in the balance of this semester are themselves unlikely to make anyone -- teachers or learners -- say, "hey, that went really well; let's dispense with classroom instruction altogether".
That being said, I do think this will strongly accelerate the shift towards e-learning in the medium- and long-term, and that in 2 ways.

In the long term, this will make e-learning a much more mainstream offering that students and faculty will become more comfortable exploring and integrating into the curriculum. Forced immersion brings familiarity and less fear. Up to now, in North America at least, we tended to have old-school in-person institutions, a few more e-learning focused disruptor institutions, and a select few dabbling in MOOCs layered on top of their usual approach. There was a lot of mutual mistrust. That will lessen. And just like a greater degree of teleworking throughout the economy, with the Pandora's box on it opened, will persist past current social isolation, so will demand for -- and willingness of faculty to explore -- e-learning.
Next year, there will be a lot of financially and emotionally wounded students, whose life plan took a pretty big hit. Some will be keen and able to return to their university campuses and continue as before. Some won't be, and when they get their affairs in order a few years later, in a world that will have lived through months of forced virtual work and socialization, they will probably be keener to explore online offerings than they were previously. And the more they start work somewhere and become mature learners, or the more straitened their financial circumstances become, the more they will seek out good-value-for-money education with schedule and geographic flexibility, and the less they'll be keen to return and pay for the conventional on-campus student experience. Of course that won't apply to all, but I suspect to enough that it will make a difference at the macro level.

" unlikely to make anyone -- teachers or learners -- say" I had in mind a third group, administrators, saying that. And I could see students saying it as well, if administrators make it attractive financially to them.

I think that outcome is unlikely, but not impossible over time. There are too many advantages of personal interaction in a more traditional setting to simply let it go. I don't have figures, but think that successful completion of something like a degree is much more likely with face to face interaction with experts than with internet delivery of material.
All of the world knowledge, other than very advanced and recent developments, is available on line. But people still need guidance and they need individual feedback on their learning.
The nature of a university education may change, of course, incorporating more online resources, but my prediction is that the traditional university and all it offers has a long future.
And note that a university does more than teach undergraduates. It provides a collaborative environment for research and the training of scholars. If we go to a mass market approach with only a few providers (rather than the thousands we have now) the rest of that could easily be lost.
People have a lot of trouble learning without support. A few can get by on only their individual personal drive, but most require a scholar-guide that they can interact with. Online education does a poor job of that. And a mass market approach will make it worse.
Of course, the current situation is also an experiment. We shall see how many successfully complete the year, compared to a standard situation. I worry that many will have problems.
Note that successful online education (not just individual courses) has a similar student to staff ratio to classroom education. The ration in CS50 at Harvard, for example, with hundreds of students, has a ratio of about 20 students to each staff person.


text:
Is it appropriate to provide editorial oversight for a paper authored by someone who plans to move to your institution?
I see some journal editors handle the papers authored by their colleagues. It is usually not allowed to handle papers authored by colleagues in the same institution. After a deeper check of one paper, I find that in the initial submission date the author was not affiliate with the new institution, but they accepted the offer to move to that new institution next year.
After moving, the author and the editor become colleagues. I wonder if this is considered a "conflict of interests".

In my field, most papers would already be accepted or long since rejected by the 1 year mark. So in this case a conflict of interest is very unlikely since the paper would have been accepted before they two became colleagues in any meaningful sense.
But, since you are asking the question, I'm going to assume that papers take longer to publish in whatever field you're in. In that case, the answer is an unsatisfying maybe. As an editor I would be concerned about a potential conflict of interest. I would hope that any competent editor would consider it too. There are lots of variables and moving parts that make it hard to cleanly determine though. It is best to avoid editors handling submissions from their own institutions, but I think that exceptions can be made. I would really only be worried if there is a pattern of similar instances or if there is something else concerning.


text:
Does lecturing for your PI count as a "guest lecture" for a CV?
Sometimes it happens that a professor traveling has his TA or RA fill in for him/her delivering a class lecture. Is this experience appropriate for a typical engineering CV, and if so how would it be designated?
This question deals with what sounds to me a somewhat greater honor, being invited to give a lecture in another department at your school. The answers there suggest that this should be listed as a "guest lecture". A related question is whether my first scenario can be described as a "guest lecture". I have seen it described as such on CVs. But my recollection as an undergrad is when a prof mentioned a "guest lecturer" coming, it was usually a bigshot, or some specialist, not some Phd student.
I have a feeling that the professor in the first scenario would use whoever is TAing as substitute, if the TA was at all competent. I have also heard those on search committees say it looks like resume-stuffing and can do more harm than good. On the other hand, a well-received comment by @DavidRicherby in this post suggests that it is a good idea to include substitute lecturing for your PI on a CV. Do folks on search committees (whether at more teaching-oriented or research-oriented institutions) have an opinion?

what kind of "institution" (and "search committee") do you have in mind? You mention "a typical engineering CV" so I am not sure whether you are looking to use it in academia or in industry?

I would limit the term "guest lecture" to cases where you were specifically invited to give a lecture to the course, because of your ability to contribute something special that the regular instructor could not do.  (E.g. you have special expertise on a particular topic, or experiences to relate, or notable achievements, etc.)  I wouldn't apply it to simply covering a class (teaching routine material) because the professor is away.
However, you would normally have a separate section on your CV describing your teaching experience, which would include an entry showing that you were a TA for this course.  Under this entry, you could describe your duties, which could include something like "occasional lecturing".

There are two different parts of the CV that you're confusing.  One of them is "Invited Talks" (or a similar phrasing) which is part of the research portion of the CV and is intended to show that people are interested in your research.  This would include colloquia, conferences, and seminars at other schools.  If you're very early career you can include seminars at your own school, provided they're research talks.
A totally different part of the CV is your teaching experience.  If you have very little teaching experience and you're applying for jobs that involve teaching, then it would make sense to include that you have lecturing experience substituting in a particular course.  If the rest of your teaching experience is just grading or running recitation sections, showing that you have a little experience lecturing to a larger class can look good.

I think that there's yet a third talk the OP is referring to. At least in my UK University, what's sometimes referred to as Guest Lecture is a teaching activity, and refers to the situations where the course responsible invites a researcher from the department or school with a got topic fit with the course to usually close the course by showing them real-world applications of the course materials applied to their own research. Similar to the distinction @Buffy made.

You are probably correct that Guest Lecturer and Substitute Lecturer aren't the same thing. But both could be listed on the CV as separate items. You want to make your best case there while being honest and informative. Just label it appropriately and, if necessary, provide a phrase of explanation. "I was honored by Prof Dimsdale to cover several lectures on mumble magic theory".
Normally a Guest Lecturer will speak on a topic of his/her own choosing, whereas a substitute will speak on the normal subject matter of the course.

"Honored" is a strange word to use on a CV. Just state what you did, not how it made you feel or how you think it should make others feel.

Rather than asking "Does this count as X on my CV?", you should just describe it as what it is. State in the teaching section of your CV that you gave three lectures in advanced quantum widget theory, covering the absence of the usual lecturer.

I agree you can't go too wrong with being forthright. But much of the CV seems highly stylized, raising questions of etiquette.

@Hasse1987 I'm not sure there's really much etiquette involved: just stay factual and everything will be fine.

@DavidRicherby: I wouldn’t quite say etiquette, but there are definitely fixed terms with non-obvious conventional meanings.  An “invited talk” doesn’t mean any talk you were invited to give; a “seminar talk” doesn’t mean any talk described as a seminar; a “guest lecture” in the teaching section doesn’t mean exactly lectures you gave while a guest.


text:
How are green OA publications cited?
Suppose one of my papers is published by journal A and I upload it in addition to my university repository B. When people cite this paper, would some cite the paper in A and some the one in B? Or is it ensured somehow that people will only cite the one in the journal?

I think it is best to provide the peer-reviewed journal reference (whether it is OA or not).  Then, if you wish, mention additional sources for the manuscript.  The exception is when the journal publication has not yet occurred.

When you're writing your bibliography manually, you can just say "A preprint is available at ..." (or "Also available at", if you know that the preprint is the published version). With BibTeX, I've got no idea (I don't even know how to make it print DOIs...).

Sorry if I miss-phrased it, but I wanted to ask whether this actually (always) works in practice. After publication, many people will only access the paper via B, as they would need to pay for A. My question is whether they are in practice always citing A or if it can happen that they cite B. E.g. someone might refer to B in their paper, without mentioning A at all. This would be a disadvantage of publishing via green OA.

A citation should always include a DOI (if available), which identifies the paper uniquely. Personally, I cite the published version with the doi linking to the journal source via doi.org and also add the e.g. arxiv identifier (and link).

If it's a direct copy of the published version (same PDF, with formatting, headers etc.) I'd be very surprised if anyone would fail to cite the journal version. I mean, what's next? Providing the address to their university library instead of using a standard citation format for a printed publication?
If it isn't a direct copy, but the copy in university repository B lists the journal reference, readers will generally cite the journal version. This also tends to happen with papers on preprint repositories such as arXiv, except when people find the preprint version before it's published, and don't remember to check their bibliography for updates before they submit/publish their own work. If no journal reference is listed, you can't really blame the readers for not noticing the version in A, so make it easy for them to get it right.
Now, this isn't really enforced. The closest thing I've encountered is that many journals will ask authors to double check references that don't look like peer reviewed and published versions during the copy-edit phase. As you say, this could be considered a disadvantage to green OA, but it's likely outweighed by the visibility advantage of having a non-paywalled version.

Ok, I sort of suspected this, but just wanted to ask some people with more experience. Thanks for your detailed answer.

In addition to Anyon's answer: Some journals might have specific rules about copies of papers on university repositories and preprint servers. E.g. Molecular Ecology Resources state in their editorial policies:

...
Given that the measurable impact of the article is diminished when citations are split between the preprint and the published article, authors are required to:

update the entry on the preprint server so that it links to and cites the DOI for the published version
cite only the published article themselves.


text:
My professor submitted the draft recommendation letter with university name as placeholder. Can i re-submit?
My professor accidentally sent the draft version of the recommendation letter to UTD and it had a mistake of the university name as "[Enter university name]" which was supposed to be replaced with the intended university name. It was submitted into a portal. Is there any way to remedy this? I've already submitted the application and emailed them about the mishap. What are my chances to remedy this situation?

I am not sure what's the problem here. Can't your professor resend the letter?

It's an online portal where you drop your submission and the portal is closed after you submit.

Most likely this will have no impact on the decision.

You can't do anything. In principle, the professor can resend the letter, either by revisiting the portal or by emailing the admissions committee directly, but it's really not worth the trouble.

How do you know what was in the letter the professor submitted?

He realized it after sending. I was shown the draft letter beforehand and he used a university placeholder for changing each time he would send the letter to any university. I've emailed the admission adviser and awaiting their reply

Chill.
Admission committees get this sort of thing frequently.  We understand your professor's situation (because we write lots of recommendation letters ourselves).  It is very unlikely that a committee would even bother to comment...
... and a tiny mistake on your professor's part certainly shouldn't affect your chances of admittance.

Are you a professor/teacher?

Yes, I am a professor.


text:
Transitioning from Electrical Engineering to Physics *after* graduating
tl;dr: Graduating from EE with Ph.D. offers, but thinking about shifting to physics.
Hi Everyone,
Background: I'm an Electrical Engineering and Chemistry major (weird combination, I know). I am now in my final undergrad semester and have 2 Ph.D. offers for EE.
Explanation: EE and chem is because of the way majors are "given out" in India based on your grades/ entrance scores. I never really enjoyed chemistry much but as I said, it was given to me. I did enjoy the solid-state and devices part of EE but never VLSI, circuits, etc. Now that I'm about to graduate, I'm recalling a time back in school where physics was the one thing I enjoyed most.
Question: Do I leave the Ph.D. offers and learn physics by somehow becoming a project assistant? Or do I convince my potential EE Ph.D. advisor to let me take up Physics courses while working for his project (which will certainly be very tough in the first 2 years), and possibly risk being miserable through my Ph.D.? Also, is it wrong to assume that if I liked physics in school I'd like it now?
Explanation for this sudden shift: I find upon introspection during this quarantine that I'd like my life's work to be related to the fundamental nature of things, not to some gadgets that us humans use to make our lives better.
Edit: Courses done before: Mechanics, Oscillations & Waves, Electromagnetic Theo I, Quantum Chemistry I & II (Average grade), Photochemistry & Laser Spectroscopy, Solid State Electronic Devices

You do not clarify how much Physics at the Undergraduate level you are exposed to. Shifting to a subject merely because you liked may not be wise until you have read some of it on your own. Theoretical aspects of Electrical Engineering overlap many areas of physics and even mathematics so would you not be better off pursuing those? Electrical Engineering is not only about gadgets. Check the website of a well-known person who has been in EE, CS, Mathematics and other departments!

Just edited that in. Thanks for Prof. Borkar's profile, I can see what you mean. This seems like a good way forward, but I also want to ensure that my work goes to a more fundamental level of science. So let's say I'm doing EE theory; I would want its application to be at a place like the LHC, or a telescope...

A valid answer might depend on location. What country are you asking about?

@Buffy I'm from India. As long as I can get good experience, I'd be happy to do it in any country. However, because of COVID-19, I'll assume that I won't get to go out of India.