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What is a recommended strategy on exercises in a mathematical textbook at graduate level?
When I read a mathematical textbook at graduate level to learn and master a particular subject that I am unfamiliar with, I always struggle with the strategy on the exercises. Sometimes I spent one hour on one exercise problem without making any progress. Sometimes I skip exercise problems with guilt and worried that I may not have learnt the material well. I can think of the following possible strategies on exercises:

Ignore all of them. Just focus on reading the main body of the textbook.
Set a time limit. Say for every hour I spent on reading the main body, I spent twice much time on solving exercise problems. I try to solve whatever I can within two hours and skip the rest.
Never move on to a new session unless I have solved all exercise problems in the previous session. If I get stuck, spend hours working on it and if still no success, look it up or ask somebody until I understand the solution.
Spend a reasonable amount of time on each problem and if I could not solve it, read the solution from a solution manual. This strategy seldom works as for most books on graduate level, solution manuals are unavailable.

What strategy do you recommend? I personal feel that Strategy 3 is the most time-consuming but it is also the only one that does not bother my conscience. But because it consumes a huge amount of time, I am not sure if it is wise to adopt it.

Maybe work on whichever problems look fun or useful, for however long feels fun or useful, and look up answers whenever it feels useful and is possible. (I'm curious myself to hear other opinions about the best approach to take.)

This is a duplicate of an already closed (opinion based) question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/94807/75368. A search on this site for "mathematics exercises" turns up a bit more advice.

You might also be interested in : https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/122246/19607

Given that you're talking about a graduate-level text, if you're only sometimes still stuck after an hour, you're doing pretty well!

Disclaimer: My thoughts about this are somewhat unconventional, so keep that in mind.
I don't have a high opinion of the sausage-link structure of (advanced) mathematics courses, where you get a chunk of "material," and then exercises on that material, and then another chunk of material, and so on until the term ends. Since nearly all courses (and books) use this structure, I think the students who do well with it tend to be overrepresented among grad students due to survivorship bias, but I don't think it's well-correlated with any meaningful measure of mathematical talent. So my first observation is: Don't sweat it.
My second observation is: Some people just have innately less sequential, more integrated, and higher-context learning processes, which creates a mismatch with standard instruction. The bad news is that very few mathematics professors seem to be clued into this and/or have no intention of modifying their course structure to support a variety of learning styles.
However, if you're working from a book, you can reverse-engineer and restructure as you see fit. So skip around, use multiple references, work on what makes sense to you at any given time. Above all, don't feel constrained by the structure of the book and use the exercises as a check on your understanding rather than a goal in itself. You don't have to do the exercises from section 4 right after reading section 4. You might get more out of it if you come back to them after section 7.
This is going to take some experimentation and self-observation and not all books will be equally amenable to deconstruction. But we now live in an age where even fairly obscure topics will have multiple presentations that can be located with a few keystrokes. You just need to find what works best for you.

This is really good advice for graduate students. You would not be studying it if it were not hard. You cannot expect to deal with all the exercises in the order given in the textbook because that order probably does not relate to your interest in and developing study of the subject. you cannot hope to understand the subject on a single read through of the book. You have to work your mind all round the subject. Eventually you will be able to do all the exercises, but by then you probably will not need to.

Yes, very good. The artificial (not canonical) choices of "logical ordering", as well as make-work exercises, make a certain tradition's picture of mathematics fairly ridiculous. E.g., imagine it were not a "school subject" at all, but a thing we'd do "in real life". As with many other "real life things", there is no intrinsic logical order, and, instead, besides, a larger picture is the most important thing!

Hmm what's the unconventional part here? For decades they've been trying to get us to turn our backs on the math nerds and focus all our effort on teaching math to the other students. However I certainly do agree people shouldn't put all their efforts into learning from one book.

Treat exercises as optional adventures, not as boss monsters you need to beat before you can get to the next level. Use your own interests and common sense in deciding how hard you want to attack any specific exercise. You can still return to previously unsolved exercises from the next chapter.
Every once in a while, you'll encounter an exercise that is used later in a proof. That's the only case where you strictly need to solve it, and thus spending extra time, getting help etc. are good ideas. Note that such exercises are usually among the easier ones, unless the author is doing their writing wrong.
My strategy is generally to keep track of what I have solved by putting checkmarks near solved exercises and sometimes scribbling the main ideas of the solutions in. I don't do this with proper books, but I don't hesitate to do it with printed-out chapters, so I have several books or sets of lecture notes printed out and stapled together chapter by chapter, with lots of marginalia documenting my way through the text. (A sufficiently heavy-duty stapler -- say, able to staple 50 sheets -- plus some good tape for the "spine" of your stapled brochures, and some extra paper to use as cover are sufficient to make such printouts no less usable than books, but with the additional affordance that I can scribble around in them without feeling like a book-mutilating barbarian.)

The nature of grad-level "textbooks/monographs" varies wildly, so there's no single answer that can apply to all.
In the best case, which is not at all universally attained, the "exercises" are iconic examples illustrating the theorems of the chapter, with examples already occurring in the chapter. Great! But/and then there's not much work to be done, after reflecting on things enough to see that, yes, truly, these examples are "more of the same".
In one sort of "worst case", the chapter gives definitions, and all the theorems of interest are given as exercises. This is horrible and ridiculous.
A more typical middle-ground scenario is where the exercises do mention iconic examples, but with quite inadequate preparation in the preceding chapter, etc.
And in almost all cases, to take the book literally, everything is lined-up.
The seldom-noted point is that many things become vastly clearer with hindsight. So sitting on an exercise until solved is possibly the most foolish strategy... if, at least, it's a good exercise, oop, and if it's not (tho' how to judge, with insufficient info?) why do it at all?
Conceiving as mathematics as "a school subject", with orderly development, exams, homework, clearly specified prerequisites, etc., makes it much harder to understand, in fact.
EDIT: I forgot to say... that, really, why need there be "exercises"? Are there exercises at the end of chapters in novels? At the end of movements of symphonies? In coffee shops or bars? Math-as-filter has enormously corrupted the sense of what math is, and how to understand it.

Unfortunately, there is a tendency for the pedagogy to get worse as the topic gets harder.  Probably because less people are learning the material (less investment in methods).  Also more of a sink/swim Darwinian attitude.
However, the fundamentals of good pedagogy remain.  If you are finding the material too difficult, you need to come up with methods to create progression (easier problems first) and assist yourself.
My advice:
A.  Do a combination of 3&4.  Spend a reasonable amount of time and then go get assistance (since the solution manuals don't exist).  If they do, use the guides.
B.  Try to use the minimum help first (again, within reason in terms of time management).  I.e. See if just the answer is enough (not a full solution).  Just look at the first few lines of a solution.  Ask for a hint.  Etc.  The reason for doing this is that you are still learning the material, via some struggle.  This helps it stay in your mind.  If you just look at the solution and say "Oh...I get it", than you won't remember or benefit.  Even if you get the crucial insight, you can still internalize it by working the entire problem.
C. Similarly to (C), after getting any assistance (limited or full solution), DO THE WHOLE PROBLEM over again.  Act as if you haven't gotten the help and just pretend you are solving the problem from scratch (write it all out, too).  This sounds hokey but it actually works.  Helps to engrain patterns and remembering into your brain.  Remember learning and pedagogy are issues of practical human psychology.  We are NOT silicon.  We are flesh, with imperfect memories and processors.  As Aristotle said, man learns by imitation and practice.  Of course if you can nuke it out, best.  But you can still create brain grooves, by "imitation and practice".
D.  Look for easier texts and easier homeworks. And then actually work those problems. It will give you confidence and help groove some things into your brain, that can then bubble up and help you on the harder problems. Also, if you request assistance, it's nice to have some basis to demonstrate.
E.  Don't be proud.  Use the TA.  Use the instructor. Yes, they probably want to concentrate on research.  Yes, they may prefer the students that are brilliant and don't need help.  But if you are respectful and give evidence of working hard, you can win them over.
F.  If they are "dicks" and you can't win them over, still don't sweat it. Keep getting help--be persistent.  Don't react to brushoffs by anger OR by giving up.  (Or by complaining commentish "questions" on this site.)  Just smile and keep doing what matters to you--getting the help and learning the material.

TL;DR: Relax! Mathematics takes time!
I thought I would provide my perspective as a current pure mathematics student who is fairly successful at his studies and work. I read and collect a lot of mathematics textbooks in my spare time and I too have similar issues when learning new mathematics. In my earlier years as a mathematics student, I would always rush through reading textbooks and get flustered when I couldn't solve a problem quickly or understand the material. The moment I realised that it takes time to solve problems (often weeks or months) and it takes much longer to read, 'digest' and understand mathematics then other subjects, was the moment when my mathematics ability took a big leep forward.
When reading a mathematics textbook I will usually 'read' it 3 times over. Here what I usually aim to do on each read:

On the first attempt, I read through the material very casually, not concerning myself too much on whether I understand every little detail or not. Here, I just want to try and pick up the definitions and the main concepts involved with the topic. I will usually try and remember how the concepts are developed and the results that are developed along the way if possible (e.g. lemmas, theorems etc.). I don't usually concern myself with the details of proofs too much. I might attempt some exercises if I think I can do them, however, sometimes I can't even do any at this point.
On the second read through, I usually try and fill in the gaps of my knowledge from the first attempt. Here I will try and understand the details of proofs more which is much easier now that I have a bit more of a broad overview of the topic and have a bit more of a 'feel' for how things work. I usually try and get through as many exercises as I can on the second read but if there are exercises that I can't figure out within a reasonable time frame, I will just mark them out and come back at a later date when I have better skills in the subject.
On the third read I don't really do much reading. Here I will just skim over all the content and mainly concentrate on understanding the proofs I still couldn't understand on the second read through and fill in any more details I couldn't quite work out before. Usually by this point I am fairly proficient in the subject and can figure out most of the exercises and try and complete some of the ones I marked out earlier that I couldn't do. Of course there are exercises I can't often do, and this just the nature of mathematics, sometimes you will just need to give it more time (possibly months or years) for you to develop the problem-solving skills required to answers these questions.

Reading and learning mathematics takes a lot, I repeat a lot of time to master. It might take me 6-12 months before I am on my final read-through of a textbook, and again, that's just the nature of mathematics. It takes time for concepts to sink in, for your skills to develop, and it takes even longer and longer as you progress to higher levels of mathematics.
Of course you should seek out help, either online (e.g. math stackexchange) or in person if you think it will benefit your learning, however, the take home message from my answer that I wanted to provide is that learning mathematics takes time. Don't overly concern yourself if you can't do problems or don't understand everything on your first attempt at reading through a textbook, and as has been suggested in other answers, try and stay away from seeking the solutions to problems you can't do. Keep reviewing and coming back as your skills develop over time. Patience and persistence are keys to succeeding at mathematics.

This depends on the course and what you want to get out of it. Some courses you take because you are deeply committed to that topic and want to know everything and attain deep insight. Others seem less "fundamental" to you. For me, Analysis and General Topology were in the first category and Algebra and Statistics were in the second. Over time, I was able to attain deep insight into my key subjects but only a general familiarity with the others. There is a lot of mathematics and we long ago passed the point where any single person could "know" all of it.
So, in the key subjects, your strategy 3 may be the best. In particular, in those courses and for those books you should be able in theory to solve any of the problems given. There are, however, a few books that are exceptional in that they deliberately hide research problems in the "exercises". Those books generally advertise the fact, or sometimes mark the questions that are, at time of printing, unsolved.
At the other extreme, your strategy 1 is likely to ever be successful if you actually want to learn anything. Reading is a passive activity. The exercises are there to get you engaged with the material and that is where learning happens.
But the other two strategies are probably enough for those courses that aren't key building blocks in your math psyche. Learn enough so that if it becomes necessary in future to go deeper you have the basic foundation in place on which to build.
But there is one key caveat. Mathematics can be subtle. You may think you have a solution, but don't. So, as with other learning you need a way to get feedback on what you produce. Perhaps the professor is willing to give you that (and hopefully will, at least on the assigned problems). Another way is to form a study group among students to examine and reflect on one another's work.
And don't forget that reading a solution to an exercise is worth very little in actual learning. Again, it is a passive activity that is unlikely to form deep associations that lead to insight. So, back to strategy 3 for the important stuff.


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How to find ranking of textbooks by popularity used in a course?
Is there a way that I can find the ranking of textbooks by popularity used in a specific course, say Linear Algebra. Here the ranking based on either

the number of students using the book (as the main textbook)

or

the number of institutions using the book (as the main textbook)

or both will be a useful resource in choosing a textbook of the course.

Why would that be important to know? It seems like a very poor metric for choosing a book for your own course.

Are you aware that the concept of "main textbook" for a course is not so universal?

@MassimoOrtolano you are right. Still I am interested in see which books are the more "popular" ones.

@Buffy, you are right. I am just curious which book other people are using and how "unpopular" my choice of the textbook is.

1.) ask other academic people, 2.) ask former students what book they used and if they found it useful, 3.) dont ask current students, because they take what is forced on them, or take the easy option if they have a choice

Nielsen BookScan uses data from many sellers of print books to come up with sales estimates.  Unfortunately, subscriptions to their ratings costs thousands of dollars per year.  Furthermore, the statistics are limited (ebook sales are ignored and some retailers don't participate.)

Can you be more specific? Your question is too vague.
Course of an specific school or just the subject? By country or which country?  At university, MBA or Doctorate level? Ranking based on most sold?

This question is interesting, unfortunately the question is also too broad.  (Course of an specific school or just the subject? By country or which country? At university, MBA or Doctorate level?, etc). But the way to find a possible ranking would be to see best selling books per topic. For example:

Cambridge:https://www.cambridge.org/ar/academic/collections/classical-studies-btu
Amazon's'Best Sellers in Academic & Commercial Writing Reference':
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Academic-Commercial-Writing-Reference/zgbs/books/12017
ALIBRI: https://www.alibris.com/search/books/subject/Academic

There you can add filters per subject, which do can do also with many other bookselling sites. This however will give you best sellers per subject/topic in wide.
But you could also search for the program's syllabus and the books are listed there. If it's for your current school and the school sells books, just go ask for their most sold books for your research.
However consider that:

A textbook used is not necessarily the one suggested to be bought.
Rather than textbooks, students can use online materials instead.
In some countries, teachers force students to buy certain books
and certain editions (which they receive some revenue from).
Popular for teachers is not necessarily popular for students.
Piracy always adds a level of error int he estimations.

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Applying to a masters program based on university rankings?
I'd very much love to study Math at the University of Copenhagen.
Since I am an International Student and cannot really see the university before I apply, university rankings will greatly affect my decision.
My only problem is that this university ranks quite low according to Times Higher Education (160th)
I relied on rankings to choose to come to Canada and do my undergrad at UBC (32nd) And it has worked well for me so far.
If I happen to be clever enough to get into a top 50 university, would it be stupid to still go to Denmark?

There is presumably a reason you wanted to go there in the first place, before you knew its ranking.

@nivag I want to live in a non english speaking country.  Scandinavia seems the best fit for me. The University looks very beautiful and is in a capital city. Plus Neils Bohr studied there. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/University_Main_Building.jpg

By the way University of Copenhagen ranks 82nd according to the latest THE rankings. It usually ranks around 50th according to QS.

Is it stupid to go to a university which is ranked around 160 by Times Higher Education for a Master's degree?  You should consider additional information.  First, I recommend deciding what you want to do after getting your master's degree.  Then consider if the degree program you are applying for will help you achieve that goal.  If you are not sure, check the program or school website for statistics, or contact the program's alumni for advice.
Since this is the academia stack exchange, let's assume for the moment you want to continue in academia.  In this case, the university's reputation (which is correlated with its ranking) is very important, but the specific program's reputation is even more important.  (edit: People who know little about you will judge you based on the institution/program where you got your degree, because it is easy for them.)  Working with a well-known faculty member can also have great importance.
Certainly rankings will not inform you if you will like living or working at an institution.  Finally, normally each time you change institutions the prestige of your new position will decrease.

@JeffE I did not say it was.

Let me try again.  Why is the university's reputation "very important"?

@JeffE People who know little about you will judge you based on the institution where you got your degree, because it is easy for them.

"Finally, normally each time you change institutions the prestige of your new position will decrease." - elaborate on that?

@AnonymousPhysicist I think you had a better original point about judgement, which is a specific program can have a high rank/reputation.  The point of who will judge is extremely important, if you want to go into academics, the idea of 'harvard' or 'oxford' carries less weight than the average person on the street.  There are many 'lower ranked' schools that have specific programs that are unmatched.  People in those fields know it

@AnonymousPhysicist Generally, academics who don't know you will judge you first on where and how much you publish, and second on the department where you got your degree.  The overall reputation of your university really doesn't matter.

@JeffE thank you for essentially agreeing with me.

@AnonymousPhysicist Then your answer says something you don't want to say: "the university's reputation ... is very important"

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Citing papers, that are cited within a paper?
I am reading a paper which discussing the change in a specific idea in a field of science over time. I would like to basically summarize the points in the paper but in a smaller fashion by taking some quotes and explaining how they relate to my situation.
For instance, in the paper I am reading the author said "in 2002, Stanley and Miikkulainen [SM02b] argued that the topology of a neural network also affects their functionality" where the tag [SM02b] is a reference to a entry in the author's bibliography.
Is it sufficient to only cite the author of the paper, or do I need to cite both the author of the paper and the author of the paper the author cited in the paper?

This will all become much clearer if you shift your perspective away from paraphrasing and towards giving a context for your own work.  Start by pretending that the other paper doesn't exist, and asking: "What does the reader of my work need to know about this concept?"
When you know that, and you know what level of detail you want to go into, then you can look to the other paper (and other things as well, I hope!) as a source of information to help you build your discussion of the context of your work.
A useful phrase at this point is: "A thorough discussion of [subject] can be found in [review paper]."  Then you can explain your view of the material, which the reader will understand is heavily influenced by the nice review paper you've just cited. In digesting the review to produce your own explanation, you will need to choose what you think are the important points for understanding the context of your work, and the key references supporting those points will be the ones that you should cite: as these references are the ones that were important for your understanding, so too should they be for your readers.

Ahh this makes much more sense. I even left a logical place for it in the paper already to introduce it as such.

The suggestions by earthling and jakebeal are sound advice. I want to add, risking to provide an answer that actually is not answering the question that there is a caveat to citing material without checking the sources. When you do not check the original source you run the risk of propagating errors. You do not know if the way in which a particular source is correctly made and you may find that your take home from a paper is not the same as the source from where you were thinking of citing it. You should therefore, as much as possible, avoid to cite sources that involve also taking other author's interpretation of the original results or conclusions.
This may see like a minor point but errors that are propagated this way can become very destructive. In some cases errors like this may become"truths" that are very hard to correct. So while you can cite a source by as ref1 cited in ref2 you should make every effort to avoid it.

While jakebeal's answer is a fine answer, I wanted to add that there is actual accepted format in some referencing system. For example, in Harvard Reverencing, your paper would contain (here is where you would actually shorten it down as you desire):

Stanley and Miikkulainen (2002, cited in Smith, 2014) argued that the topology of a neural network also affects their functionality

This way you are saying that you did not read the paper by Stanley and Miikkulainen but you are giving the original authors credit, while still providing a source for your understanding, which the reader might want to check.

Actually, you are saying that you could not read the paper by Stanley and Miikkulainen.  If you can read the original paper, you must.

@jeffe Do you have a source for such a requirement? Best practice? Yes. Fail if you do not do it?

@earthling: as a referee, I would not let this sort of thing pass unless there was a clear reason why the original could not be cited directly. And as an author I have had to use this sort of indirect citation exactly once, when the original was published in Russian, a language that neither I nor my co-author can read.

This is an answer by Electricman in the comments.
I remember that my professor had told me not to use the citation of one paper in separate to increase your references. Also, he told me this is a plagiarism if I do so. So what I did was so simple, I read those citations and wrote the literature review based on my understating.
But I guess you want to know if you can cite only the main paper, so the answer is: of course you can. Even it is better add, you should only cite the main paper. But be aware that the main paper should be in a famous peer reviewed journal.

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How to refer to an author whose last name can be confused with a pronoun?
I am currently writing a research paper and am having an issue referring to an author of a paper whose name is "Dadi He". I know that it is common practice to refer to an author by their last name when referring to them or their findings.
Though I find myself writing sentences starting along the lines of "He found that...". I assume that the simple solution is to refer to the author by his full name. But this seems to become repetitive after a few sentences.
Is this correct, is there a more formal or accepted way to do so?

If you don't start the sentence by "He", the capital letter should be indication enough (as the reference following I assume).

If the author is male, and you keep referring to him in successive sentences, then there's no difference between either interpretation of "He."

You could use the last name as part of a reference citation.  "He (1987) found that ..."

Always refer to him as "D. He"?

How about putting in the first name (or initial) for the first reference (and likewise for others you reference), and just 'He' afterwards. The first one should tell people that you are talking about someone whose name is He.

At least in my field, it’s rather uncommon to mention an author’s name in a paper. Rather it is something along the lines of the following (somewhat depending on the citation style):

Ref. [42] showed that discombobulators can facilitate banana transmogrification.
Recently it was shown that discombobulators can facilitate banana transmogrification [42].
Recently it was shown that discombobulators can facilitate banana transmogrification (He et al., 2014).

That does not mean that it would be wrong to mention an author by name, but I would find a paper that intensively does so somewhat strange – even if the paper heavily builds upon this author’s work. At least I would find it totally acceptable if such an author was mentioned only once or twice.
So as a first step, I suggest to change your writing style as to mention He and other authors less often. If you have a whole paragraph where you refer to He’s work in every sentence, it should suffice to mention this in the first sentence, e.g., like this:

The method we are proposing is an extension of the method proposed by He [42], which briefly works as follows: […]

Mentioning any author in such a paragraph repeatedly, let alone always at the beginning of a sentence is something that I would consider bad style anyway. Be sure to check as to whether this is not totally uncommon in your field.
For the remaining occurrences of He’s name, rephrase the sentences such that the name does not occurr at the beginning of a sentence such that it does not happen at the beginning of a sentence or after an abbrevation. Capitalisation should suffice to make the distinction here. You may hold some subconscious ideal that it should be possible to tackle such issues without rephrasing sentences, but it’s a totally viable approach. Also, as explained before, this should at most apply to a few sentences.
Some thoughts on alternatives and what I consider problematic about them:

Mentioning the author’s full name. This is still likely to cause confusion, in particular among those who do not see the issue and wonder why this author is mentioned with a first name. Also, in some situations, the reader may not be aware that the first and last name actually belong together.
Prepending the initialised first name of the author. This makes reading your text even more difficult, as one will likely think at first that a sentence ends after D. He’s first name, in particular if it’s grammatically plausible such as in this sentence.

Specific anti-advice (for a related situation):
If this situation arises with a female author, especially if their first name is recognizably female, I encourage you not to write out the full name each time.
It may seem unobjectionable, but this would play into the sexist practice (once widespread, though fortunately much less common today) of referring to men by last name while referring to women always by first and last name:

This phenomenon has been analyzed previously by Schmidt [6], Wang [7], Mary Jones [2,3,4], Elfenbacher [1], Doris Laubin [5], and Washington [8,9].

It's too funny a situation to pass up the opportunity to quip about it in the paper and simply acknowledge the situation. As in:

Our methodology is based on one that was first investigated in D. He (1983) and in the following, we will discuss how the referenced paper inspired our approach. (Referencing the author of He (1983) presents a conundrum because the name can be confused with the male pronoun. In the following, when written in uppercase, we will refer to the name -- though there really is no potential for misunderstandings since D. He is male.)

I do think that occasional humor should not be discouraged.

This may be funny the very first time anybody ever does this, but as it happens, authors are usually cited within a small group of people. Thus, if you are the second person to make such a remark, it is very likely to be read by somebody who already read the first instance and will not appreciate it anymore. In particular, the poor Mr. He is very likely to read all of these remarks. (Moreover, He is a rather common name, my workgroup’s citation database contains works from four different persons with that name.)

And to add to @Wrzlprmft comment, when you base your work on someone else's, it is not uncommon that they will be chosen as referees. And you don't want to joke about a potential referee, especially if they might have experienced that kind of humour innumerable times since their childhood.

Yeah, I think Abbott and Costello kind of closed the book on jokes of this kind. (If necessary, search YouTube for "Who's On First".)


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Looking for a free article citation web/graphical viewer and explorer?
I am attempting to find a tool which will produce and hopefully populate a graph of a collection of articles based on their citations. For example, I have approximately 200 references in a Mendeley folder. I want to generate a plot that I can explore that presents articles as nodes and citations as edges, and potentially performs some clustering based on keywords within abstracts.
I would assume such a tool exists, though the more I attempt to locate one and think about how it might work I am beginning to believe the task may be too complex to make a useful tool from. Is there such a free tool? Potentially a "cheap" paid for one?

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Citing a project performed in a previous class that was never published?
In a past class I completed a project whose results and methods will prove useful in my current class project. This project, written in a journal style format, was never published, and will most likely never be published.
How do I go about properly citing this project? Should I simply list the title, college, and date? What is the accepted format?

I'd include in the citation not only title, college, and date --- and of course author --- but also some additional information to indicate what sort of document this is. So I'd probably indicate that it was a project for such-and-such class, taught by so-and-so. I might also give the number of pages.  (I won't say anything about how to format all this, because I've never paid much attention to citation styles.)

Put a copy of the old project report on the web, and then include the URL with the other bibliographic information.

You could publish it as a preprint. Or if you want to publish some specific section you could use some dedicated service that provides with with a doi, e.g. you can use protocols.io for your protocol or figshare/zenodo for your dataset. This way not only are citable but it will have a unique identifier.


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For government / industry research posters, should I include my university's logo?
For an undergraduate putting together a research poster describing research worked on at a government lab, is it appropriate to include the undergraduate's home institution in the Acknowledgements section?
Assume, in this case, the undergraduate institution has no involvement in the research.

Here is how I would think about it:

You were at the government lab when you did the research, so its logo definitely needs to be there
You are preparing the logo and presenting the poster while at the university, so it's reasonable for its logo to be there as well.

With such things, it's usually better to err on the side of inclusiveness: people or organizations are much more likely to feel it's problematic to not be included than to feel it's problematic to be included, as long as there is some reasonable connection.

If the work at the lab was in any way related to your course, such as part of a placement or project you get credit for, then I would include the university's logo.
However, if the university was in no way involved, for example if this was a summer project that you found independently, then the university's logo probably doesn't need to be on the poster.
In any case if you are unsure then the best idea is probably to talk to someone who was involved in the project and possibly also someone from your university (your personal tutor or similar). They will be best placed to advise you for your particular situation.


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What do I do if my results are not ready before a conference?
My supervisor encouraged me to apply for a conference presentation, as he had funding for me to go.  The problem was that I had no results at the time, since the conference date was six months after the abstract deadline.  At the time I thought I would have results in time so I wrote an abstract (stating what I plan to do and why it is important, but posted no results) and got accepted for a poster presentation.
Now it is 1 week before the conference and I have very poor results.  I was able to complete the experiment, but the the results are much too poor to present.  Unfortunately I have no time to redo anything and do not have any previous research (am a masters student).  Which one of these is worse?:

Presenting meaningless results just so you can present
Presenting a vague poster (show the theory, methodology, importance, but no tangible results) to get around poor data.
Not showing up to the conference and get a partial refund.

Related questions Is it normal to submit an abstract to a conference when the research is NOT completed? and How to write abstract for conference when you have no results yet?

The related questions are about submitting an abstract without results, not about what to do when your abstract is accepted and you still don't have results at the time of the conference. I don't think they are duplicates.

As so often, this may be field-specific, so I'm giving a CS perspective:
Posters are not full papers. Often, it is totally acceptable that a poster presents work in progress, or preliminary results. While a paper adds some vague hints to separate future steps in continuing the research after presenting a finished contribution, on a poster, that can well be the other way round.
Therefore: Use the opportunity to show what you have done so far and where you want to go from there on your poster. Reconsider what the gist of the poster is - you may have to give up the plan that the poster is about your results, and switch the focus of your poster to talking about your research process. That way, you can present the goal of your poster to collect comments and suggestions on how to retrieve some meaningful results in the direction you're interested in.
Like this, you are not presenting just so you can present, you are presenting because it is the best way to get concrete comments by other researchers.
Of course, it depends on what exactly you have written in your poster abstract. If you explicitly said there that the poster will focus on results, the situation may be more problematic.

Yes, that sounds like a good idea.  I'm developing a simulation model to manage water resources.  The poster was supposed to show the advantages of my model over other models that manage water.  Unfortunatly my model does not run more efficiently, nor does it allocate resources more accuratly- therefor it is not what I| really hoped for.  I guess I could just state how I developed my model, and show results as it currently stands.  I can just mention in person if they ask how my model performs to other ones.

@Jordan: I see. How about juxtaposing your expectations/hypotheses and your actual results on your poster? Even though it is just as valid research, unfortunately, negative results are often more difficult to publish than positive ones. You might use this opportunity to do just that, state what you expected to improve, explain how it did not improve, and at the same time suggest some possible further tweaks so there actually is an improvement and ask for more suggestions.

I would recommend another option: present the current truth of your work and results. You can get feedback on the methods and approach and somebody may even be able to point out adjustments to your approach that may help the work. Even just talking to people outside of your lab can be an important part of developing as a researcher. Don't try to hide the state of your work or pretend you have more than you have: people will be able to tell and it will not help you. Instead present yourself as you are: an early student looking for interaction around these ideas.
Note, of course, that this is all subject to your professor's approval: they know your community better than random strangers on the internet.
Finally: let this be a lesson for the future. Don't give in to pressure to claim results that you may not get. It is always better to say "And here are some new results not mentioned in the abstract..." than to explain why you can't deliver what you promised.


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How to get work done on the weekends
As an undergraduate, I had a problem: I could work very efficiently during the week, but over the weekend I could get absolutely nothing done. Usually my plans for the weekend would include errands, studying, working on papers and projects, getting ahead with reading, and taking care of numerous chores (laundry, bills, writing applications, etc.)
But I would end up doing none of this. Instead, I would find myself scrambling to do the bare minimum for Monday in the wee hours of Sunday night or in the last few minutes before class.
Does anyone have tips for navigating short periods of unstructured time, such as two free days, in an academic setting?

So, what do you do instead? You know you need to do specifics things, yet you are doing something else.

@JonCuster Researching things that interest me and are important, often relating to my field, but that have nothing to do with this week or next week. Not partying!

So, apparently, you feel no great pressure to get the pressing (due Monday) work done, preferring to do the 'fun' work. Many people can only work under immediate pressure. One way to approach it is to use the 'fun' work as an incentive to do the 'necessary' work - tell yourself that if you get assignment X done by 2PM on Saturday, you can spend 2PM-dinner working on something fun, than after dinner get to assignment Y. Sleep in late if you get that done, than...

I recommend reading this great blog article about being distracted by other interests. It offers a paradigm to manage productivity and also  strategies to cope. http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html

Also the wikipedia article on flow was very helpful to me:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29

One solution that has often worked for me is to try to not work on the weekends.  If your weekdays are solid work times, then you can do more intense work on the weekdays and aim to have your weekend entirely free.  Even if you don't entirely succeed, you'll still be in a much better situation with respect to the things you need to do by Monday.  Then you can take real time off and have fun without guilt and actually recharge yourself for another solid week.

This is a fantastic suggestion!

You can also take a single day off every week completely. For example, I basically never did any school on Saturdays - I would do homework on weeknights and on Sundays, but my Saturday was a guilt-free day to not work on homework.

@enderland That's another great idea. 5 days are for work, 1 day is for "work that does not fit in the 5 days" and 1 day is for relaxation. Note that they need not be standard days. I used to work Saturday morning, then relax in the afternoon, maybe go out in the evening, visit the church on Sunday morning, and work again on Sunday afternoon, finishing what needs to be done. It worked well for me because in general, I need to feel some pressure, which is better on Sunday afternoon than Saturday afternoon :)

This is a fantastic suggestion. Jewish and Christian traditions both have the idea of a Shabbat (Sabbath), which is a day to rest. It's a fantastic idea even if you're non-religious.

Isn't this obvious? Everybody needs regular downtime. The fact that the OP is desperately struggling against that need is only proof of that!

As a postdoc and young faculty, I always felt guilty about not being particularly productive on weekends. I'd make big plans for really spending solid hours on this or that project or paper, but it never came together.
In the end, I realized that I'd goof off so much on the weekend because I was simply burned out from the week. My resolution, made a few years ago, has been to simply not work on Saturdays, and I live by that rule pretty rigidly. Saturday is the day I go on long bike rides with my friends, go out with the wife, read fun stuff, watch movies, and not feel bad about any of this. Sunday sleep in, have a lazy morning, and then spend the afternoon working from the couch. Sunday has typically become a pretty productive day for me. It's made me a lot happier with my weekends, and with myself.

As an undergraduate, you were basically doing a more intense and funky version of high school. College was a fixed-term way station on the road to your real life. The ideal approach was to hunker down, make your excuses to your friends inviting you to parties, and sprint the finish. You, I, and 99% of the undergrads out there, had... limited success in this. Oh well. We're only human.
At the graduate/postgraduate level, things change. This is your job now, and there's only a very dim light at the end of the tunnel. the number one worry is not goofing off, it's getting burnt out. Drop-out rates are far higher here than they were at the undergraduate level.
Don't ignore your urge to take a break from time to time. It's healthy, it's reasonable, and it'll help you (a) advance in your academic career, and (b) not end up hating your life in the process.
Sometimes you'll wake up on Sunday and be hell-bent on getting some crazy work done that day. That's natural, at least for the fanatics with the drive to remain in academia. Go for it.
Sometimes you'll drag yourself out of bed on the weekend and want nothing more than to binge-watch Netflix all day. That's natural, at least for the mortals who inhabit academia. Go for it.
Bottom line is, work-life balance is a matter of understanding your needs as both a professional researcher and a normal person. Those two identities are in direct conflict, and you can't allow either one to conquer the other, because they need each other. Keep them both fed.

I'm someone who does tend to work every day of the week, unless some particular event pops up to postpone it. That may not be for everyone, but in some sense it's easier to just have the same daily rhythm rather than switch it on and off. As an undergraduate I probably wasn't always working on class work; first, there's so many more interesting activities available than later in life, and two, maybe I was working on personal programming, writing, or gaming projects.
Here's a thing that helps me be productive. I keep a "todo" list (actually in a LibreOffice database) tagged with a priority A, B, C, or D. Every day or night I try to process the top 3 priorities to the top of the list -- and then I try to go and do whichever one seems like the most fun, or compelling, or on-my-mind at the time. This seems to go down better than forcing myself to do something because "I must". I may not be working on the ideal top priority, but I'm working on something, which gives momentum.
I've got "todo" items that get recycled with weekly, monthly, and quarterly chores. For example: weekly chores include grocery, laundry, shaving, and some other stuff. Try to get this as tight and efficient as possible so you can tick it off in about an hour without thinking about it. For example: my monthly chores include a system virus-scan (takes about 1 hour), and while that's happening I do a sweeping/bed laundering task.
Find some way to get regular exercise, it makes a big difference in energy levels. Sometimes for me that's been drumming or daily tennis.
In 2009 our TV blew up and we never got it replaced. I used to spend quite a bit of time watching TV. If you still have a TV then I might recommend ditching it.
I only check email and voicemail once a day. My phone is off all the time the rest of the day so I'm never interrupted. Occasionally there's some social cost now as other people find that weird.

It's usual thing. We plan the work to be done and we won't be usually able to work out the plan as we want. It's quite natural I guess. What can help you, I think is to keep some reminder (or something of that sort in your phone)  saying to start doing a particular task. (Keep the same reminder every half an hour. So, you might start doing that task, because you keep on seeing the tasks to be done. (Towards the end of the reminder, you may add the ultimate target or aim of doing the task)
This might be helpful for you, I believe. You can also stick around some posters too. (When you wake up in the morning (be it weekend or weekday) you get to read what is written in the poster. Remind yourself what you want to do) if there is a strong intention for you to work hard in the weekend, you'll be able to do it.
All the best @SAH :)

I can clearly relate your issue with myself here. I am in the first year of my PhD and had the exact same problem that you are facing now when I was in my undergrads. Firstly, working in the weekends is not for everyone. But since your motivation is clear from the question, I would keep away from advising you the (dis)advantages of working in the weekends rather share some methods I employed myself.

Problem: I could work very efficiently during the week, but over the weekend I could get absolutely nothing done.

I am not sure what you meant by efficiently, I take the word meaning here. There may be several things that could distract you. I state some of them.

Away from classroom atmosphere.
No external motivation (class time tables, tutors, classmates).
Codes of conduct attached to the workplace is no longer applicable.

Here are my tips addressing each point.

Create a stimulating atmosphere comparable to your classroom or library at your stay.

This varies from person to person. For me, I like my room to be clean and ordered. There is a portrait of Einstein(I am in Physics by the way) on the wall on my left. I have a clipboard and a whiteboard on the wall facing me.

Rely on internal motivation.

Before I start my work in the weekends, I tell to myself how important it is to focus on my aim. Keep realistic timetables and stick on it (very important). It is important to keep time for non academic activities (I have never me anyone who is devoid of those!). I spend 2 hours per day during weekends reading autobiographies(The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin is highly recommended), Chess etc. Bear that in mind and make a realistic timetable.

Make sure the codes of conduct at the classroom is still valid at home.

This doesn't mean that you should wear a uniform (if you have one). In my case this translates to limiting time spent on social media, being disciplined during the study hours in the time schedule etc.
That said, let me tell you that the personality and passion of a person
has a huge role to play in this. This would make this answer highly subjective but this is what I followed with moderate success and I insist you to focus on the general idea that is communicated.

Too long for a comment... All the answers here (even the outliers, I think) are essentially honest accounts of how people deal with "the week", and the peculiarities of the rhythm it may suggest for our lives.
Of course, if the real question is "how do I get myself to systematically behave in a way I don't want to...?", then the answer is either that it's not sustainable, or "change yourself". :)
My own choice, for many reasons, has been to try to avoid thinking in terms of this entirely conventional (though universal) description of human activity: workdays, weekends, holidays, vacations. This was obviously easier when I had no kids, and no partners involved in conventionally-scheduled lives. But even in, and if one looks carefully, almost because of, the throes of small-children exigencies (maybe more severe than almost everything else), one can remind oneself that the conventional description of weeks and days is purely conventional.
So let's be philosophical: what does one want, (versus) what does one need? At one extreme, trying to force oneself to be more "virtuous" than one's natural inclination (at any particular point in life) seems at least partly misguided, although nudges in various directions are obviously part of a developmental process.
If the question is "how to overcome practical things getting in the way?", well, this has nothing to do with weekends, all the more since many academics can "work from home" (!!!) whenever no trip to campus is necessary. My own faux-rationalization is that doing laundry or washing dishes is a better "cigarette break" than actually smoking, although we all should know that it's easier and more fun to be addicted to an addictive thing than to non-addictive tasks. :)
In that vein, whenever one finds oneself trying to coerce oneself into something against (part of) one's will, one should... consider. By this year, I think the key point is to not make plans that commit you to be something you don't want to be, especially in terms of what it involves day-to-day.
For myself, I try to integrate practical tasks with "my work". "Breaks" from long-term not-immediately-gratifying projects are to take care of (immediately gratifying?) tasks such as folding laundry, paying bills, exercising (relatively fun!), going to the grocery, taking care of house/lawn/whatever...
Still, if one really doesn't care about the "research project", it'll be a good trick to make it stay in one's head. On the other hand, caring a bit too much does keep one awake at night... but maybe it's an adventure?

If you have trouble working on your studies in a focused way on the weekend, then get those errands, laundry, bills, applications, etc., out of the way.  Set yourself a reward that you will indulge in ONLY when a certain basic to do list has been accomplished.
It can help to have a support buddy -- someone who is going through something more or less similar, with whom you can compare notes at least once a day.  Make sure the buddy doesn't drag you down, though.

What I tried to do in college and post-grad is party my ass off on Friday and Saturday.  Sunday was recovery and study/research day.  Much easier to focus when you get the party out of you and when you have a slight hang-over you don't feel like doing much else.
(I am vehemently opposed to those who act like they are going to study all weekend and procrastinate, bitch to their friends about all the stuff they need to do, watch netflix and just waste the weekend.  Party it up then cram on Sunday!)

Doesn't answer op. Specifically the question is Does anyone have tips for navigating short periods of unstructured time, such as two free days, in an academic setting?

@ThejusMahajan, your answer is good (in my opinion), but/and so is this one. Just a very different kind of answer (partly disputing aspects of the hypotheses, but I consider that inevitable and legitimate). I say this in the context of someone who works long days seven days a week... but, when younger, crammed some parties and other late nights into that, as outlet for (apparently) youthful energy/exuberance. An insincere, unenthusiastic self-discipline contains the seeds of dysfunction.

@paulgarrett, There may be lots of different kind of answers, but since OP has clearly stated his question, I think specific answer would be more appropriate. I invite you to read this if you haven't done already.

@ThejusMahajan, I do not care for any argument here, for several reasons. For one, even if one "reads the rules", the question of whether an answer conforms or not is subjective, at least in my opinion. I realize that many people believe that things I count as subjective are not, and also many peoples' subjective issues seem to me essentially objective, ... So, as long as we are basically civil here, we can see the range of opinions! :)

@ThejusMahajan - I think I conveyed this but I am clearly stating that get all the play and fun times out of the way so you are forced to focus on Sunday.  I feel if you know you have to work on Sunday and know you can do whatever with no rules for the 1.5 days before that your time is focused.  If you never unwind you just end up doing nothing and neither having fun nor getting anything done productive.  Some of my best ideas were thought of on a late Saturday night and implemented through research on Sundays.

I'm an undergraduate as well, and what works for me, is to not plan ahead, but just find that time during the weekend where you're not really doing anything, and brute force yourself into a short period of pure studying/working.
It doesn't have to be an hour, you can start with as little as 30 minutes (some work can honestly take me way less than that to complete, if I full-on apply myself).
The thing is, even if you only managed to solve one exercise, or read one page, or even just progress in a tiny step and it seems like you didn't get any closer to finishing your work, you'll inevitably feel some kind of accomplishment, even a little proud of yourself - and once you feel that, go do something fun! Don't get carried away and keep working when you are past the time you set, just do whatever else. Then, after a few times you'll "trick" yourself like that, you'll notice you can set the work time longer and longer, because it will no longer be conceived as a bad thing. You'll be willing to spend more time working to get that reward afterwards. Kind of "Pavloving" yourself.
Try this a couple of times, and even if it doesn't work, at least you've done some studying!
Hope it helps :)


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Do you need published papers to apply for a postdoc?
A friend of mine has a conundrum: He finished his PhD and wants to stay in academia (in Physics). Problem is, his supervisor is very unsupportive in everything. I think he switched research interests and left my friend hanging. He's extremely slow in working on a draft they want to submit to a high-tier journal, and my friend believes that without this work published it doesn't make sense to even start applying for postdocs.
Problem is that this has been going on for years now and thus his career has stagnated.
I feel that this can't be quite right, but since I never bothered to look into postdocs I might be wrong.
In my opinion, my friend should just apply for postdocs anyway, with or without all of the PhD work published. I have a hard time imagining that a successful application lives and dies with one particular paper. That would mean that anyone whose supervisor stops working for one reason or another would be forever stranded in limbo.
Tips and advice on how my friend could move forward would be appreciated.

All you need to apply for a post-doc is a the ability to write an application - getting an offer is another matter.  Most post-docs will have their PhD and will have published (or at least submitted) one or more papers in the course of that program.  If your friend has not yet published or submitted any papers then he will indeed be at a disadvantage in an application for this kind of position.  Having said that, you've got to be in it to win it!  If he does not mind taking the time to write up an application, it can't hurt to apply.  In the meantime he should keep working on his paper and pushing for further progress with his co-author.  If he can succeed in publishing this paper in a high-tier journal then that will substantially improve his applications.

And I would add that waiting does not improve the situation. A fresh PhD can have just paper in preparation, or just a good thesis. This is field related, team related, etc. But having no papers years later would indeed limits the chance of getting offers. On the positive side, sometimes there are no much candidates at the right time, so let us stay positive. Plus 1.


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Assistant Professor vs Assistant Teaching Professor
Is there any difference between an "Assistant Professor" position and "Assistant Teaching Professor"?

"Assistant Teaching Professor" isn't a very common title, and the meaning of the title could vary from one institution to another.  However, I would assume that an "assistant teaching professor" was a position for someone whose responsibilities included only teaching and perhaps some service but no research.  In that case, it would most likely not be a tenure track position.
The two important factors here are whether the position has both teaching and research responsibilities and whether or not it's a tenure track position.

It might help to clarify the more standard term, "Assistant Professor", in terms of tenure status and research vs. teaching priority.


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scientific plotting software like Excel with more functionality without coding?
Is there any (popular) software for Mac that generates high quality scientific plots for publications without needs for coding? Specifically, I am looking to generate sub-plots or panels where Excel does not have such functionality.
Seems Plot is one good choice:
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/20194/plot

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not about academia but software.

This question should probably be asked on Software Recommendations SE instead of here.

DO NOT ANALYZE YOUR DATA USING EXCEL!!!!According to this article, and many others, "One in five genetics papers contains errors thanks to Microsoft Excel".

You can look at some online services such as Plotly, which works with Excel, R, etc.


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Could teaching at community college for a few years harm my career?
If one aspired to a traditional, research-based academic career in a major university, would teaching for a few years at a community college (say, after the Master's) be damaging to one's CV? I'm worried that it would create a record of affiliation with a low-ranked university that would make people see you as "from" that university, and thus be biased against hiring you. Is there any truth to this?

As a matter of opinion, teaching experience looks good. Do you have documented, hands-on research experience?

To distill what a couple of the answers say: people will see you as from where you get your PhD.

Counterexample: CUNY community colleges still require research for tenure-track positions (although generally they also expect PhD holders for those positions).

opposite effect, teaching will actually make u more qualified amongest those who didn't teach. That's how I would see it if I was the interviewer

I'm worried that it would create a record of affiliation with a low-ranked university that would make people see you as "from" that university, and thus be biased against hiring you. Is there any truth to this?

I think it depends when you do it.  If it is in between your master's and PhD, as you somewhat tentatively suggest: well, I know many people in my academic field (mathematics) who paused in between degrees to teach at the high school level, most commonly for two years.  I have seen absolutely no stigma attached to this.  On the contrary, when people have to make lightly educated guesses as to whether a certain candidate will be a good (read: not problematically bad) teacher, then holding a teaching job for more than one year pushes that guess in a positive direction.  Teaching at a community college is generally viewed as a "higher level job" than teaching at a high school, so I think this should carry over.  As a specific example, within fairly recent memory we took a PhD student who had been teaching at a community college.  She got her PhD and now has a tenure-track job at a university.  So: no stigma here.
(The above answer assumes that you have made it into a PhD program and have kept up your "higher academic skills" as much as other candidates.  Whether that is the case is up to you.)
The part of your CV after you get a PhD will be viewed with much more scrutiny, both in terms of chronology and specific jobs held.  If you want to get a tenure-track job at a research university, any post-PhD academic employment other than a postdoc or tenure track job at a research university will count against you.  (Sorry.  I don't make the rules -- I'm just reporting the situation as I see it.)  Even taking an industrial job might not count against you as much as teaching at a community college: in my neck of the academic woods an "industrial job" is an enigma of blankness eliciting neither delight nor scorn -- our eyes just slide right off of it.
Let me say though, that while teaching at a community college between degrees is a possible trajectory to an academic career, it does not necessarily make sense to me for someone to plan on that in advance.  That is to say: why are you contemplating taking a break of several years from your graduate studies?  If the answer is because you feel a bit burned out or that you want the chance to figure out whether an academic career is for you, I think you need to know that the post-PhD academic job market is one step shy of airtight at the moment.  It is not for the faint of heart or the uncertain of commitment.  I suggest you think carefully about your long term goals and whether a PhD is really a necessary part of them.

+1 for "I think you need to know that the post-PhD academic job market is one step shy of airtight at the moment. It is not for the faint of heart or the uncertain of commitment. I suggest you think carefully about your long term goals and whether a PhD is really a necessary part of them."

(Speaking from the perspective of mathematics in the U.S., ...) I'd second @PeteL.Clark's comments... Specifically, it makes an enormous difference in the current academic job market whether "teaching a few years at a community college" occurs before or after a Ph.D. If before, then I'd estimate that people would imagine you're more focused and know what you want, so it might enhance a PhD application to all but the most elite places. If after your PhD, it would almost surely create difficulty "returning" to the "research track". It's not that the affiliation itself would harm you (and community colleges are not "universities", so are "not even" lower-tier universities), but that you would have most likely doing something other than what is expected for post-docs and tenure-track people, unless you manage to get lots of good papers written while doing that community college teaching. That's the bottom line. A secondary but still still very significant problem would be finding letter writers for your next job, back in the research-university world. In contrast, in a post-doc, hopefully there are senior faculty who interact with you and can write very helpful letters. Glowing letters from community college people will not have the same impact.
And, yes, the "affiliation" issue will impede you in some cases, if/when people filter post-doc or tenure-track applicants by most-recent-job. They might (reasonably or not) figure you've been out of the loop for a few years, and might not even look to see whether you've been publishing papers.
That is, in other words, in the U.S., a sort of "clock" starts upon getting your PhD, and one is in competition with other people who got their PhD at the same time. (In some cases, maternity/paternity leave is possible, but it is naive to believe that everyone respects this...) Taking oneself out of the game for a few years may in fact be a reasonable thing in several regards, but I don't think it is currently viewed as such.

Thanks for pointing out some interesting additional issues.

This is a rock and a hard place situation for most PhD and MFA grads. If your ultimate goal is a prestigious teaching job but right now you need to feed your children (or just yourself) and have exhausted fellowship and other post-grad competitions and grants, for heaven's sake, do what you must do. Just know that it will take all you've got to do research while teaching so many sections. You must be self-motivating and super protective of any hours left in your day for continuing your research. But this is happening at universities, too.
I have a colleague with a PhD who is teaching 5 courses per semester at The New School, and she has written books and excellent student evals. It's shocking, given the history of that school, that they now have an all-business person running the place who thinks faculty are disposable. But it is a buyers market. The glory days of teaching a 2-2 load plus service, committees, etc. are mostly over in America. You are lucky to get a real office in some places!
A good friend who never completed her dissertation (her department was inflexible when she had a premature baby), moved back to rural Wisconsin to be near helpful parents and start a business with her husband. Business is good and she teaches at a community college. Even though she has not been affiliated with a university for 12 years she is still brilliant and the presents papers at international conferences every few years. She is an independent scholar. A lot of us are.
If you can get on as a reviewer at a journal, join with a former grad school colleague or professor to start a new online journal or non-profit institute focusing on a subject or distinguished scholar not yet receiving adequate attention, and/or continue to stay active enough and connected to the literature to submit abstracts to conferences (you as moderator and other scholars from a variety of stances, geographic areas and demographics to serve on the panel), then your chances of moving on to a prestigious position improve.
It's not a "mission" career move like teaching maths to kids in Appalachia or joining the Peace Corp, but you are preparing students for university life and that is important work.
Good luck with the job search!


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Long review time in CS discipline
It has been an year since I submitted my research paper to a journal in Concurrency (Computer Science). The status says it is still under review. Is this typical of journals in this discipline?

While six months is not unusual in computer science (where journals have little urgency), a year is too long to go without any response.  Write to the editor, and ask politely when you should expect a response.


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Difference in business school pay across developed countries
Why is the pay for tenure-track faculty at business schools in developed countries other than the US substantially lower than (and often only a fraction of) their US counterpart (with the exceptions of Hong Kong and Singapore, and then perhaps a handful of other schools in the rest of the world)?
Shouldn't the proportion of people who want to pursue business degrees and are able to pay business school tuition largely comparable across developed countries? Then should non-US business schools also be able to make money from tuition to hire top business researchers/professors and pay them as well as US business schools? What makes the economics of running a business school and paying faculty different in other developed countries?

"Then should non-US business schools also be able to make money from tuition" You're making a lot of assumptions here. In many countries, there simply are no (or very, very low) tuition fees for public universities. This naturally decreases the demand (and thus, the prices ) for private business schools.

Many universities are not funded by tuition by students. Funding from the government is not rare.
Did you remember to take into account such issues as whether the society offers reasonable healthcare for everyone, kindergarten and school for children, reasonable holidays, unemployment benefits, rights for employees, etc.? Adjusting for these might not always be in favour of USA. This also makes it very difficult to compare wages across countries.
That said, USA is a very rich country with some very rich universities that can afford to pay well.

I think this is not an issue limited to buisiness school salaries, but to a lot of other professions in the US as well. In many instances, people will earn double or triple the salary in the US than compared to lets say countries in the European Union.
BUT: these countries have universal (or free) healthcare, free or reasonable priced childcare, free or very cheap, and nevertheless high quality education (even on a university and college level). And not to forget: people at the lower end of the income spectrum generally have all these perks as well, with an addition of functioning disability, unemployment and maternity leave payments. And they have 30 days of paid vacation a year.
In short, all the money that you did not get paid compared to the US goes into an improved quality of life (IMHO) not only for yourself but also for the whole society you are living in. Worth it.

This is sort of a more detailed version of @AnonymousPhysicist's answer, specifically for the UK.
In the UK all academics (with the exception of Imperial College London) are paid on the same 54 point national pay spine. The salary at each point is negotiated by the unions and a organization that represents employers each year. I'd not say that the unions are "powerful" as they have lost this negotiation every year for the last 10 years, and pay increases have been zero or below inflation.
Each university can divide those points up into "grades" however they like, but most are more or less similar in practice. At my uni we have 9 grades. What grade you are is determined by your job description, not your subject area. So grade 8 is described as "having principle responsibility for delivering one or more areas of teaching and leading a program of research, either of which may involve management of junior colleagues". The complete job descriptions for each grade are available publicly on the internet. Grade 8 starts at point 37, which in 2019 was £41,526 GBP ($57,667 USD). All academics taking up an entry level faculty position will be grade 8, the vast majority grade 8.1 (sometimes people negotiate to start at 8.2 or 8.3), irrespective of their discipline.
This is useful for universities on some level - tuition fees at the undergraduate level are capped at £9,500 for home students by law, but some degrees (principally experimental science and engineering courses) cost way more than this to teach. Degrees that are either cheaper to teach (like humanities) or can attract significant overseas students (like engineer) cross subsidies expensive subjects that can do neither. MBAs are both cheap to teach and attract many high-fee paying overseas students, and so provide a large amount of cross-subsidies to, say Biology, which costs twice the fee cap to teach, but attracts few overseas students.

So it sounds like this isn't so much about unions, it's about having nationalized higher ed and classifying university instructors like civil servants.

@ElizabethHenny Universities are private entities in the UK - a mixture of different legal standings (the majority are charities), but none of them are government owned. University employees are not civil servants. However, 90% of students fund their education by taking out government backed loans, and the government will only provide loans where the fee is less than £9500 (i.e. they won't provide part loans). In theory a university could decide to forgo this an charge what they like. Although Oxford/Cambridge occasionally talk about this, it never amounts to anything.

There are a small handful of what are known as "private universities", but all that really means is that the university doesn't take government loan money, and therefore is not subject to government rules. The ownership/employment rules are not any different.

The key point about the Union bargaining here is not just that academics are unionized, but that they all belong to the same union and only agree to negotiate with the employers as a single block.

Perhaps another exception to the system you describe is London Business School, where at least some disciplines pay wages similar to top US business schools.

@FangJing Perhaps. I couldn't find anything on the LBS website out the "Framework Agreement" as its called, nor any publicly advertised pay scales (most uni's do publicly advertise their salary scales, even Imperial, which opted out of the framework agreement to pay its staff more, but still pays same salary across disciplines).

Unions.
When faculty are represented by a powerful union, then faculty in different disciplines are all paid the same.  This results in lower pay for the highest paying disciplines.  The US lacks powerful unions.
Supply and demand are probably also a factor.

What? It isn't remotely true that professors across disciplines are paid the same in the US universities where the faculty do belong to a union. It's not remotely true even at the K-12 level, which does have powerful faculty unions.

@ElizabethHenning You probably have no experience with powerful unions.  In some places, the unions literally control the government.


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What is expected from a mathematics student bachelor's thesis?
Well, I like maths, I like studying it and applying it. But I always feared the moment when I'd actually have to do a thesis. I'm in my third year of bachelor's studies. What I was wondering about is what kind of topic should I be looking for, for my thesis? It just is hard to me to see how I could actually research and contribute something to the field as a bachelor's student, as in something not trivial and that no one with much more education has come up with before.
From merely passing courses to coming up with something of mine is a huge leap for me, and I can't see how I can do something meaningful with the limited education I have. I'm feeling a bit like in maths, before say a phd there would be nothing new for me to come up with.
I am interested in cryptography, so I was given by one of my teachers a paper on elliptic cryptography that seemed interesting and a nice starting point. But now I realise I don't know where to head.

The usual expectation in mathematics is that one give an original exposition of known material. This means that one digests and understands on one's own terms things already known, maybe filling them out with well chosen examples, and provides a coherent expository account. Only rarely does an undergraduate math thesis contain new research; the only student I've known who wrote a thesis containing real novelties later won a Fields Medal. It is the advisor's task to help you find a suitable and well delineated topic.

@DanFox, you should make your comment into an answer.

What is expected varies dramatically between different schools. In my experience, bachelor's projects in math can vary from trivial to nontrivial, and also from expository to original research, and the two scales are somewhat independent.  I have supervised both trivial and nontrivial expository papers, as well as several undergraduate original research projects.
The concerns you have about being able to do research are common, but they are somewhat misplaced. You can almost certainly do more research than you believe you can do.
Here is an anecdote. In the 1980s, U.S. math departments began to offer "Research Opportunities for Undergraduates" (REUs), summer programs for undergrads to work on research. At the time, these were viewed very skeptically by many mathematicians. I have heard personal anecdotes that the NSF and NSA gave out a few initial grants on a purely experimental basis, not expecting to see very good results. But the projects flourished! Now there are many math REUs, and grants that allow schools to offer them are very competitive. The math community went from doubting that undergraduate research was possible to embracing it. Many math faculty are now required, or at least strongly encouraged, to mentor in undergraduate research if they expect to get tenure. See "Undergraduate Research
in Mathematics Has Come
of Age" from Notices of the AMS, 2014.
The key thing is to find a good project - which means finding a good advisor. Your advisor is responsible for finding a question that is accessible to you, for pointing out the background that you need to learn, and for mentoring you as you go. You still need to work on the research - we won't do it for you - but we don't expect you to operate as if you have already earned a PhD.

As the topic is still relevant to many others, please forgive my very late reply.
(I sincerely hope that the person who posted this question did well and is in no need to read my response.)
Most bachelor theses are like the "appetizer" for a specific problem.
It contains enough knowledge to get a good idea about the area, but it's kept simple so that "rookies" of that area still understand the content.
The most important questions should be covered. E.g:
(i)  What am I talking about? -> Solving a PDE by approximations.
(ii) Why? -> To approximate the dynamics in fluids
(iii)Relevance of this thesis
  -> Explaining the advantages and disadvantages of my approach.
(iv) How? -> Mathematical theory
(v)  How exactly? -> Explaining my code
(vi) How good is my approach? -> Calculate accuracy
(vii)Conclusion
As mathematics often tends to be, I sometimes feel overwhelmed with all the needed input. But as long as the chosen topic interests you (and yes, a good supervisor is very helpful), it's quite nice to deepen one's knowledge in a specific area.
Hopefully I could help someone with my experience.
I wish everyone success and passion!


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Will I be considered as a very rude person if I call my teacher to check an urgent email
I got three recommendation letters from three of my former school teachers (professors A, B, C).
On 20th Jan, I got an email from the graduate school that I had applied to. In the email, they told me that they had received the confirmations from professors A and B, but are still waiting for the confirmation from professor C.
My application will be considered as successful on condition that they have received the confrimation from professor C before 30th
I have sent at least ten emails to professor c for the past few days, but not seen any replies from him.
I have got the phone number, fax number, and address of his office in my former school. Since my former school is a few hours by bus away from my house, and I can not reach him by emails, I am thinking to call him directly on his office phone number, but I am wondering if it will make him very angry or I may be getting scolded by him.
What shall I do?

Calling his office number during business hours in this case would not be out of line.

maybe say something along the lines of "I'm afraid my mail were sent to spam and you haven't had a chance to read them"

"My application will be considered as successful on condition that they have received the confrimation from professor C" Am I the only one bothered by this? I mean, does this make any sense?

@usεr11852 while you should not bombard anyone with emails, what is considered "a reasonable amount of time for a follow-up" will depend on the situation. One email followed by a second 1-2 days later followed by a call the next day is a perfectly reasonable given the urgency of the situation and the fact that a response here requires 5 words or less.

@lohoris not as a direct quote but the OP could mean "my application will be considered successful[ly submitted] on condition that they have received the confrimation from professor C"

@WetLabStudent exactly. Why? That's a pretty silly requirement for a submission, isn't it?

@Lohoris it is. Unfortunately, it is also quite common. In some cases, the student is responsible for making sure everything is sent on time, but without being given any information on the progress.

There are a couple of possible scenarios at work:

Instructor C is very busy, but has seen the emails and will write the recommendation in time.
Instructor C's email program flagged your emails as spam, and has not actually read any of them.
Instructor C has not read your emails for whatever reason.

Regardless of which case applies, a polite call to instructor C during normal business hours (whatever those happen to be for the university) would be considered perfectly acceptable.
If you cannot get a hold of the instructor directly, perhaps there is an administrative assistant who can help you by flagging down the instructor, or setting up a time for you to talk to the instructor directly.

I think you have made a mistake sending him so many E-mails.
Nevertheless, its always okay to call someone and ask something politely (If the prof. C is sane you should be okay).


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Quality of English in a college recommendation letter
Does the quality of English in a letter of recommendation matter? Should it be really good or just average English with occasional mistakes suffice as long as the meaning is clear? Is a perfectly written letter with no grammatical mistakes better then a letter with few mistakes without flowery language if the points mentioned in both are the same?

"The occasional mistake" in a one-page letter does not sound good. If that guy is a native speaker, more than one mistake will just seem really sloppy. If the guy is no native speaker the reader will probably cut him a bit of slack, but some proof-reading etc. will still be expected.

The people reading a recommendation letter are interested in the following two things:

What is the assessment that the recommender makes of your skills and potential?
How much should they trust the recommender's assessment?

The style and errors of the recommender primarily speak to the second point.  It is hard to see how an occasional "normal" mistake will make a significant difference in how your or the letter-writer are perceived.  Likewise, if the writer is not a native English speaker, but makes mild typical grammatical errors that do not impede the sense of the document, it is just part of the normal "friction" of cross-cultural scientific communication and should not be a problem.
If, however, the mistakes are frequent and significant, then it may undermine the credibility of the recommendation.  Frequent or severe mistakes can make a reader think either that the recommender doesn't really care about this letter or that they are sloppy and perhaps don't have very good judgement to begin with.  Fairly or not, this can also apply to foreign-language issues, since a professor who knows their English is not good can get proof-reading help from any number of sources.

Or if there are too many mistakes, they could even doubt the actual authorship of the letter. It happens all the time to my friend who is a Nigerian prince.


text:
How long does PhD Application Process take in the UK?
I submitted my application with a supervisor's name fora UK university last week. I plan to apply for a scbolarship after getting an offer. The scholarship application deadline is in March. I would like to know how long it takes to get an application result in a UK uni?

Most PhD students in the UK will be looking for some sort of scholarship, often directly from the university. Universities will therefore base decisions around what funding they can get confirmation for. If you're applying elsewhere for funding, and you need to have a confirmed offer before applying, I would talk to whoever you submitted the application to, as they could probably make a decision on an unfunded place in time if needed, but won't necessarily do so without a reason to.

This will depend on the university. You should tell them your situation.

To the OP: And work on your spelling. :-)

Indeed, the decision process is usually very complex.  There are many applicants from the UK, the EU and elsewhere with many different constraints, many different possible sources of funding, different potential supervisors who may or may not be waiting to see what other applications might appear, and so on.  No sensible prediction is possible without asking the university in question.


text:
Rejecting a PhD offer after giving promise to the supervisor to work with him
When I went for my very first PhD interview by a potential supervisor, I hadn't applied for other universities. I promised that supervisor that I would definitely work under his supervisor if I was given an opportunity. He told me that he had a bad experience of a student replacing him with another supervisor after 1 yr of phd course.  So he repeatedly ensured that I would work with him. But now
I have been offered a place there. Before getting the offer, I applied for two better universities and I have been waiting for the results of these two uni and I need to decide whether to accept or reject the offer by the first uni before I have known the results of the other two.
Please advise me what I should do. Is it unethical if I turn down the offer after giving such a promise? I know it is risky to wait for the other results if I will be rejected in other two.

You've put yourself in a difficult position. On one hand, you should pursue the course of research that is best for your career development. On the other hand, if you go elsewhere, you've established the value of your word: very little.

I would definitely work. That is a strong statement you made. Academia is a small world and as in any workplace, being responsible for your own actions applies there too.

In addition to my answer below, consider the following story

In my humble opinion, you should go to which ever university you want to attend.
If the professor really meant in his offer that "I'll vouch for entering the program if you don't consider your other opportunities", that is an extremely unfair offer on their part. Quite frankly, I would not feel guilty breaking a promise that was given under such circumstances.
From what you've stated, I think a better interpretation of what the professor said is "If you decide to attend this university, I would very much like to work with you and if that sounds like a good idea to you, I'll stick my neck out for you during the review process". Well, if you ultimately decide not to go to that university, no promise broken.
One thing to understand is that grad students and post-docs often are put in a somewhat marginalized situations, and professors directly benefit from this; you will do a lot work for them and can't really just up and leave like at a normal job if things are not going well. Professors understand that. If they are trying to magnify that effect by asking you to take away some of the few choices you have, well, you really don't want that person as your boss for several years at job you can't leave without huge repercussions.
I've had the good fortune of always working with advisors or PI's that understood the dynamic and were very considerate of me viewing my options, even at costs to them. I cannot imagine anyone of them offering the first interpretation of the professor's offer.
As such, I really think that the professor intended the second interpretation. And if not, well, at least it has revealed that you don't want to work with them.

"I'll vouch for entering the program if you don't consider your other opportunities" is exactly what happens in the US at the undergraduate level with early acceptance.

@StrongBad: fair enough. But part of that is saying "here's a special deal, with a hook". This situation doesn't sound like a special deal to me.

You should have been cautious with your word, especially since your prospective supervisor told you about prior disappointment. Being noncommittal would have been more unpleasant, but more honest and giving you more leeway.
On the other hand, the supervisor might have put you under pressure  and you caved (depending when s/he told you the story with the other student).
I do not see a "good" outcome unless you are lucky to get turned down immediately, so that you immediately know to go for your original offer. That not being the case, the other outcomes are bad, even dire (waiting for response, being rejected, the superviser then realising that s/he was only a substitute).
I do not know you, but my hypothesis would be that you were inexperienced; but the damage is done. So, all that I can recommend is that you should consider whether, ignoring for a moment the quality of the university (which is the reason you want to leave), you would like to work with that supervisor and on the topics s/he represents, all other aspects of the positions on offer being equivalent. Reflecting on that may help you make up your mind.

"You should have been cautious with your word": perhaps, but more so, I think the professor should not have tried to exploit desperation and lack of knowledge. If I was reviewing a potential new student/employee/etc. and I was fully informed of this situation (assuming the student breaks their word), I would never judge them negatively for this.

@cliffab I did indicate that ("might have put you under pressure"). However, also professors are human and the fact that s/he was disappointed about the previous student leaving her hanging made him/her anxious to keep this one; and perhaps it's an inexperienced prof, either. It is very difficult to make a judgement of ethics (rather than wisdom) in this case without further information.

the professor may not have meant to be unkind. But they are still responsible for putting the applicant in an extremely unfair situation.

As a bit of a side note, the fact that the professor is worried about students abruptly stopping working with them and their solution is to ask the students to further restrict their own choices as a solution is a very bad sign. You cannot blame an uninformed, unsure applicant for not recognizing the problems in the moment.

@CliffAB has a point with his warning sign. So the OP should scout his original prospective supervisor carefully ("Caveat Doctor"), independently of whether the other options go through.


text:
IEEE in-text citation with page number
Is the syntax used in this tex.stackexchange answer valid?
The asker wants to cite a specific page in a single reference and uses the format:

Some assertion [1, p. 23].

Meaning reference number 1 and page 23 of that document.

What do you think might be wrong with it?

@user2768 I have never seen it before. Some sources differ on the syntax. For example reference 1 and page 23 might be displayed like [1: 23].

\cite[info]{key} is standard LaTeX. You can put what you like for info, e.g., you may use \S1, where 1 is the section number; pp1-3, where 1 is the first page and 3 is the last page; p1, where page 1 is the only page; some other style. Your choice of journal may specify some precise usage.

Is the syntax used in this tex.stackexchange answer valid?

Yes


text:
How often do PhD students from top universities go on the academic job market and fail to get a job?
I'm mainly interested in the field of computer science and how often students from top places simply fail to find academic jobs.

What definition of "top university" and "academic job" are you looking for here?

best info of this topic have ALUMNI organisations of that universities, or departments for student development.

In my old field, those students still suppported by faculty (those who were not counseled to go to industry instead) have pretty much a 100% placement rate. In the somewhat rare case of people failing in a first attempt, senior (famous) faculty tends to put in some calls, which resulted in jobs for everyone during my entire time in the program. I'd think CS at a top school (top 5? top 10?) will be similar.

@gnometorule what field are you in that has a virtually 100% placement rate

@user2562609: That was at a business school, across all 7 or so sub-fields (economics, finance, ..., marketing). Of course that's after losing about 50% along the way compared to numbers on day one (drop-outs, or counseled out); and some - like me - end up preferring to go to industry. It's among those making it to the job market, and wanting to be placed (that's almost all though). It was the same though at dptmts I was familiar with (e.g., stats).

This depends on too many factors for any single answer to be meaningful.

What do you mean by "fail"? Many PhD graduates decide to work outside academia -- is that "simply failing to find an academic job"? If so, that's a terrible definition of "fail"; if not, it's hard to imagine how one would collect the data you're looking for.


text:
How does one switch PhD advisors without being on a fellowship?
What's the best way to switch PhD advisors/or get a taste for working with a potential advisor without being on a fellowship?
In other words how would I convince a potential advisor to fund me + avoid burning bridges with my current advisor?
Let's say the reason for the switch is that I realized I'm not that interested in the research area my advisor is focused on now.

Do you have a good relationship with your current advisor? Is he likely to be supportive of this, or will he actively work against you on this?

Relationship is good.

What year of PhD are you?Usually in the first year there should be no problem, some PhD programs include in 1st year a round of 3 supervisions in order to chose a suitable direction.

How are you being funded?

The question lacks too many details that are relevant to give proper answer. Like the scheme of how the department finances PhD students, etc.