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Is it bad not to answer the "Tell me how you behaved in a situation of conflict with your previous supervisor" question in a PhD interview?
I had an interview where I was asked to tell the committee about a situation where I had a conflict with one of my previous supervisors.
I told them the truth, which is "I have never had a conflict with any of my supervisor before". But they gave me a couple of minutes to think carefully so maybe I remember something. I could not come up with an idea.
Is it bad not to answer this question? In other words, should I have been not honest and make up a story?
How much of an effect can this question have on their final decision?

There were similar questions over on Workplace.SE How should I answer “Tell me about a time you had a conflict at work” if I've never had conflicts?

Robert Half calls this a behavioural question

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I think it would be worse to make up a story. I'm not particularly a fan of this sort of "trap" interview question (alongside other common ones like "what's your biggest weakness?") but presumably the interviewer is asking because they are hoping to elucidate something about how you handle conflict. If you brush the question off, well, that tells them something about how you handle conflict, doesn't it? Maybe they won't mind, maybe they will care deeply, but especially because they gave you extra time they are signaling that, to them, this was an important question, and yet you weren't able to answer a question that was important to them. That said, it's impossible to measure the effect this will have on the decision. It seems unlikely that the answer to this question would be literally the only thing between you and another candidate that was interviewed, but ultimately if it is a choice between you and someone else then anything could matter as the proverbial "last straw".
Instead, in the future I would consider interpreting a question like this much more broadly. A "conflict" doesn't have to mean you came to fisticuffs, it could be any level of disagreement. If you truly have never had a disagreement with a supervisor that may not be a good thing, either, it suggests you aren't bringing anything to the table of sufficient substance to disagree about or lack the confidence to support your own ideas when a supervisor suggests a different direction.

+1. I suspect the last paragraph is key here -- it's one thing to have never had a screaming match, it's quite another to have never had any disagreement or difference of opinion at all. While the decision probably won't hinge on one bad answer, the pattern (if there was one) of "I mindlessly do whatever my advisor says" could certainly swing the decision.

@cag51 Yeah, and I'd say the Workplace answer linked by a commenter above here: https://workplace.stackexchange.com/a/157289/63134 goes into a bit more depth on the likely thinking behind the question and importance of the answer.

@DanielHatton As I mention in my answer, conflict need not refer to "significant controversy".

Is it bad not to answer this question? In other words, should I have been not honest and make up a story?

There is a third option in this kind of situation: take your best guess at the purpose of the question, and then offer them some other way to get the information they're after.
In this case, the purpose of the question is most likely to explore whether you're capable of communicating and resolving such conflicts in a productive manner. So one could instead offer something like this:
"I've actually been really fortunate with my supervisor/s and we haven't had any significant conflict, but perhaps I could tell you about a conflict I had with one of my course coordinators, if that would be relevant here?"
(Or anybody else who you've had a conflict with, but the more similar to a supervisor/supervisee relationship the better.)
If that's not what they're looking for, they can clarify what the point of the question is, but this kind of approach shows a willingness on your part to work with them.
Footnote: while each question in an interview might be there for a different purpose, every question is also a de facto test of communication skills and collaboration style.
If I have to choose between working with the candidate who says "I couldn't do the thing you asked me to do, so I did nothing", and the one who says "I couldn't do the thing you asked, so I thought about what the next best thing would be, and did that instead"... I probably want to work with the latter.
Footnote #2: since none of us are perfect at divining the intent of such questions, especially in the pressure of an interview, it is important to phrase this as an offer (note the "if that would be relevant?") rather than assuming this is the correct interpretation and going straight on to answer one's own version of the question.

excellent answer: I could have used this approach myself in the past

Or the conflict you had in your last interview because of the stupid questions! Or the conflict at your current job which is why you have to endure this interview. "You want conflict? I give you conflict!"

Agree that it’s an excellent answer. I’d add that the ability to be asked a question and divine and address not only its literal meaning but also the deeper intent behind the question is an extremely valuable skill in its own right that’s useful in research, teaching, and many other contexts (e.g., answering questions on stack exchange!). Doing what this answer suggests would be a great way to demonstrate that skill and score additional points.

This question is designed to ask you how you deal with conflict. It's a standard interview question outside of academia, and it can be very important in hiring decisions. Your interviewers have adapted it to an academic setting in a narrower-than-usual way - outside of academia, the question would just be "How do you deal with conflict", specifically to avoid the situation you're in. The "your supervisor" version may also be intended to reveal how intellectually independent you are, by giving you a chance to talk about a time when you realised something your supervisor didn't believe.
The correct answer is to describe a time when you convinced your supervisor of something. That is, think of a time when you had an idea that your supervisor initially didn't think would work, but you eventually convinced them (or they eventually let you try it despite thinking it wouldn't work, and it did). Explain what your idea was, why your supervisor didn't like it, what you agreed on, and how that vindicates you. This shows that 1) you have your own, good ideas, 2) that you can argue for them, and 3) that you can listen to other people's input and take it on board.

or even if their idea wasn't vindicated, at least they independently came to a hypothesis that was testable... it didn't have to work, but it should at least have been an interesting idea with far-reaching implications if it were to have been proven to be true and replicable. there's value in disproving your own interesting (but wrong) ideas. the mores would then amount to: "I disagreed with my supervisor, but was able to coordinate with them in a way that allowed me to disprove my idea, which was educational and enriching" or some B.S. like that. they will eat that up like candy. nomnom

"I realized that although I may have fresh, new ideas to present to the academic community, having access to the knowledge of experienced supervisors is invaluable" and blah blah blah

That depends on the interviewer. They might just be looking for ability to generate ideas and humility to accept when they're wrong, or they might also be looking for ability to have good ideas.

+1, if nothing else they were probably shocked the OP was caught offguard by such a stereotypical interview question.

You (like most people) have a very high bar for what is called conflict. Especially if it was solved amicable. And how it was solved is what the interviewer wants to hear. So lower that bar until you find a conflict. Let me start with the lowest possible bar (and increase):

One time my supervisor wanted to eat lunch with me and proposed canteen X, while I wanted to go to canteen Y, I ...
I prepared the draft for my first paper, but my supervisor thought it should be revised substantially, I ...
When discussing research directions/implementations my supervisor had a different idea/didnt like my idea, I ....

These things have to be thought out before the interview, look for the biggest (resolved) conflict you can find, and tell it (if you look good how you solved it, otherwise pick another conflict)

This is something that stumped me when I first started interviewing for jobs — I figured they asked questions because they wanted the answers. So I gave short, factual answers. I've had to learn that interviewing is much more like an improv game, where they give you a prompt and you talk for a few minutes about it.
Every question you answer is an opportunity to show something about yourself. The factual information matters, of course — they're taking notes, so don't lie — but what's going to stick with them afterward is what talking with you felt like. They're going to forget the facts (since they can reread their notes later), and they'll just be left with that impression. You're painting a portrait of yourself with your words.
Given that, saying, "I don't have an answer," is possibly the worst answer. Not only are you not giving them the information that they (nominally) asked for, you're also passing up an opportunity to talk about yourself!
So when you get a question like this, what they're really saying is, "Talk to us about conflict." Anything you have on the subject is fair game, as long as you're showing how you approach conflict — e.g., how you get along with difficult people, how you de-escalate, or how you try to understand different viewpoints. I'd take the specifics of "with your supervisor" as a suggestion. If you have something, great! Otherwise, start widening the search criteria until you do have something. If not a supervisor, maybe a senior colleague? Coauthor? Instructor? And if you haven't had Conflict (with a big C), what about disagreements? Intense discussions? Misunderstandings?
In the end, I think what's most important is just to talk and be earnest. Make it a conversation. You're helping them to understand who you are and why they should like you, not filling out a form letter.

Giving just some answer will make me continue interview but will not leave good impression. When I ask a question, I expect question to be understood and candidate try to answer as good as possible for them. Doesn't matter if it is exactly what I have expected. But attempt to give clear, conscious and honest answer as much as it is possible, leaves good impression in me.

Impossible to predict, actually. But the question seems a bit strange. I wonder how they expect to get truthful answers to such a "gotcha" question. Perhaps it was just somebody with a strange idea.
Asking for how you might behave in a hypothetical situation might be different, but still strange.
Hopefully it won't affect you at all. But if it does, then you might take it as a warning and go elsewhere.

I don't agree that a question about conflict is a "gotcha question." Every relationship involves conflict, including professional relationships. No two people agree on everything all the time. But, being professionals, we're expected to resolve conflict in a professional way. And we should be able to explain how we do that (preferably with examples).

@ChrisBouchard as a person in the OP's shoes, I would also disagree that every relationship involves conflict in the popular understanding of the term. Maybe this is field dependent, but any disagreement usually is due to asymmetric information between the parties or some misunderstanding, so it is always easy to figure out what causes the disagreement and resolve it. E.g., I assume that I'm missing something, if my advisor disagrees with me, or I need more arguments to back my claim. Do we call a discussion that goes through various facts and ideas a conflict? Seems like "gotcha" to me.

@runr It sounds to me like, because you've become skilled at resolving conflict before it becomes a problem, you are missing that the conflict existed in the first place. Not everyone is able to reason and discuss their way out of disagreements successfully, and that's a skill this interviewer is presumably looking for. Like you, I personally believe that most conflict is a combination of differing goals, values, information, etc. Still, being able to apply that belief and actually resolve conflict is a real skill.

Actually, it's a "gotcha" because no matter how you answer your honesty about it could be questioned. A person who has had a conflict is not a neutral commentator. Someone who has had no conflicts (or says so) might raise eyebrows in many situations. If I got such a question, I might consider it a red flag, as I said. I've worked for some pretty dysfunctional department heads and deans (not a neutral observer).

@Buffy Again, I say conflict is a normal and natural part of professional life. It's not negative to have conflict! Everyone has different goals and methods, and that leads to conflict — literally different values and desired outcomes. Conflict only becomes negative if it's resolved in a negative way. We're having a conflict right now! And that's ok.

I don't question that it's normal. I question that third parties are asking about it in a hiring scenario. Asking about how a candidate might handle a hypothetical is different. They aren't personally involved.  But I wouldn't want to trigger someone who had a terrible experience: "Oh, I was viciously attacked and cried for five months and spent a fortune on a psychiatrist." oops.

@Buffy Whether a suitably dysfunctional interviewer could turn this question against you? Of course, but that's true for just about anything you could ask in an interview. I can only speak to what it means in general, and I don't think interviewers are dysfunctional in general.

@ChrisBouchard The first time I sat on a selection panel was a real eye-opener for me. From the interviewee's side it's easy to see it as an adversarial process where the interviewer is looking for an opportunity to strike. But in reality... as an interviewer, I want to hire somebody! (Usually more somebodies than the budget will allow me to hire.) Playing gotcha games is not only toxic, it works directly against what I'm there to do. No doubt there are toxic people out there who do abuse the process, but I agree that it's not typical IME.

It's an incredibly common interview question, to the point that it is basically a stereotype like "what's your biggest weakness".  Maybe it's unusual to ask for academia but certainly not in business.  How people handle conflict is pretty important.

Actually, it's a "gotcha" because no matter how you answer your honesty about it could be questioned. This is true for all sorts of questions asked on interviews.  Most interviews/interviewers are terrible at accomplishing their stated goals.  Being good at interviewing is rarely the same as being good at your job.  It is unfortunate but you play the hand you are dealt, and being prepared for these sorts of highly predictable questions is part of that.

@eps So common that this list of 27 common interview questions has two variants of it! (Q9 and 15).

Re. honesty: not being telepathic, as an interviewer I can't easily tell whether candidates are lying when they answer a question of this kind. But the same goes for a hypothetical. What I can tell from their answer, honest or otherwise, is whether they at least know what a good approach for dealing with conflict would look like.

This question is standard and not gotcha. Conflict is normal, how you handle it is important. I would neither like candidate that avoids conflict on all costs by holding back their opinion nor a candidate that use everything to create conflicts.
It is also perfectly fine if there were no big conflicts especially people with little experience.
In my case, for over 15 years I had no real conflicts in a sense of a real conflict. But then I had.
I can share this situation in an interview, tell how things went, how I would try to react in a better way in case such situation arised in the future.
Also I can share about situations of disagreement, which is sort of a conflict. This would also count as a reasonable answer if I interview.
This question is also an opportunity to show that you are a honest, confident and have the ability to learn from your own experience. There surely is risk as well that the interviewers will not like you for whatever reason. But then maybe you don't want to work there.

What they are asking is: "Everyone has conflicts and different ideas. Tell me about how you communicate and negotiate with other people when these conflicts arise".
They weren't asking about you and your professor, but how you interact professionally. The better way to answer is to come up with an example how you had a conflict with a fellow student who you were doing a big project on, or conflict at work outside of Academia.
Any big time conflict and how you resolved it would have been acceptable. Something like "Well, me and my professor got along rather well, we sometimes had small disagreements, but let me tell you about when I was doing research with a fellow student and had a huge conflict that almost cost us months of work..."
These questions are asking you how do you operate, how do you organize, how do you communicate, how do you resolve problems. More people than you'd imagine don't keep notes, or schedules, or have any regard for their colleagues, and the interviewers are trying to weed out those people.

Yes, it is bad, because they think your answer to the question will elicit relevant information about you, and declining to answer is almost always considered a completely negative score.
On the other hand, it is not a question I would directly ask as a seasoned and professional interviewer. Perfectly sane people are often stumped and embarrassed by this kind of very confrontational (and boringly generic off-the-shelf) questioning.
So you were not interviewed by a very professional team, which I am afraid is the norm in academia.
A professional interviewer (usually the HR representative, who is in many cases the only one in the room with high-quality training in personnel interview techniques) will only proceed to "how did you handle this" when in the course of a previous answer the candidate brings something up that hints in this direction.

I've answered similar questions with general principles on how to manage conflict, rather than describing specific cases. One principle is that prevention is better than cure. ;)


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Where to put acknowledgments in a math paper
I have seen acknowledgments in math papers in two locations: at the end of the introduction, and at the end just before the bibliography. Which location is preferred and why?

I suspect it depends on the particular journal's format.

Unless a journal has a preference, either is fine. The important thing is to include it, not its location.
Including it early gives a bit of immediate context to a reader, but probably not enough to affect their later reading.
However, if the ack section is extensive, it might be better at the end so as to avoid interrupting the flow.

Unless a journal has a preference - This makes it sound like most math journals don't have preferences, but my very unscientific impression was that most do.  (In fact I was a bit disoriented by one journal where sometimes the acknowledgements would be in the intro and sometimes not.)

The purpose of the acknowledgements is, well, to acknowledge people who helped you — also in the sense of making those people feel acknowledged. Now ask yourself, if you were being acknowledged in a colleague’s paper, would you feel more acknowledged if you saw your name mentioned in the  introduction, a relatively heavily-trafficked part of the paper, or at the very end of the paper, a part of the paper that many readers never get to?
Conclusion: putting the acknowledgements in the introduction makes them more prominent, and is generally preferable. If I was acknowledging an abusive adviser who didn’t help me at all but where for some reason I felt compelled to acknowledge them, I might bury the acknowledgements at the end of the paper. But I can’t think of other situations where that would seem like the better choice. (Edit: well, one such possible situation is if the paper is very short. In that case, it probably doesn’t matter where you put the acknowledgements.)

I also prefer at the end of the intro, and I would add that most readers don't get beyond the introduction, let alone to the end of the paper.

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Does PowerPoint presentation require in-text referencing if there is a written script?
I have to make a PowerPoint presentation for one of my subjects and it requires a written script. I will be referencing on my written script including in-text referencing. However, I’m unsure when it comes to the PowerPoint if it requires the same in-text referencing or a reference list at the very end. The thing is there will be several references and the assignment requires specifically that only 8 slides are allowed each with the intended question I’m required to talk about in each slide. I’m confused because how am I meant to include all my references and at the same fit everything into that one slide. My referencing style will be Apa 7th edition

This is a question for whoever set you this assignment

The answer depends significantly on what your professor wants. The straightforward answer is to simply ask your professor. However, erring on the side of caution should not hurt.
You could simply add in-text citations on each slide. If you have text on your slides making claims, you can add citations right there. Then, you can have your final slide be a works cited page.
Another way to cite is to say "according to source, claim". By specifically mentioning sources when you speak, you can cite them verbally and fix this issue. This would be easier, as the audience is more likely to pick up on your sources, and you can cite claims even if they are not written on your slides.
Even if you did not need to cite sources, there would presumably be no harm in doing so.

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Google Scholar intitle and OR search combination
I would like to use the following type of search in Google Scholar:

virtual reality and retention intitle:"Visual cues" OR "cueing" OR "signal" OR "signalling"

Thus, I want to search for Google Scholar entries that have "Visual cues" OR "cueing" OR "signal" OR "signalling" in their title. However, this search does not seem to work as intended as it leads to more than 40,000 results which clearly do not all include the keywords in the title: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=virtual+reality+and+retention+intitle%3A%22Visual+cues%22+OR+%22cueing%22+OR+%22signal%22+OR+%22signalling%22&btnG=.
Is there a different syntax to achieve my desired search?
Thanks in advance for your help!

I think the intitle keyword only applies to "Visual cues" in your search.

What part is "virtual reality and retention" in your search?

virtual reality and retention  intitle:"Visual cues" OR intitle:"cueing" OR intitle:"signal" OR intitle:"signalling"


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A potential undergraduate research guide seems to have stopped replying
I'm taking this (i.e., officially enrolled in) independent research course which functions like any other class necessarily except that it's, well, independent and you can do the work you're assigned on your own time and you're graded based on an unofficial rubric.
I'm working with a Professor in the Pharmaceutical Chemistry department and his work is right up my alley. Contrary to the usual hard time undergraduates have garnering opportunities to work in research labs, this professor actually offered (without any nudging from me) me a position in his lab and his exact words were, and I quote "...if you're game for doing some experimental work in the Fall, we can discuss time commitment per week, who you'd be working with and what specific problems you'd be working on..." and even told me that since I'd be helping, I would be made a Co-author on this paper.
He then proceeded to send me an unpublished manuscript that he'd just send out for a peer-review, for me to read and formulate my thoughts on. Once I was done, I was to let him know and we could then schedule another meeting. This was on the 26th of March, 2021.
Up until this point, we'd been communicating on a semi-regular basis but not enough that I'd have a grasp on his emailing patterns. I reached back out to him on the 31st of March, telling him I was done with the paper and had my questions ready for whenever he would like to set up a meeting. I then sent him a follow-up email on the 2nd of April (a Friday)
Today is the 8th of April and it's been a week and he still hasn't gotten back to me. I do know that he was supposed to get his second shot of the vaccine on the 5th of April, but that still doesn't explain why he hasn't reached back out.
Obviously, I'm worried about the class I'm taking with him and the grade I'll be assigned, but more importantly, I really think this is a great opportunity and I'd love to work with him outside of taking this class and honestly, any thoughts anyone here has on why this is happening and whether I should be worried, let me know!

Some people react badly to one or the other of the shots. Patience is suggested unless you have some critical issue. A week in academic time can be pretty short, actually.

Sounds like you two have different schedules and urgencies.

It was Easter at the beginning of the week. In some countries it's common to take a few days or a week off work around this time. It's only been a week since you last emailed him -- give it a few more days at least.


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Producing solo work
For context I am in pure mathematics and I just started my first postdoc.
I am worried that I cannot produce solo work. I have a fair number of papers so far which are all collaborations with peers and/or some more senior people in my field, and I think all these are decent papers, and that I contributed substantially to each of these. I would like to produce some work on my own however, but I feel that all the problems that I can pin-point are either too easy to be considered a good result or too hard for me to address.
Has anyone here struggled with similar problems in the past? Any advice for such a situation, or how to build the skill of working solo? Not having single authored work makes me feel uncomfortable and less confident about my skills.

Do any of your papers build upon prior papers of yours?  Have you written a paper with some coauthors and then written another paper that built upon it with other coauthors?  When you attend talks by other people in your area, can you come up with good questions to ask that are about potential future work?  Do you have any ideas for new approaches to any of the bigger problems in your field?

I don't think having solo papers is necessarily that important (though it is a problem if all your papers are with the same few collaborators, which doesn't seem to be the case for you).  However, your question does point to a different problem which will eventually affect you if you don't develop your skills, which is that a tenure-track (or at least a tenured) professor at a PhD granting department needs to come up with good problems for their grad students to work on.

I think it would be useful to know why you think that you want to write solo papers? I believe that out of the 70-or-so publications I have, only one or two are solo papers. I just don't find it particularly interesting to work on my own -- I much more enjoy working with others, and I think that there is nothing wrong with this approach. (Nor has anyone ever "encouraged" me to write more solo papers.)

@AlexanderWoo to answer your questions, i haven't build upon the papers i have so far, this is what i plan to do. About talks, the plain answer is: sometimes, and about the big problems, I don't have concrete ideas, only thoughts around these

@WolfgangBangerth even though i agree with you mostly, i think i need to write solo papers to feel like I'm capable of doing research on my own, and at the same time prove that to the rest of the community I guess. It's mostly a feeling I suppose

I am confident that "the rest of the community" by and large has very little interest in tracking how many solo papers you have. I mean, do you often find yourself scrutinizing how many solo papers a given researcher has and judging them based on this? If so, you should probably stop. If not, why do you imagine that other people are doing this?

@AdamPřenosil I sometimes look to see how many solo papers people I'm interested in have written. It seems to me a legitimate thing to wonder about, and provides some useful ideas about their approach to research and their level of independence. (I also realize it's not a perfect metric and should not be relied on as an indicator of some kind of absolute truth about the person; no metric is. But being imperfect does not mean it is completely useless information.) Since you say that I "should probably stop", can you explain what's wrong with my interest?

@DanRomik I am sure that one can figure out many things from someone's patterns of collaboration (such as overreliance on some senior figure). What I was trying to suggest is that I don't think much of this information comes from looking at the number of authors only. If you imagine looking at the list of publications of someone you don't know where all the information about co-authors except their number has been erased, I would find it hard to use this limited information to distinguish solid researchers who like to collaborate from researchers who lack independence.

@DanRomik (Though in the other direction, a solo paper in a Very Good Journal presumably does count as confirmation of research independence.) But sure, if you are finding "number of solo papers" a useful metric in practice, then who am I to say you should stop. The advice was meant for someone who seems overly concerned about their number of solo papers though their patterns of collaboration seem fine.

I would like to produce some work on my own however, but I feel that all the problems that I can pin-point are either too easy to be considered a good result or too hard for me to address.

Have you actually tried to do solo work? I can think of three scenarios depending on your answer to this.

If you haven't tried to do solo work, then the answer is simple: try it! What I mean is, don't just spend time agonizing over your lack of solo publications and ruling out candidate problems you can think of as being either too easy to be interesting, or too hard to be solvable. Pick an actual, concrete problem, and spend actual, concrete (and significant) time trying to solve it, and writing up the solution or any ideas you come up with. What sometimes happens is you don't solve the original problem, but you come up with something else that's interesting and possibly publishable. That's why working on very difficult problems, or even on very easy problems, isn't always the waste of time that some people imagine it to be.

If you did try to do solo work, look back on what happened and consider the possibility that you only think you tried, and you didn't really Try with a capital T. Was your attempt half-hearted? Did you give up too easily because you found the problem too hard or headache-inducing? Or did you get bored quickly because you found the problem too trivial, ruling it out as something that wouldn't interest anyone or that you would be embarrassed to publish? (Note: I'm not saying that your judgment in either of these cases would necessarily be wrong; some problems are too hard, and other problems are too boring. I'm merely asking you to critique your thought process, looking for places where your judgment may be worth revisiting.)

If you did Try (with a capital T) to do solo work, and you still didn't succeed, then... you should know that that's actually pretty normal! This is actually what happens around 90% of the time when I try to do solo work. (Those 10% of the times when I did succeed led to my solo publications, which represent about half of my entire research output.) So the thing to remember is that doing successful research in mathematics is just really hard. You need to try many times to get one success. And each individual attempt should typically require a real, serious, concerted effort.

A final thought: in my experience, some people are technically brilliant and can do very good collaborative work, but lack the sort of creative spark that can lead them to identify the sort of "tasty" problems to work on that lead to good solo work. So as others said, it may be useful to keep in mind that doing good solo work isn't entirely necessary to be a successful researcher or to have a good academic career.

It is hard to judge the difficulty of a math problem before you attack it. Some things that seem easy are hard and the opposite is also true.
But there is no reason to work on a single problem at a time. Having a few problems "in progress" is a good thing and switching between them is a good approach based on how the brain works.
Perhaps you could write up drafts of the "easy" problems and show them to a few colleagues for comment on impact. Perhaps they will find them non-trivial, in which case they might be worth submitting while you work on the harder things. The feedback you get will, in any case, help you firm your judgement on the quality of those problems and solutions.
But, collaboration is a good thing in math. Ask Erdős or any of his collaborators.

Alongside his extremely prolific collaboration, Erdős wrote over 400 solo papers.

This is a stage that one can pass through. I had relatively few solo papers early in my career, and the ones I did have were served up to me on a silver platter by my mentors. (I did the work myself, but they gave me the project ideas in a very well-defined form.) Like you, I worried about my ability to work in a self-directed way. What I found eventually was that this skill kind of develops on its own with time.
Keep doing research, and keep talking to senior people around you about research problems. Keep thinking up your own project ideas, and gradually they will get better. i.e. they'll be worth doing and also approachable with your toolkit. (It helps that your toolkit will also grow.)
Another thing that helped me was being forced to write grant proposals. I couldn't just ask my mentors what I should put in the proposal, so I had to come up with future research questions myself. My first couple of proposals were very bad. But I got better at it, and occasionally my proposals even get funded.
These days, producing solo papers isn't strictly necessary to have a successful research career. However, the ability to identify important but doable research problems IS important, whether you end up working on these problems by yourself or with others. And this ability comes with time. One day you'll realize you have too many ideas for projects, and not enough time to work on them all.

Not only with time, but specifically with developing concentrated expertise.  Considering the OP hasn't yet written a paper that builds upon one of their prior papers, they haven't quite gotten to this point yet.  This isn't unusual for someone who has just finished their PhD, even among those whose PhDs were successful enough for them to obtain a postdoc position.

Well, currently, multi-author papers in math seem to be the norm, unlike some decades ago. In part, this is surely due to the ease of long-distance communication "in modern times". :)
And, yes, it is generally easier and happier to not necessarily work in a vacuum, but, rather, have someone else to bounce ideas off.
Nevertheless, when you'd come up for tenure, having no solo papers provides a target for anyone wanting to argue against you.

Completely agree

The last sentence is true, but people who want to argue against someone will always find a reason to do so; so I don't think this is a good reason to strive for solo papers.


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Author problem with Google scholar
I've just published a paper on arxiv and then manually added this article to my google scholar profile. Which is fine, and shows the article in my google scholar profile. But when I search for my paper in the google scholar (the search link) and click on my name (A Rezaei) it shows someone else's profile. Will google automatically fix this or should I do something?

@GoodDeeds Yes. If you check my profile you can see the Verified email at mail.sbu.ac.ir at the top.

Sorry, I missed that. I think this has been asked several times here as well as on Google support forums, but I am yet to see any answer. Looking at related problems with Google Scholar, it seems quite likely to me that there is no fix, unless it happens automatically. (Some past answers suggest contacting Google, but their contact page for Scholar seems to be no longer active.) Please post an update if you find a solution!

The issue also seems to be that your paper also appears in the other author's profile, so Google may not be sure who the true author is.


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No response after PhD interview with good feedback + follow-up emails
I interviewed ~1 month ago for a PhD position at Institution A. The first email contacts went very well - really quick and nice replies from the PI. I had the interview which went well - as the PI told at the end of the interview and he gave me a comparison with other candidates he had already interviewed.
He told me to expect news from him at the end of the week but unfortunately, I did not get any. So I sent a follow-up email 1 week after the interview, with no reply (~3 weeks ago)
I received another offer from Institution B - a really good one but I still prefer the one at institution A. I need to give my decision ASAP (paperwork, relocation etc). So I sent another email to ask for any outcome to PI from insitution A and to tell that I have received an offer elsewhere.
It's been several days with no news again.
I am quite disappointed. It's okay if I am rejected but well, I think it is important to end things in a good way.
Anyone has an idea of what's happening ?
Thank you !

The answers are good, but I wanted to add an extra point: consider if you really want to work with a professor who is so unresponsive.

You can totally send them an email with a deadline when you will accept the other offer. That could be perceived negatively, but chances are, it will either help you or you have been declined already anyways.

I'd go with B here

It's fairly common in academia that you don't hear back after an interview if they won't hire you, more so if the PI appears to be acting unprofessionally as a rule: they shouldn't compare you to your face to other candidates.
One could go over why that is so, but it's best to simply shrug and accept the offer that is definite.

It shouldn't be common, of course.

Oh, I did not realize that it was unprofessional to compare to other candidates during the interview.
Really sad to hear it is quite common not to hear back ...
I read on some thread the "it is not over until it is over" but now I am considering that a "no response" may be a "no". I can wait a few days then. Thanks !

It is impossible to tell what is happening unless you get feedback or can read the mind of the professor. It could be anything (thinking of only one dimension, though there others) from "the professor is a jerk" to "they are fighting desperately to get you accepted but it hasn't happened.
You've told them that you have other offers, which is good. It would be better to tell them about your decision timelines if you have one. Perhaps you can still do that. If they are no longer considering you, then there is no downside to persistence as long as you remain polite.
If the decision point on the other offer isn't close, then you can afford to wait, otherwise choose the best offer you have at the moment a decision is necessary.

One thing that "might be happening" is just the scale. Perhaps there are a lot of candidates with a lot of competition. Good luck.

Thanks. What do you mean by "to get you accepted" ? Are you talking about HR ? Actually I do not understand what are the steps backstage... May you help me ? After having read the Institution website, it does not really help ...

Sometimes there will be negotiation between professors about who to accept if there isn't money enough for all desirable candidates. This will be invisible to the candidates.

It could also be that the professor is sick. Who knows.

@CarstenS, yes, there are many dimensions. A crashed mail server...


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How can I cite Intel developer manual?
I'm trying to cite Intel Developer Manual. I'm a bit confused how should I cite it? Should I cite the Whole website with the link and access date? Or Should I cite a particular chapter that I used? What is the correct approach with BibTeX?

You cite it like anything else, by its title, its author, its publication date, etc.

In the bibliography, you can cite a manual as a publication, e.g.,
Intel (2016) Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manual: Instruction Set Reference, A-Z, Volume 2 (2A, 2B, 2C & 2D).
In the main body, cite the relevant chapters, e.g., \cite[Chapter~3]{IntelManual}. Use the @manual tag in your BibTex file.


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How to become a competitive candidate for grad school after a ruined integrated master's degree?
I am 22 years old, about to graduate (delayed by one semester because I failed in two courses) with a dual major (one of which is an integrated Master's degree in a Physics, and the other a Bachelor's degree in stem) by the end of next year with very poor grades (between 5 and 6 on a 10 point scale, certainly below average at my uni, and very bad overall.)
I have no research projects, no LoRs, and quite frankly, I am not skilled enough in the subject I would like to pursue research in. I don't even have a concrete idea of what I want to do research in at this point.
I came in to university with a fondness for Physics and a dream to conduct research and get into academia (though I was equally excited about being a lecturer, or doing a mix of research and teaching).
Then 2020 happened, and I did not/could not study well, and my mental health worsened. Unfortunately, this still rings true as 2023 is about to end. My mental health was bad before 2020 as well, but things just got worse. I wasn't able to study well, I wasn't able to meet deadlines, and professors who took me under their wing for research projects end up leaving me because I was not working and ghosting them. Eventually I ended up essentially not studying Physics at all, even though I wanted to. (Mental illness, etc). I am terrible at the subject, and have no skills as such.
Today, I have two semesters before I graduate. For the next semester, a professor (senior prof. with administrative posts too, not an active researcher, but a kind human nonetheless.) at my university has agreed to supervise my master's thesis. I will have additional mentorship from one of his grad students working on the same topic.
I hope to do good work in the thesis, so that I may get a good LoR from the prof. and also to confirm my interest in the subject and my wish to continue with research (which I assume is still there, it does feel like that). Maybe also publish and in general build a good work relationship for once at university.
In the next year, I will also have to prepare for and give PhD/Master's entrance and fellowship exams (some are in Febuary itself), that are in essence like GRE but way more important for PhD admissions in India. I will also be giving the GRE and TOEFL, etc for grad school applications abroad.
And prepare some more industry relevant skills for the very likely outcome of me not getting a PhD or second Master's offer anywhere.
That is a lot to do, but I hopeful about doing it.
I have never e-mailed any professor outside asking for work or research projects before, and I have essentially no contacts in academia now (like work contacts), no publications and a very precarious situation.
Is my hope of getting into a good PhD or (second) Master's program, in say the next one-two years, justified ? Or am I being irrational about this. I often fear that I am way too behind for it to be possible, but I don't know.
In general, what can someone do to make themselves a competitive grad school candidate if they had a very poor undergraduate education ?

‘Is my hope of getting into a good PhD or (second) Master's program …’ What is your personal motivation for doing this?

a kind of liking for the subject and a general 'interest' in studying and research. i would like to get into academia, that is my ideal. at this point i have no back up career other than something like becoming a high school teacher, though that is not a good backup. my interest in this field may have something to do with it being on the intersection of both my degrees, but i have not taken many courses in it, and definitely have no completed research projects, no experience.

and at this point i also don't know who to apply to, or ask for working on a project because i am about to graduate and so am busy with my thesis and no one will pay me because i am not that competent yet.

my interest is very immature. but to be honest then i have no interest in anything else either. i tried studying for a different kind of job but something makes me want to come back to studying things related to these subjects, i ended up leaving studying for the other job, and trying to get back to studying the subject and preparing for GRE and my thesis that begins formally in jan, etc

for my thesis, which is not directly in this field but that i am doing just to do some good work and earn a genuine recommendation letter from this supervisor who is a nice person and then use their referral and even connections to apply for other positions

I have no research projects, no LoRs, and quite frankly, I am not skilled enough in the subject I would like to pursue research in. I don't even have a concrete idea of what I want to do research in at this point.

Then you aren't really ready to begin thinking about grad school. If you want to stay in research, you find a paid position as a research assistant in one of these areas. Moving to a different university will likely be necessary, and probably even a good idea if you've had a bad time at this one.
After a few years of doing good work, you might be ready.

Is my hope of getting into a good PhD or (second) Master's program, in say the next one-two years, justified?

I would suggest this is overly optimistic. But - and I'm not in anything close to your field - plenty of people go to grad school after 2-7 years working. So a four-year break is not crazy.

To be honest, it can be said that I am not ready to begin thinking about anything at alI But I agree with you, it may take me more than a year to be ready to confidently apply anywhere.
How do I find a position as a paid research assistant though ? Do I simply cold mail to research groups and professors and ask for work ? If they are unable to fund me, would it be worthwhile to work unpaid also..

@Priya You look for job postings, just like any other job. Like I said, you may have to move for a good fit. Cold emails are not a good way of finding these positions (unless they are in engineering, I could be wrong). Absolutely never work unpaid, especially once you have graduated.

Ahai why do you say so ? Initially, it may be difficult for me convince anyone to pay me to work for them.

@Priya What do you mean? The university is benefiting from your labor, so you should get paid. You would never volunteer to work for a company for free, so why would you volunteer to work for a university for free. Besides, you need a job to live. You will not do a good job at your RA job if you also have another full-time job. Plus, it teaches professors they can get people to do things for free that should be paid.

i guess this could be taken to chat, but as someone who just could not get enough contacts and do good work in their undergrad, how do i convince anyone to hire me / i get the ethics here. but then should i simply leave the field because it is unlikely that anyone will hire me

i may be catastrophising, but yes. is there no other option available to someone in my situation

@Priya I'm suggesting you work in the field for a few years. What else do you want?


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Similar working paper by senior professors, should I worry?
I am a PhD student who just finished my master’s degree. I had a master’s thesis which can be further developed during my PhD studies, but recently I found that some senior professors are also working on similar topics. Their working paper is not available online, and I only saw an abstract in a very recent online workshop after I submitted my thesis.
My thesis is available online now. I have courteously reached out to one of the professors and sent him my paper. He also kindly replied and compared our work. To be fair, their work is more sophisticated than mine, and they are ready to submit it to a journal for review.
My questions are: can I continue to work on my project or should I just give it up since someone else have similar ongoing work? Also, since the professors have worked on their project for two or three years and probably presented it in other occasions (which I can’t find any trace online though), should I worry about the novelty in my thesis?

@Trunk: Those may be your reasons for disliking and downvoting the question, but those are not good reasons for voting to close it.

It seems likely that the others will beat you to publication of something similar to what you might do. Whether that matters or not for purposes of your degree depends on your advisor and your university. Often enough, parallel work is acceptable as long as your contributions are known. So, you need to have a serious conversation with your advisor.
One option (advisor permitting) is to collaborate with the others, carving out some niche in the overall problem that forms the basis of your dissertation. Another is to try to leapfrog over the work of the other group, extending what you and they have done, rather than just trying to follow them. A third option is to try to finish quickly, before they publish, but being sure that you don't plagiarize based on what you have learned.
Abandoning might be necessary, but it should be the last option. Even then, you may have learned enough about the general area of your study that you can recover quickly enough.
But have a serious talk with your advisor so that you know the options. Getting scooped can be, but isn't always, devastating. Good luck.

Thanks for your advice! I don’t think that my idea necessarily got scooped though, as the Professor also explained how they formed their argument in the correspondence. It seems that we worked on similar topic but looked at different angles (the dependent variables are very different). It’s just that I might not be able to pursue the idea further, and I am not sure if they are willing to cite my thesis when they publish.

How can they not cite you once they know it exists? They have to cover other relevant work. The only way out would be, that their paper was accepted prior to your communication.

This is definitely an area where your advisor can and should guide you.
In addition to this answer's very good suggestions, if you develop a good working relationship with the professor who has mailed you back, you might even go so far as to ask that person to be on your committee.  But that's a thought to keep in the back of your mind for a future date.
In general, though, different groups working on similar topics don't always publish identical results.  You've seen this for yourself, where your main arguments and methodologies are different from the other group's.  A good question to ask your advisor's opinion is, "Are the differences here significant enough to warrant separate publications?"  They might well be, which would be a good sign for continuing your work.

I don't think that the outcome of a master thesis has to be competitive with results from a group of senior researchers. Congratulations that you have found similar results, this shows that you are in a good position to make relevant research (with regard to your PhD thesis and to your research community).
You have to mention the results from the other groups in a potential publication. Highlight matching results and differences in the approaches.
For virtually every PhD thesis, both student and his/her advisor are constantly monitoring for other groups publishing papers in the same area. You always include the possibility to adjust your research idea - either because others seems to be too close or (more often) because your idea does not lead to results.


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Oral exams in mathematics at university
When I went to school, I actually liked mathematics a lot because I never had to study for it outside of class. If I understood a concept, I could apply it, and practicing in the lectures was mostly enough.
In university, though, things changed a bit because I can't just go to a lecture and be fine anymore. You have to push yourself through it by doing lots of problems, reading, and learning the proofs from the lectures. Thinking deeply about everything, etc.
An unfortunate challenge I face is that regardless of whether you do all that and "actually" understand things, it's not enough to get the best possible grade (even though this "actual understanding" is the most important, and without it, nothing else can help you improve more).
To excel in an exam, you have to prepare specifically for the exam. For oral exams, I use flashcards and do well, but I dislike everything that is repetitive. It's such an unnatural way of learning, and I hate doing it.
In written exams, we have to solve exercises, while in oral exams, we have to reproduce the lecture. That is a huge difference in difficulty. I enjoyed solving exercises much more than learning the lecture by heart.
Why are oral exams about the lecture and written exams like exercises?

In the US, in my experience, all exams are written. But, from instructor's viewpoint, oral exams could be more useful than written ones since one can test for deeper understanding.

Hmmm. Actually you explained it yourself prior to the final paragraph.

I don't really understand why you associate flashcards with oral exams and presumably some other method with written exams. I find this to be a very puzzling association personally.

Maybe this question is more suitable for the MathEducators.SE site. In my experience, written and oral exams don't test for the same skills (although there is significant overlap of course). An advantage of oral exams is that you can prod the student in the right direction if they get stuck at some point.

In my country we do oral exams because it requires 10 to 20 times less time from the teacher point of view. Also you see immediatly which students understood the material and who did not. However, some students are very much stressed by this so it's not a perfect solution.

@Qise Oral exams take 10 to 20 times less time for you? That seems very surprising to me. Could you give some more detail? How many students more or less? How much time for each oral exam?

@AdamPřenosil
In my experience, it's usually more effective to practice solving a variety of problems for written exams rather than focusing solely on memorizing proofs from the lectures. However, for oral exams, the lecturer often asks questions related to the theorems and proofs covered in the lecture. I sometimes become overly concerned about the possible questions I could receive, which leads me to end up memorizing everything. In such cases, I find that using flashcards is the best way to do so.

@FedericoPoloni preparation + correction of a 4-hour written exam surprisingly takes time

@Qise my past experience when I was a lecturer in an Italian university (all exams written + oral, oral basically mandatory with more than one prof + public at the time, don't know if it's still true) I spent more or less 40% of my time examining. Although I like oral exams, for all the reason told here plus the clear "no cheating possible" environment, I was quite relieved when changed to the Spanish system of almost only written exams...

@Rmano maybe I was exaggerating the 10 to 20. My opinion on the matter is still that doing oral examination is less exhausting than sitting to your desk 8 hours a day for a week to correct a written exam

@MackeyTopology So it seems like this is not an issue of oral vs. written but computational problems vs. proofs. Are you sure the problem is not with the fact that you are trying to memorize proofs using flashcards instead of trying to understand them? (I am genuinely curious how one can internalize a proof using flashcards.) Of course if the oral exam is designed to test your understanding of a proof and you instead try to simulate such understanding through rote memorization, then I am not surprised you end up investing an unreasonable amount of time on this.

I second what @AdamPřenosil has said

I never just memorize something without understanding it. There are things that I don't even have to memorize because they simply stay in your head, as you've used and seen these things in so many different contexts. However, I still think it is beneficial to repeatedly review or explain things to improve in them. It always seems like a lazy excuse when people say that if you understand it, you don't have to memorize it. (By the way, I did not want to insinuate that you are lazy or anything like that)

For example I can create a set of presentation slides on my own, but I would deliver a terrible presentation if I don't practice it at least 50 times. I can understand something on my own, but I have a hard time explaining it in front of an audience if I haven't practiced it. An exam always has to be prepared for specifically. In an oral exam, someone fires questions at you. How do you prepare for that?
I think flashcards are a very good solution for that, on top of actually understanding it.

I just wanted to comment Thet repetition is an excellent way of learning. Mastering math is not only understanding, but also practicing the techniques. And, as always, this amounts to repetition.

You need to understand the content deeply and be able to communicate that understanding.

@MackeyTopology In that case, I wonder if you're just setting unreasonable expectations for yourself. If I ask a student a question in an oral exam, I definitely do not expect them to launch without hesitation into a fluent, well-prepared, and well-rehearsed speech. I absolutely to expect them to stumble about. The aim is to get a sense of how well they understand the topic through interacting with them, not to press a button and get a rehearsed speech or a rehearsed sequences of flashcard associations.

Not a mathematician here, but Computer Science lecturer.
In my experience, oral exams benefit the student. In a written exam you're stuck with whatever questions/tasks the lecturer came up. Usually not all topics can be covered in a single exam - as a lecturer you have to select some topics and focus on those. From a student perspective this may be good or bad depending on whether your focus on topics aligned with the ones of your lecturer.
However, in an oral exam I, as a benevolent examiner, can shift the focus of the questions I pose. When I notice a student struggling in a particular topic, I usually shift attention to other topics covered in the lecture. While the student likely is still penalized for failing one area, the overall grade can still be salvaged when they excel in another one.
Similarly, you get immediate feedback on your current solution. While in a written exam you might spend a lot of time pursuing a wrong direction, in an oral exam your examiner will stop you rather quickly there. This gives you the option to rethink and maybe correct an error you made before.
Sidenote: I'm only considering the outcome with respect to grades in an exam here. In my opinion, other outcomes like an actual increase in knowledge and capabilities should already have been achieved throughout the lecture (and possibly exercises etc). An exam is only required in our day and age where everything has to be quantifiable so that someone can "objectively" compare between outcomes.

From the lecturers point of view, there is a tradeoff in effort needed. Personally, I preferred oral exams for smaller groups of students (maybe up to 20 students in a course) and written exams for larger ones. Depending on the exact nature of the exam and the number of people available for grading, written exams are easier to scale but have a higher time investment up front.
As a lecturer I also prefer to verify in an exam whether students actually grasped the underlying concepts and ideas over checking whether they memorized a set of definitions and formulae. While in a written exam it is often about the details, this big picture view is far easier to test in an oral exam. Sometimes it just takes a single what-if-question going slightly of the beaten track of the lecture to really see whether students got the main message. One of my basic principles in teaching is that details can be looked up (and hence don't have to be memorized), but understanding ideas takes time/effort and is way more helpful in the long run.

"When I notice a student struggling in a particular topic, I usually shift attention to other topics covered in the lecture. While the student likely is still penalized for failing one area, the overall grade can still be salvaged when they excel in another one." some students don't like this as it exposes that instead of not knowing one thing, they in fact don't know each of the things on that topic :)

The main advantage of an oral exam is that it is interactive. It can be used both to correct stupid mistakes and slips of tongue on the fly and to probe deeper into the student's knowledge when you need it. Also, both the student and the examiner can see quite clearly where things stand, so that no doubts or arguments about what was meant versus what was written can ensue. I find these advantages so essential that on the last (written) qualifier exams I allowed the students to check their solutions during the exam once per problem with me. I just read them until the first error or unclear place and told them where that error/place was or confirmed that the solution was correct. If there was an error they had a second attempt to solve the problem (but not to check the solution again during the test) It benefited some of them quite a lot and gave me a much clearer picture of who knew/didn't know what.
The only real disadvantage I can see is that, because of the very same interactive nature, the oral exam cannot be made completely uniform, so an evil minded or just reckless instructor can make it difficult for some people and easy for other. Administering and grading an oral exam is a skill and some sort of an art, while grading a written one is mainly an algorithmic activity: 1 point for this, 3 points for that, add/subtract/multiply the points and compute the score. Also, of course, it is more time consuming if the class size is large. Still I prefer to do it whenever possible (for instance, I did it during the COVID quarantine semesters when written exams were totally useless because you could have no control whatsoever over the possible cheating). I do not make them exhaustive: just check a few main points like the knowledge of a few random definitions and proofs of a few theorems, and, if a student wants an A, give a medium difficulty problem to solve in the end.
Just my 2 cents.

I like oral exams (both as instructor and as student), but another disadvantage is that it seems to depend much more on the student's personality (presentation skills, anxiety) than written exams.

@user111388 I would say that presentation skills are more important in a written exam: quite often the student writing is no more comprehensible than his/her speaking but you have little chance to clarify anything when looking at a written text. And if a student has even mild dyslexia (which is not uncommon among quite bright students nowadays), good luck with deciphering their submitted texts. Anxiety comes in several forms and yeah, I agree that some forms manifest themselves more when you need to maintain a conversation than when you just are writing things down.

Different forms of presentation skills between written and oral exams, I agree:)

@user111388 True, but all these setbacks happen in a controlled, educational environment. Students will be nervous and anxious, and are almost expected to be, and professors are there to assist with that part of professional development as well. After they graduate, the career consequences become more severe than just a subpar grade on a given exam. So I would argue that experiencing "unfairness" and the outcome dependence on the personality and presentation skills early is for the best.

@Lodinn: From experience, I'd say a professional context is in many way different from university exams. (There are ways where they are similar, of course.) And a student might choose a professional field where they do not need those skills so much. (And, having been in uni and industry, I found industry a more controlled field than uni. Of course, I can only compare those places where I have been.)

This is just a couple of anecdotes but they may provide some enlightenment.
My doctoral advisor (Math, in US), when he was teaching undergrad courses always used only oral exams. He was from Europe. The advantage was that it was very quick for both he and students. Five minutes was all it took to explore the knowledge of the students. Moreover he could give hints when a student stumbled a bit and could move up or down the difficulty scale quite quickly to get a good sense of the student's level of insight. He also told each student how they did at the end.
For my own part, I once had an important oral exam with a committee. I was asked a question I couldn't answer. But I was able, at the moment, to explain my reasoning and the nature of my block. The committee, I later learned, was just as impressed as if I'd answered it correctly. It was clear that I wasn't depending on memory alone, but could both develop and explain the reasoning, even if it led nowhere.

In my previous job, when we interviewed recent graduate candidates for certain roles, we gave them a problem to solve that included mathematics, economics and lot's of common sense. They had 45' preparation time for this and then had to explain their solution to the interviewer. Once I had a candidate who had done absolutely nothing. When I asked what happened he said he didn't understand the problem at all. I then suggested we did it together from the start. As soon as he understood the issue he solved the problem brilliantly and answered all my follow-up questions. We not only hired him, but he also became one of the best hires I ever did.
Had the test been written, we would  never have considered him. An oral exam is really the only way to see how well a student understands the subject and to identify excellence from mediocrity.

Yes, it's interesting that potential employers will always interview. They wouldn't spend time on that if they could discover all they need to know from a written exam.

The primary benefit of oral exams is that they are interactive.  In the best case, this allows to more rapidly identify the level of understanding of a student.
One can ask a question, and if it's clear they understand how to approach it, you can stop them without requiring them to work through the details of the derivation, you can ask them to write out the details of just one key step; or you can follow up with a deeper, harder question.  Alternatively, if you ask a question and it's clear they are struggling, you can give them a hint to get them unstuck and see if they can progress or switch to a different topic or ask an easier question.  If you start to get a suspicion/hypothesis that the student might have a particular misunderstanding, you can ask a question that quickly tests that hypothesis.  In this way, empirically, often you can quickly calibrate the depth of understanding of a student.
A secondary advantage is that oral exams are more resilient to issues in the problem statement.  If there is an ambiguity or flaw in the problem statement, this can be identified and immediately corrected.  On a written exam, you have to be extremely careful to make sure you have identified all possible ambiguities and avoided any errors in the statements of the questions, as a single issue can be uncorrectable or lead students to waste a lot of time on it.
There are also some disadvantages of oral exams.  They don't scale well if you want to test a large number of students.  They are more subjective to grade.  It is more challenging to make them fair.  Some students don't do well in oral exams (e.g., nervousness, time pressure, style of presentation), so their ability might be masked by other issues.
Overall, they are another tool in the arsenal for assessment.  It's not that they are better or worse than written exams; rather, they have a different set of tradeoffs, and what is appropriate will depend on your specific setting.

What is the benefit of oral exams at all? Why don't they just examine with written exams?

The utility of an oral exam is the flexibility of the format, and the tightness of the feedback loop. This is the same reason as someone might wish to talk to their colleauge in their office directly (or on a video call) instead of a long email exchange.
When one prepares a written exam, they are making a bet about a number of things. For example, (1) the list of questions they have prepared will help them assess whether the student has understood the material; (2) The student will not misunderstand the questions; (3) The examiner will understand all the answers; and so on. When the assumptions go wrong, a tight feedback loop reduces friction in the evaluation process.
If the exam is an oral exam, there are many chances for the examiner to adapt their examination strategy. Many of the other posts have given examples, but here are some examples anyway:

Perhaps the student is making a small arithmetic error, which will make the rest of their argument invalid. One could argue that the student still understands the material, but the miscalculation was an accident. In this case, the examiner could potentially just fix the mistake in the spot, if he notices it.
Perhaps the student produces a complex proof. It is better for the examiner to be able to quickly ask for clarification, instead of spending a lot of time to figure out whether the proof works.
Perhaps the examiner realizes that it would be fair to phrase the question somewhat differently.

This does introduce some subjectivity into the evaluation process, but one might argue that evaluation is inherently subjective.

One more advantage of the oral exam: at the beginning of my Analysis I+II oral exam, my math professor asked me what topic I would like to start with. That kind of thing helps immensely by having the student start with something they are confident about. This is hard to do in a written exam (unless it is so comprehensive that it covers all the material, so everyone can start with whatever topic they prefer).
Conversely, the professor can tailor the rest of the exam to the student's demonstrated ability, giving easier questions to less advanced students and skipping the easy stuff for the better students, to dig quickly into the hard parts that distinguish the very good students from the excellent ones. This kind of discrimination is hard to achieve in written tests (though well-designed computerized versions should be able to do this, at least in multiple choice formats).

Oral exams are common in Europe. I find them much better than written ones when i) you are not prejudiced and ii) want to actually see how good a student is.
They will not be completely fair, though - people are judged on (arguably) topics at different levels of complexity, but the advantage is that a good prof will interactively gauge the knowledge of a student.
The prof may also look for portions of the curriculum that a student knows/understands/likes better and go from there.
I find them more representative of the knowledge of students.

Story time. The weirdest oral exam I had (as a student) was in my last year of MSc and was on a rather esoteric topic in advanced physics. Our group of, what, 10 students knew the prof very well (we were the core of the student's academic physics association and he was the official supervisor). The exam was extremely relaxed and we were all very good students.
He told us that the exam really pisses him off but that rules are rules (sight) and that he has to do it. So he will go through all the topics he taught us and who wants to answer just raises their hand.
He started with ... vectors. How to add them and whatnot. Again, we were after 5 years of intense math and physics studies, five of the 10 students would go for a PhD and ... vectors. I immediately raised my hand and explained how to add vectors, I added for extra points, tongue in cheek, how to subtract them as well.
And then it got more and more complex, exponentially. At the 6th or 7th question we had our eyes wide open because the prof was reading his notes and inventing really hard problems. Obviously the answers were getting more and more vaporous.
We finished, he gave marks and there was an uprising of the ones who were at the end. The prof sighted again and said he would lower the marks of the first ones because, indeed, it was not fair. So the other half started to protest vehemently. Since his wife was waiting for him he gave up and told us to put the marks we wanted because he was in a hurry.
The conclusion is that oral exams help you to pass some courses (and seriously - this was an esoteric course we took for the pleasure and fun at the end of our studies so the marks were completely worthless)

Oral exam, on any level of education, is interactive exam. Written exam or test is one-way do -> submit -> evaluate.
It means that the teacher/professor can directly observe the student and see what errors the student does (lack of knowledge, temporary failure, misunderstanding,...) and correct them on-the-fly. They can assess the approach to the problem. Some students learn poems - they memorize the definitions, derivations etc. character-perfect. Others learn the ideas. In the oral exam you can "poke" the student "off the track" and observe how they react. Do they follow the idea or get stuck untill the "poem" is restored?
The teacher/professor can ask additional questions to assess the depth of knowledge much easier. If the student performs well all the basic questions can be omitted, same if the student performs badly, all the "interesting" questions may be omitted.
Additionally, if you are to talk about some subject you have to form your thoughts in sentences. You are forced to approach the problem from multiple ways. You need to "translate" the question to your thoughts, process and then "extrapolate" to the teacher's/professor's  language. On the paper you can just list points or use much shorter sentences or phrases.
Another difference is in "dimensionality" of the test. The oral test shows the time dimension - how fast you perform different tasks. In the test there is no  such information, in the written task there is only the sequence of steps and even that is not reliable source of information.
The written exam is good for assessing performance-oriented tasks. Oral exam is good for assessing the understanding of the subject.
Jokingly, I was able to pass basic calculus exam because it was oral exam. One of the questions was simple: Define absolutely convergent sequence and relatively convergent sequence. I missed. Then theprofessors were asking me to label different sequences to catch me I memorised the definition wrongly. After couple of minutes one of them gave up saying "You defined the qualification wrongly and you stick to those definition strictly." In other words, I missed the literal content but proved the understanding of the subject.


text:
I have evidence of cheating on my phone. Can professors forcefully check it?
I recently had an online exam and failed in it. I know some of my other friends who cheated and passed. There is also a groupchat where they shared past paper exams. I told the teacher about the Whatsapp groupchat, sending screenshots of the messages and all.
The professor responded, thanked me and said that he will share this with the exam board.
Now the issue is that the I am worried that the exam board will ask me to share my phone so that they can check it thoroughly. I don’t want them to see other private messages of my friends. I just wanted to share the groupchat (now actually I would prefer to go to the past and not share anything). I don't want to share anything else; I don't want more problems.
How do I avoid this? Can the teacher force me to share my phone, considering that I willingly snitched about the group chat?
I live in Germany, so privacy rules are strict there. But I am nevertheless also looking for answers that apply to the circumstances in other countries.

Honestly, this seems like a question better aimed at the Law stack exchange

I have messages on my phone with some proof. Theoretically I can leave those messages there and the professor cannot forcefully check my phone and messages?

"Sorry, but I've got a new phone recently and there is no message history on it, but you're welcome to have it" - Then hand them a £5 burner phone from the market

I have added the full story pls read it

You don't need to show nothing. Even you show this proves nothing. The university already know that they can fail in the judiciary. Past exam papers are not prohibited. Any student with good memory can create those documents

ok but if i show my phone they will see private messages which proves I and my friends cheated in other exams, I dont want to fail more exams you know? I know I am complete dumbass but this is my situation

you know, people are answering the question you asked; but you have yourself admitted to cheating so don't necessarily equate their statements about German privacy laws and traditions protecting you to any moral support for your cheating. You have a double problem, you have betrayed your co-cheaters who the exam board knows about. Maybe "past exam papers" are photocopies of past exam papers not typed up/written up samples from memory? None of my business but I found the question and the ensuing discussion too vapid and amoral. Cheating is wrong.

Is reading past exams paper cheating?

germany
As it doesn’t matter to this answer, I will here take your word that whatever happened was actually cheating. I will also ignore the nature of the contents you want to hide – it may as well be embarrassing fan fiction.
What will likely happen
For whatever it’s worth, I was involved in some exam-board hearings on cheating incidents in Germany as an examiner during the pandemic.
The exam board needs to collect evidence and you already gave them some. Now you can easily forge screenshots and protocols, while showing the respective content within the interface of the software is much more difficult. Therefore, the exam board may want to see this. However, to this end they do not need to use your phone themselves (and should not), but ask you to show the respective contents to them on your phone. They may ask you to navigate to certain points of interest or similar. Mind that all of this is them asking you to volunteer evidence (against others), not forcing you. In particular, if you do not want to show something, you can always refuse, with privacy being an excuse that should not raise any suspicion.
Mind that the exam board probably considers you on their side here and has no reason to suspect you, in particular since you failed the exam.
The worst that can happen
Cheating in exams is a minor offence (Ordnungswidrigkeit), see, e.g., § 63(5) of NRW’s university law.
This usually only gets invoked in large-scale organised cheating or commercial cheating.
Moreover, cheaters may escalate against the exam board’s decision to a court of law.
In such a case the court or investigators may ask you the same things as described above, and you can refuse to do certain things on the same reasons.
In particular note that as a witness you have a privilege to refuse evidence (Zeugnisverweigerungsrecht) if you would be incriminating yourself or damaging your own honour.
Even if they seize your phone (which I highly doubt), they cannot force you to unlock it. For example, see this opinion by a lawyer, which states that this cannot be done even for grave criminal offences.
A note on suspicions
One of the things you apparently want to avoid are suspicions. There is no legal protection against those, after all it’s just a state of mind. However, given your depiction, I would not expect that much suspicion has fallen on you, and the only way it would is if you suddenly retract all cooperation with the exam board.

So let's say they become suspicious of me, so what power do they have? Can they search my phone? So even if they are suspicious, based on suspicion alone they cannot do anything and don't suddenly gain any rights against me right? So technically I'm safe?

@randomUser786: See the second section: Even the police does not have the right to search your phone when investigating grave crimes and you cannot be forced to bear witness against yourself. Of course, it may still happen that your “friends” supply evidence to the exam board.

Ok thx, my friends won't snitch

"my friends won't snitch" It's those strong assumption that put you in trouble. In a parallel universe there are two of your friend that changed the names in their contacts book, blaming on your "name" to have shared the past exams (they do as a safe way out, you failed the exam so it is not like they damage you by telling the exam board that you are the one that facilitated the cheating ... ).  After all, the exam board is just checking the screens, they are no police, they cannot touch the phones ...

@randomUser786 Your friends probably thought the same about you. "The other people in the group chat won't tell" is always a strong assumption, but particularly if it becomes evident that you told on them first. That said, my intuition is that chasing a cheating case where the student has failed anyway is probably low on the priority list of anybody.

It is unlikely that your professor can force you to do anything. It is also unlikely that you can force your professor to let you pass if you are suspected of cheating and refuse to refute that suspicion.

I would be absolutely astonished if a professor in Germany was allowed to use a refusal to look at your phone against you. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that would barely trouble the judge were you to sue.

Please note that the asker added considerable information to their question after you answered.

"It is unlikely that [you can] force your professor to let you pass if you are suspected of cheating" my experience is that most European countries, and presumably also Germany, do indeed have recourse boards where students can complain against unfair grades. And the professor definitely needs better arguments against a failing grade than "I suspected they cheated, no evidence" in front of such a board.

@xLeitix: I think the (maybe too implicit) point is that sufficient evidence of you cheating can flip the burden of evidence to you, in which case your phone might contain the evidence that you did not cheat. For example, if I somebody used their phone during an exam, they might convince a professor that they did not use it for cheating (I disagree that you can have any reasonable evidence this way, but that’s another issue). Also bear in mind that this answer was written, when the question still lacked a lot of details.

It would probably depend on the type of institution you were attending and
on its policy on cheating.

Does it define taking a test as consent to search for evidence on cheating?
Does use of a phone during an exam violate the academic integrity expectation of the school or the particular course?
What is the procedure that faculty must follow to investigate suspected cheating?

I would peek in your student handbook as the answer you seek is there, and not in trying to find a £5 phone someplace in the EU.

Hi so this response is based on the updated story I added?

I think a country tag would improve this answer. In particular, this does not apply to Germany. Article 12 of the German constitution, which guarantees the "freedom of profession", is commonly interpreted in a very wide sense in Germany and thus has consequences for the access to exams that universities have to grant to their students. A policy that only allows students to participate in exams if they agree to give access to their phones to "search for evidence of cheating" would probably be ruled illegal as soon as anyone takes such a case to court.


text:
Are preface and acknowledgement a must-have in a monograph?
The question says it all. To my regret, my monograph, published by a reputable academic publisher, doesn't have them. My only excuse is that I was just having a baby and my only concern was to submit the body on time, since I already had a deadline extension once. I was so overwhelmed juggling between writing and taking care of my newborn that I skipped everything flagged as optional (including the dedication page). I was also worried that my exhausted baby-brain forgot persons I should acknowledge and offend them, so I quickly decided to skip the acknowledgment part. Now that I have more time for myself, I feel ever so regretful for not writing a preface that I believe would have added an important personal touch to the topic of the book. And I feel that the absence of acknowledgment makes the book look less professional. I did later thank people who helped personally, though.
Is there any way to salvage this, and personally do you think that a monograph without a preface and acknowledgment is a terrible one? Thanks for your opinion.

I can't recall ever giving particular attention to either the presence or absence of  a preface, or an acknowledgement. Sure, if there is a preface, I'll read it but in the scheme of things, good organization, a table of contents, and an index (in that order) are of far more significance.

What's done is done. For a print version there probably isn't much to be done unless you do a 2nd edition. The preface isn't critical. It is a service to a reader who may not want to commit to the whole reading, but not essential. Acknowledgements are more important and sometimes essential.
If you published with a reputable publisher and they raised no issue then it probably isn't serious. You can, of course, if you have a visible web presence, put ack material there, though I would do it without apology for the printed version.
An online publication is easier to update, of course, and the publisher might be able to help.
Happy baby raising.

Thank you for your suggestions. To give some context, I wrote about an insurgence, and my father was minimally impacted by it. Someone just pointed out that it would have added a lot of interest had I recounted that personal story in the preface, not to mention it would have made my father's story got written down. I haven't realised it until now. Anyway no use of crying over spilled milk, I know :-). (It's a print version).

+1 do it in a 2nd edition (if any).  I also agree that on your academic web page you can add additional material (+comments, references, further work, errata) related to the book.  Indeed, you can do this for all your publications.  But if you do not become an academic, where can you put this?  Maybe your publisher has web pages for its books that could include additional comments?

Overall, a good way to address such questions is to ask yourself: "do I think a monograph without a preface and acknowledgement is a terrible one?" If not, there is probably no reason to suppose that other people will think this. If so, well, it's only fair that if you think other people's books are terrible for lacking a preface, then other people get to think the same about your book.
By the way, I am totally just speculating here, but I do wonder if the same exaggerated fear of "will people think ill of me if I do X", in this case X being "ask for another extension", could have been what got you into this situation in the first place. I imagine asking for a second extension is not that big a deal to a publishing company. Publishers must very much be used to people asking for extensions of extensions on their books. Of course, the particular situation is already spilled milk and there is no use tormenting yourself about it, but if this was the underlying dynamic of why you were reluctant to ask for a further extension, then for sure the same dynamic will surface again sooner or later in some form unless you consciously put a stop to it.

Initially I did not think a monograph without a preface and acknowledgement is a terrible one, but since a friend pointed out about it, I started googling and read how it's considered a big deal and appatently uncommon.

I hit the "send" button too soon. I'd like to add that you're spot on with your speculation. At times I overthink that I'd dissapoint people if I do X and end up not with the best decision. Perhaps I'm overthinking again now. Since it's too late for this book (my first), I can only try to do differently with my future projects.

@Juli I imagine it may be uncommon because most writers like to take the opportunity to make some personal remarks, but probably not because readers demand it and are sorely disappointed otherwise. I generally like reading a preface, to the extent that I will read it even in a dictionary, but even I would not blink it eye if a book lacked one. It's the author's prerogative to organize their book as they wish.

@Juli As a rule of thumb, I find that people don't generally invest a lot of energy into being angry/disappointed with people who did not cause harm to them personally. So, a co-author might be angry at you if they feel like you botched their book in some way, but a random staff member at a publishing house probably does not care much whether you ask for another extension (and having a baby sounds like a bullet-proof justification for an extension). I agree that shifting this mindset in the direction of worrying less about what people will think in the future is a good lesson to draw here.

I think you are being too hard on yourself.
You went to the trouble of writing the people who you might have put in an acknowledgements section. If you told them why (i.e. you had just had a baby) then ... well, if they don't understand, they are jerks.
As to making the book better by including something else .... Well, you can join a really big club of authors (including me) who wish they had done something different in something they published. It feels bad, but it shouldn't feel that bad. You got a monograph published by a reputable place. That means it's worthwhile.
So, congratulations on the monograph AND the baby!

Your perspective does help me here. When the book came out last fall, I informed the people involved via email with a thank you. They knew I had just a baby, so I hope they understand (I didn't elaborate about the missing acknowledgement part). Thank you for your take and for congratulating me :-).

You're likely too late unfortunately. Once a book is published, it's really expensive to update it, especially if you're adding full pages. There are ways a printer could do it, but it's ugly & expensive.
You could realistically write a "second edition" that incorporates the preface & acknowledgement, but since your book is a monograph, it's not likely to sell many copies, and a second edition would sell even less, to the point where it might not be profitable for the publisher.
You might be able to persuade the publisher to update the online files, though, and if you write another monograph, you will probably be able to add some text referencing the things you wish you'd added to this one.