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Is it a conflict of interest if an examiner of a graduate thesis is a coauthor of a paper with the supervisor of the thesis?
Is it a conflict of interest if an examiner of a graduate thesis is a coauthor of a paper/papers with the supervisor of the thesis? Do you think that this would sway a positive or negative result or bias?

@cheersmate but not everyone publishes during their PhD -- in fact, I believe in the humanities it's much more common to turn thesis chapters into papers after the PhD is complete.

A conflict for whom, exactly? The examiner? The student?

No, it can be unavoidable.
You haven't named a country, but in the US in the sciences, it's fairly normal to have 3-4 people from your department and one from another department in the same university. If  your department isn't that large, those 3-4 probably have collaborated with the supervisor, and the external member may have been brought in because they are a collaborator.
Plus, you don't usually defend until you are ready. So examiners aren't often put it in the place of needing to decline to endorse a dissertation.
That said, I would still say it's best practice to avoid it as best you can.

I think this a good answer for the US. It may not hold universally where, in some countries, a defense is sometimes a bit adversarial.

Yes, it can be a conflict of interest. As Azor Ahai said, you haven't specified which country or field you are referring to. In my experience (in the UK, in physics), people who have written a paper with your supervisor are usually prohibited from being either your external or internal examiner, and the same goes for anyone you yourself have written a paper with.
While it's nice to believe that someone with a close working relationship with a student or that student's supervisor could assess the student's thesis fairly, unconscious bias is always at play (which can work both positively and negatively). To avoid any such problems, choose examiners with which you and your supervisor have as few personal and professional ties as possible.

I'd note that the restrictions are often time limited: at my UK university it's co-authorships in the past 5 years that are the bar.

At my University (Canada), the external examiner is required to be "arms' length" (no co-authorship, participation in grants, etc.). No rules about internal examiners.

I am on quite friendly terms with 80% of the faculty members in my department. Does that mean I have a conflict of interest if I sit on a dissertation committee for one of their students? Will my favorable view of the advisor sway my judgment positively? What about the other 20% I’m not on friendly terms with (probably with some reason...)? Should people worry that my judgment will be swayed negatively if I sit on a committee for one of their students? If so, when would I ever be allowed to be on anyone’s dissertation committee?
I know that’s not the situation you’re describing exactly, but the point is that, if you interpret “conflict of interest” in some idealized, completely literal sense, then everyone in academia has a conflict of interest about 90% of the duties they perform. Essentially, to be human is to be in a state of perpetual conflict about much of what you do professionally. This is ridiculous, and such an interpretation of what it means to have a conflict renders the whole notion of a conflict of interest completely useless.
Basically you’re overthinking this. Professors are professionals, and are trusted to perform their duties ethically and impartially. There might be isolated cases of professors failing their colleague’s graduate student because of some vendetta or feud, but that’s beside the point. There are isolated cases of every sort of bad thing happening somewhere, to someone. The particular concern you are raising is at a level that’s so hypothetical that no sensible person will spend any amount of time worrying about it. So no, in a practical, realistic sense, it is not a conflict of interest.

It really depends. In our system there are two referees of a PhD thesis (one for a master's thesis) and they should not be coauthors unless it is a paper with many authors and there was no close cooperation between those two. Otherwise it could indeed be considered to be a conflict of interest.
(And I did not even mean large cooperations like ATLAS or CMS in high energy physics where everyone around probably is a member of the same collaboration and hence automatically a coauthor. I mean papers where they do have some actual connection to the specific paper.)
The actual examination - or defense actually, the state exam(rigorosum or viva) happens earlier, even years earlier - however, is done by a stable comittee of say 8-10 members (plus the referees) and it is very common that some of the comittee members happen to be coauthors.


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How to deal mentally and emotionally with a prolonged stressful period?
I am a second-year PhD student, but I think this question may interest a broader readership.
I'd like to ask experienced researchers for some insights on how to navigate a prolonged stressful period.
For "prolonged stressful period", I intend a timeframe lasting for at least a year in which balancing work demands and personal life becomes challenging.
To provide you with my case, I'm approaching the last year of my PhD. So I got to relocate aways from my family and friends, work on my dissertation, contribute to several research projects, collect data, attend meetings and so on. Furthermore, I have a demanding advisor who, despite its sometimes overcritical mannerism and being almost a workaholic, cares about me becoming a better researcher.
As you can imagine, I cannot "say no" to many things. Thus, my personal life tends to be frequently jeopardized as workdays blur into weekends. I often have to work at least ten hours a day, and there are times when at the end of my workday (around 09:00 AM to 08:00 PM), I receive new assignments, sometimes due in a very short time.
I'd like to receive grounded, honest advice on how to deal with these upcoming months.
I acknowledge that these stressful times can be an excellent opportunity for me to become a better academic, the job I'd like to pursue in the future.
However, I am afraid because I haven't figure out the mental and emotional attitude I should adopt to navigate all these challenges altogether.
So, which is your honest, straightforward advice? How to deal with a prolonged stressful period?

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2219/how-should-i-deal-with-becoming-discouraged-as-a-graduate-student

Dear Anonymous Physicist, thank you for your reply. It is quite a similar question, so that it would be helpful for me.

You know your problem.  You stated it yourself.

I cannot "say no" to many things.

And as a result, your employer is asking you to work more, to the point you're not getting time to "recharge".  Along this path lies burnout.  When that happens, expect not to work for a period of time between four months to two years.
Obviously you probably don't want to hit that milestone, so take action now.
You must be planning out your time.  If you are not, that's the first thing to do.  Many people plan their time more effectively using a system.  I personally think the Franklin Planner was an excellent system; but, it is a pen and paper system and a lot of people recoil in the horror of not using a computer.
Basically, you have a running list of things to do, and a calendar day broken into 15 minute intervals.  Every day you add items to the "to do list" and every day you schedule about 15 to 30 minutes to "plan your day".
This plan involves going down the list and marking each item.  "I" for "Important", "U" for urgent, "IU" for both.  Then you take the "IU" items and you estimate how much time they take, and where you put them in your remaining time.  Once all "IU" items are scheduled, move to the "I" items, and then fill the remainder of the day with "U" items.  The problem is that we often fail to do the important stuff because the urgent stuff takes priority.  That leads us to work in ways that we never make real progress.
Now, I've explained an entire system and have sort of skipped the answer you need, that's because this system is "I" important.  I'll explain why.
You need time off to recharge.  You haven't considered what this time off looks like, so you need to improve in planning it.  It has been neglected for a long time, so it is clearly not urgent; but, it is starting to affect your desire to work so it is clearly important.  You need to decide how much time off you require, and you need to schedule it just before you start allocating time to urgent items.
If you plan this, you can maximize it's impact by focusing on the kinds of activities you require.  Everyone relaxes in different ways.  If you feel you are near a breaking point, you might even consider your time off Important and Urgent "IU" which means it will be the first things you plan.
Aligning your behavior with your needs is the key to success.  Urgent items often distract us from the important items, and it leads to a long term feeling of always being behind.  You see, we can't forget the important items.
You'll notice that some of the items are not marked I or U.  They are the non-important, non-urgent items.  I highly recommend that if you can't fit them into the day, don't carry them forward to the next day.  Drop them from your planner.  Life is too short to fill your day up with non-important, non-urgent items.  And please, stop considering "fun" to be non-important.
Good luck, it takes practice and discipline; but, it's a single approach to planning a more balanced life that works for many.  Perhaps it won't work for you, but the practice of attempting to plan a balanced life will have benefits in any future approaches you attempt, so give it a try.

Dear @Edwin Buck, thank you for your helpful answer. Yes, I need time to breathe. I already reached the verge of burnout in the recent past. The thing I hate the most about this situation the consistent use of messaging apps to communicate things. This leads me to be anxious all the time to the point that I need to turn off my phone to feel "safe". There are times when I feel like taking an uninterrupted two-hour break is misconduct of some sort in a culture of "productivity" (let's say).

Messaging apps are incredible urgent, but rarely important.  There's a drive to respond quickly, but often the subject is not important at all.  I've had 30 minute "chat" conversations with my wife over what we will eat for dinner, when all of my responses are basically "whatever you like, I don't need anything specific."  Forming boundaries is hard to do, because it requires others who understand boundaries, and many people just don't understand them.  Try communicating what interruptions your need, and which ones you don't.  Maybe they will honor your request, if not, powering off is fine.

Going back to student days, I spent 45 years in Academia, including 25 as a professor. I've lived the challenges you describe. Some years back I took early retirement and these days among other things work as a coach helping professionals, including academics and students, deal with the sorts of issues you are describing.
There is no simple fix to the problem. The stress and anxiety that you are experiencing are probably mostly habits on your part. That is not meant as criticism; they are habits that you have been taught both explicitly and by example. (This is not psychobabble. There is a lot of recent psychological, behavioral, and neuroscientific research pointing to the importance of habit loops in all of our behaviors, including things like chronic stress and anxiety.) As above, there are no quick fixes. Dealing with stress means working to understand your own habits of behavior and mind and what triggers them. With that understanding in hand, you can then work on changing those habits. Good short term news is that simply seeing stress for what it is can provide some relief.
There are a few clear physiological effects that can be addressed straight away. The two big ones are exercise and sleep. Get in some amount of intense exercise a day, even if it's just 10 or 15 minutes of intervals on an exercise bike. Also take frequent breaks during the day when you get up and move around for a couple of minutes. Then set a sleep schedule and stick to it. BTW, the sleep is not wasted time. There is good research that shows that when tackling conceptual difficult problems and even memorization, those who "sleep on it" accomplish their goals faster and more effectively than those who just push on through. They also just feel better, which also adds to productivity.
If you are posting here, you are likely the kind of person who would appreciate a deeper insight into this stuff. Our experiences and emotions do not happen "to" us. They are constructed "by" us, and reflect the concepts that we hold about the world and ourselves. This rabbit hole goes extremely deep, into everything from evolutionary psychology to the very counterintuitive functioning of memory, to the role of the cerebellum in high order thought, to the neuroscience of Bayesian predictions by the brain. But you don't have to dig all the way into that to get the benefits.
A few people I would track down who discuss just how fundamental this is to we humans include Lisa Feldman Barrett (author of "How Emotions are Made"), Anil Seth (his TED talk "Your Brain Hallucinates Your Conscious Reality" is a delight), Charles Duhigg (author of "The Power of Habit"), and Jud Brewer (whose company among other things offers good even if cheesy app-based support for changing habits including anxiety).
Social context matters. If your group spends a great deal of time bemoaning and reinforcing counterproductive perceptions and patterns of thought it will make them worse. Bitch sessions, among students, faculty or anyone else are likely to do more harm than good. On the other hand it can be extremely difficult (and typically impossible) to really tackle the problem without social connections that support you, explore the issues, and provide accountability. We are social primates and are not wired to deal with this stuff by ourselves.
A key attitudinal change is to place your own welfare at the top of your list of priorities. The tyranny of the urgent will pass if you let it. You are in this for the long haul.
On a very pragmatic front, time management skills are critical and often lacking. I recommend David Allen's "Getting Things Done." I'm not big on most self-help books, and Allen can certainly be a bit "rah rah" for my taste. But the organizational strategy/workflow he develops (Capture, Process, Organize, Plan, Do) is widely recognized for its effectiveness.
Finally I will note that having open and candid conversations with a boss or advisor can be extremely useful. Chances are what you are saying will resonate; in all likelihood the person you report to has had or continues to have a lot of the same kinds of problems. When someone hangs up a sign that reads, "The beatings will continue until morale improves" is probably talking to themselves as much as anyone else. That is also the person who can directly affect the conditions under which you work and help you better understand how you might be misinterpreting expectations.
Do be aware, though, that advice on stress management from someone with "Professor" in front of their name should be viewed with some skepticism. Given that there is an epidemic of burnout among faculty, be careful of the blind leading the blind.
Time spent as a student is an excellent (and usually relatively low stakes) opportunity to develop habits and attitudes that will serve you well throughout your life and career.

As you can imagine, I cannot "say no" to many things. Thus, my personal life tends to be frequently jeopardized as workdays blur into weekends. I often have to work at least ten hours a day, and there are times when at the end of my workday (around 09:00 AM to 08:00 PM), I receive new assignments, sometimes due in a very short time.

That is far beyond the normal work expectations for a PhD candidature as set out in most university policies.  Check your university PhD policy, but usually they will specify an expectation that full-time students commit roughly 36-40 hours per week to their program (i.e., roughly commensurate with a full-time job).  Programs also have leave entitlements that are roughly commensurate with a full-time job.
In your circumstance, I would recommend you have a talk with your supervisor and let him/her know that you appreciate that they are trying to make you a better researcher, but that you are finding the work hours for your program to be excessive.  Pass on the information you have given us about the hours you are working, and seek to negotiate work expectations that fit in with standard full-time hours.  Ask your supervisor about your progress, and seek advice for whether you are progressing well enough to complete if you drop back to standard full-time hours.  Unless you are behind in your program, it ought to be possible to negotiate reasonable work hours and still make adequate progress on your program.  Your supervisor may need to be reminded of the expected hours in university policy (assuming this exists at your university) and encouraged to see work expectations accordingly.
Also, don't be afraid to apply for and take leave.  I see some research students who grind through stresses for months or years on end without even taking their leave entitlements in their program.  Most PhD programs give you four weeks of recreation leave per year (or whatever is equivalent to a full-time job in your country) and when you are on leave you should not be expected to be doing any work on your program.  If you have leave entitlements accrued, I recommend you apply to take some of this leave.  Make sure you hold the line and do not accept work while you are on leave; also, do not accept a higher workload when you return because "things piled up while you were on leave".
Most supervisors are reasonable people, but it takes practice for us to allocate the right amount of work to students (especially since research students vary widely in their abilities).  Sometimes we overestimate what you can get done in a period of time, and you need to tell us if you are struggling.  Most supervisors will want to build up a program where they are allocating the right amount of work to progress the candidature properly, but still within the expected work hours for the program.  Talk to your supervisor and negotiate a good balance.
It sounds to me like work is being put on your shoulders precisely because you have not learned to say no to things.  Learn to work within reasonable hours commensurate with the proper expectations for your program, take periods of leave, and say no to unreasonable allocations of work that go far beyond the program hours.

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Notation of award length on CV
If you were to receive a 12 month award, say, starting 1 September 2021, what would be the best or preferred way to notate this on a CV? Would you write Sep 2021 - Aug 2022 or Sep 2021 - Sep 2022?

Sep 2021 - Aug 2022 conveys the message more clearly, and considering the date is the first of the month, this makes more sense, if it was the 15th of September 2021- 14th September 2022 I would choose the latter.

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Where to upload research data after article publication?
As the title says, I wish to publicly share a dataset used in one of my articles which has already been published (by MDPI, if that helps). I do not think the data is worthy of an article by itself, so I just want to upload them online and be able to link them to my already published article.
After some searching on the internet, I found that Mendeley Data does exactly what I need, but it is quite unclear if linking articles works only for Elsevier publications or for others too. Another possible solution is OSF, but it is also unclear whether it's possible to link a published article to the data.
If you can confirm that any of these services works in my situation, or propose other solutions, you would be helping greatly. Thanks in advance!

This site describes several (open science) data repositories, which is also the term you're looking for: https://guides.library.csupueblo.edu/data/repositories

Could you specify in which field of science you are working? There are domain specific data repositories existing. You might have at https://www.re3data.org/ to find an appropriate domain specific repository. The publishing workflow at Zenodo is very easy and fast to go through. Domain specific repositories might have a more complicated workflow. However, at the latter you have metadata schemata for your domain which allows -- when filled in properly -- other scientists to find your data more easily. Moreover, these repositories sometimes have additional services like web-processing of data.

https://paperswithcode.com/datasets if the domain is related to ML?

Have a look at Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/). It is free, gives you a DOI, and you can link your article with the data. It lets you upload 50 GB by default, but you can ask for more space if needed.

I've used Figshare; it's free, gives you a DOI, and you can make a link from the data back to the article yourself.
What is presumably more useful is the ability to make a link from the article to your newly uploaded data. In general I do that by somehow citing the data's DOI within the article when submitting, but since your article has already been published you will need to contact the publisher, as they are the ones that must create that link.
Edit: just to expand on the latter:
I expect your article has a DOI - used in other papers when they cite it - which redirects to a webpage run by the publisher; that webpage is or has a link to the "Version of Record" of your article. It would be nice to also have a link to your source data. This second link has to be inserted by the publisher, since they control their webpage, but they first need to verify a couple of things:

is this the right data? Nobody ever accidentally clicks on the wrong file in the upload dialogue, of course... what if someone faked a screen name and then uploaded a version of the dataset maliciously modified so that the existing paper's analysis section now appears to be wrong or some form of misconduct?

is the data allowed to be shared? Have all the data's creators given permission? Study participants? Suitable licence?

Checking these at submission is straightforward: the Corresponding Author (submitter) provides the data (or link to it), and the Corresponding Author can sign off on any required permissions, ethical approval, etc. just as they do for the paper itself.
Making these checks after publication will be more problematic, and (personal opinion) I would be very wary of any process that allows this without direct communication with the original Corresponding Author.
(My concerns about validating data integrity are, of course, independent of which data-hosting platform is used!)

https://dataverse.org/ if your academic organization got an account. It is easy to use.

I think the OSF will work for your use case. Once you upload all of your files to a project, you can create a registration (a frozen copy of that project) which comes with a DOI. Like Lou mentioned earlier, you would need to contact the publisher to include that DOI in the article.

Springer Nature has this list of data repositories covering: mandated data types; biological sciences; chemistry and chemical biology; earth, environmental and space sciences; health sciences; materials science; physics; social science; and generalist repositories.


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Is there a standard way of referencing line numbers in a draft?
I'm reviewing a manuscript with a two column layout that has line numbers on the left margin of the page, but not on the right. Like this:

How do I efficiently and effectively reference a particular line in the manuscript? Is there a standard way of doing it?
Currently I write "P1 C1 L12" to refer to page 1, left column, line 12.

You can also count up from the bottom if it is more convenient (when the ref is closer to the bottom): P1, C2, L-3

@Buffy I would very strongly recommend against counting up when line numbers are present.

@BryanKrause, You are correct, of course. But the other works if they are not, though the question implies they are.

What idiot thought it was a good idea to use two columns for a review text but with only one column of line numbers. That is just unprofessional. Get them to change it if you can.

I'm not aware of a standard, but you can always define your own notation in your report. Perhaps some journals do have a recommended standard in their reviewer instructions, but I don't remember seeing that either.
If you want to go compact, I'd suggest "p1, R12" for page 1, right column (L for left), where 12 is understood to be the line number. That is, there are probably few enough columns that there isn't a need to have a running number for them...

Use whatever protocol you like, but explain your protocol to the editor and authors.  For example, you could include something like the following (quoting from someone else's review of one of my own papers):

Throughout this review, "p.5(17)" refers to line 17 on page 5.


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Major Career Change --> Grad School Help?
I received a B.A degree in political science with a minor in natural resource conservation & management last year but after an internship in Washington D.C. and looking through job postings I have decided that I studied the wrong thing and would like to make a career change already. Ultimately i would like to do research in a lab with plants in regards to nutrition (which my internship opened me up to the possibility of) but since I got a B.A and not a B.S I am lacking in a strong science foundation that would help me get into a science graduate program. I would study Food Science and Nutrition now instead but ever school has such different course offerings I'm not sure what classes to take to help me get in to grad school. My GPA was average when I graduated but I am now really passionate about this new career field and need to go back to school I think I order to make this shift. Do I take a lot of random science prerequisites at a community college and then transfer them to the university I apply to to show I have taken the necessary steps? Too bad there is not a post-bacc program for non-medical majors. Any advice on what I need to do?? Thanks

Some schools will allow students to take graduate (and undergraduate) classes without being formally admitted into a graduate program.

There are post-baccalaureate pre-med programs, designed to fill the holes, mainly in science classes. A pre-med program would likely be overkill, but in a good program the science classes will be stringent enough to give you a solid background in the sciences.

There is a new proposal in area 51 that may address your question more properly: http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/97164/graduate-school-admissions-individual-assessment

First, do some research on graduate programs you're interested in, to see what the entrance requirements are. Since students come from different majors, programs want to make sure you have the right background. Anything you don't have, you'll want to take as a course, so it depends on how many holes you have to fix.
Side projects and volunteering opportunity in your area, are great to gain experience and show interest, and ensures your passion is solid. Show you have a good work ethic -- since your GPA is average, find other examples to convince graduate admissions that you work hard. Look at what you've done during college and figure out how show you've developed soft skills (communication, leadership, presentation skills...), and so on.
The overriding theme is you need to convince the admissions representatives that you are as likely to succeed as students who took this as their undergraduate degree and did well. This means you will probably need to get a better foundation, as well as experience in the field to document interest.
You can read other related questions for related advice. For example, check here Is it possible to attend graduate school in pure math after undergrad in CSE?

Other than what Nate B suggested, another way may be to enroll in a graduate program in a community college, and then transfer to an accredited university of college down the road.

While this sounds interesting, can you name 3 community colleges with graduate programs?

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Which is more relevant for a Masters and eventual PhD application? A full time job in a software company or a research assistantship?
I have just graduated with an engineering degree from a Tier 2 college in India. I plan to apply for a Masters program in a top tier university in Europe after a year, and then eventually move onto a PhD program in the US. I would also consider applying for a direct PhD program, depending on my eligibility. However, at the moment, I am torn between doing a full time software engineering role at a reputed tech company and a project based research assistantship at a Tier 1 Indian university. Which of these 2 would be held in higher regard if I were to apply for a research degree (MS or PhD) later on?
Side Note: Both the software engineering role and research assistantship have little to do with my research interest.
Research Background: 3 Research Internships in various Tier 1 universities in India + 2 IEEE conference publications (not highly rated)

I don't feel like I am qualified to provide a full answer, so I will just leave a comment. You need to decide what you are more passionate about: your research interest, or a profitable career. Your software engineering role will bring you money, but will probably not help you pursue your research interest at major institutions. My advice: do your research interest for a few months on your own, to decide whether you REALLY want to go this path (believe me, it will be tough!). If you find yourself losing interest, take the engineering job.

" I plan to apply for a Masters program in a top tier university in Europe after a year, and then eventually move onto a PhD program in the US" Why? are PhD in the US much stronger than in Europe? If research is your goal, do an Indian-born person have easier access to grants & research funds in the Post-PhD phase? don't limit yourself. Canada, Australia, Japan are just a few places with a strong research infrastructure.

You probably want to avoid involvement with reputed tech companies, unless the salary offsets it somehow.

@Aruralreader why would you say so?

@EarlGrey I completely agree. I was merely mentioning one of the main options I have in mind to provide better clarity on my situation. Also, I've heard most places outside the US do not allow a direct PhD after a bachelor's degree. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Since I have worked in India after completing my Bachelor degree for 2 years and further joined a university in Germany for pursuing Masters and subsequently doing PhD at the moment, I feel that I have been in somewhat similar shoes as you are.
I would recommend following things from my experience. please take it with a pinch of salt as it may vary on case to case basis.

Just get clarity about the idea of Masters degree at the moment, you
cant plan for PhD from today as it depends on multiple things that
might or might not be in your control.

If the domain of Job - Masters degree are aligned than gladly go for a job, as it would give you better exposer to situations.

In case that the Research - Master domain are well alinged, go for the Research. (During Master application, you enlist your time in research and that would allow you to get better internship as Masters in Europe is more research oriented than say in US)

In case where Job - Research - Masters all are in same domain, than I would say it doesnt really matter, you can choose money over the Research and it is totally fine.

I am giving this answers as to be honest, my work experience which was for 2 years doesnt really matter and so does the research experience of many of my colleagues who worked at labs in IIT / IISc. The important thing is to gain transferable skills.
The Research project gives you certain skills that you might not get in job and vice versa. So just look at the idea of developing transferable skills from whichever path possible and I guess you will do just fine.


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Large table formatting ideas in dissertation
I have a quite large table (45 columns x 15 rows). Columns include comparisons groups and each row represents a measure. I can only think about putting the table on multiple pages but this does not make it easy to compare groups' estimates that are on different pages? What are good practices for such cases?
Option 1: multi-page table?
Table 1, Table 1 (continued 1), Table 1 (continued 2) ...
What are other good options for formatting large tables?

I was once told the following, which is almost always true "Don't say anything in a table, that could have been said in a figure". Hence, think about other ways you could convey the message from the table.

I'll note that good options for formatting larger tables depend heavily on the type of data and the level of contextual interdependency between the columns (i.e., whether understanding a given column requires context from other columns).  Assuming you do want/need to retain this table (the accepted answer hints otherwise), we don't have enough information to offer advice on how to accomplish this.

In addition to other suggestions, transposing the table is likely to be better, if at all possible.  Even if you're not using LaTeX, you may find some good suggestions at Te.X.se; here's a search for [tables]+multipage to give you an idea

To those questioning the validity of producing such a table in the first place: yes, it's probably not a good idea to try and use a gigantic table to highlight the key trends in the data. However, it's often very helpful to include a comprehensive table in an appendix. There are a number of papers where I often refer to (appendix) tables for specific measurements of specific objects. Yes, eventually a point is reached where going machine readable is the only sane choice, but in some contexts a table spanning a few pages is a very helpful thing.

I assume you seek to include a large table in print thesis and you live in a country with access to paper in either one of ISO A series (if unfamiliar to this definition, see here) and you already know which data really need to stay (ask a colleague, your supervisor).
Do not shrink the font size to add more content on an already jammed page, but consider to print the large table on a sheet of ISO A3 (landscape orientation), fold it, and bind this into the rest of your thesis print on ISO A4 (portrait orientation). This is much easier (than with standard US paper formats)* because within the ISO A series, the long side of a smaller paper format is as long as the short side of the next larger paper format.
You do not need to fill all the A3 page in the horizontal direction.  It actually is better to use the same font size on the lager page as in the other part of your thesis.  For the potential trim to a smaller size of «the table page» (then neither ISO A3, nor ISO A4) and folding, reach out for help by the staff members of a good printer's shop, who will bind it with all the other pages into your thesis for you.
It equally is a technique you find for business reports comparing selected key figures of debit and credit about the year to be reported side-by-side with the numbers about year before the one of principal interest.  On occasion, architects, engineers, etc. use it to include their plans and drawings.  For illustration, see for example this or even this video.
*) It is not an insurmountable obstacle for a good printer's shop.

There is no need to reproduce your entire raw data in your thesis (or any other publication). Your publication should describe some abstract properties of your data, discuss your analysis, and present your results. As a rule, if a table spans more than two adjacent pages, it is too large. Ask yourself: What is the point I want to get across by presenting the data in the chosen format? What do I need to focus on to get this point across more efficiently and without distraction?
If you want to make your data accessible, which at some point could be a good idea, consider uploading it to a research repository or publishing it in an (online) appendix.
Don't forget to ask your supervisor. Whatever they say obviously overrides any advice you may get from strangers on the internet.

There are thesis committees all over the world which disagree with you on this. ;-) It might not be ideal, but it’s often required of students to include extensive, pages-spanning tables into the appendix of the thesis document. Having separate files is not generally acceptable.

Yes, it's best to ask the supervisor, but the issue looks like there is a deeper problem underneath that's about analysis and presenting the argument rather than layout per se.

The key word in @KonradRudolph's comment, IMO, is appendix. In my case it was code, but in a similar way you should present enough to support your conclusions, in a suitable format (often a figure), in the body text; if there are reasons (diktats perhaps) to keep the bulk data with the publication, then an appendix (or, for a paper, supplementary information) is best. There are cases in which tabular data is an important output, but they're rare these days.

@henning answer is absolutely on point, to add just another point.
Please highlight what is the objective of this data, what kind of difference it shows and represent it in values rather than publishing the raw table.
In any case this video about data visualization might help you to get your point through. But in nutshell each table has a story to show where the objective is relativity to the other values. Thus highlight the relation and not the data.
Storytellingwithdata-googleTalks

@henning's answer already mentioned getting your advisor's input, but before that, I would suggest checking your university's thesis format requirements. My university, for example, has guidelines specifically for multi-page tables (I had to know this for what ended up being a 15 page table in my masters thesis). Then, within whatever guidelines your university may or may not have on the matter, you can go to your advisor and get their input. You don't want to assume your advisor is aware of every little formatting requirement your university requires.

I do not understand what is in the table, but if there are 45 important columns and 15 rows, one can consider to make each row a full page where you list the column items, maybe add an executive summary per this page and then make a new table where only 15 rows and 2-5 columns (the gist) is displayed.
This is if all the information is really important and cannot be transformed to graphs.

@henning's answer has a great point about whether or not you need to show all your data, but you might want to think about whether you need to show all the data in a single table. If you have multiple points to make it might be more useful to break the one giant table into multiple smaller tables that each have a single focus.


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Professor agreed to sign a recommendation letter, but then ignored my emails
Here is the timeline of what happened.
Day 1: emailed and requested a LOR.
Day 3: got a response, prof. agreed to sign the LOR I draft for him.
Day 20: sent an email with my draft, asked to make changes if needed, sign and email it to me.
Day 27: sent a follow-up, politely reminded about the letter.
Today is day 33, and I still haven't heard anything back from him. Every email I sent was very polite, I wasn't pushy or aggressive. I don't know what to do or what to think. This is a LOR for immigration purposes. It doesn't have a set deadline, but it's very critical for me to get it before I file my papers.
Does anyone have any advice? Did he ditch me?

Does he know you have a deadline? Or did you leave that unsaid?

@Buffy no, I didn't say anything about a deadline because there is none

then two weeks since the last communication is just "academic time". You haven't been ignored, probably. He is just slow. Ask again if time is an issue - politely - and give a deadline if necessary (!necessary!).

@Buffy sounds good, I might just come up with a deadline myself then if that's what it takes..

That would probably be a mistake. Dragons might nap, but it is a mistake to wake them prematurely.

@Buffy Maybe I should identify as a dragon.

First, the academic "clock" can run very slow. This is especially true at certain time of the year and COVID has made things worse. Conference travel used to be pretty common at this time of year, and catching up on writing and such also.
But professors generally (not universally), meet their schedule obligations provided that they know of them and will put off non essential things for higher priority tasks.
If you need something on a schedule, make sure the prof knows that schedule. Otherwise, patience is still a virtue. Don't be a pest, but a friendly reminder every few weeks is probably fine. And make sure that any deadlines are known. Be honest about them, of course.

Is it possible to get another professor to write one for you? If I were you, I would ask another professor if possible, show your draft, and explain that you need it. When you ask, ask them something like, "Would you be able to write the letter within 3 weeks?" This way you're not setting a specific deadline, but you also make it clear that you want it within a certain amount of time.
Edit: Also, there is usually a secretary who writes these things. Maybe ask them.
From experience, I know that some professors will not respond to these e-mails until the absolute last minute, out of bad habits. Some professors take responding to e-mail more seriously than others.


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How do universities validate race declarations?
In the US, competition  for admission to  elite universities (whether for an PhD, MA, BA, or even for a position as a professor) is fierce. Race is a more or less official consideration in admissions.
How do universities check racial declarations?  If a person does not look a given race in an interview, does a staffer makes a note? I don't think they do that, and anyway, some racial categories have no visible difference.
Some reports have said that applicants do lie, but I am primarily interested in how universities validate such declarations (at all levels: for a graduate or undergraduate degree, or a job). And if they don't, given the ferocity of the competition and the lack of validation, why don't more applicants make something up?

I have a feeling they don't validate race declarations, and rely on the fact that most people will be honest.

Esther,thank you. Is there such a thing as honest or dishonest when these categories are a matter of self-identification?

@JoshuaFox Self-identification isn't synonymous with arbitrary, but it means the government isn't defining categories like "if you're 1/16 Black (whatever that means) you count as Black", as has been done in past times.

@BryanKrause: I'm not sure I follow the claim that "Self-identification isn't synonymous with arbitrary". Suppose that (i) I identify my "race" in some way, and (2) most others disagree with me. What's the consequence? If (2) does not matter, then self-identification is indeed just arbitrary. But if (2) does matter, then it's not mere "self"-identification.

@JochenGlueck I don't mean to use arbitrary in a mathematical sense where 'arbitrary' is opposite to 'specified', and can come with many implied or explicit constraints.

@JochenGlueck do you actually consider yourself that race, or do you just write it on the form for laughs?

@JoshuaFox "Honest" usually refers to concordance with personal beliefs/knowledge, versus with some absolute truth. One can give an honest opinion, despite opinions being by definition a matter of self-identification. "Dishonest" conveys an intent to deliberately mislead (a person stating something as true despite not actually believing it's true), which is distinct from unintentionally stating a falsehood (e.g. an "honest mistake").

@R.M.: Your comment reminds me of the following question I have (since this whole "race thing" in the US continues to be quite baffling for me): What if someone honestly does not identify with any race (for instance because they don't believe in the concept "race"): Can one leave this field in an application form blank, or maybe write down something generic such as "human"?

@JochenGlueck I also have not lived in the US for decades, but I think the forms usually allow one to refuse to answer.

@JoshuaFox: Thanks for your comment! That's good to know.

@JochenGlueck My assumption is that those who refuse to answer are categorized into the  least-benefited category.

How do universities check racial declarations?

They don’t.

And if they don't, given the ferocity of the competition and the lack of validation, why don't more applicants make something up?

“More applicants” compared to what? If you mean compared to the rate of dishonesty claimed in the report you linked to, it seems already quite high to me personally, so I don’t know why you’d expect an even higher rate. In any case, that report measures the rate of white applicants who admit in a survey to claiming a false racial classification - that is, it is measuring the percentage of “honest liars”, if you will. It’s possible that there are yet more dishonest people who will not admit to such behavior even in an anonymous survey.
It’s also possible that the numbers in the report are unreliable for other reasons, and of course it’s possible that your view of humanity is more jaded than it deserves to be. Finally, perhaps some people don’t lie not because they are honest but because they are fearful of future negative repercussions if they do lie (as described in @BryanKrause’s answer). In other words, the negative stigma associated with claiming a false racial identity, and social taboo against such behavior, is what provides the negative incentive discouraging such behavior (whether that’s effective or not), rather than any enforcement mechanism implemented by universities themselves.

Thank you. It would seem  that many peoples' conscience would easily stretch to "identifying as" some group if it gives them a tiny edge. They can say to themselves that they are African American because all humans' ancestry stretches back to Africa. (Whether or not that's nonsense, it might suffice to some as a conscience-salving excuse.) Yet I sense (maybe I'm wrong) that far fewer applicants cheat this way than  other ways -- even though cheating on exams and the tricks used in "Varsity Blues" are are to some extent policed and this one, not at all.

@JoshuaFox there are claims that cheating and unethical behavior by college applicants and even their parents are indeed widespread, see here and here. Why more of it does not take the form of lying about one's race (or whether that's actually the case), I don't think anyone knows with certainty.

... @JoshuaFox However, an important piece of context that seems relevant is that in the US, race is an extremely sensitive and loaded issue, in a way that might be difficult to appreciate for someone who doesn't live here. Lying about one's race in such a cultural context would be seen as really a rather taboo thing to do for most normal people, including even many who might be willing to resort to other types of dishonest measures to get into a good college.

That is a good hypothesis. However, half the US is not on the side that strongly holds  the same set of taboos characteristic of elite colleges. Some small fraction is indeed on the other side. Even though they think that way, many want the imprimatur  of an elite university. So I would expect enhouh of these to be willing to write down the acceptance-maximizing value in their applications, at least to the same extent that they are willing to cheat on tests. And by "enough", I mean enough that unis would be forced to try to validate these answers.

@JoshuaFox it’s an empirical fact that universities don’t validate claims about people’s race. The fact that this is contrary to your expectations is neither here nor there.

I can't back this up, but I think that in the case of Native American or Native Hawaiian, you need to be registered with a tribe, at least for certain kinds of preferences.

Race in the US is a matter of self-identification. I am not aware of any university program to validate racial identification.
Quoting from the article you reference:

Admissions experts have varying views of the survey. Most said that colleges do not routinely attempt to verify applicants’ answers on what race or ethnicity they are. Some doubted that such a large percentage are lying. And they said the answers point to misperceptions about the admissions process. But they agreed that lying is a problem.

there seems to be a mix of opinions on the situation.
There of course have been some high-profile cases in the media where people have reached a social status of public interest (for example, elected officials) and have been found to have lied or misled about their racial or ethnic background, and this has cost them in the court of public opinion.
Perhaps it's not something people lie about often because, despite the implication in your question that lying about race gives an advantage, maybe that advantage isn't actually perceived to be that large or exist at all, and that applicants who are actually filling out their applications (as opposed to a survey about their application) are more cautious about what it means to lie: will they face punishment? will they face discrimination based on the race they claim?

Race is a more or less official consideration in admissions

I assume you refer to affirmative action, but the statement is certainly not universally true. Racial quotas are not legal in the US, and at most race is a minor contributor in a wholistic admissions process.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

As others answered, there's not really a practical way for colleges to verify race.

why don't more applicants make something up?

Because if too many people do it, it becomes an ineffective strategy. If the admissions office gives preferential treatment to X, and everyone is X, then they're preferring everyone, which means they're not preferring anyone.

That doesn't make sense. Even if everyone else is (or claims to be) X, so being (or claiming to be) X doesn't put you at an advantage, it's still effective because it avoids being at a disadvantage.

That's the "zero-sum game" argument against affirmative action, which I don't believe.

@Barmar What EspeciallyLime pointed out is called strategic dominance, which has nothing to do with whether the underlying game is zero-sum.

@Barmar no, it's not. In fact it's your claim (everyone being preferred is the same as no-one being preferred) that assumes a zero-sum game. If it's not zero-sum then the fact that others are gaining from being X doesn't stop you gaining from being X too.

Isn't that the essence of the current SCOTUS cases about affirmative action? The plaintiffs claim that affirmative action in favor of Blacks disadvantages Asians and Whites -- if someone wins, someone else loses.


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My supervisor refused me to submit after I got the reply from the journal
I submit an extended abstract to a high impact journal, and the journal said that my work in the same scope. The supervisor mentioned that this is very different level of research needed and said dont send.The reviewers are too challenging, your paper is also not organised for a XX journal. TBH I feel disappointed, it is not the first time, I do always ridiculed, humiliated in each group meeting never appreciated. This is really weird.
Is this a normal behavior of a supervisor?

Would you like advice on your professor's feedback, or how they are treating you?

the latter I already give up and I cannot do anything about their behavior, but it is weird that they view my research as not to the standard and always attacking me in the meeting that my research is risky,

Then I suggest you edit a little to get the answer you need - right now it would be pretty reasonable to say "Your work may be in scope, but isn't ready for such a high impact journal" is fine feedback. I'm sorry that's happening to you :(

Is your supervisor a co-author?

Yes they are, they always has been hostile and their relative also in our group is co-author both has aggressive attitude since I started and always demoralizing. There is also other colleague is encouraged to submit to this journal although I find their work is incremental. My research IMH is addressing something never touched before.

My understanding is that you sent a presubmission inquiry to a prestigious journal; they responded encouraging you to submit. I assume you did this without your supervisor's approval based on their reaction.
You brought this response to your supervisor, but they are encouraging you not to submit there because they don't think the work is of sufficient quality for that journal.
A few things:

Your supervisor may be upset you went behind their back and sent an inquiry to the journal, especially if you did this to argue against your supervisor's advice. This reaction may not be fair or warranted, but it is a predictable result.

A presubmission inquiry is just that...presubmission. A positive response doesn't mean your work will be accepted, especially with a prestigious journal where acceptance is not the norm.

Not all work is suitable for the most prestigious journals. Lots of very excellent work is published elsewhere, and there is nothing wrong with that work.

Some, but not all prestigious journals have a substantially different format to other journals in the field. The journal Science, for example, where whole articles are barely a page. If you're preparing a manuscript in another format, switching to one of these short-format papers is a lot of work. Other journals may also have restrictive length limits even if they aren't as extreme as Science. Time spent on reformatting could be spent on a new research project instead, if the work is not going to be accepted. This is always a gamble, but sometimes it's worth it and sometimes not.

Ordinarily, I'd side with your supervisor on this. They know the field, they know the journals, they have the experience. Yes, it is normal behavior of a supervisor to guide their students towards appropriate publishing venues. I would hope that a supervisor would also explain the specific reasons why a particular project may or may not be suited to a prestigious journal. For example, there are some top journals in my field where in vitro work rarely stands on its own. To publish in these journals, it's usually necessary to do a paired in vivo/in vitro project, where the authors show a mechanism in a dish alongside evidence that the same mechanism is functioning in vivo. If I brought a very excellent in vitro project to a supervisor, I'd hope that they explain this to me: that we either need to add substantial additional experiments and take an additional year or more working on the project, or publish in a different venue. This may be disappointing, but it's not an example of ridicule.

It's certainly possible your supervisor is not acting in your best interests, but I don't see how we can determine that here. I'd recommend having someone knowledgeable who you trust, like another professor, look at your work and help you make a judgment.

I think you started wrong, I have the freedom to submit to what ever journal even my colleague do the same, it happens to know the editor of this journal and working with before and even they asked me where do you plan (I am the one who decide), when they know it is that journal that what happen.

@Monika Is your supervisor a coauthor on this project, or are you the only author? If you're the only author, then yes it's ultimately your decision (though your supervisor can still help guide you) and my point #1 doesn't apply. The rest does, though.

Yes, they are a co-author, as I mentioned all my colleague in the same project and same supervisor has the freedom to submit to any venue. I feel they dont have the best interest for me, the next journal is still quite also high impact journal but not like that of course. I sent them what if I got rejected form the second journal.

I know they dont like me as a person "jealous maybe" and even every meeting they bragging about other paper published in that same journal I got a reply from and always devaluing, and undermining my work even though I have conversation with other specialized professors than my PI and they said the work is interesting and new

Literally, the day I presented how it work in experiment and simulation, they got angry that I choose something risky and no handled, how non reasonable is this, so yes I doubt that they want me to publish in this journal which is "Science subfield" btw

"Yes, they are a co-author, as I mentioned all my colleague in the same project and same supervisor has the freedom to submit to any venue" - no, this is incorrect. If you have coauthors, then you can submit only to venues where all coauthors together agree.

Maybe but there is no valid reason to prevent from submission, anyway I will wait to another journal reply and then I can discuss again, I dont want my work to be degraded hopefully.

@Monika No, not "maybe". You do need your coauthors' permission to submit. If you act like that isn't the case, you are going to make people rightfully upset with you.

Ok, I just sent to the supervisor that I consider another journal with lower impact and asked them what if I got a rejection what I should consider to make sure I submit my work to suitable and high impact journal, is that ok.

I'd be very upset if my co-author just submitted our work to some journal without consulting me first.

If you submit a paper to a journal without the approval of the co-author(s), and one of them tells the journal, odds are your paper will be desk rejected. It's usually a policy that all co-authors must agree before you can submit.

stopping saying our work it is only done by me.

@Monika You have coauthors, so it isn't only done by you. Maybe major parts of the project are done only by you but if other people can rightfully claim authorship it's theirs, too.


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Harvard referencing - Multiple Authors
I am using Harvard referencing for my thesis draft, however, I am a bit confused with how to cite multiple authors (4 or more) in the bibliography. Specifically, I have been finding contradicting sources. Here: https://www.scribbr.co.uk/faqs/multiple-authors-in-harvard-style/ they mention to use "First Author name et al.", while here:https://library-guides.ucl.ac.uk/harvard/authors the include all the Authors' names. I understand that there are several Harvard versions but is there a guide I can use to be sure I am being consistent to a specific version?


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what are good ways to find team-mates on research and writing papers?
im a AI researcher and mostly interested in a field that is less attended in our university. i have some ideas to work on but i blieve it can have better results by working with exprienced people. is there any network that you can find interested people that want to work in special type of fields?

Attend conferences on that topic and network, read papers on the topic and contact the authors with questions, suggestions etc.


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What constitutes "excellent" undergraduate research
I am a junior right now and I plan on doing research over the summer and senior year. I was wondering what PhD admissions committees defined as good research experience from undergraduates in computer science?

Ok I did my studies and teaching in CS, so the following is my opinion from excellent to normal.
Excellent: The excellent case would be achieving a research contribution, and a publication; with a help of a supervisor (and/or his/her PhD students). Also know what you want to do with your PhD (if you decided to do so).
Good: The good case would be for you to do a research, learn how to approach reading and writing research to some extend, and now what you want to do for your PhD (if you decided to do so).
Normal: The normal case would be the supervisor's students help you to start thinking research. In this case you will get some idea about the research and surrounding activities.

I am not sure this is true. I does seem a bit much to ask achieving a research contribution from an undergraduate. or am i misunderstanding you here?

@KenGoldhaus I think Dave is saying that an excellent undergraduate would achieve this (often with some luck and a good supervisor!). Normally, it is not the case.

I took excellent to mean equivalent to an A in the US / > 70 % in the UK and I do not think that a research contribution is required for this. Or is this not meant here maybe?

@KenGoldhaus The OP hasn't provided much contest, but it's possible he's going off language about being admitted to a PhD program without a Masters. When I was looking at that, several programs referred to "excellent" or "exceptional" research experiences, and for that, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume it meant a publication.

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


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How do I explain to a prof who is not happy with my actions which were simply a mistake due to miscommunication?
I had emailed a professor for a summer internship opportunity. He had accepted me and aksed me write a proposal for applying through a fellowship.
I replied back putting down some points for my proposal. I got no reply from his side. I emailed him again after 2 days and continued to do so for the next 3 weeks. Afterwards, due to no response, I believed he was not interested in me due to no email response and stopped mailing.
But now, after the deadline is over, I found out from another source that he was not happy with my behaviour for not applying for the fellowship.
How do I convince him that this was a honest mistake and I did not intend to be rude and am still interested in working under his guidance?

Just to clarify. Did you write back to him when he asked you to write/apply for the fellowship? You do understand that you might not be the only one who applied to the same position, don't you?

Yes I did. No he has rejected others who had applied for the same position.

The applications must go through the fellowship committee, if I understand correctly. Its fine to contact the potential supervisor, and he replied asking you to send the application directly to the fellowship committee. I am sorry but I don't understand what you meant by honest mistake.

Agree with Dave, as supervisor/student relationship is like a marriage, communication is essential for it to remain healthy.
However also note that, since you have emailed him quite a number of times and he never responded with any feedback, he did not want to help you, and hence he might not be the kind of person you want to work with. There is nothing worse than a bad supervisor in academia.

I think there is something else at work here. He said you should apply, but perhaps he wanted to avoid partiality and even the semblance of partiality and therefore he had to stay away from giving you any advice.

This, exactly..

Why is it your mistake, honest or otherwise, if he never responded to ten or so emails?  If he didn't feel like he should give you advice, then the professional thing to do is respond to your emails and tell you so.  It sounds to me like you bent over backwards to establish communication with this guy, and he somehow failed to hold up his end.  So, you might think about turning this around. I don't know why you would be interested in working under his guidance if his behavior raises some questions about his character--he does seem to be willing to make negative comments about you behind your back to another source.
I would first establish whether you might have sent the emails to the wrong address (probably not), or that whether he might have not gotten them for some reason.  You might call him and ask.  If he says he got them, you might ask him why he didn't respond and see what he says for himself.
I suggest that you keep in mind that you are the one paying the bill, not him.  Perhaps you are better served to find someone else to work with, especially if you don't like his response to your attempt to find out why he didn't respond to your emails.  You don't need to spend your money working with someone who is going to make you miserable.

I was in worst than this situation which was solved by meeting the person or people involved. So:
Request a Meeting: First thing, request a meeting from the professor and see if he/she accept your apology during the meeting.
Moving on: Lets say the professor in the question still doesn't want to work with you. Then, you need to move on and don't get in the apology cycle forever. Keep another professor from the same or other university and move on.


text:
How important is journal prestige when researchers publish a paper?
I know that certain journals are often lauded by academics as being highly prestigious (e.g. Nature/Science/etc).
However, how important is journal prestige really? Is it absolutely life changing? Is it the difference between being taken seriously or outright dismissed by the larger community? Or is this just a fad in certain elitist circles and doesn't really impact the reception of the research?
What has been your experience like with prestigious journals in general? Are they all that people make them out to be?

It's somewhere between "fad" and "extremely important". On the one hand, technically it doesn't matter where you publish: As long as the community somehow gets wind of your work (e.g., through your communication), and the work is good, you won't be ignored. However, in reality, there are all sorts of second order effects, such as: By publishing in a prestigious venue, you're helping not just yourself, but also everyone "downstream" of your work (i.e., those who continue it or answer your questions), as the prestige bleeds onto them (e.g., they get much better chances at publishing ...

... their work in the same prestigious journals as you, since journals tend to publish work that builds upon existing papers published in themselves). And you want to reward people building on your work; it's not just altruistically advantageous. And of course, there are all the situations where you have to impress people unfamiliar with your research topic (e.g., hiring committees), and since they cannot assess the quality of your work independently, they will try to judge it indirectly based on the status of its venue of publication. So I understand why people ...

... spend a lot of time munchkineering their papers into high-status journals, even though I am somewhere between too lazy and too proud to do so myself most of the time.

@darijgrinberg That should all be posted as an answer.

In principle, publishing in a prestigious journal may help reach many readers and/or boost your career. The practice of judging articles by the journals they appear in is widespread although also widely denounced (cf the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment).
In practice, a lot depends on your field of research, your career stage, and the organizations that pay your salary and/or grants. At one extreme, some people would boycott "luxury journals" as a matter of principle (Randy Schekman) or ignore journals altogether and just post their results on arXiv (Grigori Perelman). At the other extreme, some will tell you that their careers entirely depend on how many articles they publish in their discipline's elite journals.

Schekman and Perelman can do that because they are already famous.  If you are not famous, don't try it.

Don't exaggerate. Non-famous people also do that, but in situations where recruitment depends on prestigious journals, you can afford ignore them only after obtaining a permanent position.

Most academics do not have permanent positions, and many who do have just learned that even faculty with tenure can be laid off.  Those with permanent positions may also wish to apply for grants.  I'm not exaggerating.

Still, you are implying that the careers of all but a few famous researchers are driven by prestigious journals. I could easily cite counter-examples to this overly broad claim, but by definition these counter-examples would not be as well-documented and verifiable as the famous examples.

I'd put it over 90% of researchers (not the same as academics), especially the younger ones.  They say "publish or perish" for a reason, and it doesn't mean publish just anywhere.  I'll limit my opinion to developed countries that I'm familiar with.

By comparing the CVs of academis who have permanent jobs with those who do not, you can show that publishing in a prestigious journal is, in fact, career changing.  Having publications in prestigious journals is strongly correlated with later receiving a stable academic job.
This in no way means that everyone should spend all their time on trying to publish in those journals.  For many people, worrying less about prestige would be life changing in a good way.

I am completely disillusioned with prestige at this point in my academic career. It is all about the strength of the peer review committee for me now, nothing less.
I work on the intersection between engineering and computer science, so I get to read literature from both community and I cannot tell you how many completely **** paper makes it through the "peer review" process at top ML conferences/journals such as ICML, JMRL, ICLR, AAAI and NeurIPS. These "prestigious" journals are publishing crank-level papers with extraordinarily poor citation practices.
Of course, if you look at their peer review process then it is all revealed: two-three reviewers (possibly students) not too familiar with the field or the literature giving superficial and uncritical reviews to not hurt any feelings. There is an over-emphasis on simulation results, which are barely reproducible. Finally these reviews are rarely completely blind as well, because a paper is almost always simultaneously uploaded to Arxiv. Just because they are Google employees doesn't make their research good.
The same probably can be said for a minority of journals in engineering. I have definitely seen a share of bad papers here but I always ensure that they do not make it through.
It is all about the peer review process.

I agree with this assessment.   It is also frustrating dealing with 'students' who have no idea about writing or good research.  They simply regurgitate poor practices, and reject good work or feel that they are have the power to do so.


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What do I do with a write-up of possibly folklore knowledge?
Some months ago I was trying to wrap my head around some classical constructions in homological algebra. I spent quite a lot of time with this, and decided it was worth it to write it down. I did, it's almost 20 pages, and it's been sitting there in a file since then.
It starts pedagogically enough, reproving well-known results, and then it gets into "surely folklore" territory, i.e. not hard results about well-known objects that I have never seen in print (and I did search quite a bit for them). Then it goes on to prove an auxiliary result which is taken for granted in a recent paper (this was my motivation to do all of this).
It might be hidden in Cartan-Eilenberg (a quite hard to read book nowadays, in my humble opinion), it might not. At any rate, I don't know what to do with this file. Should I forget it? Be happy that I understood all of that, and keep it for personal consultation? Post it in my website? In arXiv? Submit it somewhere? I thought I could try to remove the certainly well-known stuff at the beginning, and only keep the "folklore" stuff; then it could be a less than 10 pages note.
The question is, then, how do I deal with "possibly well-known, possibly unwritten results about some well-known construction"?

Is there someone you know (or at least someone you know of) who is fairly knowledgeable about the topic? More specifically, someone who has recently written a book (or a later edition of a book) on homological algebra --- especially someone now in the middle of writing such a book --- might appreciate looking at your results and would likely be able to give you useful feedback.

Post it on the arXiv, that's the first thing that comes into my mind. (Or on github or your website, if you want readers to take a first pass at spotting errors before pinning down a final version.) Seriously, these kinds of expository papers are the ones people want to read, not your latest little stab at some unsolved problem (no offense -- you are anonymous, after all -- but this is the nature of many research papers published nowadays).

I could speculate here, but I think you need advice from an expert in that particular field. It may well be that there is journal out there that would gladly publish such a paper, but also the converse may be true. It may also be that there is some special issue coming up where such a paper would be a good fit. However, these things are only known to experts in the field and hence, your best bet would be to contact one. These could be people in your department, editors of journals on this topic, plenary speakers at conferences or authors of books in the field. Knowing this person personally prior to asking would probably be better (but not necessarily so).
If you do not know anybody to contact, you could also look for a journal that seems to fit and write an email to the editor (or a suitable associate editor) with the write-up attached and ask if this would be suited for said journal. It is not uncommon to sound things out that way. (Beware, that a positive reply does not tell much about chances of acceptance.)
If publication in a journal is not important to you or you don't want to risk another frustrating rejection, uploading the thing to the arXiv is the way to go. You get some publicity and some people will read it…

+1 for asking experts, but arXiv is a reasonable step before even deciding whether to submit to a journal or not.


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I want to study human brain and consciousness. Should i study neuroscience or neuro-physics?
I am a high school student and my dream is to study about human brain and consciousness. Which subject should I study in university, neuroscience or neuro-physics (which is a branch of biophysics)?

I guess it depends on what exactly you want to study. You may even want to study psychology or philosophy.

@MarkSapir I want to study brain and consciousness from the perspective of natural science. According to my understanding, psychology is a social science and philosophy is the ancient ancestor of all academic disciplines including those that fall under natural science but philosophy itself is not a part of  natural science.

Still it is not very concrete. Neuroscience includes neurophysics. Are  you interested in a part of neuroscience which is not neurophysics?

look at the courses offered by those two degrees and you will find your answer. Consciousness is quite a bit higher in the continuum of abstractness than a lot of neuroscience, which in turn sounds higher than neuro-physics. (All are lower / "harder" than philosophy). You might find that you're spending more time than you'd like studying fundamental physical and biological properties of neurons in either course you've suggested, when what you're interested in gets discussed more in psychology or cognitive science degrees. Psychology has but one arm in the social sciences, it is much broader


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Do 2 bachelor's degrees look bad for PhD admissions?
I am currently doing my second bachelor's degree after having gotten very sick towards the end of my first and not being able to take the classes that I wanted, or the sufficient research experience for a PhD. Does this look damningly bad for graduate admissions? I am also a little bit older and my grades towards the end of my first degree aren't so great (went from a 3.95 to a 3.2). Sorry in advance if this is a silly question, but I'm pretty nervous and don't know where else to look.

Best of luck to you Albert! Stay well, and in the meantime consider sharing what these two majors are and which area, if you currently have one in mind, you’re eyeing for graduate work.

Thank you so much! My first degree was in Computer Science and my second is in Mathematics & Statistics. I'm broadly interested in probability & information theory, and am currently excited by the theoretical foundations of deep learning and cryptography, although I can't pick between the two yet!

What will you do with the answer? Since you're already doing it, are you going to stop? Or are you asking whether you should even apply?

I think I'd try regardless but just wanted to see if I'm being delusional, or if I should lower my expectations for where to apply just given my history.

There is nothing inherently problematic about getting two degrees. There is certainly nothing problematic about getting sick.  You appear to have went back to school a second time so the first is only loosely relevant.
One should not be generally concerned about "extra" education when you are going for a PhD. (I have met people with multiple PhD's in different subject areas.) Perhaps if you had 3 or 4 undergraduate degrees I may wonder about the intensity of the programs or if you were better served by outside activities/internships - but this can all be explained with a good letter.


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Paraphrasing in a Literature Review
Do you paraphrase in a literature review or just copy stuff and add credits at the end.
for example if I needed to use the following sentence :

By applying advanced and predictive analytics up front, companies can build R&D plans they can stick to, for shorter lead times and better cost discipline.

Which of the following approaches works best?

1.By applying advanced and......  better cost discipline (Mckinsey Global Institute, 2017)

2.Using predictive analytics ahead of time can allow companies to create more feasible R&D strategies with shorter lead times and better cost discipline (Mckinsey Global Institute, 2017)

If you quote, you also have to use quote marks.

To avoid both plagiarism and copyright issues you can quote short passages and cite the original. You can also paraphrase and cite.
For long passages you have to paraphrase and cite (avoiding copyright issues). But for such short passages, just quote.
Which of your versions is "better" depends on more than you can say here, so I won't suggest more.

Note that if you quote (and cite) a lot of short phrases you can still run in to copyright issues as (in the US at least) you can't quote so much as to reduce the value of the original.

+1: With the examples that OP gave, it is definitely better to do a direct quotation of the entire sentence with quotation marks than to attempt a lame paraphrase.

I'd say neither. You shouldn't really be "using sentences" out of sources you include in a literature review, you should be writing everything in your own words and then citing for where you got the concepts and ideas. You don't just substitute words around and rearrange a sentence and then tack on a citation - that's still not your own writing.
Sometimes your summary of the work is going to be quite similar to the authors' own conclusions in their abstract or discussion, and that's okay, but that doesn't seem like what you're doing here. It seems like you want to take a sentence you've read and insert it into your paper.
If you absolutely must reproduce a sentence, you must use quotes to indicate that it came from another source. It's rarely necessary to do this, unless you are directly discussing what someone else said.

It depends a bit of field. For fields where 'how' the cited work is written and phrased is important (either in trying to argue the meaning of the other authors words, or perhaps in fields where nicely worded prose is more savored)  I notice that it may be traditional to have direct quotes in papers and books. (history, philosophy, english, languages,...).. In the sciences and engineering fields, I would agree with @Bryan Krause. I cringe when students use 'quotes' of text - its as if they haven't figured out the actual content (which is the important part to the reader in those fields.)

@Carol Agreed, that's what I meant in my last paragraph mentioning "directly discussing what someone said". Otherwise it's very rare to need to quote.


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Seeking accommodations because of mental health. How to proceed?
A person I care about has problems with depression and anxiety and is starting a PhD soon. She has some questions I was not able to answer, so I was hoping you could give some advice. It is in a developed European country. I do not want to specify the country for fear of doxing her.
She was successful in her Bachelor's and Master's degree. She has had a job in her area the past more than a year and was also successful in it, with her boss being happy with her work. However, because of COVID, she has been on home office basically the whole time, allowing for a lot of flexibility. This has allowed her to not work when she was not feeling well and as long as the job got done, everyone was happy. It is the same story with the Master's studies, as long as she learned the things in time, that was sufficient. The flexibility has also made it much simpler to go to therapy, which is rather hard to get outside of standard working hours.
While it is possible that things will be good most of the time, there is a good chance she will need some accommodation at some point. She will also likely be starting using antidepressants and it is not clear what short-term effect that will have.
What is the best way of going about this? If we knew the supervisor and knew that they would be understanding, it seems like the way to deal with this would be to tell this professor. The university where she will be working has a disability office, so contacting them sounds like a good choice. Could the supervisor feel like we (she) is trying to go around him by not telling him first (he clearly shouldn't, but does it happen)? Do you think we should try to start discussing this with the university now, or is it better to wait until she officially starts? A third option would be to start resolving this when (if?) problems arise, but that does not sound smart.
Another thing we are worried about is what happens if there is something in her studies that causes her problems to get worse. Would it be reasonable to contact the disability office about that? For example, I would be worried about external pressure before paper deadlines. What is the best way of dealing with that?

One important thing to ask is what specific evidence does the DO need to consider your friend as falling under their purview. Better to sort that out now, and get it on file at the DO as soon as possible. Doing it in an emerging crisis just adds to the difficulties.

I strongly suggest getting treatment, including guidance on how to navigate the new job of being a PhD student, from a mental health professional before starting a PhD.

I strongly recommend to have a conversation about this with the supervision very soon. If the supervisor is going to be non-cooperative, the most convenient time to learn about this is now - because the cost of changing supervisor is going to be the lowest now.
An attempt to coerce the supervisor into providing reasonable accommodations via the disability office is not going to make for a pleasant experience. A good supervisor will do so much more than required of them that replicating this by invoking legal rights wouldn't work out well.
The conversation to be had with the supervisor now probably should stay rather general. The objective is just to figure out whether they are generally supportive and whether the nature of the research is compatible with the forseeable accomodations. Eg, as a mathematicians having days where you just can't isn't a much a problem; if your research involves tending for animals, clinical research, access to rare equipment, etc, it might be more difficult.
Also talking to the disability office is a good idea, too. They should know stuff like whether the university is offering counselling services to grad students, how to apply for more time for any kind of formal components, etc.

I'd absolutely agree that "legal/policy requirements", as opposed to the advisor acting from goodwill and sympathy, is suboptimal. "Staying within legal requirements" is not at all convivial...

Persons with depression and/or anxiety can have very different disease trajectories and it is very hard to anticipate severity, length of episodes, reactions to treatment and medication, etc. For this reason, I would be very careful with sharing "what might happen"-sort of information.
Talking to the disability office (what a horrible name) is a great idea but I would first ask for information in general: what sort of help they provide, what are the processes for people with mental health problems, etc. I would also ask what they advise about informing the supervisor(s) and/or research group. They should have plenty of experience both about PhD students and researchers with mental health problems and how this specific university handles these issues. I think talking to the disability office is also confidential so it is unlikely the supervisor is likely to know about it - unless the DO is asked to interfere.
Also, I would ask the supervisor about flexible working hours in general because that answer will also impact of what needs to be shared with them. In this talk your friend could also mention she does not deal well with pressure and how she is currently doing. In any case, having honest and open communication with the supervisor is probably best - but without emphasising the worst-case scenario or trying to guess the future. She could mention, for example, how she worked during the pandemic and succeeded with her job (what you wrote in the second paragraph).

“disability office (what a horrible name)” How else would you name it? Though in this case “special needs” might actually be a suitable, better name.

@Michael Here in Australia, they're often called "equity" offices.

@Michael Anything less stigmatising would be good. I fear a name like 'disability office' could discourage students to pass by and ask their questions, especially for the milder cases. I think at my previous uni it was called 'student counselling'.

"Accessibility Office" is common in the US, but I feel that this is a little confusing. It wouldn't be stigmatizing to refer to disability if having a disability wasn't stigmatized. Using a euphemism doesn't change that.

@ElizabethHenning You are absolutely right, it should not be stigmatised. I also agree that the variety of names can be confusing and not using the word disability where appropriate does not help removing the stigma either.

In European countries psychological issues as well as illness are very private subjects most persons even supervisors or professors would feel uncomfortable knowing about. Not because of stigma but simply because it is none of their business. In Germany there are even laws prohibiting your employer from knowing what illness you have when you call in sick, for example.
The to-be PhD should talk about this with their therapist. Therapists know about these topics and should have an idea about how to play this game in this country; they have been to university themselves and just in case they know who to ask.
Disability office is about disabilities, afaik most psychological afairs do not legally qualify as disabilities, so it might be that they are entitled to help with psychological issues or not - again it depends on the country.
Maybe there is something similiar to a disabilities office explicitely for psychological counseling. It is also possible to contact the students' union for support or advice.
On the other hand it is understandable that you want to be transparent with the people you are going to work with... again, depending on the country and the scientific department in question, you could simply state that there is a private condition that might result in regular appointments or spontaneous sick leaves... Most people I know will accept this and even offer support, and not think about whether it is about a chronic illness or a psychological issue.
Keep on keeping on

Chronic or long-lasting mental health conditions are disabilities if they interfere with normal functioning.

@ElizabethHenning This is definitely how it should be. But whether it is a legal status depends on the country, so without this information it is difficult to say that the disabilities office is a sensible choice to talk to. I only want to emphasize that there are other services that are - presumably - more fitting. Also taking into account that a to-be PhD is probably rather young which makes is less likely that somebody officially diagnosed their condition as chronic (noi)


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Unofficial PhD admission
I am looking for some clarifications to how graduate committees' proceed. Looking at GradCafe it seems that some mathematics departments sent e-mails admitting students to their PhDs already, even if the final official letter will come in February only. Indeed, the accepted students write "unofficial email from the Graduate Program Administrator."
My questions are two: first, what is the graduate program administrator? Moreover, if I haven't received an email from this department in this unofficial email shift, does it mean that I have not been admitted and that I will be (at best) waitlisted? Thank you in advance.

The "Graduate Program Administrator" is... the administrator of the graduate program. For larger programs it's likely to be an office person who manages graduate admissions and recruitment, grants and funding for the graduate program/students, etc. For smaller programs (or simply programs organized differently) it could be a faculty person. It's a real, credible position, but an unofficial offer is not the same as an official one.
If you haven't received an email updating your status, you don't know your status. Probabilistically, if other people have gotten an email from that particular institution and program saying they're unofficially admitted, yes, it is less likely you will be admitted if even just by simple probability (like a shell game where some of the answers have been revealed), but you can't know anything for sure. Every department does it differently. Perhaps they emailed some "definite yesses" early and are debating about the rest or are waiting to learn about the certainty of funding from elsewhere in the administration.
It's not worth your worrying about things like this that are now out of your control. Just wait until you hear about your own status. I'd highly recommend against trying to scour the internet for hints as to what will happen. It's just not a good use of your time or mental health.

Thank you so much for your kind and helpful answer!

+10 for the last paragraph

Just anecdotally I got a "you should probably be admitted" text from my current advisor at the end of January last year, followed by a formal admissions offer later in April. I also had to contact the school to have my admissions form processed, as the staff were working from home due to COVID, so it took a couple moths longer to send out letters.


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First, last, or corresponding authorship for PhD without a PI
My PI left academia 3 years ago, leaving me as an exchange-PhD student behind. I made 1/4 of the work in his lab. when he left I had to make an agreement with the institute to stay here and finish my work. They agreed to give me the salary and visa for one more year. I had to find my own funding, and worked at a bench in abandoned lab using their old equipment without guidance. Yet I got some great feedback from other PIs on campus. Last year I stopped getting salary from the institution and visa expired so I'm here now on turist visa to finish the project. I just finished writing the paper, which is required for me to graduate but I'm a bit confused about who should I put as first, last, and corresponding author?
Since my former PI has nothing to do with our institute anymore, he did initiate the project. However he left me behind without guidance, funds, salary, visa, nor tried to find another lab/PI where I could finish my work. I know he will not help me with the submission process nor with the post-review work. Therefore I wonder if putting him on the paper will only allow him to create more problems while I really want to graduate asap, yet I need to have a paper accepted in order to do so.
What's your recommendation?

You should not be working on a tourism visa. You may get in serious trouble.

Ideally, he should be on the paper as author, if and only if his intellectual contributions appear in it. But practice differs in some fields and you likely need to adhere to the norms of the field, even if not ideal. If he is not an author, you need to acknowledge him for starting the project (at least). And "starting the project" may or may not mean an intellectual contribution to the paper.
In some fields, a PI is always included. In others it depends on their actual contribution to the paper as opposed to the project overall.
However, practice also differs in author order. In some fields (pure math and theoretical CS) it is usually alphabetical. In others the primary author is listed first. But in others the primary author is listed last. It doesn't make a lot of sense outside the field.
"Corresponding author" can mean various things. I normally take it to be just a bureaucratic function, not an honorary one. Who is the best person to respond to queries about the paper? That is likely yourself in this case.
You don't mention whether there are others involved, complicating the issue.
Note also, that permission to publish is required of all authors and even some who are acknowledged by name. Reputable publishers will insist on that.


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Should I change my masters supervisor?
I am currently doing a 2-year Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering in a Canadian university under professor A and the research topic is something that I like (scramjet optimization). But recently in a career fair, I was told by people in the National Research Council that the topic I am researching doesn't have a wide career path in Canada and it is almost impossible for a new grad to even get those jobs. I was refered to professor B (who worked in NRC before) from the same school whose research interest (making passenger aircraft more efficient) has more funding and attention from the industry and the government and was told that people like new grads that have done research in these topics. Professor B offered to take me into his team and get me start doing research under his supervision if I agreed to a switch.
Problem is, I have known professor A since my 4th year and when I asked him about research opportunity then, he said he don't have a position for me because of lack of funding. However, after a year, he emailed me and asked me whether I would like a research position without me even asking him about this. And now I have already spent a year in the master program and have finished all the course requirements.
I do want to start working formally (whether in the industry or academic), but I just worry that do the switch now would be like burning a bridge with that professor.
Could I hear your suggestions?

NRC is a national research lab with their own specific funding and work directives. In the past it was an incredible framework for fundamental research, but about 20 years ago it went down very specific applied routes, and frankly much of their scientific output is quite mundane. I know numerous colleagues who left in the 2000-2010 timeframe because of that. The value of your masters degree is to prove that you know topics at a higher level and can complete a short research project. It does not in any way lock you into a career path. Stick with the faculty that will support you.

You should follow a bit altruistic approach and broaden your vision of thinking. Well, whatever you are planning to do (switching in this case) is professionally and academically acceptable but not morally and ethically as you never know Prof. A might have expectations from you and have some unannounced plans for you. He might offer you a PhD position after your masters, who knows. So, whether switching would burn a bridge solely depends on the nature of your professor, as some could be really competitive and egoistic in such matters. If you think your relations are good and he would be open to listen to you with open ears, just arrange a meeting and expressed to him whatever you mention here. Maybe he could give you a better advice. No one can bind you to stay in a research group/lab. In the worst case, you can always go to student counselor and an ombudsman in your department.