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What should I do if an admissions office asks me for a bachelor's thesis, when my program didn't require it?
I recently applied to a university for a PhD program.They asked me to submit all of my documents.When I submitted my documents they asked for my Bachelors thesis. There is no Bachelors thesis or undergraduate research in our university.You can do it but its not a requirement and nobody does it given the time constraint of 6 months for Bachelors Final project. I have my Masters thesis but there was no bachelors thesis. There was a final project in bachelors but it was not research based. The hr said that "in case the thesis is not available,you can send an extended abstract". How do I properly address this situation ?

Send your master thesis?

Send the results of that final project?

Have you emailed/phoned them to ask them what to do/ what they actually want?

Send the one sentence "My university did not require a Bachelors thesis, so there is nothing for me to submit."

@Paxinum They are asking for both bachelors and Masters thesis.

@jojo I believe you already have the answer to your question: send an extended abstract of your project. You can also add a letter explaining the situation and stating that no Bachelor Thesis was required. You should send your Master Thesis as well.

As suggested in the comments above, I would send both the final project writeup and your masters thesis with a letter explaining the situation (no bachelors thesis required at your university), and contact the department and ask them how they wish you to proceed. At the end of the day, it's their requirement, so it's their call.

We were only required to submit the source code of the application and then give a viva of the project.No write up or document was required. What should I include in the bachelors write up ?

@jojo - Given that, I would definitely start with just calling the department and asking them what they want you to do.


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How do researchers handle hypotheses?
In my field (biology), the end of the introduction in a research article generally ends with a list of hypotheses that the researchers tested. A common structure of this part of a research paper is:
 'We tested (1) hypothesis X (2) hypothesis Y and (3) hypothesis Z'.

The research papers I read often test between two and four hypotheses. I'm interested in how the researchers generally arrive at this list of two and four hypotheses. Do they start with a list of 10+ hypotheses, and tick off the ones that they fail to say anything useful about? Or do they stick with the same two to four hypotheses throughout a research project? Or do researchers not begin with any hypotheses, and fit some suitable hypotheses after checking their results?

What is your hypothesis?

In a typical math paper, the hypotheses at the end of the introduction are called theorems at the end of the paper after rigorous testing. How to pick them depends on a large number of factors, and it's a skill you first learn at grad school and then keep honing as you get better at math. I'm guessing it's more or less the same in biology.

I disagree with the previous comment.  In a typical math paper, there are no hypotheses, only theorems, and they are not tested, but proved.  Typically the theorems in the paper are chosen by painting the target around the arrow after it lands.

@JeffE It's not a serious comment if you didn't notice. But I do believe that what authors claim is a theorem should be understood as a hypothesis (or conjecture) until you read the proof and convince yourself or come up with your own. The editorial "we" haven't proved them; "we" are going to prove them. Hence, they're hypotheses or conjectures when you first see them in the first section. To prove is to test the validity in a specific way. Thus, it is still testing. I agree with your second point, and I think it's the same as in other fields. I don't think it contradicts my comment.

I believe that in many fields of study, the hypothesis is "implicit," in the sense that we're not explicitly writing down a statement such as "we believe that effect Y is the result of cause X." This is especially true in fields associated with "inverse" methods, where the idea is to build a model that explains a result. In such cases, you know what the "answer" is (the phenomenon you're looking to explain or quantify), but you might not necessarily predict in advance what causes the result you want. Even if the model is successful in reproducing the result, you may not be able to predict why that model worked without deeper investigation of the data that is produced. Hence, any attempt at formal, explicit hypotheses is largely guesswork.

In social science, there are often a number of formalized hypothesis in every paper. This is because in human behavior study, there are often a number of nuances which are being studied at the same time (which allows you to reach aforementioned hypothesis)
The way in which I, as a current graduate student (not in social science but intersecting with it in my work) have been trained is through the following two approaches.

If I am doing qualitative research then I often adopt a grounded theory approach in which there are no pre-determined hypotheses. There could be research questions instead.
If I am engaged in quantitative inquiry then I adopt formalized hypothesis from the existing literature. e.g. existing literature says X contributes to Y. I think Z is another variable which might contribute to Y ergo, I might develop H1: X + Z contributes to Y.

In (cognitive) neuroscience, most often there is either a single hypothesis in the introduction, or two competing ones. The Journal of Neuroscience, for example, limits introductions to 500 words, which doesn't allow for much space to describe the theory behind many hypotheses.
In the results and discussion section, however, it is common to offer alternative hypotheses which could explain the obtained pattern of results, and to then proceed to discard them through control experiments, additional analyses, or on theoretical grounds. There is no real limit on the number of alternative hypotheses tested, but usually, the stronger the journal, the more analyses you need to persuade the reviewers that your explanation is the most likely one.

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When meeting a professor for the first time, is it always a good idea to ask about their research interests?
I'd imagine that a good fraction would actually start to tire (a bit) of the repetitiveness of describing their research hundreds of times over, and would probably want to talk about something else.. After all, does the professor usually benefit when they talk about their research to a random undergrad?
Yet, "ask the professor about his research" is generally considered to be standard social advice in academia... (after all, people love to talk about themselves - http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-people-brain-scans.html ). Is the pleasure of talking about your research similar to the excitement of having the liberty to be self-centered and to talk about yourself?
But maybe professors would prefer to talk about something else - it's just that it's hard to think of a topic that they would prefer talking about, so it's simply a "safe option" to ask them questions about their research?
What I am really interested in - is this - would professors usually prefer to talk about something other than their research, if some such common topic could conceivably be found?

Whenever you meet anyone for the first time, discussing their job/work is almost always a safe topic of conversation and can serve as a good icebreaker. Academia is no different.

Oh I see - good point.

@eykanal: I kind of disagree. For most people, their current projects and publications cannot be found on their website, which is often the case for professors. At least in some situations - e.g. having an appointment with a professor to ask him about getting a project topic - wouldn't starting the conversation with "Can you tell me about your research?" be the worst possible start, immediately raising the first red flag for the professor by showing that you didn't even bother to check what topics that particular professor is actually interested in?

It depends on the context I guess.
If you are alone at a coffee break, and eager to discuss with someone, you should maybe consider discussing on something else, or on someone else research (talk about the talk just before the break, talk about the nice venue, talk about the quality of the banquet, etc.).
But If you have a purpose wrt talking to a specific person, go straight to the point. You have a technical question about one of my paper, ask it! You are looking for an intership, say it! Don't try to be too smart by starting a broad discussion that you will narrow later. You have only a few minutes to go from the status of "yet another boring chitchat" to "mmm, interesting", don't spoil these minutes.

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How do the "proposed research" essays of those who win NSF Fellowships compare with those who don't win NSF Fellowships?
I just looked at the research proposals of a few people who failed to win the NSF Fellowship, and they actually scare me a bit.
I know that the NSF cares about Broader Impact a lot, and that is where I might actually be strongest at. But the reviews look at intellectual merit first and foremost, and that's what scares me, since how can you convince the reviewers that your idea has more intellectual merit than a huge number of other very strong applicants?

@user4512 That is really bizarre.

As someone who reviews graduate applications, both for admissions and for fellowships, I can say that the number of strong applications is really large, and now in many cases is almost certainly larger than the number of fellowships being awarded in most of these competitions. The unfortunate side effect of this, which is obvious here, is that in most cases, you could have an application that is "strong enough" to merit receiving the fellowship, but not get it. Unfortunately, you don't get to do multiple stochastic realizations; you have to deal with the events the one time they unfold.
That said, how do you impress the reviewer? By having a clear sense of what your project is, and being able to talk about coherently and convincingly. The reviewers are looking for good ideas and good people to fund. You need to convince them that you're going to be a good researcher, and you have a good idea to "sell." If you don't think your research is all that amazing, how are you going to convince somebody else about that?

Very good points. :) The one important question I'd like to add, though, is this: can you convince them that you're a good person to fund in the proposed research statement? Usually this convincing is done in the personal statement instead, but I'm wondering if it can be done in proposed research too?

The only way to do that is to bring in relevant details about your experience into the research proposal. Make sure the research proposal is primarily a research proposal. But you can try to make the case that you're the right person for the project, and why. But I certainly wouldn't try to drive that point home at the expense of making a better case for the project you want to pursue!

"But you can try to make the case that you're the right person for the project, and why. But I certainly wouldn't try to drive that point home at the expense of making a better case for the project you want to pursue"
^Wow - that is an amazing point!


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Are university counseling services usually able to help with the professional troubles that PhD students face?
The thing with PhDs is that it often takes someone who knows the politics and people of the field in order to really understand (or help) a PhD student's troubles (if any arise). At the same time, there are many similarities.
If they don't, who are the other best people to talk to in case issues arise?

This question is pretty vague. "Counseling services" can refer to many departments (student services, medical assistance, benefits...), and "issues" is very broad. Perhaps you could specify what you're referring to?

In particular, do you mean personal troubles (like anxiety or depression or impostor syndrome) or professional troubles (like administrative hurdles or paper rejections or an irresponsible advisor)?

Professional troubles. But also personal troubles that arise out of professional troubles too.

Many university mental health centers have PhD-only group therapy programs. These often focus on stress and anxiety. They will be proctored by a professional counselor but are designed to be a space where graduate students can help each other.
The benefit is two-fold - you get to talk to people who are in grad school in your university, perhaps in a similar field or program. You'd be surprised how similar some issues are regardless of field of study (research falling behind, concern about funding, conflicts with PIs/advisers, etc.). But in group therapy you are able to work through issues in an explicitly private space. If you are having a serious issue, it may be good to start here rather than within your department. I'd say that is any grievance you air to someone within your department has the chance to spread.

In general, university counseling should be aware of how to deal with PhD student affairs as well as undergraduate issues. (Perhaps different staff or the two groups, perhaps not.) However, I'll focus on the "if they don't" part of your question.
There is usually a graduate "officer" in most departments, who is tasked with making sure that graduate students complete the requirements of their studies, and that departmental regulations and policies are being followed. This officer should be the first person to talk to if something goes wrong, and the problem can't be resolved between the parties directly.
Beyond that, the members of the thesis committee have an obligation to intervene in the case of severe conflicts that could disrupt the program. Ultimately, though, the chair of the department would be the last "internal" stop before you would have to go to the university-level administration (the office of the dean of graduate students, or a similar position).
If you are looking for advice from fellow students, perhaps you can get information from the student committee that is present in most departments.

Generally speaking, you'll get the best advice from one of the following, in order of usefulness & availability to help:

Your advisor
Postdocs in your lab/field
Other graduate students in your lab/field
Close collaborators
Your committee members
University departmental staff
...

In the past, I have spoken with departmental staff for issues, including my department chair, but often they're pretty limited in what they can offer. Your most useful advice will often come from the top three in the above list.


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Can graduate students be forced to leave graduate school under pressure from their advisers?
And how often does it happen? I know someone who was de facto kicked out of Harvard due to some conflict with his advisers, though he was later able to transfer to Caltech.
As an example - what if there was an irreconcilable difference between the student and adviser, and what if other advisers were reluctant to take the student on (for whatever reason)?

Define "forced". Does it differ from "driven around the bend and taken away by the nice men in white coats"?

As an example - what if there was an irreconcilable difference between the student and adviser, and what if other advisers were reluctant to take the student on (for whatever reason)?

@InquilineKea: In that situation, even if they aren't officially kicked out, leaving the program might be the student's sanest option.  (I really hope this is just a hypothetical question.)

At the university where I did my master's, the form for submission of dissertation asked "is this dissertation submitted with the acquiescence of the supervisor?" -- I always wondered what the procedure was for "no" answer here, since the rest of the form assumed the supervisor's approval.

Like @Suresh says, in the US, I would expect that the advisor-advisee relationship would be separate from enrollment in the department.  The advisor can decline to continue funding the student, and can decline to continue advising the student.  However usually the advisor cannot force the student out of the graduate program; that's up to the department or university.  I would expect that most departments or universities would have an established process for asking students to leave, which would typically be if the student is not making satisfactory progress towards their degree or meeting other requirements.  Normally I would expect this process to include some degree of warnings and feedback.
That said, there is some coupling between the advisor-advisee relationship and one's status as a graduate student.  Many PhD programs have a requirement that the graduate student must have a faculty advisor.  If the student's current advisor is no longer willing to continue advising them, and if no other faculty is willing to advise the student, then this may eventually lead to the student being asked to leave the graduate program, for failure to meet the program requirements.  Normally I would expect that to happen only in egregious cases: most departments probably feel a sense of responsibility towards their graduate students, take care to look out for their students, and try to create an environment that gives students a chance to finish their degree.

"towards their degree or meeting or other requirements." Can't parse this. Perhaps "towards their degree or not meeting some other requirements", perhaps? Also "try to create an environment gives students a chance to finish their degree." I think there should be a "that" before the "gives", or similar.

This is such a loaded question I'm hesitant to answer. While it might seem that a student was "kicked out" of a program for conflicts with an advisor, most departments (including ours!) have a procedure and policy for when students are asked to leave the program.
Usually, the reasons would be some mixture of lack of basic minimum grades and lack of satisfactory progress. if there's conflict between a student and advisor, there's usually some departmental mediator (a director of the graduate program) who should be able to step in and deal with the situation (either finding the student another advisor, or something like that).
But I'm not aware of it being generally possible for an advisor to fire a student and have that student then be removed from the graduate program: these two things are usually separate.

The answer is "it depends". It depends on the country and it probably even varies between universities.
In some countries, Sweden or the Netherlands, for example, it is virtually impossible to force a graduate student to leave, though eventually the funding allocated to that student may expire. I am aware of one case of academic misconduct in the Netherlands where the student was more or less forced to quit or otherwise face a long and painful series of disciplinary hearings to officially make him leave.
In other places, Belgium, for example, students are often paid based on year long contracts (graduate students are employees). The contracts can be evaluated each year and terminated in the case of unsatisfactory performance. Of course, matters are handled delicately, and often by involving the student in the process. That is, discuss the student's performance and paint a bleak picture and let him/her see that quitting is the best option.
From the student's perspective, it is best that they do not waste 4+ years of their lives and achieve nothing.
From the university/department/professor's perspective, it is best that the student does not waste 4+ years of funding and achieve nothing.
It's a win-win.

Almost absolutely. This happened to me at a university computer science Ph.D program in the US. I was admitted with only one year of funding guarantee. When I asked about the offer and questioned about the funding for remaining years, I received vague answers.
When I arrived there, I was told if I can not find an advisor in a year no more funding would be offered. Though this seems reasonable, the trick was that no advisor was interested in or available to take me. I was ignored to death and could not find an advisor in a year. The funding did not continue and I had to leave the United States, as I was international and can not pay from my pocket.
Later I realized that this was a scam and department over admits in the need of cheap teaching TA labour under the disguise of a PhD. No professor had voted for my admission, at least softly. Also, students they trusted were offered full (multi- year) funding packages. Though I was suspicious of only one year funding guarantee in my admission offer, I was naive to US funding system and could not see the scam at that time.

I had written the university name for shame and name purposes, seems like it is removed and anonymized. Not surprised how these suckers can get along with what they do easily, as they are protected by the community by being anonymized.

In my college a graduate student was terminated with a master degree in the middle of PhD due to his inabilities to perform well in the lab.

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How should I prepare e-prints (pre-prints and post-prints) of already published papers?
I am about to embark on the publication of pre-prints or post-prints of about a dozen papers that have already been published in peer-reviewed journals. I plan to use the SHERPA/RoMEO database to decide whether to publish a pre-print or post-print, and when it is appropriate. I have backed up the published papers at both the pre-peer review and post-peer review stages.
These documents will be lodged primarily with my institutions repository, but also on a personal website and perhaps academia.edu. Due to my field of research, arvix is not appropriate.
I am aware that I may need to make some modifications to the manuscripts before lodging them as a pre-post print. For example, it seems appropriate to link to the canonical, published version of the paper on the cover sheet. But I am unaware of what other changes I may need to make to the manuscript. A checklist of modifications to make would ease this process and help me to avoid missing things.
What steps should I go through to prepare a manuscript for publication as a pre-print or post-print?
UPDATE: I've made an example post-print here. Are there any concrete improvements I could make on this, or important things I'm missing?

I am wondering: why one would want to publish a pre-print if a (probably improved by referee's comments) post-print is available? Except for copyright reasons of course...

@Taladris so that people can read the paper without a subscription? And see my answer: referees suggestions are often allowed to be included.

@Taladris: Also, in some cases, you might be happier with the pre-print version. I heard of somebody who recommends to read his preprints, as only they include conclusions along the lines of “another possible explanation for these results is that [main-stream hypothesis] is wrong”.

Your link is broken, it might be worth putting the post-print somewhere more stable than a Wordpress site.

One thing I suggest is do not put up the paper in submitted-manuscript form. You are free to change from double-spaced (if that is the case) back to single spaced (or as appropriate); you can put figures and tables where they belong; you can use a nice typeface; you can even change the referencing style to a one you like better.
Use the version that incorporates changes suggested by the referee if at all possible. My guess is you didn't sign away rights until after you made said changes and sent it back to the journal -- or this may have happened, and it may be that the original submission came with agreeing to terms that include all rights in various versions of the paper in the case of acceptance - I hate these types of journals. In any case, knowing your field would help regarding advice here.
This website can help you find out if you are allowed the post-referee-comments version: http://rchive.it/ (it uses Sherpa/Romeo data), but the ultimate answer will come from the journal website.
This will make your paper more pleasant to read, and help dispel the myth that preprints are ugly.

Thanks David. I'd be obliged if you could comment on my postprint attempted here.

@fmark looks good, from my completely ignorant perspective (I don't know what the conventions are in your field). As dgraziotin mentions in his answer, make sure you provide the doi and full information of the published version. If people have the subscription, they will want to look at that copy, and publishers like you to do this.


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What is the equivalent of an Australian or New Zealand honours thesis in British universities?
Although it is somewhat discipline specific, in Australia, to receive honours for a bachelors degree, a student must undertake an additional, optional year of fulltime study, turning a three year degree into a four year degree. Generally, the vast majority of that year is spent conducting an independent research project which is written up as an honours thesis. An honours project generally has two supervisors, and is examined by two independent academics, including one from another university. In my field (human geography), they are usually 12,000 - 20,000 words long, and generally include the collection and analysis of new research data. Although they are somewhat more detailed and verbose, an honours thesis in my field should contain research equivalent to one or two academic papers in terms of the quantity and scope of the work, although obviously quality varies from student to student.
1st class honours in Australia is generally sufficient for admission to a PhD program here, although a scholarship will generally require either exceptionally high grades or additional demonstration of research potential.
I understand that a New Zealand honours is similar to its Australian counterpart.
I have supervised several honours theses in Australia. I am currently applying for lectureships in Britain, where I understand that the honours system is quite different. How can I explain succinctly to a British audience the scope and magnitude of honours supervision? Is there a simple equivalence with some other form of thesis in Britain?

I thought UK universities did not have honours theses or honours years.  And that UK honours were granted on the basis of performance in undergraduate study.  Good question.

At my UK university, an honours degree is awarded if the candidate has not failed any modules during the course of the degree. The Australian system you describe sounds more like the 4th year of the UK integrated Masters degree. In the UK it would be very unusual to go straight from a BSc into a PhD without this additional Masters year.

Small sample size, but the one AUS honours thesis I've read seemed to exceed most UK Master's dissertations in my area. Perhaps you have to emphasize this is not just some kind of 50 page "4th year UG dissertation", done as a component alongside taught courses, but something lengthier and more substantial (and, therefore, where your supervision can be compared with other applicants' supervisions of PhD students)

How can I explain succinctly to a British audience the scope and magnitude of honours supervision?
I suggest emphasizing the similarity to Masters.
Something like:

In Australia Honours is a postgraduate degree, very similar to a heavily condensed Masters degree. It runs in 1 year, instead of 2; and like most Masters comprises coursework, and a research thesis competent. A Honours degree, can allow talented students to fast-track their entry into a PhD program. Australian universities and scholarship organizers consider earning high marks in Honours as equivalent to completing a regular Masters.

If that is too long, just use the first sentence or 2.
Give them enough so they know what to lookup.
But that explains the scope of the honours, not the scope of the supervision.

in England, honours is granted after three years without a mandatory thesis or essay component. Scotland is more similar to Australia but not identical.
Even in Australia, the requirement for an honours thesis varies. I don't see why you can't be explicit. Explain that honours is an optional fourth year similar to a one-year English masters and detail what fraction of the year was spent on the thesis. If your students' theses were publishable, get them published and say they led to publications.


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A better way to train future Theoretical Computer Science researchers
My questions:

Are there universites offering a B.Sc. in computer science aimed solely at giving the best training to future theoretical computer science researchers?
  (in the universities I checked, the programs are a combination of training people for research and training people to be programmers in the industry).
As it seems not to be the case in most universities, is there a reason not to offer such programs? (financial maybe)

The motivation for the questions:
I am a mathematics M.Sc. student.
I had several conversations with researchers (full/associate professors) in theoretical computer science when I was looking for a thesis advisor. Three of them mentioned to me that they wish they would have learnt more mathematics in their basic training (two of them had a B.Sc. in mathematics and computer science and said they wished they did an M.Sc. in mathematics as well and one of them studied computer science only for a B.Sc.).
Their comments referred to funtional analysis (by a researcher in metric embeddings), to group theoretic constructions of expander graphs, etc.
This led me to check the program in computer science and here is what I found:
If a student really tries to get as much cs-theory and mathmematics in his B.Sc, he can study: 38% theoretical computer science, 40% mathematics with mathematics students, 6% mathematics with cs-students only, 16% technical courses. This amounts to 16% waste of time (for a future theoertical cs researchers) and 6% non-optimal use of time (as these math courses with cs-students feel a bit like high-school math).
I included the basic programming courses under theoretical cs because I believe they are essential in order to "know what you're talking about" when studying algorithms, computability, etc.
The situation is even a little worse from the perspective of this student because I included all the graduate courses in theoretical cs offered to undergrads, so he will have less theoretical cs courses to take during the M.Sc.
It seems like a much better choice for a future cs theory researcher is to study mathematics and take the cs theory courses (together with the most basic programming courses) as the "free choice" courses. I feel lucky to have done that as it seems that I would not have received such an excellent training if I had gone for the university's fixed cs+math program.
I think that the cs world could benefit alot if universities offered both B.Sc. and M.Sc. programs in "mathematics and theoretical computer science". This can be good both in giving a better training and in encouraging future colloboration.
So here's another question:

Do you agree that such programs ("mathematics and theoretical computer science") are a better alternative to cs-only programs or math+cs program which include many technical courses, as far as future theoretical cs researchers are concerned?

I couldn't find better tags for this question. I'd be happy if someone else does (or creates the appropraite tags).

Can you give an example of a "technical course" that you would consider a waste of time for a Theoretical CS researcher?

The word you're looking for is "Isreal".

@ESultanik: Ofcourse, everything is relative, but I think a course in C and a course is C++, for students who already learnt Java, is a much worse use of time, relative to, say, another course in algorithms.

@JeffE: I don't understand what your comment refers to.

@user302099: The only place I've seen degree programs of the kind you describe is at Israeli universities.

It is not at all obvious that those 16% are a waste of time. Take a look at this question or its blog post summary

@JeffE: Can you please give a name of one university where you know such program is offered?

http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/

@user30209: I consider a course on any particular language a waste of time for any computer science major.  I thought you were referring to courses on operating systems, or compilers, or networking, or architecture, or graphics, or distributed systems, or machine learning, or scientific computing, or parallel computing, or programming language semantics, or human-computer interaction, or computer vision, or robotics, or real-time systems, or databases, or bioinformatics, or software engineering.  You know, computer science.  In my opinion, none of those courses is a waste of time.

I agree with @JeffE completely.  In my undergraduate degree in computer science (with a focus on TCS, AI, and pure mathematics), I didn't take a single course that taught me a programming language.  There was only one course that covered the basics of programming, and that was just in the first semester of freshman year.  Do literature majors take a class on how to use a typewriter?

@JeffE and others: You convinced me. Most technical courses are not a waste of time for a future theoertical computer science researcher. Yet, I think it's a good idea to include more (theoertical) computer science in math undergraduate programs, at least in the ones I checked.

One downside is the "all eggs in one basket" problem. If you're sure you want to go into theoryCS, then this is great. But if you want to hedge your bets, then some more programming and general CS courses at the undergrad level would be helpful. Also, even within theoryCS, a solid understanding of computer science at large helps with asking new questions about other models of computation, or evaluating the value of theoretical questions motivated by some practical applications.

As Suresh points out, most majors aren't narrowly focused towards exactly one career track, because many people don't end up in the career they expect to.  (The exception I know of is that some schools offer things like pre-med and pre-business majors, but note that 1) there are a lot more spots in medical schools than in graduate CS programs, and 2) many schools don't offer these programs, precisely because they're so narrow.)  That 16% of time is only wasted, at worst, for the very few people who are absolutely sure of what they want to do.
The purpose of an undergraduate degree is to give someone broad knowledge of a field, not to make a bee-line for academic research.  This is the same reason most schools require some level of "general education" requirements, under some name or another---they want their graduates to have a broad overview of academia in general, partially because some people end up being inspired by something they hadn't expected to, and partially because having a broader base of knowledge makes it easier to answer unexpected questions.
Finally, many schools offer some sort of "make your own major" program, which would be a way for the student who is actually sure they want to study CS theory to focus on that earlier.


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Advisor isn't advising
I'm having the problem that my advisor isn't providing me with any real guidance. To avoid making this a rant post, I'll just state the facts: my advisor is an MD/PhD, working almost full-time as an MD. He comes to the lab once a week for lab meetings, and often doesn't have time to meet. He seems to have lost interest in doing research, and isn't being helpful at all regarding how I should proceed with my research.
So far, here's what I've tried and how well it worked out:

Talking to department graduate chair: marginally useful, scheduled a useless meeting with me and my advisor. Nice meeting, but no results.
Talk to other members of my committee: pretty useful, gave me some very good advice about my research, but I wonder how often I can use them as a resource

Any other suggestions on how I can handle this?

Some of the advice columns from the Chronicle of Higher Education may be useful, such as: http://chronicle.com/article/Dealing-With-a-Difficult/64035/

My answer depends on how far along you are in your research and whether you are in PhD or MD?PhD program.
If you are in a PhD program and you are less than a year in leave the lab. If you are more than a year in at you next Thesis Committee meeting, if it's scientifically reasonable, try to either set a date for graduating or ask for a co-PI.
If you are in the MD/PhD program, you will have to consider your PI's position and whether a lukewarm letter from someone in his position is worth your staying in the lab. If you plan to go into a competitive surgicial or medical subspecialty, it just might be.
I, sadly, think that checked-out PIs- even those without the excuse of having to go see patients- are increasingly the norm. Getting to be a professor is a great way to age rapidly and burn out, especially in the biomedical sciences. Also, professors aren't selected for their mentoring skills so much as scientific productivity. Often scientific productivity means exploitation or disregard because of self-involvement rather than nurturing.

I had a similar issue with my advisor between 2006 and 2009. Eventually things didn't quite work out as he was just trying to exploit me. I dropped out of the PhD program and got back in with an other faculty member who was good at mentoring.I am on my way to graduate with a PhD in about 10 months now.

+1 for "getting to be a professor is a great way to age rapidly and burn out" :)

In addition to the department chair, is there a head of graduate studies or the like (e.g., an ombudsman)? You may want to consider talking to them.
Generally speaking though, unless it will severely derail your progress, I'd consider changing advisors, and starting to talk to your committee members about shifting who is your chair.

Agreed.  If your advisor isn't doing their job, fire them.

@EpiGrad: I don't totally agree. Politics in academia can be very petty, so burning bridges is dangerous. One effect of the glut of biomedical PhDs is that some (anecdotal evidence, I know) feel that the post-doc is what distinguishes you. Then, the PhD just becomes proof that you can manage most of a scientific project somewhat independently. So if your advisor is a mentoring failure but has clout and you can still finish (albeit with an inferior education) in his lab, it's not outlandish to stay.


text:
To cite a publication with two authors in a presentation, should I write "X and Y" or "X et al."?
I am preparing to give a presentation after few days. Some papers are authored by two people and some are by three. While referring their work during presentation what should I write for two authors.
Suppose there are two authors only - X and Y. Shall I write X et al. proved that ...... or X and Y proved that....

You say "write for two authors" but presentations involve speaking. So just to clarify, are you talking about what citation information to put on a slide?

Follow a specific citation style (APA MLA ..etc) and put whatever it says

@JeromyAnglim yeah presentation involves speaking and using slides too.

@monalisa so are you concerned with the written or the spoken convention or both?

@seteropere: I disagree.  In fields in which author order is always alphabetical, "X et al." is rude and even discriminatory to those who happen to have names at the end of the alphabet.  Assuming the list of all the authors' names fits on a single line, I see no reason not to include them all at least once.

@PeteL.Clark nice perspective. Had no clue that this might look bad in some situations.

@JeromyAnglim ... Its about both. I am going to present.

This was addressed on English.SE, Is "et al." acceptable for citations with exactly two authors?
The answers there indicate that major citation styles (MLA, Harvard) do not use "et al." when there are only two authors.
APA style also does not use "et al." for only two authors.
I'm not going to exhaustively check every citation style, but I'm not personally aware of any where "et al." is acceptable when citing a publication with only two authors.
Also of interest to those who happen to like grammar: the English.SE answer also points out that using "et al." for two authors can be considered incorrect, regardless of style considerations (text in brackets is added by me):

The Latinate abbreviation "et al." is short for "et alii," which means, "and others," and always refers to people, not objects. So if you had two authors, adding "et al." would indicate that there were [plural] other authors  - and since there are no[t multiple] other authors in this case, it is incorrect to use it.

While "et al." could also technically stand for the singular "et alia" which would be technically correct, that's certainly not a conventional abbreviation.

+1. Obligatory nitpickery: et alia would be the correct singular only if the second author is female - if the second author is male, the correct form is et alius. SCNR.

Follow the requirements of the journal, if they are firm. But let me argue why you should include all the authors, if possible, in many circumstances, even if there are three or four (or more). In particular, I come from a mathematics background, but this applies to many fields.
When you cite a paper as "X et al.,", the other author names are invisible. If the paper is good, and gets cited often in this way, people may begin to know it as the "X et al." paper - thus obscuring the contributions of the other authors. Thus X gets, in effect, sole credit in the text, and the other authors are relegated to the references section. The same holds at presentations.
Reputation is particularly important for many authors - especially younger ones, but even well established ones. It helps build their reputation for quality work, which in turn is related to jobs, grants, editorships, etc. The authors whose names are obscured may miss out on recognition that they actually deserve, solely so that an author can save a few characters in an electronic document.
This is particularly relevant in fields where authorships are alphabetical by default, such as mathematics. In this case, the first author only had the luck to have a name that comes earlier in the alphabet.
There have been studies where the effect of having an early-in-the-alphabet name have been investigated.  Two of them are:

What’s in a Surname? The Effects of
Surname Initials on Academic Success
Liran Einav and Leeat Yariv
Alphabetization and the Skewing of First Authorship Towards
Last Names Early in the Alphabet by Jonathan M. Levitta and Mike Thelwall

The essay "Et al." is unethical by Noah Snyder was influential in my thinking about this issue.

Yeah, I agree with you. thanks for the answer.

While in publications, you should follow whatever the official style is, in presentations you are typically much less constrained.
My own guiding principle for slides is to minimize the amount of visual clutter on screen, and especially to minimize text---after all, I want people to be listening to the talk, rather than simply reading the slides.  What's important to communicate is:

This material belongs to a particular publication (either yours or somebody else's)
A sufficiently unique identifies that somebody can find it in an associated bibliography.

I go for a fairly sparse slide format, so I tend to communicate references in the tersest way possible on the slides, using [X & Y, YEAR] for 2 authors and [X et al., YEAR] for 3+, and then saying the citation more fully as I talk, e.g., "X, Y, and Z's paper last year in Annals of Randomology." In presentations, however, there is much space for personal style and expression.  At the other extreme, I have also seen people include entire full citations on slides, complete with page numbers and DOI. What is important is to give credit while you can experiment with what best suits your own sense of design and the balance between communication and completeness.


text:
Should I recommend accepting a manuscript with major revisions because of a strong topic, but quite poor content?
I have been given my first manuscript to review for a journal. The topic is a very good one, it fills a research gap nicely and is an area that I specialise in. However, the execution of the paper is lacking. I am about halfway through making comments on it. The English is consistently poor in both spelling and grammar, and the structure is dire, which makes it hard to follow the main arguments. I am aware that bad English is no reason to reject a paper, but the English in this paper is very confused in many places, sometimes multiple times per paragraph, and it's a trial to follow.
I believe that the paper could only be salvageable after a rewrite, but by a third party. I don't believe the author's English is good enough to bring it up to standard. I do not care about being 'kind' to the author, but the topic is so good that I would love to see it go through, but I am torn between accepting it with majors or recommending rejection.  My PhD supervisor has advised me to recommend rejection, but I am still unsure which way to go. Should I recommend acceptance after major revisions in the hope that it will improve based on my [now extensive] advice or just recommend rejection?

I faced a similar problem in the first article I reviewed. I did not consult anyone with more experience in reviewing. In the first round I pointed out a few mistakes and then said that language and grammar should be revised in general. After they haven't fixed anything, in the second round, I said that this paper will only get accepted after major language editing. Haven't heard of it since...

You cannot "accept" or "reject" it, you can only recommend to the editor and the editor can decide.  You can write the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript and your personal opinion that it could go through if the lnguage is dramatically improved and that's it.

@PsySp Indeed, I am aware of that, but thanks for the clarification.

In that case write your brutally honest opinion to the editor. Nothing wrong with that! Will be up to the editor on how to interpret this and what to decide next (based on the other reports).

bad English is no reason to reject a paper — [citation needed]

@JeffE it was a highly-rated answer here on ASE, I can't locate it presently.

BTW, is the major revision option in your case actually called "Accept with major revision" or just "Major revision"? The second would be more common and leaves more uncertainty as to whether the paper can eventually be accepted, depending on possible insights from the revision.

@lighthousekeeper I think it's called "provisionally accept with major revisions".

Are you distinguishing between whether the between whether the topic is exciting to you, and whether the paper is a well-reasoned and good research paper on the topic? From the OP's comments, I get impression that it is both the language and organization that make it difficult to tell (OP can't follow arguments, etc). While I can agree in principle with @JeffE that bad English (on its own) is no reason to reject a paper, when one can't figure out the arguments/validity/etc, because of language,  it is a reason to reject.

Bad(ly written) papers can inhibit research in an area, because people wanting to go into that area feel like they need to read the paper but are turned off by what they see.

While I can agree in principle with @JeffE that bad English (on its own) is no reason to reject a paper — Sorry I wasn't clear.  I think bad English (on its own) is definitely sufficient reason to reject a paper.

As reviewer, you are not responsible for language editing. It is always nice to point out a few spelling/word selection mistakes, next to a proper, content-oriented review. However, if there is a need to improve the language in order to understand the paper, something as simple as "The paper needs editing by a native English speaker (or someone at comparable level)" should be enough. if you can, add some comments regarding content, but refrain from correcting sentence by sentence. It's not part of reviewing, in the sense of, it's not worth your time. There are people getting paid for that.

As reviewer, you are not responsible for language editing---Actually, almost all competent reviewers do include basic language corrections in their reviews. This is from experience.

@Dilworth Yes, basic corrections that can be added to a review. However, not rewriting a paper in order to be able to review it at all.

I would reverse the question:
Should you accept a weak paper written in terrible English, just because it's about a topic you like, a niche you care about or a something nobody else is writing about?
Like mentioned in some of the comments: this could actually be detrimental for the overal interest in the subtopic, and this publication might prevent more capable people from publishing the same thing (but better) because something is already out there.
In addition, the low level of English and lack of structure might also let you fill in too many blanks and give their reasoning too much value, just because you're very comfortable with the topic. Are you sure a pass by a language editing service would fix this? If it has to be rewritten by an "expert in the field" that person might as well just write the whole thing from scratch.
Finally: rejection is (most of the time) not the end of a manuscript. You can write a shorter review message with your opinion and advice and reject it. In a few months you'll see the manuscript being published in another journal, either re-written so it got accepted in a decent journal, or published in a journal with much lower standards.

This was very insightful and gave me plenty to think about. The article has lots of information in it, and the author has interviewed plenty of people but hardly includes any interview material. Most unusual. You're right, I could be just pasting in my own understanding of the topic to fill in any gaps, but to other readers it might be quite confusing. Thank you very much.

Jeff Offutt has a very insightful scheme for calculating the final recommendation based on technical, presentation, and omission grounds (source):

The fields in the matrix correspond to different types of problems:

Technical Problems
Minor: Mistakes in background, related work;
  Moderate: Does not affect the key results;
  Major: Changes the key results;
  Critical: Negates the key results.
Presentation Problems
Minor: Typos, spelling, grammar;
  Moderate: Make understanding the paper harder  (organization, notation, repeated grammar);
  Major: Prevent understanding of part of the paper;
  Critical: Prevent understanding or evaluating a key result;
Problems of Omission
Minor: Omitted background, related work;
  Moderate: Not part of the key results;
  Major: Missing in the key results (proof or experiment,
  lack of control in experiment);
  Critical: Must be in the paper to evaluate the result
  (experimental study, etc) or not enough results.

The source also provides additional information and context.
Based on this scheme, I think the appropriate recommendation in your case would be a major revision.

This is a very interesting and useful source, thank you.

Under "Problems of Omission", you're missing "didn't cite my papers".

According to the grid, one should only recommend rejection if there are major or critical technical issues, regardless of whether spelling, grammar, and structure are dreadful. If an author majorly revised a badly-written and structured paper, there is still a chance of rejection after a second review. Would it simply not be fairer to recommend rejection having given advice for resubmission so that the journal can focus on accepting better papers?

@C26 Bad language should not protect from rejection in case there are major technical problems, but bad language should not be a reason to reject a paper that is fine from a technical perspective.

You do not accept or reject the paper. You recommend a decision to the editor, and the editor decides.
You should copy what you have just written in your question to your review: it is an excellent assessment of the quality of the paper that clearly indicates why it has merit and where it needs to be improved.
If you think it has a chance to be published after being rewritten: "major revisions". If not: reject.

If the manuscript seems to be technically sound, just because of English you can not reject it.
Different graphical finding can give you the feeling about the good and bad of the work ...
if its good, put up your thoughts on the paper and leave the decision to the editor...
mostly in these cases editors tend to ask authors to give one more look on their manuscript and shares your views with them ...
it would be really ok. the only favour you can do it to keep the tone neutral while suggesting or making comments on the manuscript.


text:
PhD Students research/annual assessment
Some departments do an annual assessment of their PhD students' progress. It includes questions about topics such as: being independent, writing skills, analysis skills, time devoted, reliability, conscientiousness, punctuality, self-reliance, independence, intellectual curiosity, communication skills, etc.
It also includes a self-assessment done by the student as well as another one by his faculty research adviser. What I found interesting is that sometimes the assigned faculty meet the student before submitting the self evaluation form where he/she often tells the student to change some of the self evaluation responses. It is even indicated in the instruction of some universities' websites.
My questions are:

How they are assessed, are they only to evaluate students or is it also to evaluate the faculty advising skills?
How do these reviews impact the student graduation timeline?  Although they are important skills students should acquire, mostly they are not part of the fundamental milestone for student graduation like qualifying exam, proposal, etc.

Are hypothetically asking or with regard to your own situation? Especially your second paragraph; which of this applies to your situation?

Ask your advisor.  Every department is different.

I don't think your two questions can be answered in a very general way, different universities obviously practice this differently. What I can say is that I don't think these self-assessments have much of an impact on the graduation timeline, more that they're used to identify any problems as early as possible (when they can be more easily fixed).
I'll instead comment on this almost-question:

What I found interesting is that sometimes the assigned faculty meet the student before submitting the self evaluation form where he/she often tells the student to change some of the self evaluation responses.

There's at least two categories of things where this makes sense:
1) PhD students (especially at around half to two-thirds in) will be overly-critical of their own performance. It's very easy to look at others and think they're doing much better than you are. Without being sexist, in my experience women in particular give themselves extremely harsh (informal) self-assesments even when they are very talented. In this case staff would correct this overly self-negative outlook.
2) These assesments are not the proper avenue for everything. In particular, at my university it is particularly stressed in the guidelines for filling out the assesment that this is not the correct avenue to initially notify the university if you're having trouble/disagreements with your supervisor. There's probably more examples of this.

As a grad student, it is all too easy to get into a situation where you are coasting, perhaps not making any real progress.  A good advisor ensures that such a state does not persist for long.  In my experience, the main purpose of these assessments is to

serve as a reminder to less-conscientious advisors to check in with their students; and
in extreme cases, serve as a mechanism to spur less-motivated students to get back to work (possibly by putting the student on probation or something similar).

When the student and advisor are taking their jobs seriously, the assessment is usually superfluous.  But it can also be an opportunity to highlight great work to the program chair or dean.

Every department is different: I don't have any suggestion about how you actually answer the question. I know that faculty in a department will give different answers, and fellow students will give you different different answers. In my department, the assessment (a discussion in a faculty meeting behind closed doors) was nominally only about students, but it can turn into a gently scrutiny of the advisor if there is a problem. This is because it is organized around a cohorts; but earlier, it was more based on "report by advisor", which tended to encourage discussion of advisors (unpleasant!). The typical point of the review is to give fair notice to the student that their are not making satisfactory progress. A milestone is a requirement that a student do something by a particular time, and the assessment isn't something that the student does. But if your funding is cut off, as can be a consequence of a negative assessment, then that tends to have a consequence for progress to degree.


text:
To what extent is it acceptable to copy definitions from reference materials?
I'm working on my master's thesis and am thinking of writing parts of a chapter as an introductory segment of a sub chapter within my work.
Is this acceptable if I include a portion of introductory matter of a source text if the source material is referenced?
I'm using only the well accepted definitions to set a basis for the reader to build on for the main topic described later.

Certainly reference your source.  But (if possible) also define things that are not widely known, even if they are in your referenced source.

Your question seems a bit vague, and the paragraphs (and title) seem to be asking different and unrelated questions. I assume there is a connection, but it's hard to understand at present. Can you be more specific about what you have in mind?

Ideally, any work should be self contained. I usually explain what the reader needs to know to properly understand the work, then I include a reference to a more comprehensive work on the matter. Of course, it won't be a good idea to copy stuff verbatim (even worse, without making clear is a citation - big no no!)

I can't tell whether you're asking (1) Is it OK to include background material that is not original in a thesis? or (2) Is it OK to just refer to the source of the basic concepts in thesis, and not describe them in more detail? or something else. Please [edit] your post to clarify, then maybe it can be reopened.

@ Nate Eldredge I'm asking if it's allowed to copy extremely general definitions of a concept into a master thesis as they are from a base reference in the field.

@NateEldredge: I edited the question for clarity, hence you may remove the hold from this question. It's clear enough for me to answer.

Is this acceptable if I include a portion of introductory matter of a source text if the source material is referenced?

There are two issues here.  One is whether you can be accused of plagiarism.  That's simple: you're safe if you cite the source and clearly indicate what was copied with quotation marks or a block quote, but you could be in trouble if you don't make it clear what was copied, even if you cite the source.  (Occasionally you can avoid quotation marks by saying something like "The following definition is taken verbatim from reference [3]:", but it's risky to try that with longer quotations.)  If you are not copying any text, then you still need to cite the source but you don't have to worry about plagiarism.
There's also the issue of whether extensive quotations are acceptable to your advisor, regardless of whether they are plagiarism.  Even if you cite appropriately and use quotation marks, your advisor might think you are quoting too much and ask you to rewrite it in your own words.  (But this isn't a matter of academic honesty, just of what constitutes a good thesis.  Relying on lots of lengthy quotations is honest but lazy.)
Students sometimes worry about how much text is appropriate to copy from a definition without quotation marks.  This is a little tricky, since there are certain standard phrases that get used repeatedly.  For example, the definition of a group in mathematics might start "A group is a set equipped with a binary operation".  I just wrote that myself, but a web search reveals that half a dozen people have used exactly the same wording (because it's a pretty standard way to express things).  If you read a definition that starts this way and later use this phrasing when defining a group, that's not a problem.  However, you shouldn't be copying elaborate definitions verbatim without attribution.
In particular, if a standard phrase sticks in your head and gets repeated when you write the definition, that's fine.  One test is whether you need to copy from a book.  If you can write a clear, correct definition without copying or looking at any materials while writing it, then you should do so (and you won't have to worry about plagiarism).  If you can't write a clear, correct definition without copying from a reference book, then you need to cite the book and indicate that the definition is copied (since this is clearly a complicated or subtle enough definition that formulating it well deserves credit).


text:
Grant award Dates (US)
I've been in a conversation with a professor about hiring me as a potential postdoc. Recently he sent me an e-mail saying he would like to accept me to his team, but he can do this only if he can get a new grant.
As I understand the situation, his current grant is ending soon, and he hasn't been able to get new grants yet, but is still trying.
In general, when do US-based foundations announce their grant awards?  (I'd like to know so that I can ask him again on time whether he got a grant, so I don't lose the position that I kind of have right now.)

You do not "kind of have" a position right now.  You have a good lead on a position, but that's not the same thing.

There's no fixed timeline. For example, the National Science Foundation has deadlines for proposal submission that are scattered around the year, and once a proposal has been submitted, it may take the NSF 3-9 months to decide. There are also numerous other funding agencies.
In other words, the only way for you to find out when that date may be is to communicate with the professor. He may have an idea when that may be, but the NSF doesn't set a fixed date when they will announce their grants -- that email may come on a random day and a random time.

Good answer. Also, the US Government has not had a proper budget for over a decade and is operating under a "continuing resolution". These, and the potential for retroactive budget cuts make it hard for NSF to administer grants.

That too. I'm sure that's one of the reasons why the NSF can't promise any deadlines.


text:
Question on rationale behind doubled "Int. Math. Res. Not. IMRN" journal name
I am not sure this forum is the right place for this question, but I'm pretty sure it would quickly be closed at MathOverflow.
There is a well-known mathematics journal called "International Mathematics Research Notices", published by OUP.  It's almost invariably cited as "Int. Math. Res. Not. IMRN" [sic] or similar, which has always struck me as oddly redundant.  The curious ubiquity of the abbreviation is doubtless due to the fact that MathSciNet provides references in that format: "JOURNAL = {Int. Math. Res. Not. IMRN}".
On the other hand, Worldcat has many listings for the journal, some of which have the double IMRN, and some of which don't.  As far as I can tell, the journal's page doesn't specify a preferred abbreviated form.
Another possibly relevant factor is that the journal is usually referred to be this initialism: people call it "IMRN" in ordinary conversation, which isn't the case for any other journals I can think of, JAMS perhaps excepted if you count pronouncing it (and nobody writes "J. Am. Math. Soc. JAMS").
The question: why does MathSciNet double the journal name, and should I be doing the same?  (Perhaps the underlying question is: who decides on official journal abbreviations?)

If there won't be any definitive answer from the math community in a few days, one may consider reasking at MO…

"which isn't the case for any other journals I can think of" - I use in conversation JFM (Journal of Fluid Mechanics), ZAMP (Zeitschrift für angewandte Mathematik und Physik, that one is a bit of a special case as the title isn't English), PRL (Physics Review Letters).

Interesting, I don't know these!  I'd just skimmed through a couple algebraic geometry bibliographies, so I've probably forgotten others.  "MRL" might count.  J. Reine Angew. Math. is another complicated (to me) German name, but it just becomes "Crelle".  And "Math Z" is "Math Z".

Another example where the journal is almost always referred to by the initials: GAFA. Outside of the mathematical sciences, PNAS is common.

This is just speculation, but the reason could be because of the slightly complicated history of the IMRN journal.
Throughout you should remember that MathSciNet grew out of what originally was a print publication called Mathematical Reviews. It was extremely important that they have a uniform house style for referring to journals.
Originally there was a journal called International Mathematics Research Notices published by Duke Univ. Press from 1991-2001. On MathSciNet its abbreviation was Internat. Math. Res. Notices. When the journal moved publishers to Hindawi in 2002, the abbreviation became Int. Math. Res. Not. on MathSciNet. In 2005 Hindawi started a new journal called International Mathematics Research Papers, which was indexed by MathSciNet under the abbreviation IMRP Int. Math. Res. Pap.
In 2006/7, the two journals were both transferred to Oxford Univ. Press. There was some relationship between the two journals (I remember seeing it in an old author submission guideline) and the two are treated as sort of a pair. Probably in an effort to clearly distinguish the two journals, either OUP or MathSciNet decided to list the two journals as, respectively, International Mathematics Research Notices. IMRN and International Mathematics Research Papers. IMRP with abbreviations Int. Math. Res. Not. IMRN and Int. Math. Res. Pap. IMRP.
In 2009 or thereabouts, OUP merged IMRP into IMRN.
I would surmise that the "duplication" appeared in an effort to add some redundancy for better disambiguation of two journals with extremely similar titles. Now it survives as a vestigial testament to the journal's history.

Re: the relationship, IMRP was meant to be for longer papers than IMRN.  I guess, in part, because IMRN was meant to be fast.

@Kimball: turns out you are mostly right. I dug up the journal about page on the Wayback Machine, and while IMRP is also meant for "fast" publication, they are meant for much longer articles. From the description, each issue will be only one article.

Not a mathematician, but neither I nor any of my colleagues was ever able to paste bibliographic references without revising them. I wouldn't necessarily care about somebody else writing "Int. Math. Res. Not. IMRN"—. At least, "Int. Math. Res. Not. (IMRN)" or similar punctuation would highlight the redundancy better—but I'd avoid introducing a third form if two are standard.

The question: why does MathSciNet double the journal name, and should I be doing the same? (Perhaps the underlying question is: who decides on official journal abbreviations?)

Your style file comes with guidelines—I'd guess they don't standardize journal abbreviations, so there's no standard.
Style manuals also come with guidelines, but I've never seen this matter being regulated.

I think this is a case where math is special - the MathSciNet database is comprehensive and almost universally used.  I've always been able to paste BiBTeX entries directly from it, and use them without any revisions.  Journals invariably provide BiBTeX style files that process those entries as the journal prefers - but I think any math journal where you couldn't paste from MathSciNet would find its authors really annoyed.


text:
How do I understand the main concepts in a paper by just skimming through it?
What's the best method to understand the real concept that a paper is trying to explain?
Should one go through the paper as it is presented, from first page to last page? Is there a specific walk-through to understand it faster, such as first reading the result section, followed by the concept section, and then discussion/conclusion section? Is there a best practice to be followed?

"How do I read?" ...   What problems have you had reading papers so far?

Here's what I do: figures, abstract, beginning of intro, skim through results, conclusion.

Likely duplicate: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/50/73  I'll note that, as stated in the linked question, your field of research is highly relevant here, as journalistic styles differ from field to field.

If the paper is well written, then the abstract should tell you most of the story at a high level. Then the introduction should give more technical coverage again of the whole story – you should then know the problem and the results obtained, though not all the details. The remainder of the paper then will contain just the details.
Of course, most papers do not do that, so you may also need to read the conclusion, the discussion section, and perhaps any other introductory sections. In the end, you may need to read the whole paper before you get what it is about.
However, to really understand the paper, you will need to go through it very slowly, with pen and paper at hand, and try to replicate the reasoning/ideas given in the paper, filling in the gaps – possibly with the help of additional literature.
Not all papers need to be read so deeply. Reading just the abstract and maybe the introduction and conclusion should help you decide how deep to read the paper.

I'd say it slightly differently: a well-written abstract should tell you if you'll want to read the paper, and a well-written introduction should help you figure out how to read the paper. But overall I agree with this.

try to replicate the reasoning/ideas given in the paper — Better yet, try to derive the same results as the paper without looking at how the paper does it.  After a good-faith effort, whether you actually succeed or not, you'll be better prepared to understand the paper's reasoning.

NEVER READ A SCIENTIFIC PAPER COMPLETELY FROM START LINE TO FINISH LINE.
Idea is to get an understanding of what concept is presented in the paper
Open powerpoint/paper

Read abstract - Tells us briefly WHAT experiment WAS DONE and WHAT WAS FOUND. What specific results are mentioned - are they relevant to your research.

Discussion - Summary of important results and gives reasons based on conclusions and assumptions - Do you agree with the logic of the conclusions and are those useful to you

Introduction - Motivation and importance of the research and tries to sell the paper to the maximum. Provides some background information.

Results - Provides some raw data which can be related to your own research. Figures and Tables provide data in a compact format for easy understanding.
In figures - does the graphs make sense ? , what are the axis's used and does it mean anything ? Check the units used.

FINISH - I have a brief understanding of the paper and I have tried my best to cover all the relevant attributes of a scientific journal.

Check the references and see if they are related to the main concept of the paper in hand. Follow through.

Manage a reference library like mendeley to keep an updated list of the literature you reviewed.

I would be careful with such a general claim. Depending on the field, journal format, length of the paper and skill of the authors, it is sometimes fine, in my opinion, to read a paper from start to finish. This can often be due to many of the details getting pushed into the supplemental information section.

Only a Sith deals with absolutes.


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Should I include Abstracts (short descriptions) of research papers/thesis in my CV?
I am writing my CV for a postdoctoral position. I have just obtained my PhD. I have a decent number of published papers. Should I write a very small (2-3 line) description of what I have done in that paper? Maybe also with a smaller font and written in italic so that it is easily skipped if not interested. Same for the PhD/Masters thesis.
The counterargument is that short abstract would be considered negatively, either as padding or just making the CV harder to read.
Thanks!

Welcome. I would, personally, consider it mild "noise". At the end of the day, people want to see where and how much you have published and if it is compatible with their own research interests. They would not bother, at least in a preliminary screening, with the actual content of your research. If they are really interested, they could look up or ask for a pre-print.

Thanks for the answer. Yes, I understand your point. My thoughtprocess was that a tiny abstract would help seeing if "it was compatible with their own research interests". I am working in pure maths and sometimes name of papers don't immediatley tell you what directions it is related towards. Thank being said, I am starting to agree with you. Thanks.

This was initially a comment but I think I can be expanded as an answer.
People, in general, want to see in your CV a brief summary of your academic achievements. Towards this, it is enough to compile a list of publications. The amount and the quality of the journal/conferences are enough to indicate your research profile in a preliminary screening. If they are more interested in your actual research, that's why you are asked to supply a research statement which sometimes can be as long as 4-5 pages, usually 2-3. There, you can briefly discuss your research and they can get a feeling also about compatibility (if that was not apparent from the list f publications). If they are interested in more depth they can request preprints of your works.
So, having an abstract for every publication in your CV does not add any information and does not help in any meaningful way except that your CV might look more "beefy" (but I am not sure it's an advantage).

Thank you for your answer. It does make a lot of sense. As expected with this kind of question, I suppose it does a little depend on opinion, so I will also gladly listen to others suggestions, if they are willing to write as well. (Even short ones such as yes/no are apprechiated). But thank you for your suggestion.

@EvilHamster If you are asked to supply a research statement (and, in fact, I can't think of any PostDoc application where you are not asked for such document), then I doubt is based on opinion. Keep your CV (as well as everything else) short and to the point.

I'd like add that you could give a very short summary of what you have done during your PhD in your CV. So it's not part of the publication list at the end but of your working experience at the beginning. Since researchers sometimes switch the research focus depending on the project/funding, this is helpful to understand what exacly you did (beyond the job description "Post Doc at institute/university X").

thanks for the replay FuzzyLeapfrog. So should I should I write a very short abstract/description of my thesis then?

@EvilHamster I think that's the role of the research statement where you present your research during your PhD among other things.

@PsySp Yes, I understand. I was just trying to assertain what Fuzzy was saying.

Great answer.  @EvilHamster - congratulations on your recent graduation! // You said you had more than one published paper.  I wouldn't write a summary of the thesis.  I would just write 25 words or less describing the specific research area you are interested in.

@aparente001 thanks. (I actually have more than four published. Does not seem to help though. That is why I am revamping my CV etc. Thought might have been a good idea too add something like that. Anyway. Thanks all for the help.

@EvilHamster Remember: you will be judged on your academic/scientific record. Each PI knows how to do that. You won't be judged on the format of your CV.

Great point from @PsySp.  I had an idea.  If you don't have people to run your draft CV by where you are, I think there are websites where you can get feedback on a CV. // In general I think fine print is to be avoided on CVs. // Did you know that in the non-academic world, it is difficult to get HR people to read one's CV?  I've shown up to interviews, where the HR person has the CV in front of him, and then he wants me to walk him through it and tell him what it says.  So from that experience I have learned to keep it quite streamlined, and bold certain key words.  Their eye jumps from...

...heading to heading, from bold to bold.  I think academics are not so lazy about reading the CV, but note also that they'll have other materials to go by as well.  And perhaps you'll have a cover letter.  That is a great place to give a succinct description of the area(s) you've worked in so far, and of the area you want to work in.  You should try to match that up as closely as possible with someone in the department whose interests align well with yours, to make it easy for the hiring committee to pigeonhole you correctly.

Thank you guys. I will take that advice. Much appreciated.


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What are the advantages and disadvantages of having multiple advisers?
Could multiple advisers mean that it might be easier for you to get funding? (since you're not just limited to one person?) Could it also mean that you get more overall input in your project (the input of 3 different people), and that maybe your project will be geared in a way that it's "interesting" to more people, and consequently might also get more citations that way?
They might pull your project in different directions, but how much is this really a concern?
And what about the special case where they explicitly expressed the desire to interact with each other more through the student? (this was actually the case in my situation).

The answer (as in case of most answers in academia.SE) is it depends, often widely from case-to-case. Unless presented with an exceptional example, I would generally view having more than two advisers as a major hindrance - the perceived benefit of having another source of ideas is negated heavily by the communications overhead between them, and the scope for misunderstandings about their role, which might cause the student to be either overloaded in multiple (possibly conflicting) areas, or languishing without any significant guidance. The rest of my answer is based on the assumption that the number of advisers is 2.

What is the defined role of the said advisers - are they equally responsible for guiding the student towards completion of their graduate studies (as I've been told is the case in some European schools/research schools), or is one of them the principal guide and the other a co-guide? The amount of time/effort invested by each would depend on their perception of how much they are actually responsible for the student's growth as a researcher.
As with most social interactions, it would help greatly if there is a good (or at least professional) working relationship between the 2 guides, as well as a healthy overlap of research areas - a new student might not be able to handle multiple research problems in completely different areas at the same time (without affecting the time to graduate, or the quality of results).
Assuming the student publishes with both of them independently, it would look good on her CV that she can produce publishable research with multiple established researchers. This could also have the side-effect of enhancing the student's research network - as a lot of papers (in CS at least) have more than 2 authors, and often collaborating on an paper could lead to more papers/research done with the same set of persons in future.

I think it's detrimental to research progress to have more than two advisors "in practice." (By this, I mean that there should not be more than two people directly involved in day-to-day matters. A "formal advisor" who does not play a substantial role in the thesis would not count.)
There are a number of reasons for this:

It can be very difficult to get all of the advisors together in the physical sense, and even harder to get them to agree on anything, when they all will want to have their viewpoint considered and accepted.
A substantial part of your time as a research student may be spent "translating" back and forth between the different advisors. On the other hand, this can also be a potential strength, in that you will have to learn how to make arguments using several different research "languages."
Funding and bureaucracy will become more complicated the more advisors you have. (This will be true for multiple advisors, even if some of them are "hands off" or formal rather than practicing advisors.)

So, in general, it's best to have one or two advisors.


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What are some practices for getting a name change so that people can find me more easily?
For a similar thing, see this thread, where Jay Wacker managed to get people to call him by the name Jay even though he didn't need to get a legal name change. I'm not sure how to go about this though.
The main problem with me is that I have such a frustratingly common name that a lot of people cannot find me when they google me. So many of them simply don't notice the middle initial that I always use in between my first and last names, and this could actually become a major issue in academia, since people have little time and are prone to giving up quickly if they want to look for me (or for my papers) and can't find me at all (I know this having seen how several academics use the Internet and how they look for people's names). This, in turn, could easily ruin my citation count in the future (it's not just that - it's helpful to others when I have a less common name so that they can more easily locate my stuff). I already know at least several people who specifically told me that they tried to find my email but that they couldn't find it (and this isn't limited to just them - there are many, many more - including long-lost friends who have wanted to talk to me for a long time, but who couldn't find me due to said ultra-common name). Of course, people can go through the respective university directories, but how many people really do that? From my observations (when I've seen people look for someone else), very very few do it. Hell, there are even several people at my OWN university who share the same exact first+last name as me.
In Academia, this is even a bigger problem because the vast majority of your connections will be people who only vaguely recognize/know you, so they may know most of the search clues. Even a "full name" + university won't solve all the problems, because I may switch universities and people may only remember the old university that I was in. I'm also very very interdisciplinary, so I want to be searchable to people outside my field as well.
And even if I fix the issue for Google with a massive SEO operation or whatever (that may even be impossible for my ridiculously common name), it's still not going to fix the problem for all of the other ways that people use search.
I'm currently transitioning between undergrad and grad school, so now may be the perfect time for a name change? But I don't know what to do. Is it better for me to change my first name or my last name? The problem is that a citation like "Chen 2011" is going to produce so many entries that no one will ever find them, even though they frequently do google things like that (and I simply cannot prevent people from googling something like that). Chen is so frustratingly common that even a "Chen and Name2 2011" paper could come from some random medical paper rather than from something I wrote.
As an additional complication, the % of Chinese people using the English Internet is exponentially rising, and I can only expect the problem to get worse in the future because of that (and not just for my first name, but even variants of my first name too).

Good question, and it's a frustrating situation. Anecdotally, though, I'm not familiar with anyone who resorted to a name change to solve this problem.

http://people.cis.ksu.edu/~robby/Home.html ?

Do you have a middle name, and/or a Chinese first name which you could use as a middle name? If you consistently go by "Alex [Something] Chen" I imagine that would make you easier to find.

That's actually a very good idea. I've been thinking of consistently going by my middle name instead (instead of just the middle initial).

Vary relevant question, maybe even a duplicate Researcher with the same name in a different field (and check answers, they are good).

You just ("just", like it was that easy) need to make you work good and visible enough that people will not think of you as Alex Chen, but the Alex Chen. My own doctoral advisor was Cheng, which is about as common as Chen, but her papers have always been influential enough that, when you drop the name "Cheng" in a conversation, she is the first Cheng person that people think of.

My grandad suffered under the name of John Smith. In the early 20th century the bank where he wanted to open account said they were not taking any more John Smiths, so he had to come back with something else. He then suffixed his mother's maiden name to Smith, thus becoming unique.

I don't get how people not being able to find you by your name should negatively affect your citation count. Shouldn't citations be based on the publication itself, not on the name of the author? Or am I slightly too idealistic here?

I think that https://orcid.org/ is set up precisely to solve this issue?

I think people stress too much about the "what if people can't find my papers?" problem. That's what CVs are for. Don't overestimate how often people will actually try to find all of your papers outside of hiring situations. It won't be often. By the time you are established enough to accumulate a significant number of publications, you will be connected to a research university or institute which will make it easy to link you to your publications.
If "the vast majority of your connections will be people who only vaguely recognize/know you" you've got a problem that changing your name will not solve.
I'd especially like to hear from someone who have had this cause a career problem. My (legal) first name is one of 10 most common, and my last name is in the top 20 (within the US). While this is annoying, it has not caused me any career issues.

Thanks for the reply. The thing with the CVs, though, is that they won't be able to find your papers if they can't even find your CV to begin with. And CVs are not exactly the most user-friendly way to find some paper that you're looking for.

Regarding the career problem - the thing is - no one is aware of what opportunities they missed due to other people not finding them. I do know of cases where people have looked for someone else's paper and have given up due to said person having a very common name.

If people gave up every time they came across a common name, there would be no successful John Smiths in science. If you want to spend the time and money in court to change your name, that's fine. People do it all the time for lots of reasons. If you're doing it because you want people to find your papers easily? I'd say there are better ways to use your time to further your career.

Obviously as someone with a VERY common name I have very personal opinions on this. And as a woman, it irks me that after all the fighting for ladies to choose to not change their names when marrying, it's now expected that women in science NOT change their names to make it easier for other people to find their papers. We're all smart people here, right? Common names/name changes should not be such a vexing problem for academia.

No doubt are there successful John Smiths in science. The barrier they face is not an extremely significant one, but it can possibly prevent some collaborations from coming up (most likely not ones that will affect one's career, but still ones that could be useful). The time it takes for a name change isn't all that significant, in any case, especially if one is doing it before starting as a PhD student.

With that said, it could simply be a friendship thing as much as a science thing. It irks me when none of my old non-Internet friends can find me due to my ultra-common name (and the figure is definitively far over 80%). My Internet friends all know what search terms to use, but they're not going to be most of the friends I make in academia.

I also simply appreciate it when other academics (esp. those I haven't been in contact with for a while) can simply know what I've been up to lately, but they will tend to give up more easily if they can't find me.

"it can possibly prevent some collaborations from coming up" - this is conjecture. My conjecture is: your career will not be based on or affected by de novo searches for you on the internet.

If you are going to be very practical, you're right, you should change Chen. But there might be emotional reasons against that, of course. It's a personal choice.
I'll note that you need to be very consistent, professionally; but you can still use whatever else personally/legally. You can choose a professional name like an artist chooses a stage name.
If you start now, always referring to yourself professionally using whatever you choose, and publishing &c under that name, people will know you like that. It's really that simple.
I always spell out both my first names in print, but I never insist that people treat me like that in person. My Portuguese friends tend to, but more random encounters sometimes do, sometimes don't and it's fine.

Name changes are a significant and sensitive issue for many people—particularly female academics who get married, and then have to determine whether to change their name professionally, or to use one name for legal purposes and another for professional publicity purposes.
An extremely common last name is certainly a difficulty in finding you; however, changing your first name won't necessarily improve your visibility, because, as you mentioned in your question, first names aren't normally included in citation searches. Therefore, whatever you do will need to be done to your last name.
Perhaps you could add a hyphenated extension to your last name; whether this would be a legal action (requiring a visit to a court, in most venues) or just unofficially for your profession is for you to decide. (However, it should be pointed out that a legal name change can have major implications on your everyday life, and should not be entered into lightly.

Ah thanks very much - I like the hyphenated extension idea! But it's hard to choose one, especially since some people (especially Chinese people) are rather sensitive to last name changes. Especially one that would still sound "normal" and not weird.
Is it possible to use one last name for legal purposes and another last name for professional publicity purposes? Usually, nicknames only refer to first names.

As I mentioned above, married women do it fairly frequently: they will keep their maiden name as their "professional" name, even after marriage. This is particularly true if their last name is much more unique than their last name.

I know someone whose parents did this.  Their last name was a very common name in Israel, so they changed their last name to middlename-lastname to make it easier to find in listings.

One small suggestion:
Set up your Google Scholar Citations page. This will make your publications and name more visible in Google scholar.

Certainly adding (or just making up) a middle initial to your name will help to differentiate you a lot if someone if looking for your papers specifically. But you have to be consistent and use it everywhere professionally. I work with someone who inserted a made up initial in his publications just for this purpose and says it works quite well. I don't believe that he visited a court or anything to do this.
For hiring purposes, your CV (as mentioned by others) and a "publications" page on your professional website will be the best. If you don't have a website, something like ResearchGate.com or Academia.edu will work in a pinch.

Look into how pen-names are handled in your jurisdiction. Authors often take pen-names for much the same reason you are considering changing yours, you want something more distinctive. Given the relatively global nature of this practice, there is likely a legal way to handle it everywhere in the world. This is a different route to changing your name everywhere, as you would for a married name. Depending on your legal system it may be easier.
For example; in the UK there is no singular definition of a persons legal name. Your birth certificate need not match your passport and your passport need not match your bank. So in the UK, everyone is entitled to have as many pen names as amuses them, so long as they don't try to make unjust gains by pretences involving multiple names (that would be fraud).
The only slight complication in this will be email addresses. My institution (not in the UK) automatically granted me my full passport name as an email address. This was not what I had wanted, as it's an absolute mouthful. But a polite email to the IT department, along with a couple of references to places I had used my shorter name, was enough to convince them to offer me the shortened form instead. So my advice there would be to use a personal email where possible anyway, because you don't change it between positions, and to ask nicely if you want a different address from your institute. Ditto for changing information on institutional webpages.

Don't underestimate the downsides to changing your name as it might not actually solve your problem.  My cousin changed her name almost 15 years ago, and there are still friends and family members who think she just dropped off the face of the planet because they aren't aware she changed her name.  It's practically impossible to communicate that sort of thing to everyone who needs to know.  Your long-lost friends are now even less likely to find you because they won't even be looking for the right name anymore.
If you want to improve your findability online, it seems like you'd get a better return on investment by keeping your name and improving your internet presence.  Keep a blog or homepage of some sort where you talk about the interesting things that you're doing and can link to your research.  When you meet people that you might like to collaborate with one day, add them to your LinkedIn (or whatever social network you use for your professional stuff).  Don't make them go looking for you, be the one that initiates the connection.  There might be a bunch of people named John Smith in academia, but there's only one John Smith that I met at that photonics conference in Brussels and added to my social network. Connecting directly with people like that means they don't have to wade through the entire internet to find you.  Even a well-connected person rarely knows more than 2-3 people with the exact same name, and the picture on your profile should make it clear which one is which.  That personal connection is better than any SEO you could ever do, plus they'll see your posts about new publications without having to go search for you at all.