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How to respond when Professor do not reply to your earlier mail?
Recently, I asked a professor to give me some references about a field that I can read about during my semester so that when it is time for a project, I can know the prerequisites of the subject. In reply, the professor said that we can meet and talk about the possible solutions when you are on campus. I was on campus, and so I asked him to schedule a meet, but he did not reply after that.
This sounds like this question, but it's not quite so. It seems to me that not getting a reply is kind of expected. What I'm asking:
How can I respond to this considering he did not reply to my earlier request? The possible reason as it seems to me, is that he forgot. Should I just repeat what I said earlier? Or should I say, "Excuse me, please reply to this"?

The usual polite approach is to assume that they didn't receive your previous message.  Something like "I'm resending this in case it went to your spam folder; I hope that we can meet soon."

"Excuse me, please reply to this" seems very aggressive.

Send a reminder. Sending a reminder is totally fine after one week has passed since the original e-mail. A typical wording would be along the lines of:

Just a brief reminder. Did you have the chance to look into this?

..to which you append your previous e-mail. The natural way to do this in most e-mail programs is to click the "Reply" button on your own e-mail.


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What's the role of a advisor in completing Ph.D. quickly?
Ok so, I have seen a few students who have completed their Ph.D. in minimum duration of 3 years. I suppose that the student must have extra research talent but even then I have seen few students who have many papers and yet completed their Ph.D. in usual time (5 to 6 years).
My question is what is the role of supervisor for completing your Ph.D. in short period of time, say 3 or 4 years?

What area?  And are you counting time from Masters' to PhD in all cases?  Or Bachelor's to PhD?

I'm talking of Physics and talking only of Ph.D. that is you are done with Master's and join Ph.D.

My guess is that pure luck is as much of a factor as anything. The first thing the student tackled came together quickly and was judged to have merit. Not everyone has that sort of luck, but the distribution certainly has outliers, as most do.

Having a clear, executable, project that doesn't run into any complications is required. This is partly on the supervisor having the clear vision and funding on hand, partly on lucky timing of the student coming at the right moment, and perhaps things like the phase of the moon...

Yes you definitely need luck, and possibly regulations in your favour.  Just writing the thesis can take a while; if you are allowed a “paper” thesis, you still need a number of published papers, which takes time.

Sometimes staying with a good advisor and good group for a few more years can be better than "leaving as soon as possible". After all, just grabbing the degree is not the point.

Others may think differently, but I'm not so sure that luck plays the biggest role.
To answer your question specifically, if your advisor is supportive, or they at least stay out of the way and don't actively try to slow you down, you can finish as quickly as you want. The only real factor keeping you is classwork and whatever prelim exams the department has. It's possible to plan things carefully, take classes in the right order, and be done - again, as long as nobody is standing in your way.
However, I would strongly caution against this path. Graduate school is useful for a number of reasons, graduation being just one of them. I graduated very early, and I think if I could do it again, I would take much more time to graduate. Doing so would have let me publish more, become more established in the field, go to more conferences, etc.
Take a note from US special operators when they say, "Slow is smooth; smooth is fast."

+1 for "Doing so would have let me publish more, become more established in the field, go to more conferences, etc." Some grants and academic jobs only allow you to apply X years after your PhD, providing a strong incentive to build a substantial track record before you graduate.

The advisor gives you certain jobs to complete and bring the results. He will review the results and if he is satisfied, he will discus things with you and  give you next job.
Advisor is busy
If the advisor is very busy in other things, he may take a longer time to give you the job and also longer time to review your results.
Advisor is not keen
He can guide you more keenly to do the job or he can put every thing on you how you do the job.
Advisor is not so resourceful
You may need certain resources (lab, materials, equipment, funds) to do the job and the advisor does not have them ready for you.

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How to present research ideas to professor
I am a college freshman interested in doing neuroscientific research. After asking a professor for a collaboration, I've been told to email him my idea for a research project for him to look over. How should I present my research ideas to him? Should I write a research proposal or a quick overview of my ideas?

Write it in the form that is conventional for scientific writing: the IMRaD-structure.
IMRaD is an acronym for Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion.
Introduction

What is the topic? Why is it important?
Is there any other research tackling similar issues?
Why are the other research findings not sufficient? What kind of 'gap' is there that your idea would try to fill? ...
... in other words, what is your original research aim (or: research question)?

Method

What would you do (step by step) in order to answer the question?
What materials, data, or concepts do you use? Why?
How do you analyse the data?

Results

What could you possibly find if you use the methods outlined above?

Discussion

How does your result answer the research question posed in the Introduction?
Can you speculate what led to that result?
Why is the finding important? Does it have any practical or theoretical implications?
What are the limitations of your study?
What would be further research venues?

The above is good for for a post-graduate student with some training, not for an undergraduate I reckon.

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What should I do if what I want to major in isn't available in my country?
I really wanna study to become an occupational therapist but unfortunately, there seems to be no options out there. There are no colleges or universities in my home country with a course in the related field.
If you must know, I'm from Cambodia. A country where people rarely concern themselves with this field and even sometimes, never heard of it. I thought of trying to get an international scholarship and be able to pursue my dreams abroad.  However, it seems I have no luck and I'm afraid I have to settle for the cards I've been dealt with.

If you intend to stay in Cambodia, it seems like a poor career choice, given what you say. You might just need to explore options elsewhere with a move.

Note that the close votes are because undergraduate admissions is considered off topic here.

This may not be applicable to you, but I'd like to remind my colleagues that there are countries where many jobs are not taught at university, but instead are taught at professional schools, through formalized internships, etc. For example, in Germany you would not learn to be a physical therapist at a university. (I have no idea about the Cambodian education system, and so can't say where to look there.)

Thank you for writing a very precise and general question. Did you consider a remote university?some of them are highly reputable (for example the Open University in the UK).
You will have the issue of getting your deg recognized (formally or informally) in your country, this is something that will require working with local professionals in similar fields (I am sure the top 0.5% of Cambodia can be involved, you just need to get in touch with them through association/political-parties/etcetc)
https://www.wfot.org/member-organisations/apotrg-asia-pacific-occupational-therapy-regional-group

Most occupational therapists I’ve seen in Cambodia are foreigners so they definitely got their degrees in their country and chose to work here instead.

Ask occupational therapists in Cambodia how they got into the profession. If they studied in other countries, they might be able to tell you how to get funding, if it's available. Otherwise if there's a way to become an occupational therapist by studying a related field, they might also be able to tell you what that way is.


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Explaining why an approach is undesirable in a paper
A section in a paper I'm authoring goes something like the below:

We want to do x. Upon first inspection, x could be easily done using approach A.
A, however, has the drawback that <elaboration of A's drawbacks>.
For this reason, we propose B.

The <elaboration of A's drawbacks> is rather long though, making me question whether or not to keep it in since I'm dismissing this approach either way. Is it best to have this in or to just assume my reader will understand why B makes more sense than A in cases like this?

Do you have a character limit or why do think it is a problem to elaborate on the shortcomings of A?

Can you cite a paper which describes A in details?

@Sursula I do not have a character limit. I ask because I have previously gotten the feedback (about a different paper) that I can be unneededly verbose at times, so I am trying to be more mindful about this and was wondering if this was a case where this might apply.

@Nobody I cannot, as A's shortcomings are not completely obvious, but apparent enough that someone would notice them before finishing to write a paper about it.

@ElliotSolskjaer If you say that As shortcomings are not obvious, never assume that readers will reach this conclusion on their on. Being verbose and and explaining vital information are two completely different things.

If the discussion of method A is in a well-delimited section titled "Drawbacks of method A", it is easy for a reader who doesn't care to skip it, so you can still include a long discussion for those readers who will care.

My suggestion is that you write the paper as you think it should be written. If you get negative feedback from reviewers then deal with it then. But there is no reason to anticipate what the reviewers will suggest if you have reasons for your arguments. Expect that some changes will need to be made, but look at the reviews first.
Just. Do. It.

Ah, you got the ✔ for saying "Just do it". You may want to contact a certain company for royalties for your advertisement of them! :D

@AnderBiguri, funny you say that. I noticed that the checkmark looks a bit like a swoosh.

It sounds like you're potentially entering the pitfall of trying to write the paper following the exact thought process that you followed in your research. You may have first considered doing A, but then realized that that wouldn't work, and then thought about using B. Often the benefit of hindsight gives much more clarity.
In this case, you end up spending a lot of time and space describing what you didn't do, before getting to the important bit of what you did do. In practice this may make it harder to follow. It could be better to start with saying "we did B". This of course may raise the question "why didn't they just do A?". If this is an obvious question, then it should be addressed. It may however be better to do this after you have introduced B. This may give the benefit of being able to explain why/how doing B addresses the drawbacks of doing A, while explaining what those drawbacks are.

I more often see people enter the opposite pitfall. They write the paper as if they had magically guessed the final approach directly, and while the result is there, the paper fails to give much intuition and understanding. Of course there is a balance, and it will depend a lot on each case, but in a number of cases it makes sense to start with an explanation of why A fails and how that suggests that B might work better.

Starting with "this is why A doesn't work" can be a fine option as long as you put it in a section of its own so people who don't care can skip it.

This is typically what Appendices are for: to detail things which are not necessary to understand the paper, but could be useful or interesting to the reader.
Example:

We want to do x. x could be easily done using approach A, which however, has some drawbacks, among which 1 and 2 (see Appendix n for details). For this reason, we use B.

Excellent idea.

My advice is to identify what the challenges or requirements are and then explain how B meets them (and other methods do not).  I encourage you to focus on the positive -- what you are able to achieve -- rather than the negative -- the ways that other people have failed.  Also, in many cases I find it is helpful to first list the requirements or goals or challenges, then explain how your approach meets those requirements or goals or addresses those challenges.
Bad: "We use method B."

This is bad, because there is no explanation of why you have selected B.

Bad: "We use method B, because method A is flawed."

This is bad, because it does not explain concretely why B is better than A.

Better, but not ideal: "We use method B, because method A has problems P, Q, R."

This is better, because this provides some explanation of why you selected method B and specifically what the advantages are, but not ideal, because it is focused on tearing down someone else's work, rather than on what you're trying to achieve.

Best: "Ideally, we would like an evaluation method that has properties X, Y, Z.  We ultimately chose to use method B, because it provides all three properties.  Others have used method A, which provides property X but does not provide property Y, Z.  In our setting Z is particularly important."

In my opinion, this is best, because it is focused on the positive - what you are trying to accomplish and what you have achieved; and does so in a way that explains why you chose the method you did, while treating prior work with respect.

If there are multiple options for evaluation methodology, you might even consider a table where you compare all the options: you can have one row per candidate method, one column per requirement or desirable property, and checkboxes in the cells indicating which methods meet which requirements.  This can provide a visual summary that makes it easy to quickly understand why you have chosen your particular method.  You should probably supplement it with a detailed definition of each property and discussion of why each property is relevant and important.

If some of the explanation gets too detailed or lengthy and is distracting, one option is to put that detailed explanation in an appendix, and summarize the main idea in the body of the paper with a reference to the appendix for further elaboration.

The asker refers to the problem that X, Y and Z are rather long, e.g. some property that might not become apparent without working through half of the explanation of A.

@user253751, I understand - and I thought I addressed that situation in the last paragraph: "If some of the explanation gets too detailed or lengthy..."  Is there some revision to my answer that you would suggest to improve it?

Assuming that A is a well-known approach and B is something which will be unknown to people using A, you should keep your paper exactly as you propose. Providing a description of A (and its drawbacks) gives your readers a reference point and a good feeling of whether they may be interested in B.
Let's assume that A refers to using a microwave oven, and X is an egg. You tried to use A on X and discovered that X tends to explode when exposed to A. Then you discovered an alternative approach B (a steam cooker), found that it works on X rather well, and wrote an article about it.
Now imagine that I'm a fellow researcher who tries to work with Y (tomatoes) and I'm confronted with a similar problem when using A on them. If I see an article about A not working for X, I will be really interested in trying out B, because the problem you have solved is quite similar to mine. On the other hand, I will likely skip an article about steam-cooking eggs as irrelevant, or even not see it at all because I will search for "tomatoes", "explosion" and "microwave", not for "eggs" and "steam cooker".

Following up to @Clef's answer, if you're writing a conference paper which has a short page requirement and can't add an appendix easily, people often cite a longer version of their paper on something open-publication like arxiv:

We want to do x. x could be easily done using approach A, which however, has some drawbacks, among which 1 and 2 (see an extended discussion in the Appendix of [citation of arxiv version] for details). For this reason, we use B.

Of course, this doesn't work if the paper is supposed to be double blind.

Depending on the context, it may be possible to recast the text so it focuses on the problem/task rather than the method. This could help clarify a non-obvious aspect of the problem, without getting too bogged down in details of a method you are not using in your paper.
For example:
"We need to solve problem X. At first glance, problem X looks like a standard example of general problem class Y, which has a known solution A. However, problem X actually has unusual feature Z, which presents an obstacle to using method A in its standard form. Therefore, we use method B to get around this obstacle."


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which one is better to use for scholarship application: personal or institutional email?
should I use my university domain email to show the admission committee that I am an academic staff, or my personal email for scholarship application?

I think you should use your institutional email to contact potential supervisors if it is appropriate. In my opinion, it looks more professional, and some professors I know only reply to institutional emails. It has nothing to do with your current employment status.
However, if you formally apply through a university portal, I don't think there is anyone bothering checking your email address. Possibly, all they can see about you is just the applicant ID/username.

though I will look forward other opinions, it is best answer


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What is a college essay?
I have been reading about potential impacts of ChatGPT on education, and one thing that came up time and time again is something referred to as "college essay" or "undergraduate essay". Nobody ever explained the term and what exactly it refers to, so I have to assume it is a ubiquitous type of task at American universities. I have heard it talked about as if it is one of the defining features of American college experience.
What is it? Is it a common exercise? What is its purpose? If I understand correctly, it is a short written thesis that is supposed to make an argument for or against something, so is it a written exercise in rhetoric? Do all majors have them? As a chemical engineering graduate, I had nothing similar during my education, though it may have also been due to the differences in the education systems... The closest thing I had is a written report on a certain topic, such as "rhodium plating for jewelry" or "self healing coatings". That is different from an typical college essay, right?

Essay writing is not limited to the US, or to humanities subjects. Both my education (Nature Science and Computer Science in the UK) and the course I currently teach on (Biology, also in the UK) made extensive use of the essay form in both formative and summative assessment. It does appear to be a more common form in Anglo-Saxon derived cultures, although it originated in France. Its also more common in less quantitative subjects: while the Computer Science part of my degree did require at least one essay to be assessed at some point, most assessments weren't essay based, the opposite is true of the Natural Science part, which had many essays and a small number of problem based exams. Humanities subjects are generally entirely essay based.
Your definition: "a short written thesis that is supposed to make an argument for or against something" is not too far off, although I'd say that it's not strictly speaking necessary for it to be for or against something. Generally an essay takes some topic, position, or statement, and examines it from as many different angles as possible, before coming to to some sort of conclusion on the topic. The structure thesis-antithesis-synthesis is common, that is, when asked a direct question, or to pass judgement on a statement, the most common conclusion is that the answer is neither yes nor no.
It has come to mean, more or less, any medium length (say 1000 words to 10,000 words) piece of writing on a coherent topic that is not a report of new research.
It is used often because a good essay demonstrates many things we would want from university graduates: they must have a good grasp of the underlying facts of the topic; they must understand the context in which those facts sit; a good essay requires the student to show good, fact based judgement; they must be able to write well; and its open-ended nature offers an optional opportunity to demonstrate mastery of material and argument beyond that taught in class or on the syllabus, including the ability to invent new arguments and theories.
Critics of the essay form argue that either it's bad because it requires all these things, rather than testing each one separately, or that most essay questions really only demand a recitation of the basic facts, along with a cookie cutter structure that makes it sound like an argument.
An example of an essay in Chemical Engineering (not a very good one as I'm not a Chemical Engineer) might be:
"'Click chemistry has revolutionized Synthetic Chemistry'. Discuss"

(+1) I don't know how common it is now, but in the U.S. a movement called "writing across the curriculum" was fairly wide-spread in the late 1980s through the 1990s. Of course, essays (in-class on tests and at-home assignments) have always been a large part of most non-science courses, at least in the U.S., and even math and CS students will have them in their non-science elective courses. To me, these were the "humanities equivalent" of math and physics problem sets one has to write up and turn in every week or two.

@DanielHatton A little reading around suggests that the essay is a particularly Anglo-Saxon form. We regularly encounter this with overseas Master's students, who have rarely come across the idea of an essay before.

@DaveLRenfro The notion of "writing across the curriculum" (WAC) still exists, though I think it is being supplanted by something more akin to "writing in the discipline" (WIN). One of the criticisms of WAC is that it encouraged an inauthentic style of writing assignment, which was often divorced from how professionals in a field actually write.  WIN assignments ask students to write in the style of a practitioner, e.g. a writing assignment in a mathematics class may involve a "definition -> theorem -> proof" kind of structure.

@DanielHatton If an essay is different from a report (and it appears that it is), the they are practically unheard of here in Russia...at least in natural science classes. I have no idea if they exist in humanitarian classes, but since I have only heard of them from the English speaking internet, I doubt they are particularly common.

I am correct to assume that an essay if fundamentally different from a report? It has to have a discussion element, right?

@IamCleaver I'm sure there is a grey area, but I would expect a "report" to be a report of a some other piece of work, like a report of an experiment or series of experiments, or a report of a conference. Things might get into a bit of grey area if you were to talk about a report of a review of the literature. I think that technically an essay should have a discussion element, although I've definately seen essay titles in the sciences that don't invite much discussion. I guess I'll add that I am generally against such titles, and always require judgement/discussion from students.

This likely refers to essays written as part of an undergraduate application. From Wikipedia:

... intended as a chance to describe "things that are unique, interesting and informative about yourself".

It can also refer to any essay written during undergraduate studies. In the humanities, marked essays are standard and very common.

I am asking about the latter.

In that case: yes, they are common. The main purpose is to demonstrate that the writer is informed in the subject and can reason about it while making more or less original arguments which are supported by literature. It's to show the author has done the background reading and can synthesize strong and defensible arguments.


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What makes a university prestigious in the United States?
What makes a university prestigious?
Is it that they are harder and more rigorous? My intuition would tell me that the more prestigious a university is, the harder should be the curriculum and the fewer people should be able to graduate from it since the curriculum is so hard. I expected, for example, that Harvard should have a very low graduation rate since it is so prestigious and thus should be hard to study at. As far as I know, that does not seem to be the case in the US and a high graduation is supposed to be a good thing. Is that so? If so how do universities manage to maintain both quality and quantity of graduates?
All in all, I have always assumed that a big part of what makes a university prestigious is how hard it is to study there. Is that so in the US?

That's an awfully lot of questions for one post.

Someone once noted that Harvard is such a vast storehouse of knowledge because the first year students bring so much with them and the graduates take so little away.

@Buffy Just removed one.

Some of these questions can be answered by a simple internet search.

Recall that Harvard accepts roughly one in twenty applicants. If they let you in, it is because they think you can make it there, even if the classes are rigorous.

Removed two more.

Also: closely related; perhaps the same question from a different angle: Why are high pass rates for courses considered acceptable in the US?.

What makes Cambridge and Oxford prestigious?

You've posted a lot of questions comparing the US to Russia, in Russia are universities considered prestigious only when a lot of their students fail out?

@AzorAhai-him- Not necessarily. Usually it is on the acceptance side; top ones either require high GRE or can even demand additional exams (given Russian implementation of GRE is heavily criticized). One of the strongest programs I know about weeds out some 50% of students by year 3, another is at below 10%.

@AzorAhai-him- Unfortunately, yes. Thus is not universal, and more modern universities are trying to improve their graduation rate but some older conservative universities still stick to the Soviet model of mercilessly failing anybody they can. The notion is that the fewer people succeed the more intelligent are the ones who do. This is currently only true for a couple "top" universities, but until recently, I assumed that a high failure rate is simply a feature of "elite" institutions. I was positively surprised that top US universities manage to make do without it.

@AzorAhai-him- Some people assume that if a university doesn't weed out enough students then the quality of its graduates is inconsistent. The universities were notoriously bad at selecting students so the expectation was that many would (and thus many should) fail a difficult course. The new standardized examination system has mostly solved the former problem, but habits and expectations still live on.

@IamCleaver: Let me emphasize a cultural difference, which is that Americans tend to have the attitude that, given competent instruction, anyone (or at least most people) can learn anything (or at least most things).  That's why courts try criminals by jury and churches elect their ministers.  On occasion, public universities have gotten in trouble over low graduation rates because parents complain to state legislators that the very mean professors are not letting their very smart (only in the eyes of their mother) kids pass their classes.

@AlexanderWoo So is a high graduation rate expected from top universities?

@IamCleaver: High graduation rates are expected from all universities.  Low graduation rates are considered a sign of incompetent teaching.  Less prestigious universities that do not get to choose their students might not be able to maintain a high graduation rate without compromises they feel uncomfortable with.

@IamCleaver: Let me give you another indicator of cultural difference.  US laws protecting people with disabilities require that anyone with disabilities (for example an IQ of 50) must be provided with an individualized program of schooling that they are capable of completing and awarded a high school diploma if they complete this program.  These diplomas must be indistinguishable in public record from any other high school diploma.

@AlexanderWoo But if low intelligence student ends up (accidentally) admitted to a top university, what would actually happen? Would they attend the university indefinitely? End up kicked out eventually? Will they be awarded the degree despite their inadequacy? You don't seem to have a rigorous entrance examination system so I am positive that such situations are bound to happen periodically.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

One mistake that you seem to be making, perhaps in your other questions here also, is an assumption that there is a single linear scale, or that all such linear scales are aligned. That isn't the case. The space is multidimensional. It isn't even completely well defined except that there are a finite number of universities at any given moment.
Basically, though, a university gains (or "tends to" gain) prestige when it does a good job on many of the varied parts of its defined mission, which is usually more than just undergraduate education. This good job needs to be recognized and usually recognized over a long period of time.
A place like Harvard is nearly four hundred years old and has been recognized in both teaching and research. It has many "Schools" with different missions. Law, Engineering, Math, the Humanities... It has a great library.
Almost every US state has one or more high prestige state funded universities. Some have several. They do a good job throughout their mission over long periods and it gets generally recognized.
A few other high prestige places, like Olin are much younger (50 years) with a limited mission, but they do a good job and it eventually gets recognized. It is the recognition of a job done well that brings the prestige, not the fact that it is hard or expensive.
With the prestige comes the ability to be selective in both students and faculty, making entry harder. If only good students and good faculty are present, then it is clearer that the place does a good job and prestige increases. The match between students and universities isn't random. Scandals, on the other hand can result in a setback.
But, for the students accepted at a "hard" prestigious university, the difficulty is about the same as at a more modest place with, perhaps, less accomplished students. So, you are unlikely to see any discrepancy in graduation rates. What you will see, perhaps, is a discrepancy of the ratio of graduates going to grad school or not, or the ratio of students going into academia vs industry.
The process of prestige building can be slow. My undergraduate institution has always done a good job but its prestige has increased greatly over the more than 50 years since I attended. It has been consistently good at its mission, which doesn't include doctoral study. Some places do a good job but its recognition is only local, so prestige may be less than otherwise. Lots of moving parts.
Building prestige (good students, faculty, research, ...) usually takes a lot of money, so the ability to attract it is a factor. Get a lot of NSF grants and prestige may go up.
Some very small colleges with a limited mission make the grade (Wellesley) because they send graduates to good grad schools and have a highly qualified faculty.
Having widely recognized faculty with a wide public presence is a big plus (Cornell, Carl Sagan).
Lots of dimensions.

I have heard that a large number of international students is considered a good thing. My intuition and experience tell me that a large number of people who barely speak the language and aren't integrated into the culture is anything but good.

As a rough guideline, for undergraduate education, prestige is basically selectivity.  A university is more prestigious if it is harder to be admitted when someone applies to go to that university.
This does correlate to some version of quality of education for two reasons.  One is that more people apply to go to universities that do a better job.  (Actually, it's not clear; maybe it's just that more people apply to universities that are more prestigious, making this a self-reinforcing cycle.)  As a result, those universities can choose which applicants to admit.  A second reason is that, when a university has better students, it can run classes that teach material more quickly and at a higher level, because it does not need to cater to weaker students.
Of course, it's entirely possible that people want to go to Harvard because being admitted to Harvard is a signal that you're capable no matter what education you get afterwards, and it's hard to prove to a third party that you were admitted to Harvard if you don't go there.
(Only 4.6% of applicants to Harvard for 2022 were admitted.)

Is a high graduation rate always considered a good thing ? How does it effect prestige?

@IamCleaver: See https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/183721/why-are-high-pass-rates-for-courses-considered-acceptable-in-the-us/

Interesting question....


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If you can fund your PhD, how it affects your chances of admission?
Most PhD programs in math has more applications that what the funding for program can afford if they admitted everyone. Assuming you have normal grades and good RLs, and you can fund your PhD program expenses, do your chances of admission increase?

What country are you asking about?

It may be hard to know for both of these countries, but US or Sweden.

I think we’ve had this question before (with answers) but I’m not finding it from my phone.

Or perhaps any of these? (1) https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/51636/should-i-mention-that-im-able-to-self-fund-my-degree-in-my-sop, (2) https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/131831/applying-for-funding-when-you-can-self-fund, (3) https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/131831/applying-for-funding-when-you-can-self-fund

This is for the US. Most doctoral students in math hold Teaching Assistantships and the funding covers tuition, most fees, and a modest living stipend. Math departments need a lot of TAs so it isn't really the case that there are many unfunded doctoral students.
You would probably not have an advantage over any other student in admissions, however, if you choose to fund yourself. Or, I think it would be improper to make decisions based on funding in any case. Admittance is based on the likelihood of success in the program and the criteria are set as such. A low quality student with money wouldn't be seen as an asset, but as a liability. The money paid by such a student wouldn't show up in the department budget in most cases, but accrue to the system itself and is marginal in terms of the overall cost of running the system. Doctoral programs generally aren't "profit centers" for US universities.
But TAs provide a benefit in making the undergraduate (especially) program work smoothly. There are relatively few no-requirements scholarship.
The one advantage of self funding, however, might be that you could finish the degree a year or so earlier since you wouldn't have TA duties which take some time and effort. You might be able to pass comprehensive exams, which are normally required, a bit earlier.

There is still the issue of finding faculty mentors/advisors for everyone: capacity limitations. Not to mention a probable disinclination of many faculty to sponsor students not strong enough (in documentable potential) to be admitted.

why the downvote then?

I find it best to ignore downvotes that don't come with a comment. Especially on questions. But I don't think the downvote came from @paulgarrett as the comment is supplementary to the answer (thanks) not contradictory. But lots of downvotes are mystifying.

I did upvote just now, to help balance the drive-by downvotes. :)


text:
How to reach out to a professor with an unsolicited PhD application?
I am currently an industry researcher at a startup with a few year experience post masters and I am wanting to do a PhD for professional development and because I believe I will enjoy it.
I am looking for PhDs in Europe and I have looked at open PhD in my field and I am planning on going through with a few applications. However I would also like (and have been advised) to send out emails to professors with research I am interested in to gauge if they would take me on as a PhD student.
I am unsure of how to reach out to potential supervisors. I was thinking of sending an email with a short description of why I am reaching out and a CV.
I would really appreciate any advice!

Best time is when they advertise a position.

Professors are usually looking for PhD candidates capable to carry out research in these professors' field.  On your hands, you already have a Masters degree and several years of industrial experience.  So, for a potential advisor working in your current field, you could be quite an acquisition.  For this reason, it would be reasonable of you to single out such colleagues, and to offer your qualifications and experience to them.
Your letter could sound like this:

Dear Professor ... ,
I am aware of your research on ... .
Specifically, I   am now reading your recent paper in the journal ...
.  Having worked in a close area for several years after  getting my
master's, I feel prepared to read for  PhD, and I believe that
my experience could be of use   in your lab. I am attaching my CV, and
would be happy   to apply for PhD studies at your department, if you  find my experience relevant to your work.

You are not asking for a favour. You have something to offer. So don't be shy.

"You are not asking for a favour. You have something to offer." +1

I know OP asked about Europe, but so I left "read for PhD" but I'm unfamiliar with where this is idiomatic.

@AzorAhai-him- In the UK, for certain. Less sure about other countries.

If it is unsolicited then it should not be an application. How can you apply for a position that does not exist?
Reach out with a succinct and professional email enquiring if there are any current or upcoming positions.
Provide a BRIEF (I cannot stress this part enough) introduction and statement of interest (research areas, what you can bring, and what you would like to learn).
Attach a CV and some examples of representative works if you have them (not everything, 1 or 2 is enough).
Then leave the door open for further conversation if there is interest.
If they do not reply - (and this goes against the advice given on this website), no "gentle reminders". This is a cold call, the faculty on the other end is busy and owes you nothing, and likely gets lots of these. Just remember this is NOT AN APPLICATION, this is a cold call. There is no position, there is no contractual understanding that someone must answer you.

I had literally the exact same situation! I graduated in 2020 with an MSc in physics, went on to work as a researcher at a startup and in summer of 2023 decided that I want to do a PhD. I am also from Europe, but was looking for a PhD in Australia. I had no network there, so sending a cold email was my only option.
In the end, I ended up emailing two professors. One ignored me, whereas the other responded and I am now doing a PhD with the one that responded (since April 2024). Here is what I think made it work:

When choosing a supervisor, I made sure to find out as much as possible about them. This is obviously necessary to even know if you want to work with them at all, but it also helped me write a better email. I didn't attach my CV, but I did shortly describe what kind of topics I have worked on. The important part (I think), is that I explained that the work they have been doing is the kind of work that I would like to do, and that is why I am writing to them specifically. I did my best to formulate what that is exactly, and how it connects to my existing knowledge and motivation. This is quite tricky, because obviously you will never have a 100% overlap with your supervisors interests and they will be much more knowledgable in their domain than you are. So the goal is not to sound smart, but to convey the message that you are interested in working with specifically them, and that your past experience indicates that you are capable of learning quickly.

I leveraged my startup experience as much as I could. Working at a small company, I was a main actor on many projects. This grew my network quite a bit and I explained in my email that I have ongoing industry collaborations, and that I can bring these to the PhD project. In my case, I had my employer on board, that if I do a PhD with an industry collaboration component, he would support me. I don't know how much impact these statements ended up having, but I think having the startup experience is certainly unique, and it generally generates intrigue in people working in academia.

I suggested a scheme for funding. I explained which kind of public funding I intend to apply for and how much that would be. In the end, I ended up applying for funding from three separate places, and got a full scholarship from one that my supervisor suggested (and which I wasn't aware of at the time of writing the email). I think it is totally fine to apply unsolicited to a position that doesn't exist, but you have to address the elephant in the room and seek a solution for it. I ended up doing a lot of work to get it organized. Of course, if there is an existing open position then that is easy mode, but if you have the energy and know-how to fund your own position, then that is certainly welcome.

I found the personal webpages of the professors I wrote to. It contained useful information, and also had statements that they are actually looking for PhD students, which was encouraging. Additionally, one of them asked on their webpage to send enquiries to their personal email instead of their university one. That's what I did and there is no telling how much of a filter that is. In general, you have to be personal when writing. If a letter just says "dear respected professor" or some generic nonsense that doesn't address them personally, then it is unlikely for the letter to be read with full attention, especially if it is long.

I think the hardest part is to get the initial response. Once you do that, then it is easier to figure everything out, and even if things don't end up working out, you would know the reason and can adapt your approach in the future. To get an initial response, be concice, personal, and prepared with a plan to address the practicalities of your situation. Good luck!

Step 1 is to look at the web pages of any professors you're interested in working with, and see if they have an individual page where they are what they'd like to see in such an email. Not all faculty have such a page, but many do (I do). Some faculty may have specific things they want to hear about, and that may give good concrete suggestions to include when emailing professors who don't have their own public request, specific to your research are of interest.
In the absence of specific requests from the faculty member you're contacting, express your interests and background, and why you're interested in working with that specific faculty member.
If you mention reading a specific paper, include something to show that you really did read it. Most faculty get many form emails where it's clear that someone pasted a random paper tile from the faculty member's publications and said they particularly enjoyed . That doesn't really give the reader meaningful information about the sender. If you write something meaningful that indicates you actually read and considered the paper, you can stand out. But unless otherwise specified (see step 1), this isn't a requirement.

You surely meant "public" in the third sentence! At least I hope so.

Indeed, a bad autocorrect misfire on the phone


text:
Help! I think I'm dealing with a predatory journal
I'm currently an undergrad without much experience in publishing scientific papers. Due to the pressure of many of my teachers and peers, I felt the need to get something published so I contacted an open access journal to publish a review paper I initially made for a class.
I initially submitted my paper in good faith thinking that it was a legit journal as everything seemed to be in order at first, but after I submitted my paper I started seeing some alarming red flags all over the place. The most alarming one was that the peer-review process lasted only a week and resulted in no major changes to the article other than changing the citation style. They are now asking me to pay a huge sum of money which I cannot and do not want to pay considering that I'm possibly dealing with a predatory journal. I even tried asking for retraction of my article but they are asking me for a withdrawal fee.
So, has anybody been in a similar situation? If so, could you give me some advice into how to proceed? To be honest, I don't care that much if they go ahead and publish my article anyways (which I've heard some journals do) since they got my name kinda wrong in the final version. Also, considering that this journal is US-based and I'm in Asia, is it possible that they'll take any legal action if I don't pay?
P.S. I have not signed any sort of document to transfer the copyright of the article to them.

Related: Beall's list (archived here).

A withdrawal fee...wow.

If I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about this.  As @sevensevens says, they won't go after you. And, since you're an undergrad, you do have time to do more research, so even if it is published, it won't be a career-ending mistake, as long as you do publish in other (decent) journals.

You may find this article enlightening: Predatory Journals: A Cautionary Tale and a Lesson in Copyright Transfer

Note that even if you had signed transfer of copyright, it might not matter, because it's unlikely that you have the legal authority to do so. I.e. in most cases your institution owns the copyright, not you

Why do you feel it is a predatory journal? Is it just because that the review time was short ?

@Olivia The short review turnaround, the high price to publish, and the withdrawal fee are all red flags (well, a red flag, a yellow flag, and a red flag, respectively).

@XanderHenderson; I found this journal, https://www.mdpi.com/journal/mathematics which has a short review time of 19 days, charges a high price as APC and yet is an SCIE index journal

@Olivia The short review time and fee to withdraw a paper are red flags.  The high price to publish is a yellow flag.  None of these are conclusive.  There are legitimate journals that do these kinds of things (except, perhaps, the withdrawal fee---I've never heard of that before).  Your question was "Why do you feel it is a predatory journal?"  The answers is "Because there are a number of kind of suspicious flags."

Drop contact, don't pay, don't make revisions
NOTE: I'm not a lawyer
Simply stop talking to them.  Be sure you've got a copy of you asking them to withdraw the paper.  Hopefully if you don't pay they won't publish it.  If they don't publish it and you don't sign anything then it shouldn't be an issue to submit to a better journal.
Will they "come after you" - almost certainly not.  They don't want a public court case.  They want money.  They'll move on to the next mark.
If they publish it, it will cause problems when you submit elsewhere
One thing that hasn't been address in the other answers is what happens if they publish it.  If they publish, it may be disqualified from submissions to other journals, even though it's a predatory one.  Best way to avoid them publishing is to drop contact and not pay.

The real question is what he already agreed to. If he already signed over the copyright then it's already too late to publish elsewhere.

And we're not lawyers.  This is how to limit the chances of them publishing it.  There's a separate Law SE if they play hardball.  My guess is they won't since that would create a google-able paper trail that they are not to be trusted.

@DavidMulder - OP said they had NOT signed over copyright yet.

You're absolutely right, my bad for missing that. Still applies more generally (this being SE and all that).

Read the fine prints of the "agreement" you had with them when you first submitted your paper with them.
[This is just my opinion, I am not a lawyer nor I am representing one]
I am quite sure there is no clear sentence about "how long does it takes before the non-reaction from an author is considered a withdrawal of the article". Just stop communicating with them.

It is not necessarily unusual for an open access journal to have a publication fee. They don't get paid by subscribers, after all. For a reputable example, see https://plos.org/publish/fees/ It lists costs from $800 to $5300.
On the other hand, asking for a fee does not necessarily make a journal reputable, either. And as you say, an extremely short peer-review process is a red flag. You could try to get some idea of the journal's reputation by seeing if they're indexed in citation databases like Scopus or Web of Science, or look up their impact factor.
My main advice would be to ask advice from your professors, or other staff at your university. They'll have a lot more experience with publishing, and will know many journals in the field. Maybe they know this particularly journal. Either way, I expect they know how to handle this situation.

The main advice here is very important — OP’s actual instructors/mentors are in a much better position to give specific advice than we are. And if they are giving “pressure” to publish, they should provide the support and mentoring to find a suitable journal.

I don't think any reputable journal would try to charge a "withdrawal fee", though.

@jochen I've heard of even some reputable journals charging withdrawal fees if you want to withdraw in a late stage of the process (after a lot of work has been done by the reviewers and editors). But I don't get the impression that's the case here. And it's also a bad sign if the journal does not make fees clear at the outset.

I think they can not charge you when you have not signed a contract for publishing. Sometimes when you publish in non-predator journals they charge you for color figures in the printed version. Also for this, they need your signature on the contract for it.
Well, you can say you don not want to work out the revision, so the will not publish your paper. I learned that it is common today, that if the revision you get a lot of people try it at another journal and no consequences were made to them. So I think they try to get a little bit of money out of you.


text:
My Phd advisor does not appreciate anything I do, and provides no help
I have completed five years in my Ph.D. (computer science) in a reputed research institute in India. The area of my research is not Machine Learning or Data Science, nothing to do with data. I have one publication in a reputed conference, and another paper which I have written and I had submitted but it got rejected and now I am working on it some more.
My friends and family will describe me as an extremely cheerful and jovial personality. But I am not happy. It is majorly because of my current situation in my Ph.D. and my advisor. They are an extremely manipulative person I have ever met in my life. There have been only a few occasions when they were happy about the progress that I am making. The thing which bothers me the most is that they never give any suggestions from his side. I don't know whether it is because they want me to think of my research independently or because they hate me. I think the latter. They have told me many times in the past that I should only meet with them when I have something constructive so that the precious time of my advisor is wasted to the minimum. I go to the meeting with an idea (of the third and last project), and they are not satisfied. I go with another idea and they ask me critical questions (which I am thankful for because I consider them as feedback) and if there is a flaw in my idea or approach, they give me a lecture on my competency (being in 5th year, I should have thought about the answer before coming in). So, next time I go with a solid approach that I took 2 weeks or so to formulate (after thinking and reading papers and doing research). At this stage, they tell me that they can not see any progress and that we have been discussing this design and problem in the air for very long. Is it not the technique? To formulate a problem, think about how you want to solve it and then discuss it? Am I mistaken somewhere? Is it all about churning about results and fast?
Today there was a meeting and I went in with a solid plan to discuss (I was confident that this meeting will be fruitful and I will not be suffering any reprimand). I spoke it and we discussed the idea (that was the agenda of our meeting). But after a while, they got into the scope of this project and the difficulty of it and that I should target something else (no suggestions about what). They went back to the earlier project and started discussing what my plans were regarding that project. Why is it taking so much time (they want results, and fast). Today I felt like crying in the meeting, I was humiliated and ridiculed and compared with a RA who has joined after B.Tech. (not claiming any superiority points here). I was asked how many papers I read in the past few days, how many hours do I put in my research each day. I said I have been preparing for a talk, for a doctoral symposium and they say it should not have taken more than a day. I know this is not a normal routine for most Ph.D. students. I am eaten up by this feeling that my advisor never appreciates me and that I will never be in their good books. Many will suggest that I should communicate with him but I have zero hopes with such a meeting because as I said, they are an extremely manipulative person and they will not conclude the talk in any one way.
I am open to any criticism and I am ready to work on myself. Because I know I have not been the star student that they expect. I work 5-6 hours each day. But if it is not the way it is supposed to be, I do not want to be in this hell-hole, there will be many other prospects. I do not regret spending five years and then leaving without a degree.

To whom you refer when you say "they"? Your PhD advisor and some committee members?

What is your question, overall?

@Wetenschaap That doesn't answer the question in the first comment, it's an explanation of something that the author of the comment already knows, as it is apparent from the comment.

On average, how many years does it take for someone to finish a PhD in your institute?

It seems you are being abused by your supervisor.  That's not your fault.

I feel you follow the wrong advisor. It seems normal for some people who are in academic. It is pretty unpleasant.


text:
How are international graduate applicants perceived by universities in the US?
I've always wondered how professors and admission committees in the US think about international applicants for doctoral programs in the US.
Skills:
Why are international applicants selected over (I believe sufficient) domestic applicants at all? Are there some skill differences?
Funding:
Isn't it more expensive and risky to provide >5 years funding to an international student than a domestic one? When do they think an international applicant trustworthy and appropriate for funding their studies?
I am wondering specifically about PhD programs (not Master etc) because some programs offer funding before even knowing the student in person which seems risky because if I were an advisor it would be difficult to evaluate a student's value for my lab before having actually worked with her.

...in what field?

Computer Science

Related: Is it ethical to apply different criteria for graduate admissions based on country of undergraduate study?

To answer your specific questions, schools are generally trying to admit the best applicants (who will choose to come), not just a group of people of the right size over a certain threshold.  So if an international student appears to be a stronger candidate (evaluated the same way any other applicant would be), the international applicant is likely to be preferred.
Graduate students are generally funded based on packages that don't take into account where the student's from, so it's not generally more expensive.  (International students may be less likely to accept because the funding is less likely to enough, but that's no reason not to admit them.)
Finally, why would international applicants be any less trustworthy or appropriate than domestic ones?

Regarding your last point, while local students can certainly be untrustworthy, cheating is much more prevalent amongst students from certain countries. I've been to places where the students didn't even know that paying for LOIs and LORs was cheating, because it was the most common way to prepare a US application. I suspect this practice is very rare among local students, because it is their culture, and their rules of social compliance.

There can be exceptions to your second paragraph.  I have heard that at certain public universities, when a student receives funding, the student's tuition is charged to the department's budget, at the rate they would normally pay.  Tuition for residents of the state is much lower.  For domestic students from other states, they can become state residents after a year, making them cheaper for the department.  International students can never become residents, so they are more expensive for the department.

@Village: It's interesting that of all things that one might cheat in, you list letters of recommendation - an artifact that is indeed not produced by the applicant themselves, and for which the applicant thus depends on someone else's willingness to create.

@Village Certainly, those problems do exist, but it's far from being ubiquitous among foreign students.

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text:
Should citations on PowerPoint slides be shortened?
Are there guidelines or best practices for adding references to a research PowerPoint presentation?
For example, should I put the full citation at the bottom of the slide?

Liu, J., Rinzler, A. G., Dai, H., Hafner, J. H., Bradley, R. K., Boul, P. J., Smalley, R. E. (1998). Fullerene Pipes. Science, 280(5367), 1253–1256.

If you have even a couple references, this slide starts to look really busy.
I've seen quite a few presentations with truncated references (just first author, journal, year), like so:

Liu, J., et al. Science (1998)

Is this shortened reference alright? It looks cleaner on the slide, but at the expense of the ease of the viewer locating a reference. Any other solutions? If it makes a difference, this would be for the engineering/science fields.

Option B is most common in my neck of the woods (electrical engineering), mainly for the reason you already gave: it looks "cleaner."

If you make your slides available for download, turn your short references into DOI links.

This question is very close to that other question.

I would leave the citations off the slides completely. Presumably there is a complete write-up. Put the cites in there. Or possibly your slide-making software lets you make notes for each slide. You can put the full cite on there and hand out notes. But I really hate looking at an incomplete cite such as the last one. Not hunting through an entire year of Science to find this paper.

@puppetsock Not every talk ever has notes, or is set up for notes to be handed out. A shortened citation style like this is a good compromise.

@AzorAhai In what way is it good? It's of no use whatever. As I said, I'm not hunting through an entire year of Science to find this paper.

The question is old, but honestly I am a bit shocked about the bad advice to include incomplete references to a slide. Excuses dealing with the beauty of the slides are inacceptable when it comes to proper references. In your example, writing "Science, 280(5367), 1253–1256." at least would allow to locate the source unambiguously.

@puppet I've never struggled to locate a paper in this manner. It's not often the same first author has two papers in the same journal where they're so close it's impossible to tell what's meant. Perhaps that's field dependent

@Snij The point is not necessarily to provide a way for audience members to locate a paper. First of all, audiences may recognize the first author or be familiar with the paper based on the authors and year. No one could identify a paper in the format you gave, compared to the proposed style. Second It's easier to write down and remember a name than a string of numbers. Third, many journals don't even have page numbers anyway. Fourth it's much easier to perform a library search by author year journal than by issue. Fifth, what would you do with multiple references?

@Azor Ahai You can add the first author of you like, no objections. More complete info is better. I disagree with the rest of your comment. And references are a crucial part in scientific work. They need room. It is okay if they are visible. If you have multiple references just list them on the slides in some short but complete version. Seriously, it improves your presentation. But I see that my point of view represents a minority here.

I would strongly recommend against putting the full citation at the bottom of the slide.  The problem is, when you are actually presenting, it will both a) make the slide look very busy as you note, and b) distract people away from the rest of the slide.  Another problem is that few people will actually be able to copy down the citation (unless you linger on the slide for a very long time).
Truncated references deal with all of these problems, generally giving just enough information for a quickly scribbled note that will give the reader the ability to track down the cited paper with a little bit of work.
In addition, however, if you will be making the slides available for others to read at their leisure, there are two other good places to put references:

A "bibliography" slide at the end, before or after where many put the funding/acknowledgements slide.
In the "notes" field associated with the slide on which the truncated reference appears.

This is especially good when dealing with funding agencies, who like to pull slides out of your deck for presentation to their own higher-ups.

It's more useful if a reference appears right where it was used.  By the time a Bilbliography slide comes along, it's too late -- no one will remember why they need to know the reference.  I find including a last slide in the deck that I might refer to when answering questions (Not some silly slide that say "questions") has a whole bunch more utility than a bib slide.

I am sorry to say, but this is terrible advice. Giving unambiguous references is way more important than anything you write.

I generally agree with the sentiments already mentioned (that is, avoid putting full citations on individual slides; there is usually a better way to handle it). That said, I occasionally find myself wanting to do so for some reason, such as when I'm likely to reuse the presentation a year from now, and want to easily recall where the quoted information came from, or when I want to have the full citation available on the screen in case I'm asked about it during my presentation.
When this has been the case, I've often handled this by including a full citation, but I use a color that is very similar to the background color of the slide – perhaps a light gray if my background is white, for example – and make the font very small.
Here's an example, the slide on the left has a reference, while the slide on the right has the same reference in a more "subdued" color and smaller font:

This allows me to put the reference on the slide when I want to, but avoid having the reference be a distraction to the live audience.

As a footnote, if the slides are printed in using the "Pure Black and White" option, these footnotes become quite legible.

I don't think the small font would be legible in any sense after a color change -- same with the text below your Lorem Ipsum.  If it can't be read, there's no reason to include it.

@ScottS - I just had one such slide on display in my lecture two weeks ago, and needed the reference while lecturing. I could read it just fine. In any case, instructors can play around with the font sizes until they get the right mix of legibility and subtlety. These slides have been shrunk to fit in my answer.

My preferred way to do this is to put a short reference on the slide, perhaps not even a formatted citation (e.g. "Liu, et al. show that ..."), maybe use a numeric cite (e.g. "...[1]"), and then have a slide or two at the end listing your citations, in full form, as taken from the paper that the talk represents or will represent if the talk is discussing a work in progress. This moves the distracting stuff to the end of the talk and allows anyone who wants to go look up the citation to do so assuming you or the conference makes your slides available.
If you don't intend to make the slides available, then putting a short cite like your second example in a footnote on the slide where you first cite it is probably best. That's short enough to be remembered or jotted down by an audience member for later look up.

I think a numeric citation is really problematic in a talk, because it requires a listener to cross-reference across many minutes of time.

Which is why I said "and" not "or". Also, I would generally only recommend to do it that way if "you or the conference makes your slides available".

Even if you make the slides available, I think that it decreases the availability of the information, because it means that a listener has to track the reference and chase it down in your slides later, rather than just jotting down "Mergen, 2003, HPC" as it pops up.

So, @jakebeal, your OK with a bibliography at the end of the talk and a likely too short reference in the main slides, but not a single number? I don't get it. Either way, the audience has to look it up in your slides later. Which is worse, jotting down "Liu [1]" or "Liu, 2003, Science"? I suspect the audience member is going to have to look this up in your bibliography either way.

I find that from "Liu, 2003, Science" I can usually sufficiently identify the publication.

Don't put a full citation on the slide.  That's too busy and distracting.  It will distract some members of the audience from your main message.
Personally, I recommend against putting citations on the slide at all, in most circumstances.  Many people adopt a text-heavy style, where their presentations are full of text and bullet lists with text and text text wall-of-text.  There's a lot of evidence that this is not good for comprehension.
Instead, try minimizing the amount of text on your slides.  It takes more effort, but it can lead to much more effective communication style.  Try to write less on your slides.  Less is more.
Finally, remember the goal of a presentation.  The purpose of a presentation is not to present every last detail of your work.  Instead, the purpose of a presentation is to tell a story, a narrative, that conveys the main ideas and intuition and takeaways.  Details belong in the technical paper.  And citations are typically one of those things that belong in the technical paper.  When you're preparing a presentation, you shouldn't try to "cover" everything in the technical paper.  Instead, think of your presentation as a lecture where you teach people about some idea, or an advertisement to read the full paper.

Just to add perspective and context, D.W.’s approach is good for exactly what he asserts – “a live presentation to a group of folks that conveys the main ideas and intuition and takeaways”.
However, with more presentations being presented online via courses or other means, citations are imperative. In particular, where images or other media are being used. In order to responsibly address copyright and fair use, the presenter must give a reasonable citation on every slide where they use media that isn’t theirs.
The options J.R. offers are excellent ones for just this purpose – the aesthetics are attended to as well as the obligation to cite work used in a presentation that could possibly be distributed beyond the intended audience. While the most common presentation is still “live”, as we move forward into the uncharted territory of conventional tools – like Powerpoint – being accessed online, we will have to find better ways to protect the integrity of the media we use to support our efforts.

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text:
What needs to be done if an editor requires "very thorough editing"?

The Editor's and the reviewers' comments are as follows:
[...]
Eic
a very thorough editing is  a must

What does the last line mean? What kinds of things do I need to do?
I think I need to check the whole manuscript for finding language problem.

You're probably correct, the editor is asking you to check the whole manuscript for English. If you have a friend who's fluent at English you can ask him / her, otherwise you can also contact a copyediting service such as Enago or Editage (this is not a recommendation for either service, since I have never used them before).
Good luck!

"fluent" is not enough for your (potential) friend: it's not enough to be able to speak the language easily. He/she also has to be good at grammar and spelling.

I agree with this answer, and I'd add that the editor's comment indicates (to me) that there are a great many language errors in the paper.


text:
How to approach negotiating the start date of a tenure-track position?
A few days ago I got an offer (yay!) from a US school. I have about another week before they want a decision. Over the last few days I have been tallying up costs for start up.  When should I start negotiating?
And here's the bigger question: my wife and I are expecting our first child basically soon as the fall semester starts - how do I broach the topic of a single semester deferral? I hate to do this but we have a lot of worry about transitioning during such a sensitive time (and their health insurance policy does not allay our concerns plus we have zero connections there and I worry about my wife's isolation as I start a new position). This would be the number one thing for me to take the job.
So how would I go about the negotiation? Would I say A is number one thing I need, then B, then C etc? I should I start ASAP? Should I e-mail where I can cleanly layout reasons for each desire?
In regards to the deferral request, how do you envision the school to respond? It is a small department so not sure how they could absorb the workload. I was planning on going into detail how I would use my deferred time to accomplish tasks that would benefit the school (e.g.  grant applications, work on outreach program, prep for spring classes, be willing to take heavier load in spring, get research ready for students etc). I doubt the school will completely dismiss my caution but also worried that deferral will be too much for them to bear.

Do they have online classes? Half-semester classes?

I don't think so.

Do you really want to defer the start of the job, or do you want to start the job but take immediate parental leave?  The latter might be a better option - they might be required by law or policy to grant the leave.  I would suggest researching their leave policies on your own (but not mentioning the issue to them yet, ideally not until after you have already accepted the job).

There is nothing about paternity leave in faculty handbook (only maternity). I have asked their HR about it but it appears I am out of luck on that front.

@NateEldredge: if you meant FMLA leave (in the US), you are not eligible for it within your first 12 months on a new job. So unless there's some other parental leave, you're not covered at all.

Related: How does having baby affect tenure track offer or tenure track success?

One clue about how much they "need" you to teach in the first semester would be whether or not this is a new line. If it is a new line, then you may be "bonus" in terms of teaching (depending on other factors in the department like people with leave/buyouts)...

FYI, if in the US, you should be eligible for ACA coverage to fill the insurance gap...

@smci To be fair the question question doesn’t mention US, and other countries manage this quite differently.

Let me offer the perspective of a former department chair who was involved in hiring negotiations from the department side. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Hiring a faculty member is a long-term investment. When a department recruits a new faculty member, typically they expect the person to be around for the next 20-30. When viewed through that prism, any short-term concessions, especially ones that come without any financial cost like a deferral or unpaid leave of absence, are fairly negligible compared to the total benefit the department expects to get out of an otherwise-successful recruitment.
Leverage is important, but it’s not everything. An academic recruitment is not usually a zero-sum game where each side tries to exploit the other to the maximal extent they can get away with. Specifically, it is a repeated game where the reputation of a department’s recruitment practices matters a lot for its ability to recruit successfully in the future, and besides, the two parties are going to be working alongside each other for a long time, so it is in everybody’s interest that things are done amicably and in a way that leaves the other side generally happy and satisfied. For this reason, a candidate’s request that can be granted by the department for a relatively low cost will typically be looked at pretty favorably, even in the absence of leverage. (At least this is true in departments and universities run by rational, competent people...)
Keep your cool. From the language of your question it seems to me that you are approaching the discussion from a rather emotional place. For example, you say “I hate to do this”, suggesting that you feel guilty or apologetic about bringing up what you perceive to be a super-delicate or taboo topic. Relax! Such discussions are all in a day’s work for the people you’ll be talking to, and don’t carry nearly the emotional weight that you imagine them to carry. Nor do you have anything to be apologetic about. “Negotiation” in the current context is just a code word for you telling the department what your needs and preferences are, to which the department will respond by telling you what its needs and preferences are, and by a process of joint exploration you and your co-negotiator will arrive at the point in the space of possibilities that is reasonably agreeable to you both. Just bring up the topic of the deferral and anything else that’s on your mind, in a live conversation (ask for a phone/video call with the department chair), and do so in a straightforward, mature, honest and professional way, and you’ll be fine. The worst that can conceivably happen is they’ll decline your request and you’ll be no worse off than you are now.
You should bring up your request as soon as possible. Given the short deadline, any further delay weakens your position, since if you wait much longer, people will wonder if things that you say are important to you maybe aren’t as important as you say they are (otherwise why are you only now remembering to bring them up?). By acting fast you will appear more credible and your requests are likely to be taken more seriously. There will also be more time to explore possible creative solutions that will satisfy both you and the department.

Good luck, and congratulations on the offer, which I’m sure you worked extremely hard to get and is well-deserved.

Thanks for the great answer. In relation to 4, do you think I should bring this up separately from other aspects of the offer such as salary, startup etc? One reason I have not brought it up yet is that I am still working on my budget.

I’m not sure I can speak to that level of detail, but generally speaking you should communicate all your wishes to the department ASAP, in as much concrete detail as you’re able to do right now. If some details are missing, say you‘re working on them, but let them know that they exist so it doesn’t come as a surprise later and makes it appear like you’re moving the goalposts. And be clear about your priorities - if one thing on the list is much more important than the others, let them know. Keep in mind you have only a finite amount of capital and not all your wishes are likely to be granted.

So much better and more in depth than my answer.

Negotiating the start date is fairly common for US schools. Schools generally want you to start at the beginning of the fall semester, but it is not uncommon to try and start at the beginning of the summer or in January. Sometimes departments have flexibility and sometimes they do not. While there are horror stories of departments rescinding offers, I don't suggest worrying too much about it.
Without other offers, or a current position, you have limited leverage to force their hand. I suggest you simply ask when the start date is and if it is flexible. They might not be able to accommodate a January start, but maybe they can reduce your teaching load the first semester.

OP has not stated a country.

@LightnessRacesinOrbit technically, you are correct, but there are a lot of signs that suggest it is a US school. That said, to make sure there was no confusion, I started my answer with US schools ...

Yeah I'm kinda nitpicking. :)

@LightnessRacesinOrbit : "Tenure-track", and "Fall" suggest a North American.  "Health Insurance" suggest USA (Canada may use Health Insurance like much of Europe does, but  I wouldn't expect the same sort of issues.)

You're now at a point where your and the department's objectives align: you want to go there, and they want you to take their offer. They also want you to start on a positive note. A good department head will recognize this and work with you on any constraints you may have.
Yours is a legitimate issues. I may not bring up the issue of isolation of your wife (because that's unlikely going to change by just delaying the move), but bringing up the issue of health insurance and giving birth is clearly something everyone in the US can relate to.
So I think that you exploring whether it is possible to delay starting there is an entirely reasonable thing to do, and the department head will see whether that is possible. Their goal is to get you long term and for you to be a happy member of the department; a single semester deferral is a small price for them to pay for that. Of course, whether your request can actually be made to work is an entirely separate issue (and has to do with whether they have already budgeted you to teach, and whether they have the flexibility to replace you for a semester). But at the very least, they're not likely going to think that your request is totally frivolous -- go ahead, and ask.

"isolation immediately after giving birth" is a real issue.  It is likely to decrease once the child is slightly older and going to mother and toddler groups. (Also the mother will get more than a few hours sleep a night).

@MartinBonner: Fair enough. I didn't mean to belittle the issue, but you probably knew where I was going with this.

Some things you can consider:

You might be able to negotiate salary for part of the summer, quite possibly even with the benefits being active. I got summer salary in my current position without benefits, but I know at least one person who asked and received an early start to their health care.
You might have better luck asking for a reduced teaching load the first semester, rather than a delayed start. Especially since delaying the official start date of your position may delay the benefits package as well, unless you specifically negotiate this.

I do generally agree that it could be risky mentioning that you are expecting. This is the kind of thing they are not allowed to ask about, for precisely this reason. But I strongly disagree with the other answer saying you have no room to negotiate without another offer. They want you as their top choice (even if you were their second choice, you are now their top choice), and they certainly don't want to have to end their search empty-handed. They want to hire someone who will be happy, productive, and long-term, so you do have some leverage in negotiations.
I think cases where startup negotiations actually lead to a rescinded offer for asking too much are very rare (obviously there have been some well-publicized occurrences, I think they are widely discussed because they are so rare). As long as your requests don't suggest that you are out of touch with the university culture, you should be fine.

Asking about reduced load is a great point.  E.g. in research math departments it's typical to have a 2-1 teaching load and for new hires to get one or two teaching reductions.  This means you could ask whether teaching 0-2 the first year is an option.  (You would still be expected to work so this might not be as good as delaying the start, but it may be better than starting in the fall and teaching a full load.)

How to approach negotiating the start date of a tenure-track position?

When we perform searches in my department, we either need someone to definitely start ASAP, or we are growing in other areas that have some flexibility w.r.t. start date.
So, when you interviewed, you had a chance to figure out which of the two searches yours fell into: did they ask you a question like, "Are you able to start by Fall 2018?" If they did, and you told them "yes," then chances are they are expecting you to show up prior to the start of Fall 2018 to get prepared for your semester, etc. I would expect the search committee might seriously start looking over the remaining candidates, if, in this scenario, you were to ask for a delayed start.
If the search committee didn't ask you if you would be able to start by a certain date, then I would at least ponder the situation a bit more seriously on your end before deciding to tell your prospective employer that you cannot start by fall. The worst they can say is "no," but I would imagine that there has to be a decent chance of being able to work something out, even if it is not your ideal outcome (should you be willing to accept it under those revised conditions, of course).
Good luck.

Start date was not brought up during campus visit but a start date was given in the advertisement. My expectation is that they will try to work with on this and likely alter their benefits policy or start date so we can get health insurance much sooner.

Frankly, I think their reaction will be laughter.  Most adults have children and you want a semester off because you're just doing what everyone else does?  This is a small school and they need a teacher in the classroom.  If you can't do that, you're not worth messing with.
For whatever else you think you might want to negotiate over, realize that their hands may be tied.  The department may really like you and perhaps would gladly raise the salary or add perks, but the dean cares only about his budget and he gets to decide and he very likely won't decide in your favor.
Yes, I'm a cynic, but you have an offer.  My advice would be that you either take it or leave it.  I believe that the only negotiation possible in these matters is "I have an offer for $90K from this other school. I'd rather come to your school, but you've offered only $70K."  You can't negotiate without leverage and I don't think you have any (yet.)  I'm assuming you don't have a Nobel prize, because if you did, you wouldn't be considering "small schools".
Sorry for the straight talk.

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Citations in a math blog
I am an incoming math PhD student in the US. I am thinking of starting a math blog. The intended audience is myself plus maybe other math graduate students.
I am a little concerned about citations to avoid plagiarism. Of course if a theorem or proof comes from a paper, I need to cite it. What about theorems and proofs coming from textbooks. For example, say I give a definition of a group, which appears in virtually all standard textbooks in introductory algebra.
I guess the latter case will happen more frequently since my blog is mostly entry level graduate material math that you can find in many textbooks.
Questions:

If a theorem or proof comes from a textbook, can I assume that it is considered common knowledge, with respect to the targeted audience, and just state and prove the theorem?
At what point does a theorem or proof stop becoming common knowledge, maybe it only appears in some very advanced textbooks?

Some textbooks avoid citations on the basis that they get in the way. Some of those textbooks include endnotes. Others avoid references completely. (Presumably references do appear in the author's notes.) Pick the style that suits you, make the style clear to the reader. (If you write your blog in html, then you can use html comments to include citations and other notes, you can advertise them to the reader, if you like.)

Can you clarify the purpose of the blog?

Blog posts don't need to have a formal bibliography, but you should always provide attribution to others work, whether it is an original piece of research, or just a textbook whose presentation you are following. In a blog post, you can do this in a conversational style: point out results you enjoyed (with links!) and textbooks you find helpful. Not only will the folks you mention appreciate this, it will be helpful to your readers who want to follow up and learn more.

The citations may not have to be quite as formal, either. If you know you have favorite textbooks you cite all the time, you could have as part of the footer:

Common References:
JKL: Jennings, Klondike, and Lawrence. (2018). Best Textbook Ever. Unicorn Press.
...

Then you can say at the top of a post: Most of the definitions in this post are based on JLK and XYZ.
If formally dealing with citations is going to hold you back from getting the blog posts written, then doing something like this can help you properly attribute.
(There may be a different kind of copyright problem if you basically reproduce all of the useful parts of the textbook on your blog, even if the content is paraphrased and attributed.)


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Is original research required for an undergraduate thesis?
I am currently in my final year of BSCS. And we have the option of pursuing a thesis or do a Final Year Project (FYP). I asked a professor related to my field and she told me that It's really hard to write a thesis as you need to pick an original research paper or area, reproduce the work done in this area, work on the limitations mentioned and add your own new findings which I think is really hard for me at this stage since I'm in the phase of understanding existing knowledge.
My main interest is in Computer Graphics and I was thinking to create a path-tracer, have already created a gpu ray-tracer, and use different acceleration data structures and profile the increase in speed obtained.
The thing is, all of this has already been done so I'd just be reproducing the work already done and implementing it and highlighting conclusions already drawn with just a little talk on the limitations and what could be done. Does this qualify as an undergraduate thesis or should I give up on it and she is right in assuming that thesis needs to have some new findings?
Also if it qualifies as a thesis what are the chances to getting it published since there are no new findings?
The reason I was pushing towards the thesis more as I am from a South-Asian country and the standard of education is "pretty" low here. Research is like a godly word for people here and we have zero exposure to research/conferences/seminars etc. I aim to do my masters from abroad and was thinking my bachelor's thesis would be a valuable experience.

You need to work this out with your advisor(s), we can't really help you with the specifics of what someone else's expectations are. In my own experience, undergraduate theses usually are original work, but they are typically either very small projects or a piece of a larger unfinished work. In biology, they are sometimes publishable but not always, and if they are publishable its usually a project that was started well before the final year. They are typically work towards a publishable project however, and the student might be an author on a paper published after they leave.

The requirements for an undergraduate thesis depend on the rules of your university and department and also on the standards imposed by your adviser. In my experience, the rules usually didn't require original results, but and adviser who wants original results can probably insist on them (i.e., refuse to approve a thesis without original results).

Talked to my professor once again and finally persuaded him to allow me to give thesis. As Jennifer suggested I think he wanted to keep it easy so he told me that he'd only guide me and that I'll have to write it myself. He was still somewhat bent on doing something new but told me that it could be a review of a "recent" work as well. Thanks for everybody's support tho. Anybody in the same situation as me, as everybody suggested try to get in touch with your adviser more and find out what he wants.

The professor is suggesting you do the final project and keep it easy for both parties. I got data, my name on the paper, and research presentation at academic conference in undergrad by playing ball and working on the professor's pet project.  And just because the school calls it an FYP doesn't mean you have to call it that. I'm not saying you can call it a thesis but if you applied elsewhere, FYP would sound really obscure and student-ish.  If you own a quality piece of written work, you can rework the intro and publish it wherever it fits in your field. If nobody wants to publish it, hold onto it and maybe it can get worked into something else later. Maybe that FYP is "currently submitted" for publication on your CV at just the right time later. Thesis may be property of the school. Final thought: professor may commit time to messing around with data and getting complicated with you if he can co-publish something. It's a lot of extra office hours with you to do a thesis when they could be with their family at home. Can you make it worth their time? Let them hint to you how it can be worth going the extra mile.


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What to do if a team member does not work but they have to answer committee questions?
I am a master student in a French university and the university states that for a project students must form a team. However, I ended up doing the whole work by myself (They always come up with an excuse to avoid working). We have to present the project in a French, the committee will ask us questions.
My French level is at best A2 on CEFR. I am afraid that when they ask questions I won't be able to answer them due to my language skills also my colleagues probably would not be able to answer since they have not done any work which would result in a poor grading of our project.

Usually, the committee members are able to distinguish between difficulties which are due to language issues and incompetence. Don't hesitate to ask for clarification if you don't understand a question and maybe you have a chance to make som drawings on paper or on a board / flip-chart which show the relevant concepts.


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Are there any pre-print services that accept manuscripts already accepted by a journal?
My publication was accepted by a journal, however I want to post it online prior to publication.
BioRxiv was the original repository of choice, however they do not accept articles accepted by other journals.
Question:  Are there archives that accept pre-prints that've already been accepted by a journal?

Just to check, are you sure that the journal that's accepted your manuscript is cool with you putting it up on a pre-print service?

arXiv has no such restrictions as far as I know.  If your copyright agreement with the journal allows you to post the article on preprint servers, then arXiv will happily accept it before or after acceptance / publication.
When posting to arXiv, you'll need to choose a license that's compatible with your agreement with the journal.

On the submission page "*Author Approvals Please indicate that all authors have seen and approved the manuscript, and that it hasn't been accepted or published elsewhere."

@Nakx: Which submission page is that? I just went through a dummy submission on arXiv and I didn't see that text at any point.

My mistake, I was talking about biorxiv I got confused.