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Applying to a PhD in Machine Learning without much knowledge of the subject
Lets suppose that I see an open PhD position in the field of Machine Learning, area whose I have only some very basic or general knowledge, but that I am willing to learn more about it. I wonder what I should put in my cover letter to show that I have a genuine interest in the subject and that I am willing to learn more about it. I mean for what I know, the first year in a PhD program is for a student to gain knowledge about the theoretical parts that will help him or her to continue their PhD studies. I have seen that also some of them receive aome training that will help them to narrow their interests into one specific topic before the writing of the thesis start.
I am somewhat traumatized after once I applied to a PhD position and in the interview when I mentioned that "I was willing to learn more, enroll into courses and being self taught for the research that they were making"; and the professor in charge reply to me in a harsh way "You are not here to begin to learn, we need people that already know what we are doing". That shocked me somehow.
So bottomline, how can I express in a cover letter my genuine interest in learning the field in which the research group is working, without being rejected?
Thanks

Florian is completely right - the level of knowledge of the field typically expected from new PhD students varies a lot. In many places in Europe, for instance, a Master's degree is a formal requirement for starting a PhD, and the first year is most definitely not there for gaining fundamental knowledge about the field. You are supposed to have a solid working knowledge of the field from the start.

"I was willing to learn more, enroll into courses and being self taught for the research that they were making"

There is also the other problem with this statement that it is (sorry) incredibly bland and generic. Of course you are supposed to learn more about your field and do related courses. If that is the best you can say about how you are going to get up to speed in the field, I can understand that the professor you were talking to was not exactly blown away by your zeal.

so what would be your recommendation to put instead of that phrase

@Layla You have to put yourself in their shoes. In all likelihood, you're going to be competing with a math, stat, or computer science BA (or, outside of the US, with a masters), who has already studied that field at an undergraduate level, has probably taken a handful of graduate classes, and has possibly even had a taste of research. That candidate has already expressed interest in the field by actually studying it and is much more informed about what the field is. What makes you more desirable than that candidate?

Might I ask what country/countries these programs are in?
I think the professor you quote was a bit harsh and that PhD applicants do not need to already know what they're doing completely. If you already knew everything about the field, what would be the point of the PhD?
At the same time, I would be cautious about applying for a PhD position just because it exists or because you just want to learn more about the subject. A PhD is a long and hard degree to obtain, and most successful PhD students have a certain level of passion for the subject of their PhD (this is a useful post for you to read on that subject). There are definitely easier ways to learn about machine learning than getting a PhD in it.
I don't think anyone has a magic formula to guarantee you getting accepted to the programs to which you apply. The best you can do is put together the best application possible and hope for the best. In terms of the cover letter, you should highlight what attracts you to the field of machine learning and possibly how a PhD will help you in your future career in the field. You might be rejected from a few places, but if you never apply, you can never be accepted.

"I have only some very basic or general knowledge, but that I am willing to learn more about it."
This tells me that you should take a couple of courses in the field (which might or might not carry graduate credit in a program later) in order to see whether this is a field you really like and want to spend years mastering (PhD and after).  This would also show not just vague interest to schools, but real interest.
I'm reminded of a woman I interviewed for a job who had four masters' degrees.  I asked her why, and the conversation went something like this:
I thought I was interested in X, so I got a master's degree in X.
But then I got a job in X, and it wasn't that interesting.
I got interested in Y, so I got a master's degree in Y.
But then I got a job in Y, and it wasn't that interesting.
I got interested in Z, so I got a master's degree in Z.
But then I got a job in Z, and it wasn't that interesting.
I got interested in W [the field the job was in], so I got a master's degree in W.
Her flaw was that she jumped into programs without really understanding what the ultimate work would be about.

Interesting anecdote.  It's not clear to me that that's a "flaw" though; if she didn't realize she didn't like it until she got the job, it implies she enjoyed the programs themselves.  So the only real downside might be if she took on debt or made other sacrifices in order to pursue those degrees.  Otherwise she just had a good time learning! :-)


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what factors affect your admission in PhD in Biological Sciences
I am a student with both Master's and Bachelor's degree in Biotechnology with a good aggregate. But, i have a low GRE score of 295. My TOEFL score is 107 along with a research project going on.
What do you think are my chances of getting in in a PhD program for Biological sciences?
I have had a good academic as well as extracurricular career.
Apart from GRE what factors should i be concerned about which might affect my admission?

Are you in the USA and you are interested in doing a PHD in USA? Are you MSc and BSC degrees also from USA?

Do you have any research achievements (e.g. publications)?

At least in the US, graduate admissions committees tend to look at many factors. The three "big" areas tend to be your recommendation letters, personal statement, and standardized scores. They probably will look at your CV as well. You might be able to make up for a deficit in one area with strengths in other areas. For example, admissions committees might favor an applicant with at least one published paper prior to his/her application, even if he/she does not have the best GPA or GRE scores out of the entire applicant pool. I am less familiar with admissions outside of the US.Unfortunately, there isn't any one magic formula to guarantee admission to any program.
That being said, I think you are correct in wondering how your GRE score will impact your chances of admission. Assuming that you took the most updated form of the GRE (where the range is 130-170 instead of 200-800 for each section), your score is low since you scored 35 points above the absolute minimum score. Most competitive graduate programs claim that successful applicants have GRE scores in at least the 50th percentile. As such, your low GRE score would likely be a major red flag for these programs, unless you indeed scored above the median. However, other programs tend to overlook GRE scores entirely (they will say you don't need to submit them) or weight them fairly low.
Is there a way that you can postpone your applications and retake the GRE? If not, you need to put together the best application possible, which means putting extra effort and attention into the other parts of your application, like your personal statement. You might also consider applying to programs that explicitly do not require standardized scores or weigh them low, which means that if the GRE is the only weak point of your application, you're likely fine. A third option might be to talk to people at your university to see if you can turn your Master's degree into a PhD. Even if it's not in the same department (you seem to be going from Biotechnology to Biological Sciences), sometimes internal candidates can gain a slight edge over external candidates, particularly if they are doing good work and can carry their momentum over from the Master's degree to the PhD.
Again, there is no way of any of us knowing what you can do to guarantee admission, but in your situation, I would suggest that you make the things still within your control the best they can be.

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Our professor does not make any effort to engage with us
I don't know if this question is appropriate for this site, nevertheless, I will do my best to explain the situation. And I'm sorry if the title does not fit the question very well.
The thing is, one of our professors does not basically make any effort to engage with us in any way.
All his lectures look the same: he literally just reads his own lecture notes. And that's all. Well, he does scribble a few things on the blackboard, but basically, everything boils down to him reading his notes in a thorougly monotone voice for two to three hours.
He does not care whether we listen or not, nor whether we understand or not. When somebody tried to most politely suggest him that maybe it's not the most efficient method of teaching, he dismissed it, saying "that's how it works at the university".
None of our other lecturers do the same. They encourage us to take part in various activities related to their subjects, use different methods of presentation, but generally - they make an effort to actually teach us and (make us understand) maths, physics etc. The situation is especially dissatisfactory, as most of my group are really interested in the subject he teaches and his way of "teaching" is particularly discouraging for most of us.
My question is: is there any way we could - at least - try to change things a bit? I mean, make him actually teach us, not just come to class, read lecture notes and walk out? How should we approach this issue?

You frankly have practically no leverage to "make" a professor do anything different at all.

I'm sorry if "make" is a wrong word, I wasn't sure how to express my thoughts properly.

"reads his own lecture notes" I'm not defending him, but if he did not read his lecture notes aloud they would not be lecture notes.

@AnonymousPhysicist Oh, come on.  "Lecturing" hasn't literally meant "reading" for centuries!

@jeffe that's not what I said.  Lecture notes that aren't read aloud are just called notes.

@AnonymousPhysicist Notes made for a lecture are lecture notes. It has nothing to do with reading them aloud.

Brainstorming here: can you guys put your heads together and assemble a collection of his lecture notes to pass on to the next group of students who will be taking this class from him?  Then those students could read the notes ahead of time, and arrive in class with specific questions.  (If you can get the notes from previous students this semester, you could give it a try yourselves.)

Given that you've described the other lecturers at your uni as being engaged, I would contact one or two of them and tell them the situation. They would know your local context and have advice on what to do.
At a given university there will be somebody whose job it is to supervise the teaching of the faculty. At larger universities a given department will, for example, have a Associate Head of Undergrad Affairs (or some similar title) who would be the appropriate person to bring the issue up with. The lecturers will be able to point you to that person, or may be willing to talk to your lecturer directly about their teaching.

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Coming from a "No Name" University outside the US, what are my chances for admission
Background Information
           I would soon be graduating with an engineering degree from a "no name" university somewhere in Nigeria. My performance during my degree was above average. I am hoping to apply for a PhD program in US.
The professors with whom I interact with regularly (with PhD's from schools in the US), have been giving me a resounding warning about applying to schools that clearly do not want and will never admit me because of the school's unpopularity and country of origin. One particular professor told me that Bachelor's degrees from this part of the world are not at all trusted and treated with disdain. I know lot's of schools encourage everybody to apply, but the exchange rates are not friendly, and I don't want to burn the scarce resources I have
QUESTIONS
1. Does country of undergraduate study matter to the graduate admissions committee?
2. Do schools in the US give off hints that applicants from certain backgrounds need not apply?
3. With the difference in educational standards, do I stand a chance at all, even if i find a school willing to admit me?

You might be asked to rewrite your question so as to be less specific to your particular circumstances (e.g. #3 probably is not appropriate here), but I believe the essence of what you are asking has merit here.

possible duplicate: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/38237/929

The admissions committee needs to be convinced that you will be a successful PhD student. What matters is your recommendation letters, research experience, transcript, etc., not where you did your undergraduate.

A merely "above average" student from a no name school in the US has not much of a chance of getting into a PhD program in the US either.

At least in my department/school in the U.S., we have several individuals from African countries studying for doctoral degrees. I'm a little concerned that there seems to be a disconnect between what you say about your performance (above average) and what your professors are saying (no one would want someone like you, possibly because of where you studied).
As far as I can tell, most schools in the U.S. encourage individuals from diverse backgrounds to apply for their programs, including graduate school. So, I would not make a blanket statement that your country of origin and/or background is an immediate disqualification.
Regarding your academic background, even U.S. colleges differ in terms of academic programs and rigor. That is why the graduate school admissions process involves many different parts, including standardized test scores, interviews, and/or letters of recommendation, that help the admissions committee get a more complete picture of you and how you may fit within the program.

I'm going to give you a more practical and direct answer than Florian.
There is not enough information in your post to know whether or not it would be worth your time applying to US graduate schools. There are a number of options to consider, but you should get in contact first with people in your field of interest, because everyone here only knows about their own field.
I wouldn't buy into the "we encourage diverse applicants" mantra though - uncertainty from an unknown program where the professors aren't excited about you is not a good sign. Ask about possible master degree programs... many non-Americans get 1 or 2 masters degrees in my field before applying to top US graduate schools (2 if they are from very poor backgrounds like you, as they cant get into an elite masters the first time around). In my field schools that admit from out of the country typically admit from 2 or 3 masters programs (aside from the very best one) that they particularly like. Furthermore, in my field I've never heard of a student with only a bachelors from a third world country being admitted to a higher ranked program (not sure about the lower ranked ones).
So yes - country of undergraduate study matters because the school you went to is very important. The way that non-Americans make up for this fact is by doing masters degrees, at least in my field.
A last piece of advice: go to the graduate programs of the schools you like in the US. Look at their graduate student's CVs. The job market candidates should have all their stuff posted soon if not already. Look at their education background. This is the best signal a university can send you about their standards.


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Doing two Bachelors before Masters degree?
I currently study for my B.Sc. in Media IT. I easily could finish a second Bachelor if I do one more semester. I want to do master's degree in Media IT afterwards.
I'm already 23 and in the third semester, since I finished an apprenticeship as a software developer before. Is it useful to start my master's with 26 and probably finish it when I'm ~28?

If 1 more semester would qualify you for a second Bachelor's, then presumably you'd qualify for a minor if you don't do that second semester?

Also, are you primarily asking about if you should spend an extra semester to do a second Bachelor's, or are you asking if you should do the Master's?  Or, are you pointing out that you have 4 different choices (1BS; 2BS; 1BS+MS; 2BS+MS) and asking which of the 4 choices you should do?

I wanted to ask, if a second Bachelor in 7 semesters instead one in 6 semesters is useful, before doing a Masters. So 1BS+MS in ~8 semesters or 2BS+MS in ~9 semesters?

Very straightforward: nobody cares about your undergrad degrees when you're being judged at the level of graduate degrees or against others with experience. In fact, it can give a harmful image since it took you two tries at the "trivial" level before moving to the masters and PhD level of "professional maturity".
That's a very harsh way of saying it, but I think undergrads always overestimate the value of their current experience (I did this too). Yes, you're learning a lot in a classroom, but you're not "doing anything". If someone asks you to "show me who you are", what would you point to? A GPA and some final reports? At some point you need to flip the switch and take ownership of your career: switch from being a learner to a creator. It doesn't matter how. Graduate level work is based around starting to do research: writing essays and sharing them with the world in order to become well known as the expert in a subject. Industry jobs have you applying your skills on the market. You might not feel like you know enough (that's just imposter syndrome), but you'll realize how ready you are for the world at 24 with an undergrad degree when you start taking on your own projects. Once you've learned enough, you shouldn't be paying people to do work: they should be paying you.

When I was an employer of hundreds of highly educated people I drew a distinction between those with the highest technical skills and those who could show, possibly, but not necessarily, through having acquired qualifications, that they could apply themselves to new challenges. I was not particularly impressed by a long string of university degrees unless I could fit the holder into one of those two categories.
You have to decide how you are to sell yourself to future employers. They will mostly be interested in what you can do for them. Your degrees will help them place you, but you have to decide first how you want to place yourself. 28 years is not all that old if you have something to offer in the future, but do bear in mind that by definition a university degree is about what you have done in the past. It is evidence, but not proof.

Giving a perfect advice is not possible, but consider:
Those skills are searched for, a semester more could be explained. You should bevable to do so, ideally by being able to show your learnings applied. Any projects in parallel? When asked, mention them. Show why a good knowledge plus experience makes you different.
I ended my university diploma in CS when i was 27, and added a PhD afterwards. I never regretted learning more by drilling some deeper holes than usual. And from the afterwards jobs, I got really well paid.


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Is participating in professional forums good or bad for my career?
I enjoy being a part of several different academic and social groups online that are of interest to my field.  As a Ph.D. student, I am now wondering if I should distance myself from online forums such as these.
My field is Psychology, which can be very controversial and heated with lots of options about what is the right way to approach situations and solutions.  I have been involved in some lengthy, spirited discussions on these sites in the past.
Questions:

Could participating in online professional forums related to my field become a hindrance in the future for both my Ph.D. and future work?
Should I "scrub" my presence in these groups (especially the one that are more social than academic and accredited)?

Note that you are asking a web-based group based on a profession, so the answers you receive may be biased.

Related: "Should I mention my blog in a postdoc application?".

If you are concerned about your safety in any way, or if you think that might ever become an issue, then it would make sense to completely anonymize your participation.

Have you asked your thesis advisor this question?

I work in a much less controversial field (I mean, in an uncontroversial field), but I've been participating to various online communities for more than 10 years, first during the newsgroup era, then in forums and now mostly with SE. So, let me share a few ideas.

Could participating in online professional forums related to my field become a hindrance in the future for both my Ph.D. and future work?

I don't have any hard data: in theory, it could; in practice, unless you do something egregious, I doubt. And many forums are actually virtually unknown to the wider audience (see e.g. this meta question of mine about Academia).

Should I "scrub" my presence in these groups (especially the one that are more social than academic and accredited)?

I don't think that dropping your participation is warranted, but consider the following points:

Check if your university has any policy setting boundaries around the participation of employees or students to social sites (e.g. public shaming of your university can lead to expulsion).
Beware that as a professional in your field you might have a different perception of certain topics with respect to untrained people or people working in a different field. Things that can be obvious to you might be difficult to understand from another field's point of view. And this can lead to controversy. A curious (non-serious) instance is the following: I've been criticized on the only answer of mine on this site related to my profession.
Disengage early from lengthy pointless discussions when you see that they are draining your time and energy. As a young researcher, you should now be focused on building your background knowledge and producing your first valuable works.


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How often do Master's programs accept applicants with online Bachelor's degrees?
I'm looking to embark on an online Bachelor's degree in Applied Mathematics in the coming year with the intent of doing a Master's degree in either the US or UK afterward.
However, after doing some research, I'm a bit skeptical about the odds of getting accepted into a Master's program with an online Bachelor's degree.  Most of the figures I saw while researching is 5% US schools.
Questions:

Is it true that Master's programs in the US/UK accept only about 5% of applicants with an online Bachelor's degree?
Are there any authoritative sources that can confirm the acceptance rate figures?

So you're planning to do an online Bachelor's degree in your home country, and then you want to do a Master's degree in the US or the UK, and you want to know how likely you are to be accepted into a Master's program based on the online Bachelor's degree?

Yes. Exactly this.

Regarding question 2, the United States government does not track graduate admissions rates, but test preparation companies and academic communities may conduct surveys that give you a good sense. See the answer for Where to find grad school acceptance rates?  Some programs offering online undergraduate degrees might poll their students to learn the graduate admissions rates, but it might be hard to verify those numbers.
I would suggest that "students who have online degrees" is not the most helpful classification to use in determining your chances, because it is a large and varied group. The (U.S.) National Center for Education Statistics presents some data on how many students are taking online classes in American institutions. The takeaways are that online enrollment numbers are growing, that most students do not pursue 100% online programs, that different kinds of schools offer this (public, private non-profit, and private for-profit), and that the students who take online classes are more likely to be "non-traditional" (based on age and employment). Not all online programs are equal.
Instead, I would suggest you look carefully at the school offering the online degree. What is its reputation, is it accredited, how is it ranked in U.S. News & World Report (or international counterparts), what job/grad admissions resources does the college offer to its current students, and what does the school website say about where its students end up? Also find out whether the people teaching classes have advanced degrees, and take a skeptical look at how much contact you will have with professors during your online study. (Talking with classmates, instructors, and professors helps you learn, and it gives professors the chance to understand your goals and provide advice and potentially later a recommendation.)
Good luck with your studies and decisions!


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How much time is typically spent reading reference letters?
For graduate school applications, I have to submit three reference letters. For those who are on the admission committee, how much time do you spend reading these letters?
EDIT: I am applying to PhD in the hard sciences.
EDIT2: I am applying to schools in the US.

In many places in Europe, no more than 30 seconds ;-) So, please, specify in which country you're applying to.

See also: Is it unusual to get an informal offer before recommendation letters have arrived?

When I was on the graduate admissions committee, for each application that I personally read, I would read all three reference letters.  In general I would do this about as quickly as my reading speed allowed.  If there was something especially notable in a letter, I would either mark it down or orally call my colleagues' attention to it.  In a substantial minority of cases I would look up the writer on the internet and get a sense of their academic profile.
I estimate that the average amount of time I spent on the "first run" through a single application is about 6-10 minutes.  For the majority of the applications, a first run is sufficient.  But then when we get down to ranking the candidates in any group that could potentially get admitted, we go back and reread the applications as seriously as is required to make the rankings.  This could conceivably involve comparing one letter to another.  Relevant passages may get read out loud which takes...as long as it takes.
A well written graduate letter is not a subtle or difficult piece of writing: it makes a clear recommendation and lays out the evidence in a way which is apparent on a rather quick reading.  As a rule of thumb, if I felt the need to spend much more than ten minutes on any single letter, I would consider contacting the writer directly and asking for more information and/or a clarification.


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Unrealistic demands for minor revisions
I just got a paper back from review, with a comment from the editor:

"As the suggestions are primarily editorial I deem the revisions required to be minor."

I have been given one week to revise the manuscript and write a response to both reviewers, but unfortunately both reviewers suggest me to do quite some extra work: additional analysis of data, additional numerical experiments, ....
As the editor describes the reviewers suggestions as "editorial", and I have been given only a week to revise the manuscript, I don't think that the editor expects me to do all that extra work (which would be impossible), but how do you deal with this in the response to the reviewers? Is it acceptable to basically say "interesting idea, impossible to do within a week"?

@Roland This should be an answer. I would upvote.

The editor has said that they want to publish your paper. This means that having your paper in this journal is of mutual benefit to you and the journal. The editor is not going to capriciously change their mind and reject your paper.
If you can't reasonably implement the requested changes in a week, then it's completely reasonable to ask for an extension. Just explain that some of the requested changes require whatever it is that they require and give an estimate of how long that will take. It's possible that the editor will have some good reason to say no but it's overwhelmingly likely that they'll give you more time or they'll ask you to just make the changes that really are "editorial" and skip the others.
Just ask.

Nice point in the first paragraph. That may be why they glossed over the requests in the first place.

"but it's overwhelmingly likely that they'll give you more time or they'll ask you to just make the changes that really are "editorial"; my point is that -- if possible -- I'd really like to steer in the direction of the last option. Its easy to promise to implement all suggestions (and the most likely route to acceptance), but since I have to do most work in my free time (job switch...), I'd like to limit the revision to what is strictly necessary.

@Bart Then ask for that, with appropriate justification

My guess is that the editor didn't read the reports carefully and didn't notice that the reviewers suggested significant extra work.
Contact the editor and point this out, and give an estimate of how much time you will need for revisions.  (Try to be conservative in this estimate so you don't put yourself in an unnecessary crunch.)
It's up to you to decide whether to actually do some or all of the extra work requested.  For anything you don't do, write a response explaining why you don't believe the extra work is warranted. (You might want to consult with colleagues to get another opinion.) The editor and reviewers will reconsider the paper and decide if it is acceptable with the changes you made.


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Will rejecting a professor's PhD offer hurt my chances of getting into that department?
I applied for PhD at some top US universities (Electrical & Computer Engineering dept).
I received an email from a professor at one of the places, about a position in his group, to work on a very specific topic. If I am interested, an interview could be set up to discuss things further.
However, I am not interested in this topic at all. From the email, it is clear that funding is available only for this topic.
Question: If I reject this offer, does it hurt my chances of getting admitted by a different faculty member at the same department?
My question is based on the following assumption: Faculty members sit together and pick a few candidates each, from the pool of applicants. The faculty member who contacted me had picked me. Therefore, if I reject his offer, I would not be considered by the other faculty members, because they have already picked other candidates.
Is this how it usually works?

My question is based on the following assumption: Faculty members sit together and pick a few candidates each, from the pool of applicants. The faculty member who contacted me had picked me.

As Buffy said, in the US, candidates are normally chosen by committee, and there is no one-to-one matching between students and advisors. This is different than the situation in Europe.

Therefore, if I reject his offer, I would not be considered by the other faculty members, because they have already picked other candidates.

Things will vary widely across academia, so it is hard to give general advice (and I'm not familiar with EECE departments, so take my advice for what it's worth). But the committee does generally try to ensure some rough alignment between the students' interests and the department's needs. It could be that the department is only interested in you because you seem like a good match to this project / advisor, and so declining this project would probably result in your not being admitted. Or it could be that they really like you and are offering you this opportunity on top of a forthcoming admissions offer. It is really impossible to say what they might be thinking, but it's certainly possible that rejecting this offer could reduce your odds of admission.

If I am interested, an interview could be set up to discuss things further. However, I am not interested in this topic at all.

Still, I'm not sure any of this matters. You are not interested in the project, and getting an offer of admission based on your willingness to work on this odious project would not be very useful. So, I recommend being straightforward with them: perhaps you are willing to meet with the professor and discuss further, but your initial reaction is that the project doesn't seem like a strong match to your skills or interests. If this means they don't admit you, that's better than getting admitted but not being able to find a suitable advisor once you're there.
By the way, you might want to keep an open mind with respect to the project. Sometimes working on a less interesting project with an awesome advisor is worth it. And sometimes apparently uninteresting projects turn out to be connected to things you are interested in.

+1 for the last two paragraphs, especially the final one. You may want to highlight it more strongly as it's very good advice, especially the last sentence. OP should go for the interview. They may be pleasantly surprised.

I am currently a professor at a US university. After reading Buffy's and cag51's responses, I want to clarify that this:

Most US doctoral admissions is handled by a committee and most
students start with no thesis advisor. Funding is also normally
through TA positions. So, I think the one opportunity may have been
special. The funding available from the professor was most likely via
a grant for a specific project. And, you might still be subject to
decisions of a committee even if you wanted to accept. Professors
aren't normally "officers of the university" with power to act on
their own.

is not universally true. It is certainly true in some places. However, I have worked at 2 R1 universities and in both cases, the committee part of admissions decisions is more of a quality check. At both universities, faculty identify and request to admit a particular set of students to work in their lab and with the understanding that they will be the primary advisors. Students are admitted with this understanding.
Whether this would affect later applications to faculty positions...I would say that it is unlikely, but not impossible. As Buffy suggested, one route to retaliation would be a vindictive person. This is possible, but faculty positions are committee decisions in pretty much all cases Any objection of a candidate would have to be justified and the others on the committee would have to agree. This scenario you're concerned about is thus possible, but super unlikely. In most cases, having wanted to admit a grad student, missing out, and then having them apply later as a strong faculty candidate would probably bias me towards, rather than away from admitting them. I would ethically have to suppress that tendency, however.
Bottom line, your instinct is right. Go to the program/advisor that fits your interests most closely. Grad school can be pretty fun if you're doing something you're really passionate about and pretty awful if you're doing something you hate.

It seems unlikely that it would hurt you generally and if the professor had such an attitude that it would, you'd be in trouble there anyway. Someone would need an especially vindictive personality to behave like that.
Most US doctoral admissions is handled by a committee and most students start with no thesis advisor. Funding is also normally through TA positions. So, I think the one opportunity may have been special. The funding available from the professor was most likely via a grant for a specific project. And, you might still be subject to decisions of a committee even if you wanted to accept. Professors aren't normally "officers of the university" with power to act on their own.
It isn't normally like your supposed scenario. An admissions committee will be composed of a few professors from a much larger number. Sometimes it is given as a "reward" to people recently tenured.
For more on how admissions works in the US, see the answer for the US here: How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in Country X?

For completeness, there are a few departments at a few universities in US that use a different system.

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How to stay in connection with a professor when you want to apply for the position in his group in next quarter?
I got a strong recommendation from my former supervisor. He wants to recommend me to one of his former colleagues who happens to have no position now. So I have to wait until the Spring Quarter. But I want to stay in contact with him because everything could happen during this period from now to next March.
Basically, in that university, the professors have the absolute power. If I can get permission from him, I can secure this position. And I really value this opportunity as he is like among the top 5 in our field.
How should I do? I have no idea what should be in the email which could increase my admission chance and would not bother him. I guess he must be busy every day.

You could contact him to ask for him to advise you on some papers for you to read that are related to the work for that position. This way you have a good excuse to contact him, you gain extra points for showing interest and getting prepared in advance, and also provides you with another excuse to contact him in the future to clarify questions you may have from reading those papers.


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What should be the affiliation of PhD student who submitted thesis but yet to defend, in a conference talk slides?
I have submitted my PhD thesis in mathematics but have yet to defend. I have a conference in the next month, a contributed talk on a topic different from the dissertation.
I have prepared the front page and results as follows:

and the main results are displayed as:

I am seeking your advice regarding two aspects:

What should be my affiliation? This is because I am seeking postdoctoral scope, so I would like to hints that I have no current affiliation and I am looking for postdoctoral. Should I mention something like an ex-PhD student from the [university name] or a thesis submitted at [university name] at the place of my affiliation?

Should I cite references of my results by including bibliography at the end? Or, Should I avoid citation of reference by simply mentioning the authors' name and year, as I did above? This is 30 minutes talk, so very less time to display references.

Thanks

Is the talk related in any way to your dissertation or other work you did at the university?

This question is similar to: How are Ph.D. applications evaluated in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students? Am I likely to get into school X?. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem.

@ScottSeidman, that seems completely unrelated.

@Buffy, this is different project than my doctoral thesis and the co-author is also different than my supervisor. But I did the work during PhD

Your affiliation is where you go daily to sit on a desk an do your work.

This doesn't really answer your direct question, so it's a comment.  But:  don't overthink this.  If you want people to know you are looking for a post-doc position, then say, clearly, "I am looking for a post-doc position," during your talk.  Probably on the slide where you introduce yourself or on the last slide where you ask for questions.

What @Anonymous says. Don't try to play mind games with your affiliation and hope that your audience understands what you are trying to say. Have a slide "I will be on the job market in XYZ!", say when you graduate, and what kind of jobs you would be interested in.

Only tangentially related: you should at least consider not using beamer for your presentation. In my experience beamer presentations are very text heavy and often fail because the information density is far too high. That is in part because beamer is a tool that lends itself to creating a presentation as if it was a writing assignment. And I say that as a great fan of latex which is absolutely fantastic for technical writing. But giving a good presentation requires giving up the crutch of fully written out text... Just a thought!

@user2705196, do you suggest chalk and talk instead of beamer presentation?

@Learner Chalk talks are old school and a little bit out of fashion. But they work!! Well, at least they can work if you prepare them right. What is built in is that you simply can't write all the details on the blackboard. You have to tell a story with the time and space you are given. That's the challenge of a good talk! 99% of beamer talks I have seen don't address this challenge but instead solve the problem of how to turn a paper into a presentation through reformatting. I am generally tool agnostic but beamer is a tool that strongly biases you towards solving the wrong problem.

@Learner Of course you can also give a modern slide presentation and instead of using beamer use Power Point, Keynote, Open Office or whatever software you like. Using latex generated mathematical statements in such software is trivial. The non-trivial part is telling a coherent story that your audience can follow. Diagrams and graphical elements (and using as little text as possible) is your friend for that and much easier to do with presentation software than beamer.

@user2705196, I can draw diagrams using tikz/pgf in my beamer

@Learner That's great. As I said, I am generally tool agnostic. Just make sure you're not accidentally using a tool that solves a different problem than the one at hand. Writing papers is very different from giving talks. There is more to mathematics than rigorous proofs (or carefully numbered sub-sub-sections or making the fonts in your diagrams consistent with your text...) https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/theres-more-to-mathematics-than-rigour-and-proofs/ and you probably want to convey as much intuition as possible in your talk. Best of luck!

@user2705196, the reason is that this would be my first international conference talk "by person" and 30 minutes time is allowed. I don't include any proofs. I would start with motivation, brief literature review and then straightforward statements of my results. And finally, few application and future scope.

You haven't yet earned the doctorate, it needs to be awarded by the institution. So, your affiliation is still the university. This might be especially true if you were funded (or the research was) by or through that institution. You are not, yet, an ex-PhD student. And you don't, yet, have PhD as a title.
Even after graduation, when the degree becomes formal, it might be necessary to still associate the work with the university. But, at that point you are, perhaps, unaffiliated.
For work independent of the university, you can, but probably should not yet, claim that you are unaffiliated, though the work might be. It is a bit subtle, but I would find it odd that someone not yet graduated claims to be unaffiliated.
And don't label yourself PhD until it is officially awarded. You are "PhD Candidate" until then.
There is no advantage to being "unaffiliated" while seeking a postdoc. In the minds of some it is a disadvantage. And, you can say somewhere that you are looking for a postdoc. It doesn't need to be on a slide and you shouldn't think of the talk as reading the slides in any case. The slides are a sparse outline of the talk, perhaps with some graphics and such that can't be verbalized.
While talks can be a bit more informal, you should provide citations of the work(s) used. You can cite your own dissertation or other work to make it easy to find, but it might just be assumed otherwise that this is your work that you are presenting. It is always safer to "over" cite than to under cite. With multiple authors, individual citation is especially important to make it clear you aren't plagiarizing or self plagiarizing. In some venues, making handouts containing bibliographic information available might be a possibility.

"And don't label yourself PhD until it is officially awarded..."  No kidding!  Someone in my cohort did that on a resume and was dismissed from the program.

Thank you for your advice. Ofcourse I am not PhD but PhD student still

Should I say the words "thesis submitted"? For example, my name, PhD student (thesis submitted), my university name. Can this be the affiliation format?

On a conference nobody cares whether you are a PhD student, post doc, or tenured professor. If you have some interesting piece of research to share, people listen.

@usr1234567, I got it. Thanks

@usr1234567 citation needed :)

The affiliation should be with the university where you performed the work. Even if it is different from your Ph.D. thesis, you likely performed this work while at that university. Your title should be listed as "Ph.D. candidate", since you have not yet received the degree. If you want to be more specific to highlight that your Ph.D. is on a different topic, you can say "Ph.D. candidate in department/research topic". You can also consult your supervisor regarding this, especially if you did this work while being his Ph.D. student.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Using illustrations and comics in dissertations
It's common to use quotes related to the context in the first page of each parts in PhD dissertations and books. Is it also acceptable to use some illustration instead, similar to dummies book series?

Ask your advisor.

What is acceptable is up to your advisor and your institution. Some things are probably more likely to be acceptable than others. Be aware of potential copyright issues (and citations) of course.
Whether it is "acceptable" to readers, is a different, and unanswerable in general, question. Relevance probably matters. A certain amount of humor is probably ok with many as long as it isn't overdone or too obscure.

Will you publish your dissertation some day?  When you do, comics and illustrations may need to be licensed; perhaps there would be a fee for them.


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How are Best Student Paper awards evaluated at engineering conferences?
Do Best Paper and Best Student Paper awards follow the same evaluation criteria at engineering conferences? If not, how do they differ besides the requirement for Best Student Paper to be authored by a student?

Almost certainly differs by conference. The conference or program committee may vote, or the reviewers may.

At the conferences I was involved in, there were not any separate criteria for best paper discussions. It was the same criteria as for the acceptance decision, but a best paper usually excelled in one or several of the criteria. For best student papers, it might be the same.


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Are there any personal blogs writing review of academic papers?
Are there any personal blogs writing articles on research papers?

Changed the question !!!

The answer to the question is "yes." Surely this isn't the whole question?

Yes, lots!  For example, some of my personal favorites are DrugMonkey, Neuroskeptic, and In the Pipeline.  Such blogs tend to have a lot of posts besides just paper analysis as well---general academia, war stories, the rest of life.

In the pipeline seems to be down at the moment. Did it close?


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Should a research statement for a faculty job have references in it?
If you are applying for a faculty job in computer science in a US university, should your research statement have references to research papers in it?

By references, do you mean "people who can tell you about me and my work" or a bibliography?  The word is used in both senses.

@david good point. edited my question.

Yes. Definitely. This gives the reader an indication of how your work fits into the larger body of research in the  field.
Without references, it may appear that you are working in an area that is so obscure that nobody cares about it.

This is missing:  If you do not include citations the reader will think you do not understand citation ethics.

...or that you just don't know the field at all.

I upvoted and that remains, but would someone really apply for a faculty position with expertise that is obscure to the search committee?

@MatthewTurner: Yes, it happens all the time.  For instance, for jobs at less research-intensive schools (say Carnegie R3, with a 3/2 or 3/3 teaching load), it's common that the department just wants someone who can do research and will publish decent papers at a reasonable rate, involve undergrads, maybe get a grant or two, etc.   Even if nobody on the committee knows much about the applicant's research area, they'd still hire them if they can be convinced that it's an area that's active and reasonable: that papers in this area get published in good journals, receive funding, etc.

One very important function of a research statement is to demonstrate that you know what you want to do from day 1. No one wants to hire a new faculty who have only vague ideas about what to do, since everyone is supposed to be productive as soon as possible.
From that perspective, a research proposal without specifics can be a huge red flag, and evaluators may fear that you just made up something fast. On the other hand, you can give an impression that you already researched the literature, thought through details and specifics, i.e. have concrete details in your proposals with bibliography, people may have more confidence in you. Note, that majority of the people who filter and judge your CV have no clue about your field, so such superficial impressions can be important.


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Is writing papers with a complex statistical methodology worth it?
I published several medical meta-analysis papers in high-profile journals using advanced methodology that, to my eye, should be most interesting to many people in my field. However, I noticed that:

while statistical reviewers are very encouraging and interested, editors and reviewers would prefer more mainstream methodology and their comments often show a dire lack of understanding of the results
editors and reviewers aggressivity is proportional to the complexity of the analysis
... and most importantly, those papers are very little cited compared to super mainstream works that I coauthor, even though far more effort is spent into all aspects of the paper, including vulgarisation of the results.

Ultimately, applied statistics should be a vessel for communication. So, should I revert to stone-age type mainstream methodology, even though results are in fact far weaker and less interpretable to the trained eye? Or should I persist with the hope that my methodology will be more appreciated in the future?

Why is this a [tag:interpersonal-issues]?

Isn't there the auxiliary point of persuading people/experts that your "methodology" has some advantages over "stone-age..."?

This seems to be opinion-based, as it depends on how you personally weight different values and outcomes.

@paulgarrett well, since my papers passed peer review, I've done just that. However, the communication issue with the readership remains (many fewer citations than the equivalent mainstream paper)

@bryankrause I would like to argue that the career implications of my question are not a matter of personal values, and more advanced researchers would be able to answer from experience.

@Raoul I am not sure you are aware of it but your comment/question oozes with condescension. As a researcher it is your job to effectively explain your work to others. I doubt the problem is that editors, reviewers and readers are too simple to understand your high level methods. Maybe you can provide an example of how your methods are so much more advanced than all of the other researchers in the "mainstream". From my experience, I do not believe you alone are doing something so different than all of the other researchers in the world.

@jasonwhite I'm not trying to say that I'm better than most. I'm asking whether I should keep using methods that are objectively better, but less understandable without a statistical background. Concrete example: network meta-analysis vs. Multiple paired traditional meta-analyses.

As a practical matter, one should be able to directly explain the virtues of one's viewpoint...

@Raoul There is ZERO possibility that you are submitting papers to "high-profile journals" and the editors, reviewers and readers are not equipped with the statistical background to understand your work. You alone are are not using "objectively better" methods than everyone else. Even if I entertain that idea, it is incumbent on you to work to effectively communicate your work, not demean the majority of researchers as being too stupid, ignorant or traditional to keep up with your groundbreaking methods. You might start by finding respect for your audience.

@JasonWhite I'd disagree with you a bit on that...reviewers for medical journals are not necessarily that statistically sophisticated. Their training is in medicine, not statistics. Especially if they got their degrees longer ago, they've likely had at most a rudimentary statistics education, maybe just a single course. Everything else they have to learn on the job, and unlike other fields clinician scientists are often part time researchers, full time clinicians.

@BryanKrause Sure but when you submit a manuscript you are given the option to suggest reviewers. If you think what you are doing is so sophisticated and beyond appreciation by the average reviewer you can recommend some. With that said, have you ever met a researcher that was doing something that no one else was doing but could explain it to their colleagues? I haven't. If you have that person has no funding, no collaborators and no hope of being successful in research.

@bryankrause exactly, most clinicians know only very traditional methods, that are sometimes too limiting. I'm a full clinician myself, and indeed part-time researcher (with a degree in epidemiology and applied stats). I'm not trying to belittle others.

@jasonwhite I can suggest reviewers, less often editors, but it's not for nothing that medical journals enforce the obligation to have a statistical reviewer. Obviously, I can explain well enough for my papers to pass peer review. But the readers at large are often simply less interested in papers using involved methods, even though they would yield better insights. Hence my question, which researchers more experienced than I am could answer based on their past career. As you see, I'm fishing for the advice of my peers, here.

@JasonWhite Papers aren't just published for your own purpose, they're to share information. Your audience is not 2-3 reviewers it's the whole community. I'm not against more advanced methods and always find myself pushing people towards more sophisticated, but there's a limit, too.

As a bit of background, I am a statistician and have visibility into psychology and medical research, e.g., theses my psychologist wife (with an affiliation in the local medical school) supervises, and papers her students and postdocs prepare. I absolutely endorse your observations that:

Many bad statistical practices have become endemic in the medical and psychological fields. We regularly see examples at CrossValidated, from spurious dichotomization to questions about normal distributions for correlation analysis, both of which show a complete lack of fundamental statistics knowledge, but which are extremely common in published research, and yes, even in top journals.
Unfortunately, most reviewers in these fields are subject matter experts, not statistical experts. They have neither the training, nor the time, nor the inclination to understand the statistical issues at hand.

Now, as others have answered, it appears that your job as a researcher is simple: just explain why you are using correct methods rather than wrong ones. Easy, right?
Unfortunately, that only works in theory. The established methods are established. If you analyze a continuous covariate, it is easy to explain that you did a median split to create two groups, or that you did stepwise model selection, and most subject matter experts will nod their heads and read on. That both practices are inappropriate is harder to see, and requires an argument. You do not want to be making that argument in a paper that is not methodological, just as you don't want to be making an argument for why your clinical trial was double-blind. This is not your focus!
So you don't make the argument, but rather go straight away to the more complex but correct analysis... and then the subject matter expert reviewer does not understand what you are doing and why, and recommends rejection, because you "are not following established methods" - without understanding that these methods are flawed in the first place.
I do not see an easy way forward here, and I have been frustrated with the way things are for 15-20 years now. The only possibility I see is to have that methodological paper that explains why the commonly accepted method is bad practice, and to name-drop that paper, possibly in a footnote - because, as above, you do not want to be justifying your choice of methods in your substantive (non-methodological) paper.

We analyzed our data using method foo.\footnote{Note that the commonly accepted alternative analysis using method bar is flawed, see Baz (2024).}

Sometimes, this may mean that you need to write that methodological paper yourself. Which may actually be a good thing, because now you have one methodological paper which uses your data as an illustration of your method, and a substantive paper that uses the more appropriate toolset.

Thank you for your input. That's pretty much what I had in mind, and my first supportive methodological paper is actually already started. It's interesting to get opinions from more advanced/specialized researchers though, and for that reason I'm unsure whether my question should be closed as opinion based, but c'est la vie! As an aside, I was pretty surprised at the irritation I generated in the process. Cheers!

If your results can be obtained with simple tools, then do that. Otherwise..
(a) If simple tools don't suffice, use what you have.
however,
(b) If the more sophisticated tools provide insight into other problems in the field (or related fields) then it might be worth the effort to explain that along with the use of the tools. That insight might be more valuable than the results you obtain in any given study.
In math, for example, the proof of a theorem might be complex, but it might also be more important than the statement of the theorem proved provided that it gives insight into a class of problems that people consider important.
So, it is a judgement call. But don't make it complex for the sake of complexity or to show that you can handle complexity.

The remaining problem with b is that the insights provided have to be understood and accepted as such. Most clinical experts clearly don't see the value of what I'm doing, while statistical experts understand the benefits. Ultimately, the opinion of clinical experts is the only one that counts because they're the ones shaping the future of the field.

Per my comment here, it is unfortunately usually not possible to explain the issues with a particular bad practice in the context of a non-methodological paper.

Originally I thought it would suffice to only reply via comments but the more I thought about it I needed to make a longer answer, for others that may see this post. @Raoul your original post and your responses to comment replies not only show a lack of respect for your peers but also an abandonment of a core responsibility as a researcher to be able to effectively communicate your science. I have met plenty of researchers that are pushing the envelope in their respective areas but I have NEVER heard one of them complain about editors, reviewers and/or readers being unable to understand their brilliance. It is our job to communicate our work to others. We do that in our courses. We do that in our labs. We do that with collaborators. We do that to dept heads and other leaders. We do that to funding agencies. We do that at conferences and symposia. We do that in manuscripts. WE do it with or family and friends. If you are finding that to be a problem, it is not the audience. It is you. It is a lack of proper training or adequate effort and suggests you should focus your energy on refining your scientific communication skills. You can start by reaching out to collaborators that are clinicians to get their input but I would suggest you approach the conversation from a position of humility and respect for others in the scientific community. It is okay to be confident and excited about your work but don't let your ego get in the way of appreciating the work of others.

I don't really understand why you're so riled up by the idea that (clinical) editors and reviewers aren't statistical experts. It's true for most journals, and doesn't diminish the value of their clinical opinion that is, ultimately, the only one that counts. People don't have time to be experts in everything. Additionally, where did I state my methods are so exceptionally advanced? They are more or less what statisticians would deem 'appropriate', and well published. It's just that in medicine, mainstream really is low quality, statistically speaking.

Rereading your comms, my impression is you're from a field where everyone knows what they're doing, hence your impression. Medicine is very different, as most papers are authored with approximately zero statistical knowledge by professional clinicians who write papers on their free time. So readers, reviewers and editors often are not statistically proficient. That's why we're having such a replication crisis, have special statistical reviewers, and why it's questionable whether doing more advanced analysis is appropriate for communicating with the readers at large.

-1. Raoul is not discussing "readers being unable to understand their brilliance". As a statistics person somewhat active in a medicine-adjacent field, I absolutely endorse their impression that many reviewers and editors in these fields continue to use objectively wrong statistical methods, and will happily reject papers that use more appropriate statistics because they do not understand these more appropriate methods. Examples abound at CrossValidated. ...

... It is unfortunately not easy to explain why one uses an advanced method and why an established method is wrong, especially not in the context of a paper that is not methodological per se. So your recommendation "to effectively communicate your science" is correct in theory, but misses the mark in the context of unfortunately entrenched bad statistical practice plus reviewers and editors that are subject matter experts and not statistics experts.

@StephanKolassa Sure communicating your science is not easy but that doesn't mean you punt on that responsibility. Communicating to others the importance of our work is pivotal to our success. Any researcher that can't do it will not be successful, period. We can agree to disagree on Raoul's condescension but nothing I have said is wrong. Your answer was really good but it was also something a newly minted PhD should be able to figure out. It shouldn't be something that needs to be said to someone claiming to be a clinician scientist who has published in several "high-profile journals".

@jasonwhite I'd argue that "... something a newly minted PhD should be able to figure out" isn't very compatible with the position of humility you wanted me to adopt. I don't think it was useless to ask for the advice of more experienced people. I think I understand where you're coming from, but honestly I think you jumped up the gun and we're a bit judgmental. Medical science is NOTHING like hard science research.

@Raoul I am "riled up" by the seeming incongruence between a researcher that claims to be so experienced yet he doesn't seem to want to own a basic, core responsibility of his craft, effective scientific communication. It shouldn't be surprising that some people may not be receptive to your work BUT IT IS YOUR JOB TO CONVINCE THEM. Is it easy? No but it is necessary to our success. It is not a responsibility you should push onto your audience and then complain about. As Stephan said, if your target audience are clinicians talk about the clinic not about how great your methods are.

@Raoul You asking the question was not the problem. It was how you framed it. My interpretation was it was disrespectful. Medical science being nothing like hard science is irrelevant to what you are trying to do as a researcher. Your job is to convince clinicians that your work is important because it makes a positive difference in the lives of the patients they serve. If that is your perspective it will come together because you will focus on what matters most to them...clinical outcomes.


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When under pressure from the industry, how can I protect myself/coauthors?
Our group (western Europe/Switzerland) has submitted a review on a device that generates a lot of money (i.e. multibillion $ industry). Our results speak mildly against the use of said device, although we have low confidence in those results (meta data warns about the possibility of a false positive).
Since the inception of the study, we have been queried multiple times by a VP of the relevant (US-based) company through email, asking us to share our data (which we refused). Since submission, the VP is asking for a meeting in person and there are rumors of them not being happy about our results (which are BTW still unpublished). We did not respond. In the meantime, the company also reached to our head of dept. to express that they were worried about our work.
They are obviously treading very carefully so we can't accuse them of exerting pressure on us. But we are worried about the risk of retaliation on publication (i.e. legal action). Our boss told us not to worry and discouraged us from seeking legal advice. Neither the study nor our group are financially supported. How can we protect ourselves? Are there organizations specializing in / providing (free?) researcher protection?
Edit:

our work is not funded. Period. No money. Nada. It is not unusual at all to do unfunded research aside from one's professional activity in my field (medicine).

we do not promote (nor are we interested in doing so) an alternative device. The review compares the process using device to the usual process without device. The comparison is made upon patient outcomes (cured, harm, death, etc.).

The company hinted  sharing data with us, but then refused to do so when explicitly asked. It seems that they were already worried about the results by that time.

The company asked us for our results ahead of publication. We refused, as we would have had to state that in our manuscript, which would have made our readers suspicious and would have reflected badly on our work. There was no reason given for our refusal.

@scaaahu We are not supported financially. With our boss telling us not to worry, we are alone for the time being. I don't know if there's a plan in case of problem, but knowing our institution I strongly suspect that there's absolutely no plan or anticipation going on.

I can't help to wonder if the reason for the company trying other channels to get your data is that no reason has been given to them. If your study can affect them economically, it is not really surprising that they try other ways of getting the data because the reason for not sharing the data may be something they can influence. Perhaps it makes sense to discuss with your legal department whether it makes sense to provide the actual reason to the company, because it appears to be a good one to me.

@DCTLib indeed, that a good point I hadn't really considered. Thanks for your input!

if it hasn't been published yet, how is the company privy to the results?

@NKCampbell The company never said they had the results. That would directly incriminate them. They just hinted at not being happy (and not in writing of course)

the question said: "there are rumors of them not being happy about our results (which are BTW still unpublished)". Maybe the rumors are coloring the interpretations of their actions?

"Our results speak against the use of said device, with low confidence in the evidence presented." means that the low confidence is in the evidence presented in favour of using the said device, or that you have low confidence in your results?

@EarlGrey 'low confidence in the evidence' is a formulation sanctioned by best practice guidelines that means very precisely 'our results may be false positives because the data is shaky'. It's not a subjective appreciation on our part. In this case, the null hypothesis of no effect was rejected and the direction of effect points to the device being detrimental.

Ok, it is just the phrasing that make the sentence ambiguous.
"our group has submitted a review on a device [...]. Our results speak against the use of said device, with low confidence in the evidence presented" it can be misunderstood as the evidence presented by "our group" in the above mentioned "review". Please reformulate it.

I thought long time about this question, and I am missing the point. Can you clarify which kind of research reviews results from a device? who is funding this review? shouldn't be the focus on the process on which the device is based? Are your interests in promoting an alternative device, an alternative process, or both?

@EarlGrey please see new edits. Thanks for your continued interest.

So is it correct to paraphrase as 'Our statistical analysis points to possible detrimental effects, but we don't have much confidence in our data'?

@Aruralreader Yes, it is. And since this is a meta analysis, the bad quality of the data is not of our making.

Thanks for clarifying. I hope you’re working with a statistician, one who can help quantify the associated confidence of your data analysis and to help you understand if it, your statistical work, has value. Best of luck!

Do you, or any of your co-authors, work for a university. If so you could contact and speak to the legal department about how to protect yourself legally.
Alternatively (or in addition) I read a book called "merchants of doubt" which talks about disinformation campaigns against research and researchers who threatened the products of certain industries. There is a website associated to the book here: https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/ .
While I doubt they would be able to help directly, the authors may be able to point you any relevant groups to guide you in protecting yourself both legally and publicly (if the company in question is malicious then they may not just use legal means to try to bury the results). The book was mainly focused on things that happened in the US so there may be some differences to your case, though if the company in question is US then this may be a benefit to you.
Broadly, since neither I nor many people on this site, are lawyers then legal advice should not be sought from us. Your boss' concerns about legal advice may also be from a worry of agitating the company and making them act. While you don't want to trigger anything (if you are big and have a lot of money you don't need to win a lawsuit to win) getting proper advice regarding what you should keep a written record of and what kinds of behaviours to avoid for legal or public reasons is not a bad idea.

Merely asking to see your data, and expecting open scientific work, is not at all inappropriate, and nothing you have described so far amounts to anything untoward by this VP.  You are certainly right to tread carefully, but you may be getting ahead of yourself in regard to concerns about "pressure" and "retaliation".  Indeed, I would go further and say that it is desirable that scientific researchers should generally be under some pressure to make the data for their work available either to the public or other researchers.  (I am also sceptical of characterising legal action as "retaliation"; see further commentary below.**)
You will have to decide if you intend to make your data public, or make it available to other researchers, etc.  If you are withholding access then you should have a good reason for this, and it should be communicated to people who seek access to the data.  When you publish your research, the journal might also impose requirements on you in respect to data availability.  Whatever your decision, it is certainly a bad look if you refuse to give access to your data to other researchers on the basis that they take an opposing view of the efficacy of the research to your own (or on the basis that they have interests that conflict with yours).  Ideally, you will be able to formulate a reasonable way for other researchers to get access to your data, perhaps subject to reasonable restrictions that do not constrain their ability to oppose your own findings.  Perhaps you can even negotiate some data-sharing arrangement where each organisation provides a quid pro quo in terms of data access.
In any case, by your own description, you have "low confidence" in the evidence adverse to the device. Presumably that assessment will be incorporated into your published work on the topic, so that the reader is aware both of the direction and strength of the evidence. You will need to decide whether the evidence is strong enough to assert a conclusion at all, or if it is so weak that it would be irresponsible to make a clear conclusion on the device. The fact that you have low confidence in your result does not necessarily mean that you cannot state it, but you should be careful to impose appropriate caution and caveats.
I note that the company asked for access to your manuscript prior to publication, and you have refused this on the basis that you think it might raise a suspicion of collusion by readers.  That is not a fanciful objection, but it is unlikely to occur in a context where you are making findings that are adverse to their product.  In any case, it is also worth noting that it is handy to have a dissenting pair of eyes review your work prior to publication, since they will likely push back on anything in the manuscript that is in error or is weak.  This is also handy if you are concerned about legal action, since it will give you an opportunity to see what, if any, objections the company raises against your work pre-publication.  If the matter proceeds to legal action later, it will be hard for the company to raise new objections if they have already been given an opportunity for feedback and review prior to publication of the work.  Consequently one thing to consider here is whether it would be worth having a member of this company provide a referee report prior to or during peer review.  (You would not normally need to give data access for this to occur.)  The advantage of this is that you then get pre-publication information on what they object to, and you can make changes if you think that any of their criticisms have merit.  Manuscripts do not usually disclose the identities of referees, but in this case you might ask the journal editor for guidance.
In terms of possible legal action by this company, that is something you should speak to a lawyer about.  In principle, a publication giving an adverse review of a product could amount to defamation, product disparagement, or a related tort.  If your research work is negligent then it could also amount to a tort of negligence.  A lawyer will be able to advise you more specifically on these matters, but one thing to bear in mind here is that one element of the tort of product disparagement is knowledge of falsity of an assertion or "reckless disregard" of its truth or falsity.  The latter will be much easier for the company to prove if they can show that they tried to talk to you about the research (to raise objections) and you refused to listen to them or communicate with them at all.

On characterising legal action as "retaliation": One thing that bothers me a great deal when I see these kinds of reactions (as in your post) is this tendency to characterise legal action as "retaliation", in the sense often used in procedures to prevent victimisation of complainants.  This type of characterisation smacks of bad faith --- if the taking of legal action is "retaliation", in the sense used in procedures for victimisation of complainants, then the speaker is implicitly saying that other people/companies should not have any legal rights in regard to their own conduct.  Of course, some laws and legal procedures are indeed abused, but some laws exist as genuine protections of rights, and it is perfectly reasonable for people/companies to avail themselves of those protections when appropriate.
Aside from being quite sociopathic in its own right, such talk is also potentially legally dangerous, insofar as it gives evidence of bad faith and reckless disregard for the rights of others (which can be elements of torts on these matters).  If you start out these types of negotiations by considering the possibility of legal action by the other side as "retaliation" you essentially have a total disregard for them having any legal rights in relation to your own conduct.  You are effectively saying: I should be above the law.  Ask yourself, if the shoe was on the other foot, and someone was thinking about publishing commentary that was adverse to your skills as a researcher, your professional competence, etc., would you like to be treated this way?  Wouldn't you be glad that you have some legal protections?  Would you consider the exercise of your valid legal protections (by taking legal action if necessary) to be a form of "retaliation"?  (To take a more extreme example: If a rape-victim reports their rapist to the police, and maybe also sues them in civil court, would you characterise that as "retaliation"?)
I don't intend for this to be a severe criticism, because I think some people just use this term "retaliation" rather flippantly, because they get extremely defensive and nervous at the thought of legal processes, and they let this override any real assessment of the implications.  A much better approach in these matters is to go into the matter with a genuine respect for the rights of the other party, and give genuine consideration to whether or not your actions are lawful and fair to them.  Instead of regarding legal action as "retaliation" against you for your (presumed) perfect conduct, regard it as a thing that might happen to resolve a dispute by the ruling of a third-party (the court) if that becomes necessary.  Give proper consideration to the fact that you might do something wrong if you are not careful, and seek information that will ensure that you do not do something wrong.  Don't be afraid of legal action per se --- be afraid of doing something that breaches the rights of another party.

I think that the sentence "Our results speak against the use of said device, with low confidence in the evidence presented." means that the low confidence is in the evidence presented in favour of using the said device.

Ah, okay, that would change things.  I interpreted it differently, and I'm not sure that's clear from the original question, so I will leave my post as it stands unless clarified by OP.  In the case where your interpretation is accurate (which seems quite possible given the structure of a hypothesis test) then it would be best for them not to say the results "speak against use of the device" at all.  Instead, they would be better saying something like "Our analysis found no evidence of efficacy of the device (p = ...)".

@EarlGrey: Actually, since that aspect of the question seems a bit ambiguous, I have decided to delete my paragraph dealing with it.

I asked for clarifications to OP

The results conclude to the product being potentially detrimental (low evidence against the null hypothesis of absence of effect), but the data is if low quality, which prevents us from drawing strong conclusions (possible false positive). BTW, I view 'retaliation' in this case as a much weaker term than you do, it seems. Our group  is in favour of letting our legal dept deal with communication to avoid misunderstandings and 'faux-pas'. Only our boss advised against it.

Okay, so I think EarlGrey and I are both correct in our interpretations ---i.e., you have low evidence for efficacy of the product, but also low confidence in your evidence for adverse conclusions about the product.  I have restored my original paragraph commenting on the evidence and presentation in the paper.

No, the hypothesis test rejects the null hypothesis of no effect and the direction goes the way of being detrimental (2-sided test). Low confidence in results is because of meta data not captured by the hypothesis test.

I'm not going to get into the weeds on your hypothesis testing; you have characterised your work as involving "low confidence" in your results, so my answer will respond on that basis.


text:
Lecturer interview presentation in the UK
I was shortlisted for a lecturer post in a research-intensive university in the UK. From the job description, I can see this post is teaching focused. The only research duty seems to be the supervision of students on research projects. For the interview, I was asked to give a 10-minute presentation to present my area of research suitable for a second-year student cohort.
I am quite confused about the "area of research" here. How specific should it be? Should I just pretend I was teaching the students on the broad area? Or should I explain my specific research topic (i.e. the title of the project I am working on) in a way that is accessible for the students?
I would much appreciate any advice. Thanks in advance!

Supervising masters students or doctoral?  Or undergraduate students?

Are you sure it is teaching focussed? If so, the advert would usually say so explicitly, perhaps using a phrase like "teaching track" or "education-focussed". It may just be a badly written advert. A "lecturer" with no further qualification is usually a research-and-teaching position.

It's supervision of both undergraduate and postgraduate students. Ok I'll ask them to clarify whether it's teaching-only or research-and-teaching position.

I would would guess that they are testing two things here: 1) Your abaility to simplify complex topics and present them in a way suitable for students, but 2) Judging not just if you can simplify it, but what the correct target level of complexity for second year undergrads.

I don't know what you mean by "postgraduate". Is it for masters's theses or doctoral dissertations or something less than either. Supervising doctoral dissertations requires deep knowledge of and probably research activity in the subfield. Otherwise the requirement is less in intensity, but perhaps more in breadth. This affects any answer.

I work at a research intensive UK university, and our teaching focused entrance positions are called "teaching fellows", not lecturers, though the pay scale is about the same. I thought most research universities in the UK use a variation on the theme to designate teaching only positions. Note that this might be different for post-1992 universities.

They didn't specify what "postgraduate" means, but I guess it mainly refers to masters students with the possibility to supervise phd students if I can get funding for that. I emailed them and they clarified it's a teaching & research post, so it's probably just badly advertised.

You’ve been shortlisted, so I recommend getting in touch and asking them directly what they are looking for in the talk. Personally, without further information, I’d interpret the request as asking you to present a talk about your own research (not just the broad field) but in a way that that would be interesting to a second-year student and assumes only the level of background knowledge that a second-year student in the UK would have. But your interpretation might also be correct, and it can’t hurt to ask.
It might also be worth clarifying the teaching vs research expectations. If it isn’t a standard teaching-and-research lectureship, I’d expect the ad to say so directly somewhere. Is it supervising undergraduate student research, or supervising research students (i.e., PhD students)?

Thank you for your advise. It's supervision of research projects of undergraduate and postgraduate students, although it's never said something like conduct research or securing research funding.


text:
How to pace learning on PhD
I am starting an interdisciplinary PhD  this year on protein modelling would like to ask how one normally goes about structuring their learning on a PhD.
Background: I have just done a 3 year Bachelor's (UK) in mathematics. At undergrad I clarified every detail and did all the questions on each course to make sure there were no gaps in my knowledge for the exam. The PhD contains information in Biology and Physics and I only have high-school knowledge in these.
Therefore I feel I have lots of gaps when I go through a paper or a monograph. I am not sure if I should try and understand the gaps or just move on once I get the general idea. My supervisor has told me I will not sit any exams and start research straight anyway.

The short answer to your question is yes, you should "just move on once I get the general idea" and you should not "try and understand the gaps".
It is very common to feel like the way that you are feeling when starting out in research.  This is especially the case in interdisciplinary fields, but it also common for new PhD students doing a PhD in the same field they did their undergraduate degree in.
Doing scientific research invariably touches on vast amounts of background material.  But at the same time, it is surprising how little of the background material you actually need to understand at a deep level in order to effectively do research.  After some time you eventually develop a "feel" for what you need and don't need to know.  This only comes with experience.
I think a good course of action is to focus on doing research and making progress (if you already have particular project to do). Don't worry too much about knowing background material.  Unless you know so little that you don't know what you're doing, it's usually better to push forward rather than spending too much time reading and learning: often it is by doing research and seeing a project to completion that the real learning happens.  It is also a good idea to talk to people (i.e. your supervisor, other PhD students, ...) and to never be afraid to ask questions.