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Is it a good idea to do a (cs) phd in France with a fixed topic?
For what I know, one finishes PhD with only 3 years in France which is rather efficient, but one may suffer if one's research interest gets changed in the mean time, because the thesis topic is locked by the funding and by the advisor right from the beginning of the PhD, which could be disturbing in a fast changing field like cs. Besides, PhD programs in France don't seem to get global recognition as the ones in the US or even some in the EU, with one or two exceptions. Even within France, PhD is condemned to belong to the academia and is rather ignored in the industry (if there's any).
Could anyone familiar with the French system correct me on this? Is it possible/typical to research on a different topic from the one that I'm getting paid for, to change the PhD topic, or even to quit the PhD in France?
Thanks.

It is not entirely true that "one finishes a PhD in 3 years on France" even if that is what the law says. See this 2016 official report (in French). Page 45 shows the duration of PhDs according to domain (CS would be in the blue bars "STEM minus biology"). It is shorter than typical elsewhere (looking at you Germany) but 60% are completed in "3 years" (up to 40 months), less than 2/3. ~7% take more than 4 years.

Recognition depends on the quality of your work and the reach of your advisor. As far as recognition is concerned, INRIA and CNRS are world famous institutes, and their researchers are doing some really good research work which is recognized everywhere. In the US, you will find a big range of universities, from MIT, Stanford etc. to run-of-the-mill universities as well. So they really can't be clubbed into 1 group, which is better than the rest of the world.

I'm not sure about the topic and advisor changes. One of the main reasons that PhD programs are longer in the US compared to those in the EU is because of the flexibility they give with regards to choosing the advisor and research topic. This takes time, about 1-2 years. You work with different groups, do a lot more teaching (compared to the EU TA duties) and a lot more coursework (compared to the EU) as well.

Most of your questions are field-specific, so as a physics PhD student I might be a bit off the reality of CS. Still, here are a few hints:

the thesis topic is locked by the funding and by the advisor right from the beginning of the PhD

This is only true in principle. If you don't have any obligation of obtaining a particular result, things are not that black and white: a PhD is about investigating some ideas, which for instance might turn out unfruitful and need some more or less drastic changes.
Depending on the advisor and funding entity you may also simply switch your research topic (if this is a relevant move -scientifically and timewise-, of course!).

PhD programs in France don't seem to get global recognition as the ones in the US or even some in the EU, with one or two exceptions

Recognition first comes from (i) the quality of the work, and (ii) how you communicate about it. That's where working in a team with good connections with the community can help getting your work known in your field. Attending conferences is also a must!

PhD is condemned to belong to the academia and is rather ignored in the industry

If the skills acquired during your thesis can be exported to industry, finding a position in industry afterwards is far from impossible. As an illustration I've seen quite a few students in theoretical physics move to data science or machine learning straight after graduating. Doctoral schools are aware of this, and some (if not all) organise events to put students and people from industry into contact.

Is it possible/typical [...] to quit the PhD in France?

Afaik, there is no official data on the dropout rate of doctoral students in France. But quitting is absolutely possible a not to be ashamed of. A PhD is a three years contract, which you have the right to resign by formally notifying your employer. (Note that you can't just notify them and leave, there is a legal period to be respected.) On such kind of matter, checking on this official page can be helpful.

There is some data on the droupout rate but it is not easy to find. This 2010 evaluation (in French) gives a ~5% dropout rate for STEM PhDs. I remember having read somewhere in 2015/2016 that the fraction of people who register as 1st year students and do not eventually get a PhD at the end is more like 10-15%. There might be methodology tricks regarding what counts as "dropping out".

I agree with aRandomName's answer, to be clear the assumptions made in the question are wrong or at least misleading.

For what I know, one finishes PhD with only 3 years in France which is rather efficient, but one may suffer if one's research interest gets changed in the mean time, because the thesis topic is locked by the funding and by the advisor right from the beginning of the PhD, which could be disturbing in a fast changing field like cs.

While the official PhD duration is three years and naturally the funding is also for three years, the actual duration is often more than 3 years. This depends a lot on the domain and a bit on the institution. In CS the average duration was a bit less than 4 years last time I checked (probably a few years ago).
The flexibility of the topic has nothing to do with the country, it depends on the supervisor and the type of funding (by this I mean that it's more or less the same in France as in other countries). if the supervisor or funding organization has a very specific goal for the PhD, then the topic is pretty much fixed. But broad and vague PhD topics are also common, and in this case there's a lot of flexibility about the precise direction of the research. Mind also that a PhD is not as long as it seems (any PhD student will tell you that!), you don't have that much time to change your direction many times.

Besides, PhD programs in France don't seem to get global recognition as the ones in the US or even some in the EU, with one or two exceptions.

It's the first time I hear this, I don't think this is true. There are many people who have done their PhD in France and have had a successful career abroad. I assume that this impression is based on international rankings, there are lots of reasons not to to take these rankings too seriously.

Even within France, PhD is condemned to belong to the academia and is rather ignored in the industry (if there's any).

This is a stereotype based on a tiny bit of truth: traditionally French industry had a tendency to favour Grandes Ecoles graduates, and consequently it wasn't necessarily worth doing a PhD for a career in industry because the income difference between PhD/non-PhD was not as high as in other countries. But it was never the case that somebody with a PhD in CS could not find an industry job! Additionally this discrepancy tends to disappear, especially with big multinational companies which compete for skills at the international level where a PhD is highly valued.

Could anyone familiar with the French system correct me on this? Is it possible/typical to research on a different topic from the one that I'm getting paid for, to change the PhD topic,

Be very careful about starting a PhD with the thought of doing another PhD, it's much better and safer to have the right topic and advisor from the start (that's true anywhere).

or even to quit the PhD in France?

Of course! Do you imagine that doing a PhD in France is like entering the Mafia, you can't leave alive? ;)
Historically some PhD contracts used to pretend that the money had to be paid back if the PhD student didn't finish in time. These were likely illegal contract terms, I never heard of anything like this being enforced (and I've known a good few people quitting their PhD).


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Assistant Prof. doing a post-doc or MSc at the same time
I have a PhD and am a junior Assistant professor in tenure track. I had a chance to do a post-doc at an ivy league school, but accepted the tenure offer from a more teaching and less research school. I want to advance my career, and I believe part of the reason I couldn't get into a research school was my PhD university which is well known but not in US.
I am thinking of doing a part time post-doc or getting an MSc in an ivy league school to help me advance my career (Machine learning/Data science field). Publication in my field take a lot of time and by the time that I have made an established publication stream I will not be as young and ambitious as I am now.
How awkward is it if an assistant prof does part time post-doc on summers (when not in contract) or even during the year?

Which adviser would take on someone as a part time postdoc? That would seem like a poor choice to get a project done...

That's a good question, but I had talked with advisors before, I don't know their reaction now, but my research is so that everything can be done online, I don't need a lab or anything.My question is mainly about should I approach the person who wanted to work with me as a postdoc in past? How is it seen by my colleagues? is it too awkward if I do that? or do people do this?

There are cases where a tenure track assistant professor is allowed to spend time (whole semesters) at another university working on research.  Whether your employer would allow this is a very different issue that depends on your particular circumstances.

This is a bad idea. Regardless of the "prestige" of your current institution, you have a PhD and are appointed as an assistant professor. Therefore, doing a post-doc or MS will not advance your career but represent a confusing step backwards in your CV.
Why not instead contact the ivy league lab that offered you the post-doc and inquire about simple collaboration? You get to still help with the research and get out (hopefully) top-tier publications, they get to save the salary since they're not employing you. If things go well, maybe there could be joint grants in the future where your summer salary could be covered, or possibly including buying out some of your teaching load to have more protected research time.
I don't have direct experience, but I have some colleagues at teaching-intensive universities, and if you can involve your undergrads in your research and are able to put out high quality papers in respectable journals, the university will likely be willing to go out of their way to facilitate you and you could be on the fast track to early tenure.

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What to do when your advisor says your research is at a dead end?
I have been working on my dissertation proposal for 2 of the last 4 years of my PhD program. I have been publishing at conferences, collecting data, and building out my thesis. About a year and a half ago, I thought I was ready to propose but my advisor wanted one more publication. Then it was one more app designed. Then it was one more protocol designed. I got it in writing what he wanted me to do in order to propose but each time he would say I needed to do more. I am now at my deadline (I have to propose or I lose funding) and my advisor and a committee member have told me that they think my research is a dead end and I shouldn't have been looking into it in the first place. I am not really sure where to go from here. Has anyone else experienced this? The two options I have considered are: leaving with a masters and trying to get into a different program or starting over from scratch with my research at my current university but I have no guarantee of funding. Any additional ideas?

I'm not sure what precisely we're supposed to help here. Have you talked with your adviser and the committee members what your opinions are? Their statements that "they think my research is a dead end and I shouldn't have been looking into it in the first place" are not at all constructive. What do they think the way forward should be?

What does a "proposal" mean in your university? In some universities it is basically the formality you undergo 6 months before you defend, i.e. it is one of the last steps of your PhD. Other places it is done right at the beginning of the PhD program and is "step 1" of the PhD. Also, is your field one where conference publications carry weight? If you already have several publications can you defend over the objections of your advisor?

I am sorry about what you are going through. It is indeed a bit of a hard question to answer here. I think it mixes up different issues and it requires more context to see what you should do going forward.

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Choosing an undergraduate research advisor
I'm looking to complete a senior thesis (I would also want to do other research, but I doubt the viability of this) as an undergrad and I need help understanding how I would go about choosing the research advisor.
I am not really looking to do a masters/PhD as of right now, although this may change in a couple years. As of right now, I plan to go into the commercial market after college and would like to optimize for this.
Talking to some people in the workforce, I was told it would be very helpful to have a good thesis with an advisor that is well-known (high status) in the field. However, this seems to go against the prevailing sentiment on this site (1, 2). Why is it better to find a new prof rather than using a well-known prof?
Another problem is that undergrad research seems to be very infrequent (so there are maybe only 1 or 2 people I can ask about any specific prof a la this suggestion), so sampling bias is a large concern.
The third, and perhaps greatest concern, is I'm not sure what subfield I would like to work in (finishing all the lower division courses taught me almost nothing of actual use about the field, as there was a lot of hand-holding in those courses). Talking to some other students who went through this before me, I have heard that one should take a class with the professor before asking them to be one's research advisor (I thought this was BS and tried reaching out to profs, but got stonewalled - this seems to be systemic in my uni/dept). This only gives me a couple terms to take classes with different professors, trying to select classes where I get to both explore the field and get a good prof to research under. However, professors that tend to be more famous tend to teach more specialized classes where I don't get to explore as much. I am ok with pushing by GenEds out to take more classes in my major and explore right now, but am unclear on how to proceed beyond just choosing something that has an interesting title, hoping I'll like one of the 4 shots I have, and running with the best of the lot.
Any advice would be helpful.

Talking to some other students who went through this before me, I have heard that one should take a class with the professor before asking them to be one's research advisor (I thought this was BS and tried reaching out to profs, but got stonewalled - this seems to be systemic in my uni/dept).

Well, take it from a professor's point of view. They received an email from a student they don't know, who's only vaguely interested in their work. If you don't even know what subfield you're interested in, it's hard to write a convincing email explaining why you're interested in their work.
Mentoring an undergraduate is a time investment, not a time saver. So professors like to see motivated students who understand the problems they work on in their lab, which is part of the answer to your question below.

Why is it better to find a new prof rather than using a well-known prof?

Some people might say that older professors are busy as heck, and a newer professor might have more time to invest in a promising undergrad. Unfortunately, with COVID, finding a professor with time for an undergrad will be harder.
However, this isn't universal, and you should talk to previous students before assuming a professor is a good or bad mentor.
In summary, identify a few top professors, take their classes (as was suggested), and do well. That's at least a foot in the door to open the conversation.

The older/newer contrast probably doesn't apply broadly. There are plenty of senior researchers, especially those nearing retirement, that could actually be perfect fits for an undergraduate as they wind down some of their ambition a bit. On the other hand, a newer professor on a tenure clock crunch may have little time at all, especially as they juggle responsibilities between teaching courses they haven't taught before (including designing from the ground up) while trying to build a sufficient research program for tenure.

I think @BryanKrause has a better handle on how busy folks are at different points in their career than as expressed in this answer. I seldom suggest anyone take an untenured faculty member as an advisor. But the answer is correct about stonewalling unknown students.

How would you decide which subfields' classes to take? How would I identify top profs (beyond just looking up keynote speakers?

My advice is to worry less about that at the start. Find some professor with whom you have worked and you have some mutual trust. Then work with them to find a mutually acceptable topic. You are using early optimization to your own detriment. You are making the perfect into the enemy of the good.

@Bryan Fair enough. I was answering the broader question of "why do people recommend this" but it wasn't clear.


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how to answer "Where did you draw the line on what you included in your literature review?" during the phd viva?
I am preparing for my upcoming phd viva and came across a list of questions that might be asked during the viva. One of them asked "where did you draw the line on what to include in your lit review". I was a bit confused by this question and I was wondering if you could provide some guidance on how to structure the answer. Thank you!

Probably your answer would depend on where you drew the line on your literature review. However it doesn't seem that useful to treat a viva this way: reading from vague lists of possible questions like you're studying for a course exam. You did the work, someone's asking about the work, you should already be the expert in what you did. Know where your weaknesses are and be ready to address those constructively.

One simple answer is (leave away those aspects that don't apply to your situation):

First, I systematically thought about the different directions in which related work may exist. To make sure I did not miss any relevant directions, I consulted with my advisor/other researchers and checked the related work of the related work I initially looked at. For each identified direction, I considered a handful of prominent papers, until a point was reached where new papers did not add substantially new ideas, but just variations of the ones I already had covered.


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Does it make sense to appeal the reject decision made by the journal editor?
A manuscript that my supervisors and a collaborator and I have been working on for so long recently got rejected twice by different journals, the main reason being that the findings are considered as "nothing new" and didn't "add anything to the field". However, we do think that our findings contribute to the field and can justify this major reason for rejection. I am thinking about whether we should appeal against the decision. I know it is risky and most likely won't be successful. But I would like to hear what you think about this.Thank you!

Do the journals provide some appeal mechanism? Appeal to whom, exactly?

Better ask if you can resubmit the paper after making substantial changes to your explanation/manuscript

Readers, even if you think the answer is "no", this doesn't make it a bad question, so please do not downvote just because of this.

@Mark thank you. the journal doesn't accept resubmit manuscripts unfortunately...

You're starting at the wrong end. If four or more reviewers plus two editors have found that your paper has "nothing new", but you think that "our findings contribute to the field", then you haven't made your point well enough in the paper.
The most pragmatic approach to dealing with rejections is to assume that the failure lies with your writing and not ignorant reviewers and editors: If someone doesn't see your point, then you haven't made your point well enough. Any appeal will not change that you haven't written your paper well enough.
So: go back to the drawing board. Read through your introduction and try to understand whether, from the perspective of a reader, you've made it clear enough where the current knowledge has deficits, why we should care about these deficits, and how your paper addresses these deficits. If you make these points clearly and easy to find/understand for a reader, and your papers will get accepted. If you make it difficult for readers to understand the point of the paper, you will get rejections.

Thank you so much for this! Would you recommend writing to the editor about how we will improve our paper and address reviewers' comments (i.e. to make our point well enough)? The idea of appealing was brought up during an email exchange between me and my collaborator, not including my supervisors. So I'm still thinking about how to bring this up with my supervisors..

@JoseeLuis Then talk to your advisers. They presumably have much more experience in writing papers, and might be able to see what needs to be done. Separately, when you read papers in the future, ask yourself not just about the content but also whether you thought that the paper was well written and why. Then copy what you thought worked well in your own papers.

Thank you very much for your advice! This is really helpful.


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Should I wait for the editor's response to my pre-submission inquiry or should I just submit the manuscript anyways?
My supervisor suggested that I sent a pre-submission inquiry to a journal editor about the potential suitability of my manuscript. I wrote to the editor last Friday and still haven't heard back from them. I am wondering if anyone who has previously done so could let me know how long it took you to get the response from the editor? I am hoping that I could submit it by the end of November (which is already here) and just don't know if it's worth waiting for the response or maybe just submit it anyways. Would love to hear about your thoughts on this. Thanks!

Probably best to wait. Week or more.

@Buffy Thanks for this! Yes I think I will wait until the end of the week.

Friday and November will be a meaningless phrases for this question soon. Please update your question so that it can be understood months from now.

There are several possible reasons for a pre-submission inquiry, including at least:

You are still in the process of finalising the manuscript.
Adapting the manuscript to the journal’s requirement for a submission would be a considerable effort. This should rarely apply nowadays.
The journal has on a long decision process involving multiple editors for desk-rejecting any serious submission and you expect that an unsuccessful pre-submission inquiry would be faster.
You can send pre-submission inquiries to multiple journals simultaneously – while you can only (ethically) submit to one.
You avoid the psychological impact of a desk reject (and instead may only get a vaguely negative response to a pre-submission inquiry).
You consider it more likely that the editor responds positively to your pre-submission inquiry than to a full submission and then sticks to their decision. (Unless you know the editor very well, I don’t think you can score better than chance with this: The editor may as well be more likely to respond negatively to your pre-submission inquiry than to a submission and stick to that.)

Only you (or your supervisor) know what reason applies to your case and this determines the answer to your question.
Going from what you write, I guess it’s Reason 1 or 2.
In that case and if your manuscript is ready for submission, I strongly suggest that you submit it immediately (and probably should not have made a pre-submission inquiry in the first place) for the following reasons:

The editor has more information to work on and thus you do not risk a vague or “wrong” response to the pre-submission inquiry, in particular the editor responding negative to your pre-submission inquiry due to lack of information. In fact, my experience with pre-submission inquiries is that they at best yield a vague response.

In case of success, the editor only needs to engage with your submission once, which is almost certainly faster a regular submission after the pre-submission inquiry. Consider this: Most of the waiting time originates from the editor being busy with other things. Once they have time for your manuscript, they will consider whatever they have at that moment. (Therefore you do not risk interrupting or confusing the editor with a submission.)

All of the above also means less waste of the editor’s time, which is not only more ethical but also likely improves their attitude to you.

It is for these reasons that many journals explicitly ask authors to refrain from pre-submission inquiries, when they already have a manuscript ready for submission.
If you make a proper submission, be sure to briefly mention that you made a pre-submission inquiry in your cover letter or notes to the editor (depending on the journal’s submission system), for example:

Please note that we have made an open pre-submission inquiry to [editor].

… and notify the editor to whom you sent your pre-submission inquiry, so they do not miss it, and make clear that you do this so they have the full information (and not because you were impatient), e.g., you can write to the editor:

As we now completed our manuscript, we have submitted it, such that you have all the possible information available.

Thank you so much @Wrzlprmft for this detailed explanation. Given that this is an American journal and now it's Thanksgiving, I might wait until Monday to see if they write back. If not, from what you wrote, my understanding is that I should just go ahead and submit the manuscript anyways and let the editor know about the submission via email? How would you phrase the email to avoid sounding "rude" or "impatient"? Sorry for too many questions! Thank you very much!

Given that this is an American journal and now it's Thanksgiving – Well, American journals can have non-American editors. — How would you phrase the email to avoid sounding "rude" or "impatient"? Sorry for too many questions! – To start with, explicitly state that you submit to provide them with the actual submission so they have all the information to work with (instead of only your pre-submission inquiry). The details of course depend on what your pre-submission inquiry contained and why you made it.

Thank you! I still haven't received a response so I am planning to submit the manuscript anyways. Shall I say that "I have submitted the manuscript to the journal and thank you very much for your time"? Or take a step back, do you think it is the email is absolutely necessary? I understand that the editor might want to be informed about the submission despite the fact that they did not reply to my pre-submission inquiry. But since I will submit it anyways, will the editor think that I don't care about his/her response? Will that have an impact on the decision of the manuscript? Thanks so much!

@JoseeLuis: You seem to be overthinking this. Just be brief and honest, e.g. in the manuscript: “As we now completed our manuscript, we have submitted it now, such that you can make a more informed decision.” (assuming that this is the truth) … and accompanying the submission: “Please note that we have submitted a presubmission inquiry to [editor].”

Thank you so much, that's good to know. "As we now completed our manuscript, we have submitted it now, such that you can make a more informed decision", this is really brief and well-said! I will make sure to include it in the email. Thank you very much!


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On a Paper, Change the Methodology or Report in Results Section?
I'm currently working on the final phase of my MSc dissertation, but I've been having technical issues regarding my initial approach set out in the methodology. I've made what I consider a temporary change to prove the concept but I also intend to discuss why the initial method would be better suited if the technical issues were not around.
Do I...

Change the current methodology to reflect what is going on now, discussing what was the initial method in the latter sections? or..
Leave the current methodology but discuss the "Temporary Fix" in the latter sections and how it's partial success relates to the initial method, and proves it's potential to be successful in practice?

Thanks

What field is this. In some fields either option would be dangerous, bordering on misconduct. Are you doing research or are you trying to arrive at a predetermined result?

@Buffy Computer Science

This should be worked out with your advisor. If it were me (as advisor), I'd suggest that you explain the original methodology and show how your work implies that it fails. That is a valid research outcome. Then, show how a modification of it would work and why. How is it that the "technical details" make a difference.
But if you change the methodology and just pretend that it didn't happen, you are losing an opportunity to extend knowledge. A proof or demonstration of why something doesn't work can be just as valuable as one that it does. Perhaps even more so in a case like this. If your thesis gives insight into a problem, or better, a class of problems, you have done well, no matter the outcome.


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Should I leave my area of interest as my supervisor advised?
I am an undergraduate student, applying for honours next year. I asked my current supervisor if he is willing to supervise me and he said he had to change the current project as I took a lot of time to do calculations, there was a lot of going back and forth and he said I am an average student and a project in this field in honours will be very challenging for me. I think that he does not have a good opinion of me. I am very heartbroken and have no idea what to do. Should I change my field? He said you should look for a field you are better at but I actually like my current field a lot.

Do you think you are average? Do you think you could be better?

Are there any other professors who you could talk to for guidance/another assessment of your abilities?

I think you're too early in your career to say one way or the other. I had an undergrad prof say I should teach high school rather than pursue research based on my GPA halfway through undergrad, saying I'd never make it to grad school.
Now I'm a postdoc at a pretty nice institute in an extremely competitive field, and I've seen many other people who looked better on paper than I did at that point get weeded out of this career (not getting into grad school, failing prelim exams, not finishing the PhD, finishing the PhD with no postdoc offers, etc). Many people who have judged me as the stupider scientist and talked down to me couldn't make it in the field, so I wish I hadn't put so much weight on what they said at the time.
If you love the work, keep at it. Doing something you're passionate about for an undergrad degree is hardly a waste of time, even if you ultimately have to go a different route.
Keep a plan B in your back pocket. The nice thing about academia is the hiring timeline is usually a lot earlier than industry, so if you don't get into grad school/get the next level job, you still have a few months to pivot into an industry search. Depending on your financial situation, you may need to pursue both options simultaneously to avoid he risk of being unemployed, but it's doable. As long as you like the work/the lifestyle and you still have options, keep at it.
Also there are lots of professors out there with opinions, so don't just select one at random to decide your fate. Actually the bar is way lower: if you can find one person who believes in you at the undergrad level, that's enough, even if everyone else says you're no good. Later on in your career, shoot for at least three senior people who think you're great. Ignore the rest of the noise.
But an academic career can be hard at times, especially for the people that aren't flying through prestigious institutes with a ton of encouragement and no pushback. If you approach the career the way I'm describing, it will be really hard at times. If you find the work and lifestyle worth it, keep going, but the reality is that the lifestyle is not easy and there's no shame in leaving for a more comfortable life.


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How do I research about the latest developments in a field?
Say I am interested in the latest development in the field of computer vision. I am a newbie into that area and do not have much knowledge about the history or the journey of computer vision till now or the latest development as well?
So what I do is usually go to google scholar and type some random combination of keywords and filter it based on years. I take the latest research paper that catches my eye (or take the latest review paper) and just start reading it. Usually when I am reading the introduction, I get references about the past development and start digging deeper.
This is where I get lost. I dig so deep into the references (rabbit hole of one reference to another) that by the time I am satisfied about what led me down that particular hole I have already lost track. This gets compounded as I do it for every interesting reference I find in the original paper.
How do I optimise my researching capacity?
My goal is to accomplish this from my researching capacity/ literature review ?

Get important topics I can potentially look into (as I just select a topic that catches my eyes. I feel I am losing out on topics that may have more potential). How do you all select a topic you want to look into.

Optimise the time required to form an opinion.

Read literature quicker and more efficiently . (This down the rabbit hole technique I use gives me a lot of deep knowledge about a lot of aspects that I should not , my energy is expanded in an unoptimised way).

Get to know prominent players in the field who provide high quality research that aligns with what I like to do.

Does this answer your question? How to read papers without falling into a rabbit hole?

Not entirely. But it does give some good techniques.

Do people write review article in this specific field? In my field (a branch of life sciences) many journals are dedicated exclusively to that, and reviews are the best way to have a broad perspective on a specific topic, based on expert-curated references. After reading three or four of those one can have a fairly good idea of what researchers have been up to in the past 5-10 years.

Actually, I think you method isn't that bad in practice. I do something along the same lines. I'd just tinker a bit with your approach. For example:

Narrow your area. "Computer vision" sounds quite broad, focus on something more specific ("object recognition", "object tracking").
Pay attention to the citation count of a paper you are going to read and use it as a quick way to prioritize your reading.
If you opt to read highly-quoted papers only, it will greatly reduce your effort. You can read less-quoted papers later when you decide that you are interested in the specific problems they address. ("Less quoted" doesn't mean "bad", it might mean their authors study some narrow domain/problem, and the odds are that you don't need it at your current stage yet).
Use references in the papers you read as your "time machine" to uncover important papers you miss. Very often I see that the same reference constantly pops up here and there, but I miss it because it's too old to make it through my Google Scholar filter.
If you really want to get a broad view of a domain, read at least tables of contents of all major conferences/journals in the field for the past few years.

When I study something new, my first impression is always the same: "oh, lots and lots of papers, impossible to track and read them all; and all the problems are apparently solved here". However, in a week or so I start noticing that everything isn't so rosy, and there is a lot of work to be done, and many topics barely touched.
I must say though that "topics of higher potential" might be or might not be what you want to study. Consider, at least, your personal preferences (after all, you are going to spend much time working on a topic), and your existing skills/talents. It is possible that you can achieve more in a topic that might not be stellar, but fit nicely into your personality and background.

Regarding your first point. What happens if I am not really sure about the sub domains of a broad domain. For instance, I just started looking into retinomorphic computer vision and I had a vague idea that I want to look into 'object recognition'. However, later I got to know there were other topics like 'pose etimation' that I completely missed cause I had no idea of its existence.  How do I cope with such a situation.

Yes, indeed, it might be not easy. I think a good "table of content" might help. For example, try Awesome lists. However, even there you'll need to dig quite deeply, but at least it's doable, because the space is finite. For example, "Pose estimation" is under "Computer Vision", "Awesome Deep Vision", "Human pose estimation".

Also do you know of any app where I can keep track of the papers I have read or how do you keep track of your progress ? Do you make a tree or how ?

Oh, that's another question. It is highly dependent on your habits/preferences. Some people like mind maps, I don't. For now, I am okay with a reference manager (I use Citavi, but there are many similar systems). I place there full bib data and a PDF file of a paper. It allows to organize your thoughts in a tree form, but personally I don't do it. My very subjective belief is this: when you feel you need a way too complex organization, it means you have too much information, so something must be cut.

What's a quick way to find an exhaustive list of conferences and journals in my field?

"Quick" way cannot yield "exhaustive" list. This work requires time and effort, and largely depends on your field, and how you view it. For example, there are many confs/journals with very wide range of topics, would you include them? In CS, e.g., I'd just go to ACM/IEEE websites and other known organizations and read all titles of conferences and journals there that include target keywords. Also I'd go through major publications and see where they were published.


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When citing in MLA, do you need to cite the same source twice?
I have a Works Cited in MLA style. Two of my sources look like this:
http://www.example.com/a/x.html
http://www.example.com/a/y.html#42

Do I need to cite both pages, or do I just cite example.com?

Are you citing them as distinct sources (like articles written by different authors/on different topics, analogous to an edited collection) or are you citing the entire example.com as a single source (and the two pages are more analogous to different pages within a monograph)?

The URL in a reference should lead the reader directly to the material you have used and cited.  Unless example.com has only those two items, you should cite each one.

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


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NSF postdoc as graduate student: Should I list highest degree as Ph.D. or Masters in application form
I am currently a graduate student (hopefully) in my final year. I am applying to the NSF postdoc program in mathematics. As part of this application, I need to fill out an application form and a biographical sketches form.
On my Biographical sketches, I listed that I am expecting to receive my Ph.D. in 2021. As of right now I only have a masters in mathematics. The problem is that I do not know how to indicate this in the application form, and right now I have it listing me as having a masters as my highest degree earned.
From the copies of proposals that people have made public, it seems like graduate students tend to put a Ph.D. as the highest degree earned. I do not know if this is appropriate/expected from people in my situation, but it seems strange to put Ph.D. when I do not have one yet. I tried looking in the PAPPG, but there was nothing in there about this. Does anyone know what I should put in these forms?

Your highest degree is a masters. You don't have a PhD until it is awarded. And that is only after you pass all requirements, which has not yet happened.
Of course, you can also say (if the opportunity exists) that you expect to be awarded a doctorate in 2021, but it isn't certain, and that will be understood.

I agree with Buffy, except that the position you are applying for (postdoc) requires a PhD. It is common for last-year PhD students to apply for postdocs or faculty positions (which require the PhD) before they have officially graduated, or sometimes even before they have defended their dissertation. When applying for such jobs, it is customary to list the PhD degree on your application with an expected graduation date in the future. If you are hired, it is often contingent on finishing the degree before the job start date.

Normally when applying to NSF grants you want to downplay your education as the standards move up the longer you're in academics. But since it's for a position which requires a PhD obviously you need to list PhD.


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Postdoc Letter of recommendation same school or different school
I am going on the postdoc market this year (mathematics). I am now looking into who I should ask for a letter of recommendation. I think my advisor will give me a good one, and there is another faculty who I think will give me a good letter.
I am trying to decide who I should ask for a third letter. I have been told that it is a good idea to get someone from a different university to write you a letter if you can. There is one person who I think would write me a letter, and I think it would be alright. There is someone else, however, at my university who I think would write me a very good letter based on comments he has made to me and other faculty about me. I do not know which would be better, and was looking for general advice about how much having a LoR from someone from a different institution was.

Does your adviser have any suggestions? When I applied the letter writers were some of my adviser's colleagues who work in the same area.

@Notagradstudent It isn't so much that I need advice/help finding an external letter writer, since I have one in mind. I am more wondering how much having an external letter is necessary, since I think the other faculty member would write me a better one. As for asking them about that, they are away for personal reasons right now, and i would like to give my writers as much time as possible, which is why I am asking here now.

Opinion only.
I think the primary goal is to have the strongest possible letters. So I would opt for a very good local letter over an alright one from somewhere else. Only if the recommendations were similar would the geography matter for me.
You might be able to work your connection to the other writer into your cover letter.


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How to politely turn down others' request for collaboration?
When I first started my PhD, I would grab every opportunity to collaborate with others because there weren't many and I wanted to learn as much as possible. However, as I become a senior PhD student, more and more people invited me to collaborate with them which can be quite overwhelming sometimes and I found it hard to turn down these requests. I wonder if there is any way to politely turn down these requests, especially ones from researchers senior to me?

I'm busy. Finishing my PhD . Please excuse me

Thank you so much for keeping me in mind for this. Even though the idea sounds exciting, I'm currently swamped with work, and cannot join a new collaboration at this point. I'm very sorry!

Depending on whether you see the chance to collaborate in the future, or you just want to get rid of them: You can also add that they can contact you again at some later point, or even that you will contact them.


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Development Economics Minor for CS Major
I am an undergrad CS Major and am looking to minor in Development Economics, basically economics for understanding challenges created by world poverty (this is the only form of an economics minor that my school offers). I have seen several posts here regarding what a good minor for CS majors is and most of the of responses say to take what you are genuinely interested in that has a good chance of helping you career-wise in the future. I plan on to going to grad school probably for ML and I wanted to know if I should pick a different minor knowing this. My school doesn't offer a statistics minor (for grad school ML) and I also want to minor in something I am genuinely interested in - the last thing I want to do is get stuck doing a minor I hate for the possibility of grad school. Also, I am also doing undergrad research this upcoming semester; would undergrad research or a specific minor be more valuable to a grad school?

All this is highyl specific to you. Play your strenghts, and at the same time get a broad enough (better: broad as possible) fundamental education.

Why not mathematics?

@Buffy I am not really interested by it. I feel like the stuff I will do in grad school has to allign with both my genuine interests along what will hold up career-wise; my thinking was with a major in CS and minor in Econ, I could research maybe modeling global economies using ML or something like that

I suggested mathematics for its relevance to ML, actually. But you get to choose. Don't obsess too much over it. Pick something you like.

Look at the course list for the dev econ minor. You could probably gain the same knowledge they provide by reading a micro and macro economics textbook, listening to the CGD podcast, and reading a few books by Peter Singer. As @Buffy suggested, a math minor would greatly benefit you if you end up doing ML in grad school.

I agree with the others that it makes sense to explore what interests you at this stage. CS is already a strong major and you will be forced to specialize more later on. A few points in favor:

I don't think anyone pays too much attention to your minor, to be honest. I would weigh the transcript more heavily than the precise name of the major or minor, so if your coursework shows a strong foundation in math/stats/CS classes then I see no problem with having an additional interest.
Economic thinking is an interesting and new perspective in and of itself which could benefit you as an intellectual. I think it would broaden your horizons and give you an approach to modeling that many CS majors won't have. The intersection of econ + CS is also growing in popularity.
There is a decent community of emerging around computing for development. Some resources you might find useful are:
https://acmcompass.org/
https://didl.berkeley.edu/
https://crcs.seas.harvard.edu/
https://www.ml.cmu.edu/academics/joint-phd-mlpp.html
Maybe you can find some profiles that look like yours for inspiration.

That said, I agree with the commenters that math and statistics will be very valuable to you if you pursue ML at a higher level. So it would be good to load up on these courses now if you plan to move on to a competitive graduate degree.
Also, if by "graduate school" you mean PhD, I believe research would be much more important than adding a single line to your CV as a minor. Perhaps you could do some research at the intersection of computer science and development?


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Who grades the mathematics phd comprehensive exams?
Is it a committee of professors, or is it one professor -- whomever wrote the exams?

In general if you have a question about the way your department does business, you should ask people in your department.  Asking the question on a worldwide scale is throwing away so much information particular to your case, so is going to make a good answer at best difficult and inefficient to get.  As a student in a university, it's okay to ask how things work.  In fact, it's encouraged.

In my department, the exams are usually graded by two professors. They each grade the exams independently and then compare their grades (question by question) and resolve any nontrivial disagreements. (It's been a while since I was on a qualifying exams committee, so the arrangement could have changed, but I don't think it has.)

I'd think a committee is much more likely than an individual professor, but I suppose it could depend on the size of the graduate program.  Comprehensive exams are handled in many different ways in different departments (when they are held at all), so there's no way to give a universal answer.  For example, in some departments the grading is delegated to junior faculty, while in others it isn't.  If you are interested in the answer in your own department, you'll have to ask them.

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


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What images published in arXiv papers can I include in my education material?
I am going to give a course at my company and I'm looking online for images that I can use in my education material.
Since many of the most interesting images suitable for this education exist in papers published on arXiv, how do I know which of the images found in arXiv papers I can use and which I can't? How do I know how these images are licenced?
I often see images published in arXiv papers that are later used in presentations given by other people and/or republished in other's research papers, sometimes without any credit given to the creators of the images and almost always without a link to any license (in fact I can't remember ever seeing such a link, but maybe I have just not paid attention). Under what circumstances is that okay?
A related question is, how does fair use come into all of this since we're talking about education material?

if you don't publish your course materials you can certainly do anything you want with images from there. in case you publish, you would need to provide appropriate references to these images, and it might also be the case that your publication would  need a similar copyright.

What does it mean to "publish"  the material? If I hand it out to the course participants as printed copies, or if I email it to them as a PDF, does that count as publishing?

no, this is not publishing.

Treat them like you would any other published materials, considering copyright and licensing, as well as the intended use. If there is any doubt, ask.

@DimaPasechnik Theft is theft, regardless of whether it committed in public

@user2768 More relevant to the question here, copyright infringement is copyright infringement, whether public or not.

@TommiBrander Isn't copyright infringement theft?

@user2768 It is contested; you can find both takes on the matter by checking for example Torrentfreak and any copyright lobby. Maybe start with Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#%22Theft%22. (I do not think it is theft, as you are not taking anything away. You are making copies you are not supposed to make. Contrast with theft, where something is taken away.)

@user2728 if you can print a copy of a paper from arxiv.org ( and yes, you can, check licences there) then you can print 20 copies and give them to your students.

@DimaPasechnik, how about 2000 copies? 200,000? And "giving them away" is a bit different from printing a copy for your own use.

there are limits to what "fair use" is, I agree. But in the context of a corporate lecture series, or university teaching,  I don't see a problem. I can just as well tell students: here is the URL, print it out yourselves.

charging for these copies (beyond printing costs) would not be legal, I gather.

Contrary to the other answer, arXiv does not require that papers are posted under CC licences. The minimal (and normal) licence required is given here, and merely grants arXiv perpetual right to distribute the article. IANAL but I very much doubt this gives you any right to use individual figures.
You can find a (small) link to the licence for a particular preprint on the right-hand side of the abstract page in arXiv. You should see something like

If there is a CC licence you can use the image but probably need to attribute. Otherwise, I would contact the authors to ask for permission.

You should check the licence under which the paper is posted on arXiv. It requires that papers are posted under creative commons licences which means you will always be able to use the content, but whether you are obliged to attribute the source depends on the flavour of license. More information here
https://arxiv.org/help/license
Personally, I would always be inclined to attribute figures where I take them from others, under the idea of 'treat others as you would like to be treated'.

Arxiv does not require Creative commons.


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Bad GRE with an otherwise good record - is it possible my application will not even be considered?
I will try my best to remain anonymous. I have studied my bachelor and master's degree in a university outside the US. The math department is very strong and my adviser is well known - he has several papers with over 200 citations. I have good grades with many advanced courses, in fact I believe I have already studied beyond what is required in some PhD programs. My MSc thesis features some new results known to experts but not otherwise. I believe I will have good letters of recommendation.
I am trying to apply to the top 10 math departments. I believe that my record is overall strong but my GRE scores are extremely bad, in fact much below average. I did my math GRE under very bad circumstances, both physically and personally. Is it possible that my application won't even be considered by the committee? I am worried I won't pass the initial filter and that nobody would even look at my letters of recommendation. Is this reasonable?

Most SCIENTIFIC graduate departments don't care about GRE scores but they are often still required by an admissions them as a formality.

@A.K.: Sorry but I have to disagree with the absolute character of your statement.

@A.K.: Maybe your statement is true in some scientific disciplines.  It is really not true in mathematics.

You should probably be more precise. I am not sure I understand what you mean by "new results known to experts". Are you talking about an expository presentation of advanced material? About relatively easy but not explicitly stated corollaries of recent published results? Something else?

Hello Andres. The result was conjectured by a well known mathematician from a different field, but my results are partial. It is currently open on MathOverflow. My adviser knew how to attack this since it uses techniques he pioneered. He thinks it is definitely publishable in a good journal. There are no ingenious ideas in the work (in my opinion) but there are a lot of details to take care of.

In my experience with graduate admissions in mathematics departments, all complete applications are looked at by departmental faculty (and mildly incomplete ones may be looked at as well, albeit more briefly).  So I think it is likely that your letters will be read.
However, you say that your GRE scores are "much below average".  I will assume that your description is somewhat factually based and thus that they are below the 35th percentile.  In my department -- about the 50th best -- we would like to see higher scores than that, but we can take chances on some applicants for whom that is the only weak point.  Admission to the top 10 math departments in the US is much more competitive than this: they can fill their classes with applicants who are extremely successful according to all the standard metrics.  If they deviate from that then they will do so only for someone who is truly exceptional.
You say that your "thesis features some new results known to experts but not otherwise".  I don't mean to be harsh, but this sounds quite equivocal: to a research mathematician "new" implies that it is not known to experts.  I suppose you would have mentioned if you had published your results, so I will say that it is often difficult to publish such results in a reputable journal.  Anyway "truly exceptional" here means that you have results that were not just unknown to everyone but are actually surprising / exciting to the experts, and that they are eager to build on your work and learn more about your ideas.  It sounds like what you've done is write an ordinarily strong master's thesis, and in my opinion this is not going to offset your poor GRE scores.
My advice is to apply to a lot of departments.  Every individual committee gets to decide how much to value GRE scores; I have certainly met individual faculty members who do not place much stock in them, so while it is unlikely that an entire admissions committee would feel that way, it must happen sometimes.  If you don't get into a good enough department, you should consider deferring for a year, retaking the GRE under better conditions and really nailing it.  If you really do feel that you can do much better on it, then waiting one year and then going to a top department is probably a better career move in the long run.  However, if you wait a year, take the GRE again and don't do better, it will be disappointing, so you should make an effort to figure out whether you will really do better, which may involve taking practice tests but also some soul-searching and personal honesty.
Good luck.  And to everyone else who is reading this: yes, for math PhD students, the GRE is a very serious business.  Please take it seriously and plan to do well, rather than trying to figure out how to paint over this weakness in your application.


text:
Switch from Civil Engineering to experimental Physics?
A couple of years ago, I grew an interest in natural sciences. I then started some hardcore reading and investigation of many physics disciplines that I wasn't familiar with.
I have 9 years experience in civil and structural engineering, having graduated with a Masters in Construction engineering in 2019 from CNAM-Paris. As you might guess, I have been considering a career change for some time, having become indifferent about this industry. I've studied really hard to try and catch up with undergraduates in physics, and I've been tutoring Physics subjects for IB and A-level students (Honestly, I'm falling for this teaching gig).
I am aware that there is a large amount of Physics pre-requisites involved (topics I haven't covered in engineering, like astrophysics, some quantum mechanics etc...) On the other hand, I am still "functional" :P in most mathematics skills like Multi-variable calculus, linear algebra, some topology, I need to brush up on Tensor calculus though. And I have minor research experience because of my masters' thesis.
Despite my intense curiosity and interest in physics and academia, It seems that I might need to start over with an undergrad in Physics.
Some questions:
1- Is undergrad my only option?
2- If I can leverage my Engineering background, another question arises. What area of physics would my background allow me to pursue?
3- I most likely need some guidance or mentorship, any help?
4- I've been studying in "University Physics with Modern Physics 13th Ed (2012)", the Feynman lectures on physics, and I've been going through the lectures of Leonard Susskind, and lately, I started reading John Townsend's "A Modern Approach to Quantum Mechanics". Could you suggest any other books that might be specifically useful for academia?
PS: My main interests in physics focus on experimental physics. lie I said I am loving my teaching experience and I've seen some programs where students get to work as assistant teachers. Another thing that might be helpful in answering my questions: I'm moving to Canada within the year as a permanent resident.
I am terribly sorry if my questions are too broad, I'm trying to get a better understanding of how to proceed following this path. I hope to find some help here. Thanks in advance.

Which part of experimental physics are you interested in? Since I'm imagining experimental quantum/particle physics which seems quite different to your background in civil/structural engineering. Also which country are you located in (different countries can have different pathways)

Indeed, it is very much different than my background, I know it's a long road to get there, I just want some advice as to how to proceed. It's not easy to find answers on university websites for such a  specific case.
I'm currently in Hong Kong, but like I said, I will be moving to Canada within the year.

Have you considered leveraging your masters into a PhD in something like "building particle accelerators"? There's a lot of "big" physics research that requires large-scale construction nowadays, and someone's got to have the knowledge to actually build the things.

@nick012000 Thanks mate, never thought of this! I'll check it out.


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Searching Springer Lecture Notes in Mathematics by Number
The volumes in the Springer LNM series are usually referred to by number, and there are now thousands of them. However, I have not been able to find any way on the Springer website to go directly from the volume number to the SpringerLink page for the book. For example, if someone tells me that some piece of information can be found in LMN 800, my goal is to go from this information to the SpringerLink page https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/BFb0091027. However, the only way I know how to do this is to first Google "Springer Lecture Notes in Mathematics 800," and (for me at least) navigate to the second page of results where I find the actual title of the volume, and then use Google or the Springer website to get the actual Springer Link page. Is this basically the only way to do it, or is there a centralized place where this information can be found in one step ?  For now I have just found the website http://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/toc/lnm1970.html, but it seems to mostly only have a few years from 1970 to 1974.

"The volumes in the Springer LNM series are usually referred to by number" Since when?! I have published a volume in LNM and I don't even remember its number in the series. I've always referred to books by their titles and authors. In what context have you had to search for a book only knowing that it was in LNM and its number in the series (no author, no vague notion of the topic of the book...)?

@N.I.: Sorry !  I shouldn't have used the word "usually". It just so happens that someone recently referred me to a book by its LMN number and gave me no information other than that. I found it eventually but it left me wondering ...

If you have access to MathSciNet, you can search using the "Series" field. If you type "Lecture Notes in Mathematics" there, you get a list of all volumes. Adding the number seems to directly bring you to the correct entry.

Great !  I don't know why I didn't think of that.


text:
Rejecting graduate school offer while recommending classmate - can this be appropriate?
I am an undergraduate at a U.S. university with a top-10 graduate program in mathematics. I applied to mathematics PhD programs this year, and was lucky enough to get quite a few offers at good places.
Because of the COVID-related cuts, many of my classmates were not so lucky. One of my classmates in particular has very similar interests and background to me, but hasn't heard back from any programs, which (to my understanding) means he is on the waitlist. In fact, we had a letter of recommendation in common, which was based on a document we wrote jointly (the professor who wrote it could not have made any real comparison between our contributions to the document, but he is very famous and the letter is likely very strong).
I know him very well, and I know that his background and competence in our field is equivalent to mine (and actually a lot better in some areas). I will have to reject many offers at places that he hasn't heard back from. When I do so, is it at all appropriate for me to politely indicate my opinion that my classmate would actually be a better fit than me for the program? Would this have any (however small) chance of changing the outcome in his favor? Or is it the case that admissions committees would find this annoying and actually be swayed in the opposite direction?
Maybe this sounds like a strange question, but the reason I ask is that both of us have been studying mathematics very seriously for our entire undergraduate education. We would both be really sad if one of us could not continue in math, so I want to do everything I can to help.

Typically around now in the US, graduate programs will be finalizing their lists for offers of admission and a waitlist. I know for the program I attended for grad school, they ordinarily offered about 50% more slots than they actually intended to admit, knowing that some would choose other offers. If fewer students matriculated than expected, offers would start to go to people on the waitlist.
Other programs, especially those with less funding flexibility, may only admit to the number of slots they have and then grab from the waitlist only when people reject the offer.
It seems very unlikely to me that your slot would go to this student if they have not already been informed they are on a waitlist. It is even less unlikely that your opinion will sway the decision, the admissions committee has already met and reviewed the background of all their applicants. I doubt it would cause any harm, either: the decisions are already made. Whoever read your request might find it a bit of a sweet gesture while being quite naïve, but that's it.
Probably the best thing you can do for your friend is to compare applications to help them prepare for next year's admissions cycle. Maybe there is something in your applications that stands out that they haven't touted as well.

Okay, sounds good. Thanks !


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Is it alright to contact lab members of a lab you interviewed at for an update on your PhD application?
I am international applicant for a PhD program in Molecular Biology. I have interviewed with a professor and have had a chat with all of the members of the lab I am extremely interested in working in. It has been over 4 months since I first got in touch with the lab as of now. I am trying to be patient, but is it okay to get in touch with a current PhD student in the lab to get an update on what impression I had left on them and if the professor is going to be considering me.
This is for a graduate program in Molecular Biology in Canada.
Thank you.

No, it is inappropriate to contact PhD students in the lab to ask for an update on your application status. That is because they may not be involved in the process and it looks like you're circumventing the normal flow of information trying to get something underhand.
The correct points of contact are to ask for an update are:

the administrative office who handles grad applications for the department.
the supervisor you have talked to.

Good luck!

In fact, most likely they don't have any role in the process.

Contact the person who interviewed you, not a student. I doubt a PhD student will know anything about who is going to be made an offer.
It's perfectly fine (especially after four months) to send a short, polite email to your interviewer asking when you can expect to hear from them.


text:
Which countries in Europe have teaching positions that do not require doing research?
The question is regarding Computer Science field. I wish to know which countries have such teaching positions that do not require doing active research.
Also, what are these positions called?
And, is a PhD required for these positions or Master's is sufficient?

This question seems out of scope here (shopping question).
But to help you a little bit -- if 1 paper / 2-3 years is an acceptable publishing rate for you, then an undergraduate Lecturer position in the UK may be suitable for you.

@101010111100 The question mentions not doing active research. Positions in the UK described as "Lecturer" are really equivalent to "Assistant Professor" and, in Mathematics, would almost always require one to be doing active research. Teaching-only positions would be advertised and described as something like "full-time Teaching Fellowships" or similar

@YemonChoi In general, yes. But there are at least 2 people in my faculty, one Senior Lecturer and one Lecturer, who have pretty spotty publication record. E.g. one of them has one publication in 2016, one in 2014, one in 2010, etc. The other one has one publication in 2015, one in 2012, one in 2010, etc. Both of them focus mostly on teaching undergrads. If it matters, one of them works in Nano Engineering, the other one in Mathematical Foundations.

@101010111100 My guess is that these people have been working at that university for more than 10-15years already, and may have benefited from easier times in UK academia. It is possible, once appointed, if you are lucky, to shift to a role where you publish less and less; but I think anyone applying for a Lectureship on the basis that they can start off not being research active is unlikely to make the shortlist

Such positions exist, but you will have to be able to teach in the language of the country. Universities will accept a researcher to only give advanced lectures in English, but someone has to teach the basic levels, and it will be that guy.Chances of getting such a positon without a doctorate are negligible. And you don't find this at the regular universities but at smaller institutions more aimed at professional education, not academia.

Germany has "Akademischer Rat", which can be permanent or nonpermanent. Depending on the faculty, it can contain various combinations of research, teaching and administration -- permanent "Akademischer Rat" positions in the sciences often consist purely of teaching and administration, but they are rare these days.
Furthermore, the German "Fachhochschule" or "Hochschule" offers professorships which consist mainly of teaching, but they require at least 3 years of working experience in industry.

For higher education teaching positions in the UK, the role is called "teaching fellow", very often part-time and short-term.
PhD expected as there are so many candidates longing for any sort of position on the job market.
This type of position usually expects a track record of University teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and probably expects too more often than not a track record of published research, following the long-standing cliche - true or false is beyond the point: good researchers make good teachers.
The worst part of the deal is probably the part-time aspect, as teaching can easily take a full-time commitment, but higher education institutions keep careful tracking of how full-time staff split their time between admin, research and teaching activities. This in turn gets used to draw in casual teaching staff.

In France, there are several positions in universities were you are not expected to do research even if you have a PhD. This include Research Engineer (but dedicated to tutorials ou courses teaching), and PRAG position. You can even be associate Professor choose to dedicate your time to teaching in accordance with your colleagues who will do more research and less teaching. There are formal contract to authorize that.

can you provide some links or details? Are these public positions?

I am afraid it is hard to find english description in public websites but if you target french universities one by one like upmc it is possible to find descriptions. French position in educations are public on gouv.fr and you can have an exemple in umpc through the french website.

I am afraid it is hard to find english description in public websites but if you target french universities one by one like upmc it is possible to find descriptions. French position in educations are public on gouv.fr and you can have an exemple in umpc through the french website.

Not a problem I speak French and I would not expect to apply to a job in a country where I don't have some knowledge of the language. Thanks for the info.


text:
Can I publish a single page research paper?
I wanted to publish a research paper which has less relevant stuff compacted and would be more focused on important and relevant items.
Also, I have failed to find a guide to publish small compact research papers.

Some examples of small (math) papers in this Numberphile video.

I don't understand your set-up. Are you saying that you have a paper which is currently, say, 10 pages long but you would prefer to publish it as two separate papers of one and nine pages, respectively?

You can but in order to justify your work and/or place it in proper context the bibliography might extend the paper beyond one page.

1 page. This has been published as filler in the American Mathematical Monthly.

Related: https://mathoverflow.net/q/220577/6518 and https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/94236/19607

Yes, if your ideas can be expressed concisely enough. For example if you were to find a counterexample to the Beal Conjecture, then you can write two paragraphs and be done. Watson and Crick's 1953 paper describing the structure of DNA was one page long, and won the Nobel Prize. Some other examples of very short papers (admittedly, some of these are jokes) are here.

An actual example of your counterexample senario : http://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1966-72-06/S0002-9904-1966-11654-3/S0002-9904-1966-11654-3.pdf

@JonSG yes, that's mentioned in the second link.

My favorite short paper, which like Nash's in another answer is from the 1950s, is as follows:

I do have a hard time seeing how it would be published these days, but clearly very short papers have been acceptable in the past.

Time to add 'write a paper that's just an abstract' to my bucket list (and a short abstract at that).

@Buffy - well, the current accepted value from NIST is 1836.152 673 89(17), while $6 \pi ^{5}$ is 1836.118 108 71 to the same number of decimals, so the paper isn't even particularly interesting anymore!

It may be of interest to note that the current accepted value for the ratio coincides with the Battle of the Alamo if read as a year.

@Anyon - man, who thought the Alamo was that important???

The paper is cited 36 times.  That's a quite impressive (nb words)/(nb citations) ratio :).

@BasJansen I think short abstract is a possible item in itself for your bucket list. Though I suppose you won't beat "Abstract: No." (which I recall being the abstract of some paper with a question as title)

@HagenvonEitzen Honorary mention: this one

It is entirely up to the journal or conference.
Most venues have page limits but I have never heard of a minimum. I've seen some really short papers in math journals. Submit it to a venue that you think it would fit in!

Agree. The OP would likely get useful feedback from the review and may, then, need to fill out the ideas more. Complete is in the eye of the beholder.

Quite a few math journals do have lower limits, but typically only when there is another journal which is "Journal X, but for shorter papers".

This will often depend on the journal in question. In my field, "Brief Reports" and "Letters" are often quite short, and sometimes less than a single page, highlighting a particular case, a minor point of interest, etc.

A paper should say a little bit about the significance of the result and prior research. In mathematics, the definitions need to be quoted or given. Doing that in one page, along with the result, could be tricky.
But it is definitely possible.


text:
Is an invitation to 'chat' about a potential PhD position actually an interview? What am I to expect?
I've been invited for a chat for a potential PhD position by a professor I'm interested in working with. He also wants me to give a short presentation on some experiments I've done in the past that I'm proud of. What am I supposed to expect from this? Is it going to be a real interview? My master's dissertation has essentially been on a similar field of study. Am I supposed to explain everything from the basics in the presentation or just talk about the experiments that he asked for and assume the professor knows/understands stuff? What am I going to be judged on? What are the right questions for me to ask?

I would say it is an interview.  I would use it to judge your English, technical background and your character... and try to assess whether you'll be successful in my research areas.

Thank you so much, I will definitely keep those things in my head during the call, thanks again :)

It might also be that the "presentation" is not a real presentation, but he just wants you to prepare some slides as a guide for the discussion (especially if this is done online, and it is one on one).  In that case, it can't hurt to have a few more slides and ask him to tell you if you should go faster/slower.

When you're talking with people who can impact your career, it's always an interview.

You've put the most irrelevant of your questions into the title.

If I were the professor, I'd prefer to chat with you, rather than do some formal thing. If I'm looking for a student, I want to put them in the least stressful situation possible, because I'm more interested in him/her when they are at their best. In my lab, I don't like useless stress. Creativity manifests itself in stressful situations, but the coolest stuff happens when people aren't afraid and are driven by the passion for exploration. There is enough time in a PhD life to be put on the spot, and you can be trained for that to a great extent.
Slides are a great aid, and will be helpful in explaining your research. There is probably a lot of stuff a prospective PhD candidate doesn't know about and is unsure of, and a formal interview is great at revealing it, but is not so great at revealing what the candidate does know.
I remember my best student, how nervous was when we met first. I think I underestimated him then because he simply couldn't talk about his research work freely. Two years later I understood how good he really was, and three years later, had his own publications. Now he is better than I ever was.
I also want to add that the "chat" might mean that is up to you if you feel comfortable giving a talk in front of more people than the potential advisor.

Yes, this is an interview. Or at least a part of an interview - depending on your location, there may be a more formal one later. As a rule of thumb, both for academia and industry, whenever you meet with a prospective employer, be it for a coffee or lunch, a "chat" or something else, it is part of the interview.
As for the chat itself. If he asked you to give a short presentation, you should prepare to give a rather thorough one; ie. be prepared to explain basic stuff as well. If you have no idea about the format (time, place, equipment, audience (eg. is it just him?)), ask him. In my field it would be common to prepare some slides for such a presentation, but for others you would do without. It is always nice to know roughly how long time you have when preparing. Important: If the prof. says that you have, say, 20 minutes, then prepare to stick to that.
You can ask about details of the research, what is expected of PhD students wrt. teaching, possibilities for traveling and other things you are curious about.

Thank you so much! This is incredibly helpful.

Solid answer!!!

Good answer. To be clear, everything is always an interview: if doing it poorly would mess up the opportunity, it is an interview (or at least, indistinguishable from one).

The informal chat was the only interview I had for my PhD too.  It can be much more about exploring ideas than a formal interview would suggest.  One tip, if possible, take a printed copy of your slides.  It may turn out to be a meeting away from a PC (even outdoors at the moment, preferred at my uni for face-to-face meetings due to COVID) but you may still want to refer to figures.  And yes, prepare thorough material, but you might need to skip to the details pretty quickly - your preparation should be versatile

@Tiercelet "everything is always an interview" -- I think the uncertainty is more in the other direction -- would doing well result in materially advancing the opportunity, i.e., is the other party both capable of hiring OP and seriously considering doing so? In that sense, not everything is an interview. It is rational to put more time and effort into a meeting that is one. How much formality the other side puts forward is a sign of their interest/commitment.

Yes this is very much an interview, although you might find it less formal than some because in many ways a PhD supervisor really wants to know whether the two of you can work effectively together.
Take it seriously, be friendly and professional - don't try to do everything in the presentation (concise and clever, not over-burdened with detail or obscure). Make an impression of enthusiasm and willingness to throw yourself into the project, even if you don't quite know where it will go. But show that you've thought at least about potential timelines and plans.

If it was just a chat, I would say it's more like a get to know you. He would want to see how you present yourself, make sure you aren't crazy, not an arrogant person, etc. But because he wants to see you present some of your work, I would absolutely treat it like an interview.
If I was him, I would say "Chat" just to keep things informal, casual, and keep the pressure off both you and him. There's lots of reasons he might not want to start a formal process like an official interview, but sounds like you are in a good position. I wouldn't over dress, but look nice. Create a PowerPoint with 4 or 5 slides for each experiment you want to talk about. Prepare for the normal interview questions, and STAR questions.

What are "STAR questions"? I am not familiar with this abbreviation

Situation, Task, Action, Result => STAR, basically show how you use your skills with real work-life examples.

Exactly what LLRS said. A lot of these STAR questions are along the lines of "Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a coworker". Or "Tell me about a project you led". And you'd outline the Situation, describe the specific task at hand. How you handled it (Action), and how it turned out (Result).


text:
Excellence as an undergrad Econ major
What defines excellence as an undergrad econ major?
I was talking to a few friends in CS and they seem to be very clear on excellence for them - straight As, widely used/well built programs, and a solid understanding of the math behind CS/algos (for interviews). However, I noticed that I am unclear about what excellence as an Econ major is.
Getting straight As is obvious, but I can't think of much more beyond that (perhaps a good senior thesis?). Yet, many people have straight As (or almost straight As) and asking for a groundbreaking paper as a senior thesis seems to be a bit much. Thus, how would I differentiate excellent undergrad econ achievement from merely good undergrad econ achievement?

Out of curiosity, how does one measure "widely used/well built programs"?

@NelsonGon Widely downloaded is perhaps an indicator of widely used. Well-built can surely be evaluated by any professional, just like a carpenter can evaluate furniture.

@NelsonGon user2768 is right but there are also some crossovers (ex. forking a repo - probably useful and well enough built)

Excellence demands outstanding performance, topping the class. Mastery of the subject is required. Best marks are likely, but not necessary; good marks suffice. Outstanding performance goes beyond marks. For example, a broad understanding of a discipline's application to the world, being able to apply knowledge to real problems, a thesis fit for publication (i.e., advancing domain knowledge). A good student will achieve good marks, perhaps the best marks; an excellent student will achieve something beyond marks, such as the examples listed.

So beyond top marks and understanding the material, the only thing to set apart excellent from good is simply the thesis?

@qme91143yuoia I gave three examples. There are more.

I mentioned this in a previous answer, but people downvoted it and I realized it might not be as relevant as it is.  You want to gain relevant experience for success as an econ major.  This could be in the form of internships or relevant research experience.  Something that makes you stand out from the crowd.

@Daveguy +1 Excellent point, that's something that could be added to my list of examples


text:
How often do the arxiv moderators reclassify submissions?
I submitted my first paper on arxiv and my submission is currently "on hold." I'm guessing this happened because of the category I chose. In the second to last page where I chose my category, there was an automated category that was chosen for me from an arxiv machine. I chose to dismiss this recommendation and keep the one I manually put in. My question is how long will the "on hold" status take and how often does arxiv reclassify submissions? Have any of you experienced something similar to this?

I'm guessing it is "on hold" for another reason, there are many. It'll take as long as it takes. This is common.

As @user2768 points out, we can't know exactly why your article is on hold.
However, there could be several reasons: proper classification, pending moderator approval, presentation issues, copyrighted PDF, etc., to editorial concerns. Sometimes due to oversized submission. You may want to look at arXiv submission status. You can try reaching to arXiv moderators if you need to enquire about this.
As you are asking about experience with long on-hold status: Yes, I have experienced once this status for over 45 days. Note that, I didn't bother asking them either. They automatically posted it in subsequent announcement. But this was more than 2 years ago.

Was this before the arxiv category classifier was implemented (May 20, 2020) or was this after?

It's before @kdf. I would suggest: just write to the arxiv moderation, they are very prompt in replying.

The category classifier has actually been in use as a moderation tool since at least 2015.  Submissions where the classifier disagrees with the author's choice of subject are flagged for human moderation, which means they aren't announced until a moderator approves them for their category. (I was a moderator from 2007 to 2019.)

@JeffE Just a curious question; how are moderators selected by arXiv? I asked a question on this: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/154792/how-to-become-an-arxiv-moderator


text:
Is peer-reviewing lighter in ACM-SIAM proceedings?
I am having problems understanding some inequalities proved in a paper from the 2019 Proceedings of SODA (annual symposium organized by ACM and SIAM). These proceedings are very helpful and I do not want this question to be viewed as a critic to SIAM, ACM or that Symposium that I pretty much appreciate. I just want to understand if the peer-review process followed in these proceedings is comparable to the peer-review process in a classical research journal.
I have been dealing with these inequalities during some weeks now but I cannot understand them or how they are obtained because the explanation for their derivation is poorly (or not even) written in the paper. Now the paper comes from very respected authors in the field and thus I believe that the most probable thing is that I am unable to understand their correct argument. Of course, the highest probability is for the fault to be on me.
However, I really suspect that the derivation of these inequalities could not be well explained in the paper. I suppose they are right but they are used in the proof of the main theorem and the impossibility to follow them is driving me crazy as I really need to compute some estimations based on the arguments provided there.
This is why I want to know if it might be possible that the argument (not the result itself) might be wrong because maybe the peer-review in these proceedings is lighter than in a journal. In the site of the proceedings, it is written that they are peer-reviewed. But I do not know if it was like this all the times or if that changed recently. I do not mention the paper that it is driving me crazy (and making me lose a lot of time) itself in order not to put some (maybe) unjustified doubts on authors that I deeply respect.
Please, delete this question if you think that it is inappropriate. I really do not want to harm anybody with this question.

May I ask why the downvote? I would like to know how to improve the question if someone believe it can be done.

It sounds like you're under the impression that peer review removes all errors, therefore if you encounter errors / difficulties in understanding the paper then the peer review must have been lighter. If so, remember that peer review is highly random, and you could be seeing an outlier.

Reviewers for proceedings in general have much less time than reviewers for journals. This is because conferences offer a certain decision date (which in practice can be postponed by a few days), but journals at best only advertise average time-to-decision.
Also, for conference proceedings the number of rounds is limited and often only one. This means that authors can react to the comments of the reviewers only in their final version. Sometimes, there is "shepherding" (at least in some prestigious CS conferences), where the final approval of the paper is left to the shepherd, so that authors get a second look by an outsider on their paper.
I have no idea how SODA works, so these remarks only apply to CS conferences in general. A journal refereeing process by its
nature can be more intensive than that for a conference. The more mathematical the paper, the more difficult since Mathematics has a tradition of explaining only the non-obvious with the result of smaller, denser papers but the disadvantage of a bigger chance for an error to slip by. As a reviewer, I know how easy it is to forget to check details if the paper is written well. If there is time pressure, it takes dedication and excellent time management to read each paper as carefully as it should be. If a referee is not doing the job, an "emergency" reviewer might have only a couple of days.
Another difficulty of the conference system is the inability for Errata.
In your case, you should try to contact the authors about your doubts. In general, authors like it when their paper is read.

Thanks a lot for your remarks!


text:
Can I ask a specific person to leave my defence meeting?
There is a student that I helped a lot which I shouldn't.
Now I don't like her to attend my defence while she has the same supervisor as me.
Can I ask her to leave if my supervisor invited her by any chance? (I just don't like this person around me for taking credit of my ideas)

Is there any reason to believe she would actually say something during your defence ?

Note: in some countries, PhD defenses are required to be public; meaning that, while you may ask someone not to attend, you wouldn't be able to prevent them.

I had to do my thesis defence with an internal examiner that I had ''bad blood'' with and just had to get it done even though he was being rude and using it as an opportunity to attack me.  Just something you have to deal with.

Keep calm and get your defence done with. Live a 'happy' research life after!

Can I ask her to leave if my supervisor invited her by any chance?

Can you? You can.
Should you? You shouldn't. Things might/would spiral down quickly.
Your defense is your (next) most important moment after all these years. Why ruin it or get it messy with your supervisor at a critical moment?

In the German universities I know these events are open to the all university members and you can't exclude anybody - not even the chair of the committee would be allowed to do that (unless any misconduct happens during the event…).

@Dirk: Are you sure?  At least here in Sweden, the presumption of openness is strong, but not so strong as to override all other considerations.  If, say, person X had an acknowledged history of harassing the candidate, I would expect the university to be willing to exclude person X.

If there such a history of harassment exist then the university may ban somebody using "Hausverbot". I don't know who would have authority to ban somebody for just one specific event beforehand, but in case something happens during the event, the head of the committee could execute Hausrecht to force somebody to leave.

If the supervisor invited her, I'd suggest you not ask. It could get very awkward. Taking credit for your ideas is a different matter, but the defense is not the time to deal with it.
You don't want the supervisor upset with you at that moment especially.

Depending on what exactly you mean by "invited", there may be a way around this through scheduling.
When I was planning my defense, there was a professor I really wanted to not be there. It wasn't for the same reason as you're stating, but there was a dynamic I really wanted to avoid during the big event.
So I scheduled my defense during one of that professor's classes. I knew that he could not attend my defense if he was teaching in the classroom on the next floor up at the same time.
If you're in control of scheduling, then you can pick a time you know will not be accommodating for the person in question. At my school, scheduling was a hard enough of a problem that nobody really expected that a given defense would allow every single member of the faculty to attend.

We know only your half of the story. If we would listen to their side of the story, it would be probably someone feeling their contributions undervalued, or even that you stole their ideas and that you hide acknowledging her contributions.
So the hard facts are simply two:

you are defending your thesis with some ideas inside (which are yours, until someone spread doubts about it);
you spent many hours with this student (and even if you did not want or realize, surely you spoke also about the ideas that you developed and wrote in your thesis).

It is your defense, but if possible future development of this relation are really worriyng you ... do not be defensive.

Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack

Your defense is the best moment to publicly clarify your relation with this student, you can say that along the past months/years you enjoyed[1] spending many hours supporting her work and supporting her was extremely helpful to the development of your ideas.
Leave it at that.
[1] otherwise, why would you be so resentful that you spent so much time with them?

"    Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack" someone had to

I think doing this would likely make you come off as extremely petty and insecure.

@BryanKrauseisonstrike consistently with the question, I would never tell someone to behave differently than they are.

@ChrisH always a pleasure when someone get the reference :D

@Bryan Assuming that the statement is representative of the actual events, I don’t see how it could possibly make you look petty or insecure to mention you’ve spent time with another student supporting their work, which in turn was helpful to developing your own ideas.

@JanusBahsJacquet There seems to be some dispute over that, and given the tone of OPs post I wouldn't trust it to come out that way.

The first half of this answer is excellent straight talk.  The second half seems to me (like @BryanKrauseisonstrike says) terrible advice, especially in light of the first half.


text:
using size for font icon list symbol?
I'm using these two packages
\usepackage{graphicx,pifont}% http://ctan.org/pkg/{graphicx,pifont}
\let\oldding\ding% Store old \ding in \oldding
\renewcommand{\ding}[2][1]{\scalebox{#1}{\oldding{#2}}}% Scale \oldding via optional argument

this line works well
\ding[0.5]{111}

However when I use in list items it breaks the code and I get an error
\begin{itemize}[label=\ding[0.5]{111}]
...
\end{itemize}

I’m voting to close this question because it belongs to the TEX SE

Please don't post code fragments. Always make a [mre].

sorry my badddd

I hope I didn't hurt the community hehe

Wrap your command in {...}  if you want to use it inside of an optional argument:
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx,pifont}% http://ctan.org/pkg/{graphicx,pifont}
\let\oldding\ding% Store old \ding in \oldding
\renewcommand{\ding}[2][1]{\scalebox{#1}{\oldding{#2}}}% Scale \oldding via optional argument

\usepackage{enumitem}

\begin{document}

\ding[0.5]{111}

\begin{itemize}[label={\ding[0.5]{111}}]
\item ttt
\end{itemize}

\end{document}