text:
Is it true that a full Ph.D. is a disadvantage for technical positions in the private sector?
If you do work that requires a technical skillset (ex. programming, data science) and plan to work in the private sector. Is completing the Ph.D. degree a disadvantage in terms of what opportunities are available to you? Or, do the additional publications, work completed, and everything else that goes into a dissertation count as valuable experience? Is the degree viewed as valuable in and of itself? Additionally, is any increase in pay or job stability enough to offset the opportunity cost of making a graduate student stipend for 2-3 years?
I've wound up in a situation where I'll probably be financially unable to take a postdoc position upon graduation, and will likely be forced into the private sector anyway (which functionally closes me off from an academic career-track), so am considering the option of leaving my program after advancing to candidacy.

This question is probably better suited for the Workplace SE, and, coincidentally, there is already a question there which seems relevant to what you are asking: Can a Ph.D. have a negative impact on your career in the software industry?

And, while I'm at it, another related question found on this SE: What are the potential pitfalls of having a PhD?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it belongs on workplace.se

@MadJack As a scientist working in the private sector, I strongly disagree with your assessment.  There are a broad range of private organizations and technical positions out there, and a surprisingly large amount of private-sector work is quite on-topic for this site.

@jakebeal That's fair, but it seems like questions like this have been handled in inconsistent ways in the past. Just looking for some consistency on this front.

@MadJack Probably worth opening a discussion on meta about it...

@RoboKaren If a question is on-topic here, being a better fit for another site is not a good reason for closure / migration.

As you get more qualified, you become eligible for "higher" jobs. As you do, you consequently become less eligible for lower jobs. It's called being overqualified, and yes, it's common for a PhD to be overqualified for private positions.

While I am not very familiar with workplace.se, I find it hard to believe it could be a much better fit for the question.  To be qualified to answer the question, it seems to me that one needs to have: (i) a PhD and (ii) experience with a fair number of students at various levels of academia and their career trajectories.  So in particular one has to have substantial (probably post-PhD) academic experience...which make this site a good fit.

Or more simply: it seems very unhealthy to me to say "Don't ask us whether you should get a PhD: we're academics."  I think that's exactly the sort of question we should be more than happy to answer, in particular from a practical or career standpoint.

Depends on the role and on the employer. Google for example is much more PhD-heavy than many other tech firms.

What's “candidacy”? If you have already spent several years on a PhD, abandoning now might look even worse than getting a PhD, whatever downside this may have in your field/location.

I believe this question is too broad.  The answer will depend on the field and the country and may also vary significantly within a field and country.   One could probably write an entire book on the subject.  Also, large parts of it are subjective ("is viewed as" - subjective; "increase in pay or job stability enough to offset the opportunity cost..." - subjective, it will depend on how you value those things relative to each other).

As someone with a PhD who did a regular postdoc and now works in the private sector, the answer is definitely probably not...maybe. As with all things, it depends on the job and your field.
I have a PhD in Computer Science. I did research for a couple of years as a postdoc. I enjoyed my postdoc, but a great offer came along for a private sector job. In my field (high performance computing), having a PhD is valuable whether you're in research or industry. In fact, we hire fresh PhDs as well as folks with experience.
That being said, if you were to go to a startup in NYC or Silicon Valley with a PhD in CS, I'd imagine that while you would probably have as much chance of getting the job as anyone else, you probably won't be getting what you might call "reimbursed" for your opportunity costs. The big companies will have research arms where they know what to do with PhDs while the small ones won't.
It all depends on what you want to do. If you want to get into research (or get back into it eventually), having a PhD will be a must, even if you take a few years in industry to shore up financially. However, if you don't get your PhD now, the chances of you finishing it later much smaller. There are plenty of people who do it, but if you look around your group right now, you can probably tell me how many you see.
The exception is getting a job where your employer will essentially pay for your PhD (not like an RA position where you make beans). There are some companies or research labs that will allow you to work on your PhD while you work for them, often using a project with your company as a part of your thesis if your interests align with those of your employers. You might be able to find a position like that.

+1, although I'd like to point out that doing a Ph.D. "besides" a regular job is not for the faint of heart.

@StephanKolassa definitely true. I've known a few people that have don't this and we basically didn't see them for a few years.

I would like to add that this also highly depends on the country you work. In France, it's usually better to have 2-3 years work experience than a PhD, unless the company is looking for an expert. In Germany, having a PhD is more appreciated. I think the situation in the US is between the two.

A Ph.D. means that you are suitable for different work than if you did not have a Ph.D.
Generally, it means you are well suited for jobs requiring initiative and creativity, and poorly suited for jobs that require reliable and precise performance.  This is because a Ph.D. program trains you to want to take things apart, understand how they work, and improve the situation.  This is good for creative jobs and bad for jobs where you just need to follow a procedure reliably.
This is great for some types of industrial work, such as R&D, product development, consulting, etc.  It is terrible for others, like being a line programmer working on little modules in a gigantic code base.  Smart employers know this and hire accordingly.

My employers are under the impression that PhDs make good senior programmers with code review responsibilities. (On the other hand, the team leader doesn't even have an associates degree.)

I think that's an over general description of a PhD. I'd say it trains you to do research, and possibly you may pick up ancillary skills supporting research. (many other degrees train you to "take things apart")

My experience was that a PhD made it more difficult to get a job because I was frequently told that I was "over-qualified". My PhD was in pure mathematics (in particular, no programming was involved.) However, I have friends who did PhDs in CS and Electricial Engineering, and their PhDs helped them to get jobs. So I think that if you are working in a more practical field, it probably helps but if you are doing the kind of PhD that only really lends itself to an academic career, e.g. humanities, it can hurt.
One thing I tried to do was re-train as an actuary, but I think that once you have a PhD, you are no longer seen as a blank slate and people do not think you are capable of working in a relatively menial role. Like the mouse in the fable, you are perceived as having cut down your options and doomed yourself to follow the chosen course.
For the work experience question, none of the employers to whom I applied viewed my PhD studies as work experience. Again, this might be different in a technical field like CS or Biology or Engineering, in which you might have produced something other than a thesis during your PhD, or been involved in commercial activity of some kind.

I work as a consultant in industrial automation, so I've had a chance to see a fairly wide range of different corporate cultures.  Among those with PhDs on staff, I've noticed a tendency for the PhDs and BS/MS engineers to group up into separate political factions.  Amongst the engineers, there is a stereotyped perception that the PhDs (especially fresh PhDs) are oblivious to the practical considerations of building a product.
Many companies talk about wanting to encourage innovation in principle but, in practice, they generally favor lower-risk tried-and-true methods that complete the projects as efficiently as possible, in order to maximize profits.  Research is inherently a high-risk endeavor; it appears as a red line item on the company ledger, with a return on investment that is tricky to quantify.
Since PhDs are trained as researchers, I suspect they will often approach projects from a research perspective, in order to study the problem and find good solutions.  Engineers are more likely to dig through an existing box of solutions, find the ones that are 'good enough' for the requirements, then design/implement accordingly.  There is some crossover of course, especially in the companies with healthy cross-culture dynamics, but this 'gap' does create some challenges.
If I were a hiring manager for a non-research position, I'd generally have a few concerns when interviewing a PhD candidate.  a) How much more will they want to be paid?  b) How much work experience do they have outside research?  c) Will they want to stay in this position or will they move on as soon as a research opportunity pops up?
Basically, if applying for an entry-level technical position in industry, expect to face the same biases as any other 'green' candidate looking for their first job, but amplified by the perception that a PhD is going to want to earn more and possibly won't stick around.  If applying for a research position, you'll likely have fewer hurdles to overcome, but I don't have much experience in this area to say for certain.

I worked as a quant in a bank for a while. It is very hard even to get an interview if you don't have a PhD in a quantitative subject. The worst signal on a cv was an unfinished PhD since it marked you as a non-completer finisher. The PhD in this case definitely increased future salary prospects.

I don't have a PhD but I employ PhDs and work with PhDs.
As others have said, it does depend somewhat on the field and the company. However, in my experience, if you have a PhD in a reasonably related field to the one that you'r applying for then it will probably be a positive if you've received your PhD.
The last bit is important. Unless you are very lucky (or very forward thinking) it is likely to be the skills you acquired/demonstrated to get the PhD (independence, commitment, communication etc) that will be seen to be valuable rather than the papers/conferences/citations etc themselves.
If you don't complete the degree then it'll be an uphill battle to demonstrate that you acquired those skills. Not impossible but you may well struggle to get in front of someone with a sympathetic ear.
On a related note to the last point, (probably not helpful to you and probably not popular with some readers) but the next best thing to completing the PhD will be to drop out early. Saying that you started a PhD but it wasn't for you shows maturity. Hanging on for a few years is distinctly more problematic in my experience.

I run a career website - Tapwage.com.
It really depends on the type of job you are looking for. The vast majority of software / technology jobs don't require PhDs and look for education / experience geared towards specific tools and skills. You will be eligible for those types of positions, but you will have to be prepared to address the question on whether you are "over-qualified" and if you your PhD skills are transferable.
That said, we are increasingly seeing a greater demand for PhD candidates in computer science / electrical engineering across the board as companies look to tackle more complex engineering problems like data science and analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Three key categories of industries that are specifically looking for Phd's that you should consider in a job search:

Finance companies looking to tackle AI / machine learning and big data. These roles can be really interesting and very financially remunerative (especially relative to academia). A sample of such jobs is collected here:
http://tapwage.com/channel/artificial-intelligence-meets-financial-intelligence
Niche areas like space technology (spaceX, Virgin Galactic, NASA), automotive tech (Telsa) that are bulking up on technology Phds across the board. A sampling of jobs here:
http://tapwage.com/channel/space-doctor
Startups looking for PhDs - the startup environment is vibrant and as companies are looking to tackle complex solutions, PhDs are in meaningful demand. These may not pay as much cash compensation as corporate jobs, they do pay more competitively than post-doctoral positions and the equity could be valuable if you have conviction in the idea and the prospects
Large technology companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter are all increasingly seeking PhD candidates in areas ranging from natural language processing to digital signal processing.

We feature these types of roles extensively and if need specific guidance, feel free to reach out.

In addition to the other answers, the country also plays a key role.
If you look at the board of a German company, you will notice that the academic titles are prominent. Example: Siemens. When you get emails from Germany, the signatures often include basic titles (Dipl.-Ing). Another example is BMW.
Same goes for Poland (mgr. inz - the engineering title is often added, particularly for large and older companies)
In contrast, when looking at the board of Cisco you do not see tiles (even though P. Warrior has a PhD for instance). Or Oracle.
Sure, these are only few examples but there are more.
In my initial answer I mentioned France, where it does not hurt to have a PhD, particularly if it is awarded via a Grande Ecole (~Ivy League).
From experience, you will have in Europe and Asia, if not an advantage, a head start if you have a PhD.

I don't think that's generally true in France.

@Relaxed: I expanded my answer - there are no hard rules for France but this is not something which is likely to hurt you here.

@WoJ Well, that has not been my experience. It would be more accurate to say that coming from a grande école is very valuable, whether you get a PhD or not. If you do, that's fine, it might be marginally helpful to get a R&D job in a handful of large French companies but if you don't you are still a graduate from a grande école. As someone who holds a PhD (from a top-rated Dutch university), speaks French and German fluently and has applied for jobs in both countries, I can tell you that they are worlds apart in this respect.

Incidentally, the US might be less title-oriented than Germany but I have had interviews with some very well-known US companies as a fresh PhD whereas French companies have shown basically no interest in my profile. If you have a PhD from a grande école yourself or have colleagues/acquaintances who have, I suspect you might be underestimating how much the grande école aspect dominates French hiring practices. University graduates are considered second-tier applicants and a PhD from a university is just more of the same.

Certainly it depends on the field and the location.  Comp Sci, Sciences, Engineering, Statistics and similar PhDs are in outrageous demand in Silicon Valley.  In my experience in e.g. Washington DC you'll run into some latent reverse snobbery.  Maybe other places as well.
The opportunity cost, however is probably the bigger consideration.  You'd make somewhat more in a few years hence with a PhD, but if you're a top performer and just get to work now it's unlikely the credential will make a huge difference in terms of dollars.
Can you do both?  Apply for jobs now and see what comes of it while plugging away at school.

I do contract work on the side, but I'm only allowed to work 10 hours a week outside of my current position, so I'm limited in how far I can go with it. And, once I start applying for positions, I'll need to bring my adviser into the loop for recommendations, so I don't want to start the process without being a little more sure about what I want for myself

you should talk to your advisor now.  s/he should be a mentor in this as well.

I am obtaining a second graduate degree, and yes, over qualification is a major problem for technical careers..the hiring person may in fact have less education than you, and this scares people from hiring you...I would avoid a PhD if you want a working career in a technical field..only get a PhD if you want to teach at university/do research.

-1 This depends entirely on what sort of technical work you are trying to do.

PhD is worthless. Employers will not pay for it. Very very very few recs are written exclusively for PhD's and if they are, they are  either in education, meaning you'll be a teacher, or you'll be forced into management. Just because you have a PhD doesn't mean you can manage. I've been in the technical field my entire career and I make the same if not more than my PhD counterparts.
I've seen some employers flipping through resumes and throwing out PhDs because they feel if they hired the PhD the person would expect more money than their counterparts and become unhappy when they don't and then ultimately leave.
An employer looks more for experience. Can this guy make these two machines talk to each other? Can this guy get this thing coded in a month? If this guy writes code will it be good code and modular or am I going to be rewriting it in two years. Can this guy write code that someone else will understand? In case he leaves because he's pissed I won't pay him 15-20K more than his counterparts like he was expecting when he got his paper. Take the paper, burn it.

Welcome to Academia.SE!  Can you please try to turn this less into a rant and more into a reasoned presentation of your case?


text:
Statistics for how many different authors post on categories of the arXiv
I would like to know how many different authors have posted something on the different categories of the arXiv. Are there any statistics somewhere about this?
To be precise what I'm looking for:

Astrophysics: 2014 - 92348 authors
High Energy Physics - Lattice: 2014 - 45121 authors

If there are no such statistics, a pointer to a search engine that provides such data for different scientific fields would be a great help.

The arXiv supports the Open Archive Initiative http://arxiv.org/help/oa/index so in principle this is just a programming question. (Request all articles in Astrophysics, extract the author names, sort, kill duplicates, count.)

Also, it appears that the arXiv analytics website (note: not officially affiliated with arXiv) may perform visualizations of author contributions. But I haven't been able to get it to work in my browser yet, and as far as I can tell it may not have been implemented.

@WillieWong Can you turn your first comment into an answer, so that I can vote it up?

@jakebeal: done.

@WillieWong ... and done!

(Now an answer by request.)
The arXiv supports the Open Archive Initiative so in principle this is just a programming question for

Requesting and downloading the data for all articles in Astrophysics and dumping it locally in a usable format.
Extracting the author information.
Culling the duplicates.
Counting the resulting entries.

If the first step is done right (by putting the information in a suitable database format) the other three will be more-or-less trivial.
Note however that name duplication would be a problem that is hard to solve, especially when some articles are listed with a "last name, first initials" format. Similarly authors who use more than one version of their names on arXiv (I'm guilty of that myself) can cause some inaccuracies to the computation outlined above. The mathematicians solve this "manually" by employing 13 people and making this part of their jobs, and I don't know if there can be a good programmatic solution until at least wide adoption of some sort of author ID (like ORCid) system.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How to substantiate the claim that something is not known?
I am writing a master's thesis (in Number Theory) and there are multiple places where I need to claim that something is not yet known. Since I am not an expert (and even if I were) I would like to reference some more authoritative source than myself or, say, Wikipedia.
For example, consider the following statement:

In 1980 Schmidt proved that [some property holds]. No other necessary or sufficient conditions are currently known, though.

For the first sentence I can cite Schmidt's original paper, but how can I substantiate the second claim?

Negative proofs are hard...

Is your master's thesis supposed to be original research? If so, then are you not asserting that the thesis itself is (believed to be be) unknown but knowable.

@emory Yes, my master's thesis is supposed to be original research, but I don't understand your point. In the case of the example statement, my result has some nice consequences for numbers with some property P, and Schmidt proved that P holds for a certain class of numbers. Some sufficient conditions for P, say, could have allowed me to generalise those consequences, but alas...

I think you are overthinking this.  You are the expert.  "No other necessary or sufficient conditions are known." is sufficient.  If you prefer:  "We do not know of any other necessary or sufficient conditions."

One way, especially since you are not an expert of the field (and even if you were), is to not make such an absolute claim:

To the best of our knowledge, no other necessary or sufficient
  conditions are currently known.

At least in my field (robotics), this is quite common and I think an appreciated amount of humility.

+1. You'll be surprised at how often reviewers (who, after all, should be experts in the field) do know such things and point you to sources you and your advisor never found. If you were too certain in your formulations, this can be rather humiliating.

In addition to not making absolute claims, it is also helpful when you can cite a recent survey or tutorial paper where it is mentioned as open problem.

It's not uncommon in Number Theory either.

I agree fully with this.  I am -- like the commenter directly above me --  a professional number theorist and write lines like the highlighted one in my papers rather often.  If it works for me, it should be appropriate for a master's thesis as well.  (I might take out the word "currently": what else could you mean: that you have a proof that it is impossible to know?  If so, say so!)

when would it be appropriate to write:  "to the best of our knowledge, some other necessary or sufficient conditions are currently known."?  can we reduce the word count?

@emory If I understand correctly, you want to state that something is known? The best would be to have a citation in that case. I have seen "It is well known that [...]" but personally I don't like this very much. It leaves readers who encounter this for the first time lost, without references. Imho, if it is really well-known enough that no citation is needed, then it shouldn't be necessary to point out that it is well known. Otherwise, put in a citation, even a textbook.

@lifesayko no, I feel your construction is too verbose.  I prefer "We do not know of any other necessary or sufficient conditions."  If you do not think they mean the same thing, then who or what is the subject of "no other necessary or sufficient conditions are currently known"

@emory, oh sure that seems like the same thing. The one I placed is simply what I've encountered most often and is I think a quite standard way of writing it, but yes, any other way of writing the same thing should be fine.
Small note: in your first comment, "[...], some other necessary or sufficient conditions are currently known." means that there ARE known conditions. Which is what confused me : ).

Lifesayko's answer is good, but it should not be the first way to address the problem.
Scientists tend to be aware of the gaps in their knowledge. So they write about them. You will find such sources:

In review articles and metastudies. They say things like "We reviewed 8 cross sectional studies on the link between zugs and wugs. We found that the presence of zugs is a strong predictor of the subsequent appearance of wugs, but the exact mechanism behind this is not yet known".
In the "future work" sections of articles in the area. For example, "In this paper, we found that, after 3 months of delay, we can measure a correlation of 0.8 between the presence of zugs and wugs. A next step would be to establish the mechanism by which zugs contribute to the appearance of wugs".
In other articles which work are based on the same theory as your work. "We are exploring the link between zugs and wods. In the past, zugs have been linked to wugs, although the exact mechanism is unknown".
In articles which outline the challenges in a certain discipline for the coming years. Usually published by established professors in major journals, they explain what is missing in their area. "One of the major unresolved problems in zug research is how they cause the appearance of wugs".

Of course, for all three of them, it is important that your source is fairly recent, because somebody can well have found out the missing information in the meantime. A defensive formulation is never out of place. But it does not absolve you from looking for sources first.

Yes, one should search the literature, but the amount of things not known is much greater than the number of things we have recorded we don't know.  In this case, what I would recommend is using MathSciNet and Google Scholar to check the papers that cite Schmidt's paper, and see if they prove anything related.

@Kimball generally you are right. But the most interesting information we don't know (the one many people need) is frequently recorded as not being known. There is a reason why I started my suggestion list with reviews: they are a very good way for somebody to get a feel for an area, and will point out the most important gaps in current knowledge, beside containing more useful information. Of course, a student is not expected to read dozens of papers in the area only to find a "we don't know that" citation, but looking in the most likely places is a good strategy.

This is also a great answer to a related question: "How do I identify knowledge gaps and research topics?"

You write about "Scientists" but the question concerns mathematics.  There are cultural similarities and cultural differences between mathematics and the sciences (in particular, with apologies to the NSF, mathematics is not a science). In my experience, "calling attention to what is not known" is something that scientists do significantly better than mathematicians.  At the beginning of my career, most of my papers ended with a section on open questions and/or further work.  Frequent negative comments by referees clued me in to the fact that this is actually rarely done....

....In general the discipline of mathematics tends to view such text as "wasted space".  It is much more common to answer any question about extensions to your work by a vague reference to "work in progress".  If you are lucky enough to find a "This is not known pronouncement" in the literature, then you should cite it to justify your case but there is a bit of a paradox here: my saying "This is not known"  in year X+Y has to be a stronger statement than "This is not known" appearing in the literature in year X, unless further evidence is presented (which you could also present)....

...Nevertheless I agree that "To the best of my knowledge" can cover up a situation in which you made no effort at all to check what is known, and I certainly agree that one should make such an effort.  This is a tough one!

@Chris White: No good reason that I can think of.  In that you have undergraduate degrees in both mathematics and physics, you would know at least as well as I, I would think.

...The term "science" is not only not a precise term but is stretched so widely as to become almost meaningless: when I am in a cruel mood I remind social scientists that there is something called Christian science.  Anyway, as I  should have said above, a binary answer to the question "Is mathematics a science?" is not very useful or even meaningful; the point is that there are deep similarities between math and the natural sciences but also significant differences, to the extent that lumping them together will cause one to make "cultural mistakes", as sometimes happens on this site.

@ChrisWhite: I see two reasons you caught more flak than Pete did: 1) your comment was in the middle of an already-contentious debate, and 2) your comment claimed to speak for others and Pete's did not.  That said, I agree with you both.

What I usually do when I'm not sure, despite having put in a lot of effort trying to get to the bottom of the issue by doing extensive literature research, is to contact one or more experts in the field. You can just send an email to one or more leading experts in the field, likely they will be able to clear up the issue. Also they may point to some sources that you may have missed. You can then cite those sources, also you can cite the information in the communication as a "private communication" and, of course, in the acknowledgements, you should thank them for assistance.

The answers that say there's no call to make absolute statements like that are very good, but its still embarrassing to make a temporizing statement like "to the best of my knowledge", and then have a referee show you that your knowledge isn't good enough.
Your ability to assert that something is not known and be believed is related to your credibility.  Master the literature, or work with a co-author or advisor that has, and cite it wisely and thoroughly.  Make referees feel like you've done your due diligence.

I can't speak specifically to the academic angle, as others already have, but language might help here - namely, E-Prime (simply implemented as the removal of all forms of the verb "to be").
Restating your problem sentence:

No other necessary or sufficient conditions are currently known,
  though.

...without the "are" requires an actor; I presume you would use yourself and perhaps other contributors.  Thus you could say:

The authors know of no other necessary or sufficient conditions.

This seems literally true and equivalent (less the implied but non-existent surety) to the original, but it thus has lost any force.  To provide some content to the statement, perhaps then reference the resources used, date, and search terms, as in:

The authors found no other necessary or sufficient conditions. (JSTOR, 23 May, 2015: 'search term'; EBSCO discovery service, 23 May, 2015: 'search term')

If you think that a master's thesis could have more than one author, then I think you are too far away from "the academic angle" to be answering questions like this one.

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


text:
Trailing spouse postdoc
My husband has accepted a postdoc position in a city in Australia with two great institutions where I think I'll have a good shot at securing a postdoc for myself. I have some great connections to researchers there through my advisor and committee members. I'm now doing the groundwork to get my foot in the door as I've not met any of these researchers in person.
How/should I get around mentioning that I'm moving there as a trailing spouse? It will be pretty obvious, correct? Why else would I be moving there? Should I just be upfront about it?

Funny, my wife accepted a postdoc in Sydney, Australia recently.  My approach has been to be very upfront about being a trailing spouse, including boasting about how prestigious my wife's position is.  We are not moving for quite a while so I cannot say how well it is working yet.

I'm in a similar situation (wife accepted a tenure-track job and I'm moving with her), the most significant difference being that I personally know some people in the destination university. I've been very upfront about my two-body problem and the experience has been very positive so far ---i.e., they revealed that they anticipate to open a tenure-track job in my area of expertise a couple of years from now, and they are happy to help me apply for federal funding to bridge the gap between now and then. So yes, be very honest about it.

You can even say something like, "we both thought this would be a good place to do x, so we both want to move here. My spouse has already found something". This way it's a positive decision on your part, not just...trailing.

The explanation for the move to Australia can go in a cover letter; but leave it out of your CV. - - By the way, if no postdoc materializes, that's okay, just find a department that will give you an office and a friendly, collaborative environment.

There's no point in disguising the reason for you moving to Australia. If you give some kind of prevaricating answer to the question of why you're moving, then this will look unprofessional at best. The people with whom you're going to chat about possible postdoc positions for yourself will of course know about the academic two-body problem.
The fact that there are two institutions where you might be able to find work is in your favour. Cultivate your contacts and opportunities with both institutions, at the same time. Don't be coy about the fact you're shopping around for positions.

I don't think it is relevant to mention why you are in Australia nor do I think people would automatically assume you are a trailing spouse. Unless I am misinterpreting 'great institutions' then the city you have moved to is high on the list of places many people want to live, so there could be plenty of reasons why you are looking for a job there. Are you an Australian or a permanent resident? If not, the Endeavour Scholarships are open right now and provide a postdoc fellowship for 4-6 months. It's usually a lot easier to contact a prospective supervisor by proposing that you apply for funding to work in their lab. Even if the application doesn't work out, applying for a fellowship could indirectly lead to a postdoc if the lab has spare money and is sufficiently impressed by your ideas.

I'm coming from the US as a US citizen. So, I'm accustomed to not discussing marital/family status when it comes to applying for jobs. I can envision how a potential postdoc advisor might see my marriage as a complication/benefit. From a professional standpoint, I normally wouldn't mention it at all. But then I'm leaving the researcher to wonder why I'm picking up and moving to another continent and I wouldn't be able to mention that my moving and visa expenses are already covered.

I'm not sure how much luck you'll have contacting researchers and hoping they have money available, especially considering that most grants (e.g. ARC Discovery Grants) start in January and so will have already hired postdocs, but I suppose it can't hurt. One strategy could be to look at the ARC (more general research)/NHMRC (medical)/industry grant outcomes to see whether your contacts have recent funding. Depending on your field, it can be very tough to get a postdoc if you are limited to a single city (even if Melbourne or Sydney).

As I said in my answer, I'd try to submit an Endeavour fellowship to work in one of the labs. They aren't anywhere near as competitive or time-consuming to write as a fellowship like the DECRA. If you choose a lab that has current grant funding then you might find that proposing a fellowship in their lab is the 'foot in the door' you need. Also, if the lab is interested in supporting a fellowship application then I think there is absolutely no problem telling them why you are coming to Australia - I just don't see why disclosing that at the beginning is going to change anything.

Fortunately, I've got some time and I've got a list of fellowships that I'm planning to apply for. I'm happy to hear that I've been correct in assuming that it'll help me to ask for support on an application (even if I don't get it). I realize I'm severely limiting myself in my options but 'tis the nature of the two body problem. Best case scenario, I get an awesome postdoc. Worst case scenario, I engage in some unemployed kangaroo watching for a few years. Life could be worse.


text:
What is total number of PhDs globally? How many graduate each year?
I am interested in long-term dynamics of the number of PhDs, having recently received a PhD myself. So far, I have only been able to find bits and pieces, mostly pertaining to USA (see e.g. here, which says that there are roughly 40k PhDs awarded annually in the United States).
Any input is appreciated.

In this document you can find some data for Europe and Asia. In particular, it appears that [linked document, p. 47]:

In 2010 an estimated 125,000 doctoral degrees were awarded in the EU alone (out of a population of 500 million), compared to 70,000 in the US (with a population of 300 million) and 16,000 in Japan (with a population of 130 million).

Probably from the EUROSTAT portal you can find other data for Europe.


text:
Hearing back after an academic interview in the UK
I had an interview for a lecturer position at a UK Russell group University 2 days ago and haven't heard back yet. From previous experience, I am usually given a call within 24 hours of being successful in an interview. I am holding off signing an offer by another University (not a great University) and being pressured to respond. I really want the first job but feel my chances are getting lower by the day?
I'd like to hear about other experiences and whether this timeline is unrealistic? I work in the field of science, not sure this makes a difference?

Two days ago? There's been a weekend in between, perhaps people were not at work.

In your previous experiences you were pretty lucky to hear back so fast. It's quite common to have interviews spread out over different days.

Depending on the customs and practices in a particular University, it can take from one to several days before the decision is made, approved, and the first candidate is contacted. "Several days" is typically below a week, but in rare cases can be longer.
If you are not contacted within 2-3 days, you may not be the first candidate. However, there is still a slim chance that the first candidate does not accept (for whatever reason), and the offer goes to you.
If you hold another offer, it is usually the best to let both Universities know the date, when you will make the final decision, based on what you have at this date. Everyone understands that candidates are usually applying in several places simultaneously, and HRs/HoDs can be quite efficient when they must (i.e. if they are interested in hiring you), and inefficient otherwise.

Thank you @Dmitry, that's very helpful

@jen To reinforce this: I think it would be entirely reasonable to email the HoD/your contact at the university, saying "I'm holding another offer and need to give them an answer; can you tell me when I'm likely to hear your decision?"

I worked at a Russel group university and was on the hiring committee a few times. Sometimes, we would have interviewed candidates on different days (because of availability). Thus, we had to wait to see all candidates before making an offer. Then, the offer would go to the top candidate and give them some time to answer. If the answer was positive, we would inform the rest of the candidates. If the first candidate rejects, we would move to the second appointable etc. Now with covid and all, things might move slower as well (e.g., candidate/committee availability, etc.)

I applied to russel group universities, was invited to the interview, was not the first candidate, and was never informed about the decision (in one case) or informed 4+ weeks after the interview (2 cases).

@DmitrySavostyanov Yikes. That's nasty. In my university, as soon as an appointment was made, there was an automatic message to all the rest candidates. A bit impersonal, but better than nothing.

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


text:
What can I do, being on a Tenure-track position and noticing that the promised start-up package, course release and ... were just false promises?
This fall I started a tenure track position. They offered me a very good start-up package. Half of it was state money for buying equipment and the other half was for course release, research assistants, travel and etc. Also I had a promise for spouse support and that had huge impact on accepting the offer (unfortunately this one was not written!).
Now, I see that the only thing I can use is the state money which is more than enough. However, the equipment is not the only thing I need. Obviously, I need students for my research too. It's my second semester and they  have not even sent me my written contact yet. Their false promises have put me and my family in a very difficult situation.
What can I do now? What are my rights? Obviously, I am not planning to stay here. But cannot leave off without doing anything. I do not want other families go through the same situation as me! Other faculty members have almost same issues but no hope for any change.
Note: for the start-package I have an email as proof. Also, initially, the university was required to pay equal amount as state money to new faculties.

How were you hired without a written contract? What country?

I'm rather amazed that you have even gotten paid without some sort of contract...you have gotten paid sometime since you started, right?

Do you mean a position for Fall 2021 that hasn't yet started?

It's in united states and yes it's tenured track position and just recently  I was evaluated by committee members!  At the time of offer, they told me because of COVID there is delay in sending contracts. After I joined here they told me it's prepared but have a lazy HR ! Initially I just had an email from provost! mentioning the money and the fact that it is tenure track! I'm receiving  200K money for my research from state and it's only for tenure track faculty!

Before coming here I contacted some other tenured professors. They told me don't worry about contract we also got very late!

My position started Fall 2020!

It's a state university!

Yes, I got paid from the start with all the benefits like retirement, insurance, ...

I just had finished my PhD from a very good university! I didn't expected this amount of dishonesty in any university in U.S.

I have even have more to say! I applied for a fellowship. A very famous fellowship within the Universities of (my state) and I received an email from president that I have been awarded the fellowship! but no money was mentioned! This money was donated by a famous guy. I asked dean several times, I talked with senior faculties and they said this how corrupted here is! I have told all the issues to our faculty senate!

Thank you! yes I have records of emails. I need help from faculties who work at state universities! what office can I go? is there any offices within such systems for such cases? I only see faculty Councils which I am not sure is the right office to contact!

For my next year, I have TT offers from much better schools. I don't care about current contact. The only thing is that what legal options I have to sue them or even at least report within the system.

If you want legal options (which makes sense) then you should consult a lawyer.

My strong advice is that you take an offer from a better school and just do what is needed to get through the year as best you can. If the place is as bad as this then you, with little institutional power behind you, aren't going to make a difference. You will be stomped like a bug. I was once in a bad situation (perhaps not this bad) and went for the door by the shortest route possible, simply saying goodby to the insanity. It worked out fine. As in your case, I wasn't going to get anything from any other action.
In particular don't say things that might come back to negatively affect your own career. Suing them might be an option, but it requires a hard talk with a lawyer first and threatening it isn't going to get you a positive outcome.
I realize this is hard advice to take, but you have a good option and you don't want to do things that antagonize people and that will cause blow-back on yourself.
You are fortunate to have a good option. Take it. Others aren't so lucky.

Thank you very much for your kind advice. Probably that was the best that I needed to hear! Thanks

The email you got from the provost is the only contract you have until you get a new contract.

What can I do now? What are my rights?

Ask a lawyer.
If the email you got from the provost does not provide you with what you want, then you should leave the job.

Anything other than "ask a lawyer" from someone who has not seen the email and read your local law could be very wrong.

If you have a union, you could ask your union's lawyer.

I'm not a lawyer, either, but I worry that letters, as opposed to contracts, might be filled with "weasel words" that cover them. But, yes, if you contemplate legal action, the only proper course is to do it after consulting a lawyer and that consultation prior to any threats to sue.

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


text:
Should I ask for a fast response?
I got minor revisions and sent the updates by 20 September but didn't get any response yet. I asked the editor by 10 October for the status and he replied that “the paper is with the editor for the evaluation”. The status changed twice, on 24 September with the editor and 7 October with the editor too.
As I need the acceptance by 1 November, should I send another email to the editor asking him for a fast decision or will it not be allowed?

Why do you "need the acceptance" by Nov. 1?

What would happen if the timeline is not met?  Would you resubmit, withdraw, send to another journal/conference, etc.?  Generally, this won't work, but there may be exceptions.

@FerventHippo The OP may have to meet some deadlines for a scholarship or for submission of an annual report or something like this.

@ZeroTheHero I am not saying there may not be valid reasons, but the answer to the question "Should I ask for a fast response" strongly depends on it.

Yes, you can ask, but it may be in vain. They may try to accommodate your wishes but it might not be possible. Of course, a rejection is easy to do, but an acceptance needs time and feedback from possibly several people. But yes, you can let them know of your deadline and why it is important.
But, make sure you have options for the paper if they can't hit the deadline. These are probably few and won't happen in a short time in any case.

thanks for replying . but excuse me does it normal for this duration as the revisions are minor not major. does rejection be an option here after minor revisions :-(

It depends on every case as well as who is available and their schedules.

excuse me , I got change in the status with"Under Review" from 27/10 until now and i tried to message the editor of the journal with the reply "The manuscript is currently being evaluated by the reviewers and you will be notified once the decision has been rendered." Can I message the editor who sent the comments directly to inquire about the cause of this delay as i need this acceptance for phD graduation and my deadline is become closer

You can ask but basically everyone would like a fast turnaround so the odds are it will serve no purpose.  The only way to guarantee your paper is refereed in time to be accepted by a given date is to submit well before this date.
“Well before” can mean several months depending on the journal.  (Some journals actually publish average times between initial submission and acceptance, so you can gauge what “well before” actually means.)

I think with the average journals there is no way to guarantee that your paper is accepted by a certain date. Unexpected delays may happen... Submit early and hope for the best, as you say. For example, I recently had a submission peer reviewed for three months and only then did the editor decide that the topic didn't fit the journal scope - back to square one at another journal, three months wasted...

Would it make any sense to communicate what your own deadlines are?  So the person you're emailing can decide whether they have time to write a useful response before then or not, or should let you know early that they won't be able to accommodate your desired timeline?

@kricheli fixed thanks.

@PeterCordes The authors are not in contact with the reviewers, only the editors.  And the editors in turn depend on reviewers.  Trust me: manuscript management softwares now send automated email reminders to the referee and editors so people are fully aware when the process is falling behind.


text:
What is the role in Admissions of a Graduate Coordinator in a Department
What is the role of a graduate coordinator or graduate chair (I have seen faculty called both) of a department in admissions ? Do they make the final decision or have the final say in all decisions ? How much power do they have in admissions ?  This is in North America.  The graduate coordinator or graduate chair in question is a faculty member of the department.

Is the graduate coordinator a faculty member?

What country is this. It isn't a universal term.

Even within the US, this could refer to either a staff member who supports a graduate admissions committee or a faculty member who chairs a graduate admissions committee or even to a faculty member who handles initial advising for incoming graduate students.  There's not enough information here to answer the question.

I updated my post, yes they are a faculty member, this is North America and yes, they are sometimes called graduate chair or graduate coordinator.

(In the context that the person in question is a faculty member, not the support staff for that faculty person...) I have the impression that this varies considerably from department to department, and also varies depending on the person, on the current dept head, and other politics within the dept.
Let's call the person the "DGS" ("director of grad studies", in math).
At my R1 univ in the U.S., in math, the DGS is appointed by the dept head, and needs approval for policy and funding choices, if nothing else.
The DGS has variable influence in choice of the grad admissions committee, which is ultimately done by the dept head. Nevertheless, the DGS is literally the person who would make admission and funding offers to grad student applicants.
Yes, the general task of sifting through all grad applicants is distributed among the grad admissions committee, organized by the DGS. The DGS collates all those reports, and makes decisions.
In some cases, individual faculty (on that committee or not) have particular applicants that they advocate for, which is typically conclusive in the applicant's favor. But this is usually a relatively small fraction of all admitted+funded applicants.
(As is typical in the U.S., the vast majority of math grad students are funded not directly via individual faculty grants, but as Teaching Assistants, or to some degree by Fellowships of various sorts...)
So, yes, the DGS has considerable power in grad admissions (and funding), but is answerable to the dept head, and needs to not annoy toooo many faculty.
(I think in most places the DGS does not literally, directly control the funds that pay teaching assistants or fellowships...)

Thank you, that was a very helpful and informative answer on their power and the power dynamics.  So if the DGS is a potential supervisor, that's a lot of power !

I assume in this answer that the graduate coordinator is an office person, rather than a faculty member. If they are a faculty member, then this answer doesn't apply, though in that case some of the responsibilities I describe may still fall to that faculty person; besides that, they are likely to have just as much influence as any other faculty member of the admissions committee
Admissions decisions are made by an admissions committee consisting of several faculty members.
"Graduate coordinator" in my experience refers to an office support staff person. They have expertise in navigating the academic bureaucracy and can be a huge asset in sorting out funding issues and improving the experience of students in the program, but they do not have decision-making authority on admissions.
They may assist the admissions committee by sorting through and excluding some applicants based on particular hard criteria; for example, GPA or TOEFL requirements, having a bachelor's degree or progress towards one. I suppose they could exert some power if they "accidentally" let an application fall in the trash or not get distributed to an admissions committee member, but these would be unofficial ways to express that power and not fitting to university policies.
That said, a graduate coordinator can exert quite a bit of soft power. If an applicant is rude to them, it may very well get back to the committee. I have heard stories where an interviewing student was incredibly rude to a graduate coordinator and this pretty much torpedoed their admissions chances, not because the coordinator had any power but that the committee heard about their behavior and didn't want that person on campus.
If there are problems with your application, it's probably the graduate coordinator who will help you out. For example, there was a recent question here from someone who had submitted their graduate application very early, and they now had updates to their CV: the graduate coordinator would probably be the person who could get their updated CV included in the materials the committee reviews. Same thing for late-arriving reference letters: if there is any discretion to include something arriving late it's likely the graduate coordinator will have some influence.

actually where I work graduate coordinator is synonym for graduate chair.

A staff person may preliminarily screen applications for like basic facts (high enough TEFOL for the university, the presence of GRE scores if required), or fundamental fit (someone with background in only physics apply for psych - did they press the wrong button?)

@ZeroTheHero Gotcha, I've always heard director/head/chair of the admissions committee or graduate program, and graduate coordinators are support staff. I added a disclaimer that my answer applies to when this person is support staff. I figure with the SE model of helping not just the OP, it may be useful to someone searching for a similar question.

This matches my experience where I went to grad school. The coordinator was support staff, not faculty.

In my experience (United States), the director of graduate studies is the head of an admissions committee. Did you mean this role when you said graduate admissions coordinator? Committee membership can vary year to year based on faculty's service commitments. This committee often has some rubric to evaluate applications, and each member is responsible for evaluating X number of applications. When it comes to decision making, the committee convenes and discusses the applications to narrow them down to a list of who they would like to admit/extend offers, and sometimes a waitlist is formed. I would say the graduate director has some influence, but each faculty member (based on tenure) has influence in who they might admit because they are looking at students who they might work/do research with. Is this at all helpful?

Yes, I was mainly wondering what would happen if the graduate chair (faculty) in a department was a potential supervisor - I guess that would help a person ?

The graduate coordinator is usually in charge of the paper flow.  The coordinator may be a faculty member if the program is small, or a deputy to the graduate chair.
If the coordinator is a faculty member, she or he will usually be on the admissions committee, and will have one vote (although in principle and in cases of emergencies I believe that our grad coordinator has the power to recommend admission without consultation, but that's never been used).  If the coordinator is an assistant, this person will support the committee and may or may not be present at committee meetings.  The coordinator could be in charge of dealing with emails, distributing and keeping track of information on the availability of funds or scholarships, for instance.  She or he would know the rules and regulations of the program, and would basically liaise between the department and the Faculty of Graduate Studies to make sure that applicants meet the eligibility criteria, that the department does not overoffer, etc.
The role is not necessarily limited to admissions: they could be in charge of nominating chairs for thesis defences or project presentations (or whatever other formal requirements of the programs).  Often they will sign the departmental paperwork to be sent to the Faculty of Graduate studies  indicating that all requirements of the degree have been met.


text:
COVID-19 Pass/Fail Option
I am currently an undergraduate student, and looking to apply to grad schools in the future. In response to COVID-19, my school is offering the ability between choosing the letter grade earned to appear on the transcript, or a pass if you earned over a C, for each individual class.
I'm wondering if choosing the pass option for one of my classes would reflect poorly on grad school applications. The class in question is a not a major or graduation requirement, and it is 4 credits, so taking a B or lower would hurt my GPA.
Thank you!

This question has been asked and answered at CSEducators:https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/q/6271/1293. The answers are probably generally applicable. My own view is that until universities publish policies on how they will interpret such grades the student is making decisions with incomplete information. This makes it risky. I suspect such policies will emerge and will be favorable, but can't guarantee that.

How many credits is typical for a semester/class? Otherwise, we can't understand how big of a deal a 4-credit class is.

Unfortunately, it's hard to know at this point.  Graduate admissions committees will all know that Spring 2020 grades are a special case, and likely find a different way to consider them - but it's unclear how they will do that.  I doubt that they know themselves. But it does mean that an answer based on existing admissions practices is unlikely to be very helpful.

I am currently taking 13 credits and have a 4.0 GPA. A typical load is 12-16 credits.

What grade do you expect to get, now that we've settled into remote learning?

I will probably get a B+ or A-. At my school an A- is a 3.7 and a B+ is a 3.4.

Any Grad school will know about the "grades" for this year... And make their own decisions.

Is this class important for the phd you want.to do?

And just to be sure, I see someone else did write "untied-states" as a tag, you are in the countey US (and want to continue your study there)? It seems likely the you are in the US since you assume everybody understands your grading system, but could you confirm to be sure?

The class is not important for what I want to do, and I am in the United States

While I don't understand the US grading system, if the class is not important, surely the people looking at your grade wouldn't care that it was pass/fail, no?

That is what I'm hoping, and wondering if others agree.

@Buffy The CS Educators question is meaningfully different.  My answer would not apply to it.

The class in question is a not a major or graduation requirement

Assuming you want to go to graduate school in a topic closely related to your major, taking one unrelated course pass/fail will not matter under normal circumstances.  It will matter even less because everybody knows students are being encouraged to take classes pass/fail during the pandemic.

If you're planning to apply to graduate school in the next year or two and already have any ideas of prospective advisors you'd like to work with, I'd recommend reaching out to them by email to introduce yourself, tell them why you'd like to work with them, and ask whether they have any idea yet about how they will weight this when considering applicants. This has a few advantage:

Depending on the field and program you're entering, acceptance into graduate programs can be much more a matter of an individual professor deciding to take you on as their student than any formal institutional views.
As such, you should absolutely be getting in touch with potential advisors before applying anyway--many professors don't even consider students who haven't reached out in advance before submitting an application.
It's never too early to get in touch, and showing that you're considering this well in advance and are eager enough to work with someone that you're reaching out to them now will reflect well and increase the chances that they'll consider your application more favorably (assuming it's solid) once you do apply.

If you don't know who you'd like to work with but have any ideas about schools you're interested in, you can also email their graduate advisor or dean of grad studies or whatever the person in that role is called there (although again, depending on the field and your career goals, you might want to pay more attention to individual advisors than schools).
With all the above as a disclaimer that the impacts of a P/NP grade will be highly variable and depend on individual schools and advisors... I'll also just say that many, MANY schools are now switching to P/NP options, so you will be far from alone in having a P or two on your transcript from this semester. I have a feeling most professors won't have much choice but to allow for this unless they want to discount pretty much all their applicants for the next few years. Also, to be blunt, an advisor/program that penalizes you for struggling or choosing your mental health over your grades this semester is probably an advisor/program to avoid. Especially if you're saying that a B would bring your GPA down, you can do better than that.
Finally, I don't know your school's specific policy, but many are allowing you to switch from letter grades to P/NP right up until the end of the semester. So you might be able to wait and reevaluate your options after seeing how your grade is doing closer to the deadline. Good luck!


text:
How to test my understanding of an academic paper?
I am an undergraduate student in Computer science who has recently developed a very strong interest in logic and computability. I enjoy a lot reading academic papers but I am afraid that my understanding of them might be incomplete or skewed.
This question is similar to: How can I prove my self-studied knowledge? but my unlike the OP I want to specifically test my knowledge of academic papers and I have no one to talk to (other than Mathematics/Mathoverflow)!
There is some graduate courses at my University that are "seminars" where a group of graduate students with a professor discuss a new paper every week. It looks awesome and so interesting... but I am a first-year student and I don't want to come across as arrogant. What to do?

A small comment about the seminars: Ask the professor. (Almost) all professors are happy if someone is interested in their field of research. If you worry about coming across as arrogant: As long as you know that your understanding of the subjects might not be perfect and that you are not at the same level as the graduate students there is (almost) no chance that will happen. Just ask the professor polity if you could participate ("passively", i.e., by listening and maybe asking a few questions). If that works out for you then you can ask the professor next term to present a paper by yourself.

Academic papers deal with the state-of-the-art of the field, either pushing it or reviewing it. So, to fully understand them, you need a deep knowledge of the field.
Now, "fully understanding" them might be a bit broad statement. The key of the paper are the problem and the solution, but I put more emphasis on the problem. For, if you are able to understand what the problem is, why is it hard, its background (where it stands in relation to related work) and implications (how future problems are derived from it), you probably have enough subject knowledge to digest the whole paper. The solution is important, but not so much on a fundamental level as on a conceptual, i.e. you don't have to understand every line of a proof to get why a theorem solves a problem.
So, the first step is understanding the problem and the second "getting" the solution. If you want to be more strict with yourself, ask yourself after reading a paper whether you are able to think about the boundaries of the problem or solution, i.e. what could be done to improve them or what could be derived from them (not minding at that point if that is feasible or not).
PS: If you really are doing research in a field, you need to analyze the paper on deeper levels (check the references, the experimental setup, remember the proof from above and the one you read in another paper 3 months ago, etc.), but at your level, the above seems more than enough.
PPS: I don't see a problem with you joining those "seminars". Ask the professor if you could participate in some of them, at the beginning only by being present and listening. See if it suits you. Once you get the hang of it, you can actively be a part of the discussions. It may be hard to keep up, but that shouldn't discourage you. And you shouldn't strive for the level of understanding the graduate students are at, that'll come with time.

Many times, the argument in the paper is  condensed - not every step is written out for you.  Some tests of your understanding include: can you write down all the steps to get from one equation to the next? What assumptions do you have to make to do so? What other assumptions could you make, and how would that change the derivation?

I have followed your advice and asked a professor if I could sit in his seminar course. The professor accepted, and is letting me participate to the paper reviews and to the final project requirement. It's awesome, and I am having a blast! :-D Thank you so much


text:
Is this website that claims to provide paper writing services real and legal?
I've found a jaw-dropping page that offers to write essays for you (link redacted to avoid promoting them).
Quotes:

SWAMPED WITH WRITING ASSIGNMENTS?

EXCEL AT ACADEMIC PAPER WRITING WITH OUR HELP

And the "help" means...

HOW IT WORKS:
1 Submit task details
2 We find an expert
3 You get top-level paper

More details:

WHAT CAN WE DO
Our team consists of 40+ experts in academic disciplines. Peer-reviewed research, editing, proofreading, gathering sources and tutoring and writing - we can help you with any kind of daily challenge or struggle that college and university students face.

And the icing on the cake:

24/7 ASSISTANCE. URGENT DELIVERY. 100% LEGAL.

Is this site real (and legal)? This image

("ethics" !!!!!) suggests that the site is a parody...

Not surprised. There is a lot of this sort of thing around. And yes, it is likely legal most everywhere.

500 words is so laughably short ...

For "legal" you should state your jurisdiction.

Typically such paper-writing sites are "legal" in the sense that they say that the essays written serve only as "example" and are not to be used for assessment. Of course, you know, the clients know and the company knows that this is highly unlikely, but unfortunately, there is no way to legally enforce the academic integrity that such services undermine.
Maybe it will change in future, but for now, all that remains is for students to undergo a viva or to be examined under controlled conditions. Under Corona conditions, the latter is difficult to protect from cheating, either, at least without significant breaches in privacy (discussed in other questions on SE).

Even if the service were explicitly labeled as for use in assessment, wouldn't it still be legal? It is obviously an expulsion-level breach of academic conduct at any reputable university, but at least in the US I don't think you can be sent to jail for cheating at school. Against the rules isn't the same as against the law.

@amalloy Perhaps "legal" is not the right word, but I assume not making such a disclaimer makes them vulnerable to litigation. It is hard to say whether this would work in the US (free speech etc.), but I assume that in Europe there may be routes towards that. For example, in Germany devices that warn drivers of radar traps are - as far as I know - not legal. Now, I don't know whether it is use or possession, but one could imagine that not only use, but possession thereof might be punishable. As far as I know, we are in legal no-man's land here.

I suspect the company's lawyers know better than you do whether they need a disclaimer to avoid litigation. I don't really follow the German radar detector analogy at all.

@amalloy Precisely because I expect their lawyers to know the risks, it strikes me that all major such companies I am aware of try to claim that they provide the work for educational purposes only. So they clearly see a risk you do not see ("..wouldn't it still be legal?") Second, radar: for certain items different levels of illegality exist: use, possession, purchase, attempt of purchase.  The particular use of an essay written to spec may be critical in judging its legal merit. In a litigation, it might make a difference whether it is created "as example" or "as submittable homework".

Oh, I see. I misunderstood what disclaimer you were talking about. Yes, that makes sense.


text:
Are journal papers published in journals more useful than arXiv papers when applying for a postdoc?
I am a PhD student in applied probability looking for postdoc jobs after submitting my thesis. What is the value of arXiv papers (not yet published in a journal) compared to papers published in a journal while applying for postdoc? For example, if I have two journal papers and one arXiv paper, whereas someone else has three journal papers, will he gets any benefit over me in applying?
My arxiv paper got rejected from a very top-tier journal after almost two years of review. I am working on the reviewer's comments; then I will submit to a new journal.

In general, a paper that's already been published in a journal has much more academic value than one that still needs at least some work to be published in that journal. Much of that value comes from removing the uncertainty that it's actually publishable in that journal; some of it comes from having actually done the work to make it publishable in the journal already, freeing up your time for other things. So all other things being equal, the other guy should win (in principle). In practice, of course, all other things are never equal, so it depends :)

This is a great question for your advisor, who knows the academic job market in your field better than Random Internet Strangers do.

The quality of a paper depends on the journal it is published in. He can have 10 low-quality publications and you may have one great one, and a good committee may prefer you over him. It is true that often hiring committees tend not to be able to make a determination of a paper's quality, but that also depends on where you apply

It may also depend slightly on the country where you are seeking employment. E.g. in the UK, hiring committees in maths are quite journal-conscious these days, so it could be better to have two in e.g. Annals Henri Poincare and one on arXiv rather than three in e.g. Proc. AMS. But I think 2 in Proc AMS beats 3 on the arXiv, if that makes sense - at least in the current UK scene

ArXiv papers are preprints, not publications, so their value in the context of a job application is definitely lower than a paper that has been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. In your example, assuming all other things being equal, the answer is that yes, the job candidate with 3 journal publications would be at an advantage relative to you with your 2 journal publications and 1 arXiv preprint.
Of course, all other things are never equal, and papers differ enormously in their quality, scope, and significance, so that it’s quite possible that your one arXiv preprint might still end up overshadowing any of the three journal publications of the other candidate. So I would advise you not to get too caught up in these sorts of numerical calculations. The number of papers has some significance, but it’s very far from the only thing people care about.

First of all, in all of my experience (in pure mathematics), when evaluating candidates there is no distinction made between accepted papers and published papers.  So I will speak about preprints versus accepted papers.
In all normal circumstances, having manuscript X as an accepted paper is strictly preferable to having X as an arxiv preprint.  (What would be an abnormal circumstance?  What I can come up with at the moment is: X is published in a shady journal, or X is published in a journal that is legitimate but of much lower quality than anyone would expect X to be published in.  These are edge cases...)
So let us suppose that you have accepted papers X and Y and arxiv preprint Z.  I think we can agree that the hypothetical candidate who has accepted papers X, Y and Z is strictly preferable to you....with the key understanding that X,Y and Z denote the same manuscripts in both cases!  But now you see that this assertion is useless in practice.  In actuality, you are going to be competing with people who have done different work from you.  If a search committee views your manuscript Z_1 as being of roughly similar quality to someone else's manuscript Z_2, then it is a point in someone else's favor if their Z_2 has been accepted.  But it is just a point, not all the points.  If your recommenders talk about the significance of Z_1 and their confidence that it is correct and will be published in a very good journal, and if these recommenders have a strong reputation in the eyes of the search committee, then that is a point in your favor.  Not that it is about points: please read on...
The phrase "all other things being equal" is often used in hypothetical discussions of job candidates, but those who have been on search committees are well aware of the irony: in practice, all other things are very rarely equal.  People hire based not on rubrics or numerical schemes, but on partially verbalized subjective preferences.  Which is not a criticism!  We want to hire the person whom we sincerely and holistically believe is the best academic, not the one who has the most points according to some fixed system.  If such "metrics" are used at all, they are probably used to sway the opinions of third parties on the search committee, i.e., faculty who are not going to be directly involved with either candidate.  In my experience, such "metric differences" have to be rather stark in order for them to really matter: two accepted / one preprint vs. three accepted probably does not look like a significant difference, especially for young academics.  But if you were competing with someone who had eight more accepted papers than you, then the person who is pulling for you probably has to convince the rest of the committee that your work is distinctly qualitatively better than that of the other candidate.
Finally, I certainly hope that as a young academic, when you post a paper to the arxiv you also submit it for publication shortly thereafter (if not concurrently) and that you are doing everything you can to make sure your papers are being processed in a timely manner.  If so...okay, you are doing your best, and what remains is a lot of randomness that is entirely out of your control.  I think search committees understand this and are not going to fault a candidate much for the vagaries of the refereeing process.

Great answer. It’s worth adding that one specific situation where the “all else being equal” caveat is actually satisfied is when comparing the same person to themselves at two points in time: that is, a person who has a submitted preprint on arXiv is slightly less attractive as a job candidate than themselves a while later when their paper has been accepted.

What would be an abnormal circumstance? --- Posting in arXiv a correct solution to the Poincaré conjecture (and more) vs. pretty much anything else, although of course this is not a useful example for the OP.

@Dave: Right.  If you can believe it, when I was first typing my answer, I included this example specifically and even entertained the hypothetical situation in which Perelman had published his work in the Albanian Journal of Mathematics as an example of this not improving his case....and then I realized that this was not useful for the OP.

This answer will be a bit orthogonal to the others. It may also apply to other job-seeking situations, not just post-docs. It is based on the observation that few hiring committees choose between candidates just by weighing piles of paper.
For many positions, especially post-docs and those seeking a first position, what you need to show is current and active research activity. The hiring institution will want to know that you have a lot of ideas and that you are exploring them and that you can contribute to a research program. Even that you have so many ideas that you don't mind sharing them, especially with students.
In that sense an old journal publication may not have as much value as a few recent papers in arXiv. Show, however you can, that you aren't resting on your old laurels, but are still totally fired up. Show them that you have work-in-progress that shows promise.

Both quality and quantity matter.
There are some sub-disciplines, such as high-energy physics and cosmology, that use arXiv as a means of establishing primacy and initial clearinghouse before eventual publication elsewhere. In those areas, it's harder to say what the impact is.
But in general, arXiv papers can be published without going through a peer-review process. Consequently, they are not viewed as highly as a peer-reviewed paper in a "known" journal in the field.
One should also not just look at raw number of publications. One paper in a major journal and two arXiv preprints may be better than three or four papers in low-impact journals.

in those disciplines, it’s hard to say. No it’s not. First of all, arXiv is not a “publication choice”, it’s a paper repository. Second of all, even “in those disciplines” authors will still submit their papers to a journal after uploading them to arXiv, and the prestige and credibility of the paper (and job prospects of its author) will be enhanced after the paper is published in a journal. I don’t believe that there is any discipline where arXiv has completely supplanted peer-reviewed publication, but please correct me if you know of one.

@DanRomik Not entire disciplines, but my understanding from friends in cosmology and a few related subdisciplines primarily publish on arXiv. I’ll change “disciplines.”

Again, your terminology is misleading. In academia “publish” generally means “publish in a peer-reviewed journal”, so it’s a category error to say someone “publishes in arXiv”, unless you are using “publish” in its other, non-academic meaning of “make available online”, in which case, since the discussion is about academic publications, it’s important that you make that clear (or better yet, not use the word “publish”, since it causes genuine and frequent confusion that we see here almost daily).

As for your claim about cosmology etc, can you please clarify if you mean people in those disciplines only make their papers available through arXiv and do not submit them to peer-reviewed journals at all? I’d be skeptical that that’s the case, but if you can provide evidence (or even just check with our friends and confirm that that’s indeed the norm) I’m open to being convinced otherwise.

Typo: “our friends” should be “your friends” of course. (Wish I had such cool friends...)

OK. I think I understand the situation now: in HEP and cosmology, they establish primacy of results via arXiv. So a shiny new major result on arXiv not yet published in a journal can still be “worth more” than a publication on a minor result.

The biggest advantage here with arXiv preprints is that it allows you to include papers in a citeable way when they are not yet published. You can link to the paper, which is available in a readable format, with a notation of, "Submitted for publication in ...", or better still, "Accepted for publication in ..." in advance of having the paper published, at which point you could then use the vol./issue reference as normal.
While it may be unlikely that a review panel will read your papers, they may look at the author list for collaborators and affiliations of co-authors.


text:
14 Days given for a revision in Scientific Reports
I wanted to know if giving a deadline of 14 days for a revision is normal for a journal like Scientific Reports? In my decision letter, the reviewers have called my work novel.

That's really short! If it's only minor revision might be acceptable but definitely not for major revisions or something more involved.

Just ask for an extension.

Can't say anything about Scientific Reports specifically, but yes I've been getting shorter deadlines recently for journals. I think journals see "time to publish" as a marketable metric, so they're trying to speed things up (see e.g. https://www.nature.com/nature-portfolio/about/journal-metrics ).
When my group has had a lot of things going on or when we know revisions are likely to take longer than the time given, we've always been granted more time when we request it, it's not really a big deal to request more time.

In my decision letter, the reviewers have called my work novel.

This is irrelevant to time given to make revisions or anything. Note that Scientific Reports is pretty much an "accept everything" journal; they filter out some junk but they do not reject based on perceived impact or novelty.


text:
How many PhD programs does the average STEM applicant apply to in Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)?
I was wondering if there are data on the number of applications that people make to PhD programs in Europe (Ger, At, CH). My guess is that it depends on the area/field, in particular I am looking for data from engineering/chemistry.

Reading the title, this does not seem like a good question to me (it's more of a poll). SE is a place for clear questions and answers. But maybe there is some statistical data that answer your question, I don't know.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is a polling question.

The OP is probably interested in the average number of applications.

I edited the question to try to make it a better fit by removing the poll like nature. Feel free to continue to edit and improve it.

I figured without a mention of the country it must be the US, apparently I guessed wrong. Thanks for fixing it.

I suspect comprehensive and reliable data about this will be very difficult to find, given that unstructured doctorates are especially widespread in the mentioned countries. Thus, on the one hand, "applying" is often a matter of keeping in touch with unviersity staff and following up from previous projects (thus possibly making 1 a very frequent (though not necessarily total average) number), and on the other hand, the whole process of getting into such a "program" often works in a way that based on research-related talks with professors and other staff, the semi-final decision is made ...

... to let the student start their doctorate, and only as late as that the first "formal" data about the application process (that could thus be "counted" when finding data for statistics on applications) might start appearing anywhere.


text:
What is a better point in an academic career to move to the U.S.: as an assistant professor or after tenure?
I am starting my second academic year as an assistant professor at a university in Europe. I'd like to move back to the US at some point in the near future. If I stay at my current university for 2 or 3 more years, it's likely that I will be offered tenure. Based on the openings I see in the US in my field, there are more assistant professor positions than associate professor positions.

Will it be better for my career prospects to apply now for assistant professor jobs in the US? If so, should I expect a reduced tenure clock?
Or should I wait a few more years and with tenure under my belt, apply for associate professor jobs?

Other people will have much more data on that, but my impression is that senior-level hires are indeed not common in the US. More likely is that you would be offered a fast track if you are a young tenured professor in Europe. A relevant question is also this: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26698/post-tenure-job-search-in-the-humantities-a-waste-of-time

As someone who is just now making such a transition, my sense that it's hard to make the transition in either direction at any stage of your career.
My sense is that as a less senior faculty member, you'll have an easier time getting things going, because the expectations on junior faculty are lower in the sense of ramping up the group in the first few years. But whether or not you should wait is really a function of what you're looking for in your career.

What's better for your "career prospects" depends on your situation, but there doesn't seem to be much harm in applying now to see what you can get.   From what I've seen, it's much more common for people at the top of their field to move after tenure than it is for people not at the top.  If you make a big breakthrough, then it's usually not so hard for you to move.  For good but not top researchers, it's not impossible, but it may take many years of applying.
One issue is that it's harder for most schools to hire people with tenure (more expensive) than into tenure-track positions (cheaper) and places don't normally expect candidates to be willing to enter at a lower level than what they had.  Another issue is that there are so many good new PhDs to compete with, if you've been out longer, you need to be that much more impressive to compete with them.  Most of the open tenured positions I notice in the US are to lead a department or group (e.g., an external search for a chair), which is a different sort of position than I guess you are looking for.

I think the issue of hiring with tenure is not so much one of cost, but of risk: you won't get a second chance to evaluate the candidate after a few years if you hire someone with tenure on arrival. That's why most departments only hire people at the associate or full professor level that are indeed really good -- typically much better than what one would expect to need to get tenure in the department.

@WolfgangBangerth I guess there's variation from department to department.  I can see this being an issue in places where tenure is often denied, but in most of the instances I'm aware of, I think the department wanted to hire someone with tenure, but the difficulty was convincing the administration to hire someone at a higher pay rate.

I don't get that argument. The same person would make maybe 10 or 15% more when hired at the associate or full level than if they had come through the system starting at the assistant level and gotten tenure locally. That's not a significant difference. Of course, like I said, if you only plan to hire really good people at that level, then you'll have to pay significantly more than for the average associate or full professor in your department, and then it becomes a money issue.

@WolfgangBangerth I haven't seen things from the administrative side, but I presume they typically budget a certain amount  for new positions (which they need to allocate for the next 30 years, say) when they approve them, and asking them to go over that requires them finding money from somewhere else, which is often not easy in this age of continual budget cuts.  Of course, some universities are more flexible than others.

@WolfgangBangerth In my experience, it's neither money or the desire to evaluate someone a second time (at least on the department level) that tends to get in the way, but rather university rules which the department would happily waive.  For example, at a past job, I was told at one point that we couldn't consider hiring a full Professor in a given year, because the administration had only allowed us to post a job ad for Assistant Professors.


text:
How can a full professor from a developing country get a job in the United States?
I am a full professor of chemistry from Iran. I want to move to the United States. I have a good record of publications, teaching, executive positions, conference participation, etc.
However, as I applied for full professor position, I was not successful. Apparently, my credentials are equal to successful candidates or even better (I checked with the names announced), but their works were in the same country.
I do not care to apply for an assistant/associate professor position, but the requirements are different. They expect young people to start.
What can be a promising pathway for me to enter the US higher education?
Is it actually possible? Can a professor from a developing country find a place in the US higher education?

I edited to remove a single reference to the UK, since you mention the US three times, but the UK only once. I assume that answers for the UK might be appreciably different, apart from the "applying for full professorships is always hard" part. Please feel free to roll back my edit.

Try to get personally known in the states--use a sabbatical or start collaborations where you can get invited to stay in the US for a few months. Having personal recommendations from US-based faculty should be useful.

At least in the UK, employers are required to employ British/EU citizens over foreigners; and only employ from abroad if skilled staff cannot be found domestically. Maybe this was why similarly skilled applicants were successful over you; but this is just speculation.

When you say "my credentials are equal", how do you determine that? Your idea of "credentials" may be very different from that of the position search committee. Have you taught in English? Did you publish in exact same American journals? What kind of funding did you get? It's very unlikely that you have any record whatsoever of NSF funding, for one thing; and without a record of being eventually able to bring enough money to fund the lab that will be a part of your startup package, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, yours is a losing proposition to the university.

Short answer: Yes, a professor from a developing country can find employment.
Longer answer: It's hard for anyone to get a position as a full professor. It's likely to be harder if you are from another country.
"I applied for full professor position, I was not successful."  Many, many people apply for full professorship positions. Most of them are not successful. There are many reasons you didn't get offered the position.
One of the reasons may have been that there would be more hassle to do the necessary paperwork for immigration purposes. Not all universities will do this.
The main reason was that there was someone that the appointing committee liked more.
You might ask for feedback about why you weren't offered the position, but the university might not be forthcoming.
The big hurdle that I think you are going to have is fear from the university. If they appoint someone and they turn out to be unsuccessful, they have a problem on their hands. Removing a full professor is difficult. Someone they know (or know of, through contacts) is always going to be a safer bet than someone who they don't know.  (I read somewhere recently, and I can't think where that assistant professors are appointed because of hope - the hope that they will do well. Full professors are appointed through fear - the fear that they won't turn out to be a disaster for the university).
I would have two pieces of advice: (1) Keep applying, and seek feedback about your application. (2) Don't be too fussy about the position; if you are in the country and have a job, it will (I think) be easier to get a different job.

OP is from a Iran.  Does it matter that the country he is from is under sanctions?

I know Iranians that are employed in the US.

In research? On subjects that might be covered by ITAR? Also I am sure it's possible, I am however not sure that it's easy for the institution to be sure they comply with relevant laws.

If their research is relevant to defense then that obviously will be an issue. But most isn't.

Do the laws work the same inside of and outside of academia? From what I understand to hire a foreigner they technically have to prove that no other native citizen could of filled the position. The OP does not sound like he is a one of a kind / no one else could fill his shoes, sort of professor.

IANAL, but I am a researcher in a non-profit, so I think the same rules apply as universities. I don't think I'm one of a kind, no one else can fill my shoes, but I got hired internationally. If you want a full professor of chemistry, presumably from a specific branch of chemistry, there are probably very few people that can fill that position. Same with me - others can fill my shoes, but not many.

Yes, but he is talking about other applicants with very similar skill sets and experience. From my understanding, at least if the laws are working as designed, he will always lose out to natives with skill levels close to his own.

I agree. Even if that wasn't the case, there's the hassle factor. Hiring someone from overseas is always going to be a bigger hassle than hiring someone local - all else being equal, you'll take the local every time.

My spontaneous thought when seeing your question was whether you had considered a visiting position as well. The barriers for a non-permanent position are naturally lower. I've seen cases where this happened in a different field in Zurich, where a Russian Academy of Science member was a semi-permanent guest (this was a long while back after the borders had just opened, and so it somewhat compares). It comes with risks and possible frustration: the person I have in mind - a distinguished academic in his home country, advanced in age (mid 50s), and highly intelligent - relied on continued good will; the resulting feeling sometimes showed. While there is never a guarantee that this translates - somewhere in your target country - to a permanent position, at least you'd have your foot in the door.
I also remembered a quote from my old Latin teacher: connections only hurt those that don't have them. Iranians have a sizable presence in the US - both from before and after the revolution. Many are highly successful and accomplished, and to further their goals, associations exist. By its name, the association of Iranian-American Academics and Professionals sounds like a fit (and if not, there are others). I'd consider reaching out to them for advice too. Maybe they can set you up with someone who has the same story, and is willing to mentor you.
Given the current political situation, I don't know if any of the above raises additional issues for you. You'll only know after you tried.

I would say that given the general climate of "diversity and inclusiveness", being an Iranian would be generally a major plus in any hiring decisions. Especially given the current domestic political situation (where the political ideology controlling most of HR and academia is on the opposite side of the political situation you seem to be referring to )

@DVK: That assumption is false, as Iran is considered a "sensitive country" in the US, and therefore a number of research funding streams would be closed off as a result.

@aeismail - unless the OP is in one of the fairly small # of fields that are constituting weapons research, OR have classified-on-US-side applications, that's extremely unlikely. Being in chemistry, not impossible. But they didn't specify their precise research area.

@DVK Certainly what you say is wrong in my experience.  For one thing, Asians (I understand that Iranians and Chinese don't have a ton in common, but these are the buckets that are used) are certainly not underrepresented in science and thus typically "don't count" as minorities for these purposes.

@DVK I am not too sure Iranian non-American citizen is counted as minority. The OP did not specify if he is American citizen. If he is, I believe you are right. If not, an Iranian would be generally a major plus in any hiring decisions. is probably not a true statement.

@scaaahu - citizenship either doesn't count as far as diversity initiatives, or counts more (as in, being non-citizen makes you "more diverse"). Either way, being an Iranian would help.

What can be a promising pathway for me to enter the US higher education?

You mentioned "a good record of publications, teaching, executive positions, conference participation" but didn't offer any details.
One possible approach likely to help is to co-research and co-publish with US academia members, ideally from schools you are interested in.
If they come out of the collaboration impressed with you, they can serve as local advocates with their institution for you. A publication might carry less weight than a personal recommendation from a colleague they personally know who can describe the work you did for that publication, in most situations - and would to the hiring committee as well.