text:
I'm writing a personal statement for a Master's degree. The length requirement is about 1000 words. I have written 2000. Shall I shorten it?
Currently I am applying for a LLM programme at SOAS and am having certain difficulties while writing the required personal statement. According to their guidance, the statement should be "describing your ambitions, suitability and interest for the programme you have chosen. This should be around 1,000 words in length", but I simply can't even fall under 2,000 words.
So my question is should I post the longer version that describes me better and for which I believe gives me a greater chance to be accepted, or should I simply delete half the text so I could manage their quota?

You should NOT "simply delete half the text".  You should remove unimportant details wherever they appear.  That's a lot more work than removing entire paragraphs, but gives a much better end product as well.

Watson and Crick's famous paper in Nature on the double helix structure of DNA is almost 1000 words. Seems to me 1000 words should be sufficient for a personal statement.

You should choose the 1000 best words from your current statement.  The 3 answers below are all at least twice as long as they need to be. ;)

There is a certain irony in the fact that, of the last 50 questions asked on Academia.SE, only 3 have titles that spill onto a second line. Of those three, yours is the longest. Perhaps therein lies the problem?

Writing concisely takes time and effort. It's not in the writing, it is in the editing. Edit your statement 20 times, if needed, to get your word count down without losing important content.

Yes, you shall. Much as I shall type more words to reach the StackExchange minimum of 30 characters.

@foobar - There's one problem with that analogy: Adding the padding is a lot easier than trimming the fat.

Agreed. [more extra characters]

Cut. [this space intentionally left blank]

There's some variability about how strict people are about word limits, so if you have any kind of inside knowledge (like someone who knows the culture at SOAS), they may be able to give you better guidance for this specific case.
In the absence of reason to think they don't care about the word limit, I'd worry about going over, especially about going way over, like double the suggested length.  You should consider that if you're that far over the limit, your personal statement may not actually be quite what they're looking for.  Perhaps it's overly detailed, or trying to make too many separate points at once.  In other words, you should at least consider that this indicates a problem with your statement of purpose that you're not seeing.  (And you should try to get input from someone else who could give you a fresh eye on it.)
The risks are:

It's possible they count words and ignore/mark applications that don't follow directions.
Even if they don't count words, people reading your application are likely to notice that you're statement is double (!) the length of most others.  At a minimum, they'll probably discount your statement of purpose on the grounds that you had a lot more space than everyone else, which might take away much of the benefit of the longer statement.
Worse, they might be annoyed at having to read twice as much or upset that you didn't follow directions.
And, they might take it as an indication that you're not that serious about the application: it could mean that you weren't paying attention, or that you're recycling a statement you wrote for someone else without much effort.

If the writing style in your statement matches the writing style in your question, you should just do some creative revising. Cut the fluff and write more concisely; for example:

Currently I am applying for a LLM programme at SOAS and am having certain difficulties while writing the required personal statement. According to their guidance, the statement should be "describing your ambitions, suitability and interest for the programme you have chosen. This should be around 1,000 words in length", but I simply can't even fall under 2,000 words.
So my question is should I post the longer version that describes me better and for which I believe gives me a greater chance to be accepted, or should I simply delete half the text so I could manage their quota?

Much of that is extraneous and overly wordy:
Currently I am applying for a LLM programme at SOAS and am having certain difficulties while writing the required my personal statement. According to their guidance, the statement should be "describing your describe your "ambitions, suitability and interest" for the chosen programme you have chosen. This should be in "around 1,000 words in length", but I simply can't even fall under I'm over 2,000 words.
So my question is should I post the longer version that describes me better and for which I believe gives me a greater chance to be accepted, or should I simply delete half the text so I could manage and meet their quota?
yields:

I am applying for a programme and am having difficulties writing my personal statement. The statement should describe "ambitions, suitability and interest" for the chosen programme in "around 1,000 words in length", but I'm over 2,000 words.
Should I post the longer version that describes me better, or should I delete half the text and meet their quota?

Original version: 99 words. Revised version: 58 words. I've cut your word count almost in half but I believe there is minimal loss in content.
Maybe you've done this already, but I thought this was worth mentioning, in case you haven't. By the way, in the past, when I've had to meet word count ceilings, I've usually been able to do it without eliminating core information.

Maybe add how the question title is also too long -- perhaps the longest i've ever seen.

Thats actually a very good illustration.

I broadly agree here but it's significant that the application is for an LLM so that shouldn't be deleted. Being able to get the point across in a given amount of space or time is much more important in law than it is in, say, particle physics.

@martinf - I already did – in a comment I left under the question. :^)

@David - I think you're right, it would be better to leave that in for the purposes of this question. However, it might not be necessary to state the programme name in an application itself, if it's obvious which programme is being applied for. My last comment is a bit tongue-and-cheek: If the legal profession really values "getting a point across in a given amount of space," they could've fooled me. :^)

Brilliant - in-line response with applied self-reference. Of course, law may sometimes require the ability to obfuscate a message, in which case, some natural talent to waffle, ahem, write longer text than necessary may come in handy (mouthy?). But, for the purposes of application, it doesn't.

It depends a bit on the programme, but the general answer is "stick to the 1000". Here are some good reasons for a committee enforcing such policies:

Someone has to read it. All of it. From everyone.
It would be unfair, if everyone stays within the limit and you don't. Some people just stop reading after 1000 words
Most things which can not be described in 1000 words are not better described using 2000 words.

Some tipps:

Try to be focused
Avoid empty phrases

Best luck

Look at it from the point of view of the person who has to read 200 of these things.

1,000 words: expected;
1,100 words: not noticeably different;
1,200 words: looks maybe a touch long but whatever;
2,000 words: "wow, long [turns the page] blah, blah, blah [turns over again without even reading] why does this idiot think I want to read all of this?"

You're applying for an advanced degree in law. A critical skill in law is getting your point across concisely and simply, without extraneous waffle and without going on so long that the jury gets bored and the judge gets annoyed. If your personal statement is twice as long as it should be, the person reviewing applications can see that you lack a key skill without even reading the words.

Part of assigning a word count limit is to determine if you can be concise AND follow directions AND still get your message across to the reader.  For example, if you are asked to drive someone across town but in an effort to impress you take them to the next state that isn't accomplishing the assigned task.  If you can't get your message across within the word limit then you are failing the assignment.


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Dullness vs. going overboard: Should I be calling people 'enfants terribles' in an academic paper?
I'm just about to finish my master's in law with only my dissertation left to handle. I'm being extremely cautious with the language that I'm using when writing as I've previously been told that my writing style is not academic enough for a UK institution. Although I agree with this criticism (and I've been working to improve my use of colloquial expressions) I do think that law papers tend to be dull and much too monotonous because of this constant pressure to make them sound as neutral as possible (while also capable of expressing your distinct opinions). This dullness must also be annoying for the person grading the paper, especially after reading multiple boring and similar dissertations.
I've previously experimented with structure when writing one of my course essays in order to build suspense before unraveling the finding of my research. Judging by the comments (and the grade that I got) the person grading it was really pleased with the final result. This gave me the confidence to be more imaginative when working on my dissertation, but at the same time I do not want to get too carried away.
It is not that I find calling a person enfant terrible to be  particularly  original, I just think it might lead to the person reading it to crack a smile. Apart from making it a more distinguishable paper it will also be beneficial for my argument, as I will have to spend less time debunking this particular person's theories by drawing the attention to the fact that although they are very popular and frequently quoted, they are widely considered to be too extreme by his peers.
What is your opinion? Where would you draw the line when trying to make a paper more interesting? (note that this question is not about finding creative ways to hide a weak argument)

Is the person in question alive/recently alive? Is it possible that they could be a friend or acquaintance of someone reading the dissertation?

Would this question be better fit on Writer SE per their help center?

As a side comment, I'd be wary of "building suspense" in academic writing.  It might work OK in a course assignment, but it's dangerous in a published paper.  The difficulty is that for each careful reader, you'll have dozens of casual readers who primarily skim the introduction (no matter how engaging your writing is).  The casual readers are an important part of your audience, and it's critical to make sure your work is widely known and understood, even among people who aren't going to study it in detail right now.  This means explaining things as clearly and directly as possible.

An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"), short for argumentum ad hominem, means responding to arguments by attacking a person's character, rather than to the content of their arguments - Even if you decide to include the "joke", you will not "have to spend less time debunking this particular person's theories", actually you'll probably have to spend more time on it to prove you actually looked at his arguments, and not just where the arguments came from.

The only time I'd call someone an enfant terrible or similar is if I were noting someone fitting some archetypical role in some context.  But that's going to be far more likely in a literary paper than a legal one (although, if we're talking US SCJ Scalia...)

I flagged this as offtopic, because a question that asks "What is you opinion about doing....?" Isn't even able to recive any non opinionbased answer without losing the relation to OP. and this is strictly stated as being off-topic!

If I understand correctly, you are supposed to be evaluating the work and/or ideas of some other academic or writer.  You are wondering whether it will be funny and/or more efficient to, in lieu of a more careful explanation of the limitations of that person's work, dismiss them by calling them a (standard, even cliched) name.
This is not a good use of humor in an academic paper.  I find it juvenile.  And many academics would find this to be a terrible personal swipe.

Your answer reminds me of this passage: "Overly philosophical, witty, obscure or otherwise “clever” comments should generally be avoided; they may not seem so clever to you ten years from now, and can sometimes irritate the very readers you want to communicate your result to."  -- Terence Tao

@RebeccaJ.Stones we really need an app that reads our retorts/comments back to us in Morgan Freeman's voice. https://xkcd.com/481/

Short Answer: Absolutely not!
Don't be a sarcastic writer for the first 20 years in academia, unless you want to leave academia and become a comedian! Many students, myself included when I did master/PhD, do like to reflect our egos and narcissistic behaviour on a paper/journal to be 'controversial' and 'cutting edge' in a field they are writing about. Obviously, there are some funny and insightful papers/journals around but if you look closer, you see a pioneer in a field wrote about something after 20+ years of research.

Papers that are dull are not dull due to a lack of jokes. The difference between a dull paper and an exciting paper is that the exciting paper conveys useful information as clearly as possible.

+1 -- a very good point -- but a couple of things: Minor one first -- this is a dissertation not a paper, perhaps giving a bit more leeway (epigrams are common in PhD theses, vanishingly rare in the rest of the scientific litearture).  Major point -- it is possible and indeed common to make a paper dull despite having useful/interesting material and writing clearly.  It's also necessary to write in fluent appropriate English.  However -- siding with the point you make -- it's not hard to write a paper which attempts to slect style over clarity and ends up delivering neither.

You've got 2 "no"s and a cautious "yes" as I write this.  Here's a "maybe", because it might help you decide.
In general, if you're going to use a term that's not to be taken completely at face value, you need to consider all possible interpretations -- you want to be sure you won't offend or confuse your reader.  In this case you could start from wikipedia.  Coming from a very different background to you I suggest that this sort of phrase would be more suited to introduction and motivation chapters, and would be out of place in more technical parts of the dissertation.
In this case I'm inclined to side with the "no"s unless you can effectively cite the claim -- is this a reasonable description of a paradigm-changing historical figure.  The downside of this is of course that it's not original.

This was more or less my thought as well - if you're going to use the phrase, better that you can attribute its use to another party.

More than that, your personal opinion is of no value in academic writing, whereas relating the opinions of others in an objective fashion is perfectly okay. In an academic work, you should be able to defend every statement; "I think so" (or "I think it's funny") has no place there.

You would like to continue incorporating some features of the creative writing genre into your technical writing, because you find it inherently satisfying, and a healthy direction to try to nudge technical writing toward.  You have had some positive results with this approach.
As I understand it, there is a colorful term you are tempted to include in your thesis, along with some analytical text.
My advice is to go ahead and include it in your draft, since including it will help you feel engaged with this big project.  It will be a fun challenge for you to try to make it work within your text, without sounding blatantly offensive.  But don't get too attached to it -- keep in mind that it may not make the final cut.

"Put off the decision till later" isn't really an answer, and wasting time integrating it regardless seems like a poor course of action.  OP can have their giggle without purposefully designating extra time to being unproductive.

@MatthewRead - I'm not sure it would be unproductive for the OP to spend some time trying to solve this particular puzzle.  Anything that keeps you engaged while slogging through a big project is a plus!

@aparente001 Anything that keeps you engaged with the big project while slogging through the big project is a plus. But challenging oneself to incorporate language that will probably be cut from the final version isn't engagement with the project: it's engagement with some entertaining thing on the side that, ultimately, isn't much more productive than taking a break to play video games or whatever.

@DavidRicherby - Well, everyone has their own way of staying engaged and productive.  If you take a meandering path through the forest, not only do you get to the other side, but you also may find some surprising inspiration along the way.  ---  With modern word processors, he can move sentences and blocks of text around as needed.  We're only talking about two words here, not a major dead end, such as spending three pages on an irrelevant statistical analysis of some side aspect.

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Getting into a topic one is barely familiar with?
Intro
For an upcoming project I have to get into a new topic of research which is not similar to anything I have worked so far. Furthermore, this project requires learning new programming language(s) and simulation environments. And in the end a software implementation and a final report has to be written
About the topic
The whole topic is about wireless mobile communication, the basics of communication technologies which are used in this topic are the same with the usual mobile wireless technologies I've learned before. However, the dynamics of the mobility are fairly different. The clustering algorithms used are not typical.
The essential question
How do I tackle such a situation, where multiple new things have to be learned before the final results are delivered. I separate the things I have to learn into

Prerequisites: programming languages, simulation environment, relation between them and the topic basics
Main work: learning the essential elements of the topic and becoming fluent in them

Past experiences
In the past I have usually worked on research topics which I have fulfilled the prerequisites for. So, I would tackle the topic following these steps:

Read broader literature: Surveys
Read literature about the specific problem
Implement if there is something to be done
Write final report

In this case I am a bit lost. I don't know where should I start from. That's why I need help from more experienced researchers. Compared to the list I provided above, step 3 is quite more complicated in this case, as I am not familiar with the programming language.
What I plan to do
I want to follow the following steps in order to get into this topic

Fulfill the prerequisites: get familiar with the required programming languages and simulation environments. Coupling between them etc. Do some exercises until I feel confident.
Start reading broad literature: Surveys
Focus on the specific problem: Read specific literature
Start implementation
Write the final report

I am not quite sure if these steps are OK. Sometimes I get confused and I want to move 4 -> 2, 2 -> 3, 3 -> 4 and maybe parallelize something there with step 5.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I feel so overwhelmed by this topic and need urgent help :(.

What did your Principal Investigator say?

not much, I didn't talk to him about the difficulties I might face. it was my own choice to get into the field

It is confusing to me that people imagine they'll get up to speed in a "new area" in a short-ish time, some weeks, some months. Methodologically and sociologically, is this plausible? What about all the other hundreds or thousands of equally smart, far more experienced people presumably interested in the same issue? Are they fools? Or is "research" just "keeping busy" or "generating data"? I certainly don't intend to discourage anyone from pursuing interests, but I worry that people think that effective entry into "new fields" has essentially no cost. Not years? Well, ok, good, maybe, ... ?

@paulgarrett should we stay in the comfort zone all the time?

I'm not at all advocating staying in a comfort zone. Quite the contrary. Just noting that not everything can be "mastered" in as short a period of time as one might wish, and to make plans that depend strongly on that would be misguided.

While your concern is perfectly valid (been there myself more than a few times), you should probably consider and accept that this is the way you are going to learn new things for most professional endeavors. This is how things work out of college; e.g. think about this: are you able to foresee what technologies and concepts are going to be required for your next project? And even if you could name them, could you set aside enough time for mastering them to be prepared for the next assignment?
As I see it, you already have a sound plan, I would stick to it. I would, however, recommend that you not get too engaged in just familiarizing yourself with the new environment. Sure, take some time to get some grip on it, but once you are got the basics, I suggest proceeding with your plan. One major asset of your assignment is going to be your new acquired skills, but that mastery will come in small portions along the whole road of the project. I find it unlikely (for students and professionals alike) to be able to learn a new paradigm in a reasonable time, without some means to guide the effort, e.g. class projects, so, instead of trying to get to the bottom immediately, get the basics and learn the rest along the way.
Other than that, as I said before, your plan is sound, just don't let the fear of the unknown overwhelm you into panic.

Not waiting for mastery is a great point. Best practices are there for a reason, and following them will make easy to refactor the things if at a later day you need to.

In my (albeit limited) experience, depending on where you are in your career, you may want to search for a collaborator. When I was graduating, I had a project on the backburner that I didn't know how to tackle, so when I had a certain audience in job talks I'd try to send out dog-whistles about certain aspects of the research project to see if they could give me something back or be interested by the remarks.
In the end, I got a brand-new collaborator (an expert on what I wanted to do) who really started to enjoy the project and is finding new things about the technique in which he's an expert. And the results ended up better than I ever could have hoped! Perhaps your PI may have friends that she/he trusts not to scoop you that you can confide the project in and then consequently have a new collaborator.
Learning this new topic "on the street" as it may be would make this the most efficient way for you to learn and retain what you need for your research. This way you don't have to learn everything from the ground up which would take forever and your collaborator can tell help you figure out what you need to learn.

Learning a new programming language is probably the most straightforward part of this. Unless it's a really obscure language, there will be tutorials online and books to help you. If you already know one or two programming languages, learning a new one will usually not be difficult, and you can probably estimate for yourself how long it will take. However, if you're coming from a procedural programming background like C/C++, Java, Perl, PHP, VB, or most of the "familiar" languages, it will take more time to learn a functional programming language like Haskell.
Make sure your learning is very focused. Don't try to learn the entire language (unless you want to), just learn enough to accomplish what you need to. I usually read a chapter or two of the book, then try to code up a bit of the functionality I need. When I get stuck, I read a bit more. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Learning about the simulation environment may be easy or hard, depending on how well documented it is. If there isn't much documentation, but you can get a sample bit of code or configuration, then you can try making tiny changes to see what effect they have.
As for learning about mobile/wireless communication, have you considered talking to a company in this field? Large telecomms companies usually have some connection to academia. If what you're doing has business potential for them, they may fund your research, lend you equipment, or at least offer some mentoring. Or if your project isn't relevant to traditional cellular networks, maybe think about what sort of business might benefit from this technology, and then ask them for some support.

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Master Degree or Job?
I am recent graduate from a UK university in computer science. As I am not sure what to study for my master degree, I went for a Web-Developer graduate job, and got accepted. As I will probably go for a master in 1-2 years, I was wondering if my undergraduate degree will be consider useless. And my master degree will possibly have nothing to do with the job I am currently accepted for. For example if I choose to do a master degree in computer graphics. Will that be a problem? (I have modules related to computer graphics in my degree, so my question is that will they be still valuable after 1-2 years as computer technology changes everyday) help? thanks!
(this may not be the best forum in stack exchange to ask these, but it is the closest)

Generally, the latest/greatest degree you have is considered the most important.
Technology does change quickly, but principles change less rapidly. So if you have a good degree, it won't matter so much that technology changes. If you know the principles, then you can learn new technologies and more advanced concepts. If you only know how to use some specific set of tool, then you might have trouble as technology evolves.
In general, a masters degree may help you get a better initial job, especially if you want to do something specialised, such as computer graphics, security or data mining, but once you have a job your experience will matter most, not your grades or degree.

Another thing to consider is that an advanced degree gives you better opportunities for promotion within a company. For example, without managerial education (the oft-despised MBA) you can't reasonably hope to land a mid-level management position.


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How to give crtitical feeback without sounding obnoxious?
I'm going to a conference in a few days. Among the presentations I'd like to listen to, there's one paper that is nicely written but is extremely flawed methodologically. In short, the authors violate at least three assumptions of causal inference like it's no big deal - and they don't even discuss these assumptions. Due to that, any attempt to interpret the results is laughable. (I'll edit in more details, if needed).
The point is, if it were a good paper, I'd love to keep contact with the authors. I'm familiar with their previous work, they are usually good in doing what they are doing. We work in neighboring sub-fields. It's unlikely we'd work together - we just happen to use similar methods for different things. But it is likely we'll keep bumping into each other at other conferences or will review each other's papers.
Right now I see three options:

go to their panel, raise my hand during the Q&A time, list everything that's wrong with their paper. The presenter is really not going to like it (I know I wouldn't).
talk to the presenter before or after the panel over coffee, list everything that's wrong with the paper, but save him public humiliation. Problems: we are not presented to each other, so he might go on the defensive and stop listening to my comments right after the first "Man, you can't do it this way." Obviously, if he reacts like this, any "let's stay in touch" would be impossible, too.
say nothing, hoping that reviewers would say it instead. Problems: I don't establish any contact with the authors; it might be quite some time before the paper goes through the review process; the reviewers might not be that rigorous and familiar with the methodology (the latter depends on the submission venue, I guess).

If I decide to give feedback, how to use these options to make this feedback useful without sounding like I'm trying to trash these authors' work?
Additional details that might affect the responses:

Quick googling shows that the paper now has a "working paper" status and is under submission somewhere. And the results have been already featured in The Financial Times. Oh, well...
Seniority: both the presenter and I are at the post-doc/assistant professor level. Two other coauthors of the paper are senior professors.
"Are you sure you got the flaws right"? I'm sure.

In general, a diplomatically phrased email can be a better way to raise a contentious issue, because the other party doesn't have to respond immediately and can take some time to think instead of immediately going on the defensive.

@ff524 That's right, thanks. Maybe, I should write a short mail in these few days before the conference...

I would emphasize diplomatic. Calling their work laughable would not be a good way to start... Remember that assumptions are always broken in models: models are simplifications of reality, and simplification is just another word for "wrong in some meaningful way". So if someone writes me an email just listing what assumptions are broken I would most likely shrug and move on. You would have to come up with an argument (phrased politely) why those assumptions are especially relevant for this paper.

Thanks, @MaartenBuis. Yes, it goes without saying that it's not about picking out some minutiae and these assumptions are relevant for the paper. For one, they estimate the effect of absence of a treatment by using treated "units" as a control group for a non-treated "unit". The very idea of causal inference tells you that it should be the other way around: non-treated patients used as a control group for the treated. In any case, I'll do my best to be as polite and diplomatic as possible.

In general the safest way to phrase your comment would be something like "I do not understand your strategy of using treated units as a control group" rather than "you cannot use treated units as a control group". That way if they happen to use a strategy you hadn't thought of (that can happen) your email is still perfectly appropriate. If they made an error (that can happen to), you pharased it to cause the least offence.

@MaartenBuis Perfect, thanks. I was actually thinking about saying something like "It'd be great if you discussed your reasons of doing so and so in your paper, because so and so leave the reader wondering (...)". It's not my first rodeo and I'm doing it because I just want to help them improve the paper, not because I like the idea of proving them wrong.

The key idea in a conference is to publish your research findings and get feedback from the panel and those participating in the conference who are related to your research area.
If you do believe that there are certain assumptions that are made with fundamentals blatantly violated, then you do have the right to clarify the basis on which such assumptions are made during the query session. What if they do have justifying reasons for their simplification I their assumptions? Due to their limited time and space, it might not be possible to explain all the details.
Being diplomatic is the key here (as pointed in the comments). State your points not as judgements of facts but rather as doubts for clarification. The panel may take the line and ask for further clarification as necessary.

Very close to my own thinking. Thanks for pointing out that the panel might take the line as well and that it could still be possible to proceed if they would just discuss further the reasons behind their assumptions.

Ask questions. Even if you think you are right, ask questions. Listen. Then, if the opportunity opens, discuss. It gives both sides opportunity to gracefully save face if one of them is wrong.

Absolutely @CaptainEmacs, that's the rationale behind a research conference. That's the main difference that sets conferences apart from other modes of publications.

First: Cromwell's Rule applies. You're absolutely sure that you're right, and they're wrong. That sureness should be a huge warning sign for you. So, accept the possibility that you are wrong.
Second: ask, don't tell.
So not this:

You say C causes D, but actually D causes C!

But rather, something along the lines of:

Do I understand correctly that you've assumed A and B and that you've then shown that C is correlated with D, and conclude that C causes D? How did you exclude the possibilities that D causes C, or that C and D have a common cause E?

First: thanks for the answer. Second: yes, there's always a possibility that a reader gets it wrong, while the authors are actually right. But not this time - or, rather, I wouldn't have even opened my mouth if I didn't think there was something to talk about. I was right and I asked questions to make the authors to come to the right conclusion themselves. Made sure that it was a discussion, not a trash-talk, and cleared up some additional questions they had. Haven't seen their new version yet, but they thanked me for a "detailed and fruitful chat."


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How to maximize the chances to get a good PhD position in algorithms
I have a master in CS from a not too well ranked French university. I have excellent grade in algorithms and did a good master thesis (although I haven't tried publishing the results in it). my overall grades are good as well. What can I do to further maximize my chances of getting a good PhD position in algorithms? I am confident in my skills but do not have much to prove that.
I am guessing that trying to do some publishable research with my former master adviser is a good thing, but since his area of research is really not my cup of tea, is it reasonable to try to publish something alone?
How can I find problems to work on that are feasible and publishable?
Any other advices are welcome.

Why is your thesis material not publishable? Most Master's theses have a paper or two worth of material in them. Good quality publications to your name will speak volumes.

I haven't tried publishing the results in it — Fix that.

Ok I see that publications are vital, thanks!

You don't need to publish on top-ranked conferences. Publishing something alone will prove crystal clear what you (alone) are capable of. That should help. Also recommendation letters the documents that @ArminMustafa mentions and enthusiasm, but nothing shows more enthusiasm than publications. Try to write them properly, in this context I think that is more important than showing algorithms that will cause a revolution in the area, you are not expected to do that, probably not even during your PhD, although that depends on your definition for "revolution".

I have few suggestions for you:
When you are applying for PhD there are few documents which needs to be submitted along with your application like Your transcripts, Research statement/proposal, Resume, Recommendation letters etc.
Now what you can do is: Prepare a very good research proposal, since you believe in your skills make sure that you highlight them with some examples like previous projects, your contributions etc. Remember, your research proposal is read very properly, so if you are bale to justify yourself well that would work for you
Also in your recommendation, you can ask your supervisor to mention your skills, appreciate your strong point enough.
Also there is no harm in mentioning the reason of not having published papers in your cover letter.
I hope this answer gives you some insight to get into a good PhD position.


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After what George was Georgetown University named?
After what George was Georgetown University named? Or was it named that because of where it is located?

Georgetown University is named after the village Georgetown it is in or close to. Georgetown predates the creation of Washington D.C. by a significant margin and one can speculate that, like many other places up and down the East Coast of the United States, it was founded by settlers from Britain who named all sorts of places after British kings, queens, and localities. Other origins for the name are also possible, of course, and the linked to wikipedia article states this:

Since Georgetown was founded during the reign of George II of Great Britain, some speculate that the town was named after him. Another theory is that the town was named after its founders, George Gordon and George Beall.

From what I can find with a short search, the provenance of the name appears to be disputed.  The university is named after Georgetown, but there are some competing theories for the origin of the name of the town.  In 1751 when the town was founded, it was common for locations in British colonies to be named after the sovereign at that time (George II), but there are other possibilities in this case.

The part of Washington which was formerly Georgetown was laid out pursuant to an act of the provenance of Maryland dated June 8, 1751, passed in response to a petition of several inhabitants of Frederick County, in said State.  This act appointed seven commissioners to purchase 60 acres belonging to Messrs. George Gordon and George Beall, on the Potomac River...  The act then adds that upon the completion of said proceedings the locality is "erected into a town, and shall be called by the name of Georgetown."  It was never incorporated as a city, but was commonly called the City of Georgetown as a consequence of the casual reference to it by that title in numerous acts of Congress.
The general supposition is that the town was named in honor of George II, then the reigning sovereign of Great Britain, but it is also contended that it was named as a compliment to the two Georges from whom the site was obtained.
(Tindall, W. (1900) The Establishment and Government of the District of Columbia. U.S. Senate reports of 1900 (Congressional Edition), Volume 4043, p. 15.)

I've even heard it was named after George Washington, but cannot verify that claim.

@Geremia: George Washington was a 19-year-old surveyor at the time that Georgetown was founded; he was not well-known or accomplished at that time.  So I don't think that is a plausible origin for the name.

It's named Georgetown because it overlooked a village named that: "Georgetown University History":

John Carroll’s founding of Georgetown College coincides with the birth of our nation. […] In 1789, Carroll secured the deed to 60 acres of land on a hilltop overlooking the village of Georgetown. He was appointed Archbishop of Baltimore in 1808.

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What to do when a recommender for an already-submitted PhD admissions application suddenly goes AWOL?
What does an applicant for admissions in a PhD program do if a recommender put down on an already-submitted application suddenly goes AWOL and does not submit his letter of recommendation? Would a missing letter of recommendation completely disqualify the applicant, or does the admissions committee try to make contact with the AWOL recommender?

Although I have not served on an admissions committee, I have been in your situation. There are two things you need to do, both right away. Find a new reference letter writer. When you write to them, apologize for the late notice, but explain that another letter writer is going to be unable to submit the letter(s) they agreed to. In this request, be calm, grateful, and respectful to both the recipient and the original letter writer. Also, contact the admissions office and tell them you would like to change a recommendation writer. I do not think there is need for any detail here. As long as they have letters before the deadline, the administrator responsible for compiling files will add the appropriate letter to your file. The people on the admissions committee may not even know anything changed. Even if they do, I do not think they will care much. They will pay attention to the actual substance of the submitted letters.
Hopefully my story is helpful. A former supervisor submitted about 80% of the letters I had requested from him for my graduate school applications. At first he was simply AWOL. Then I asked a former co-worker to knock on the supervisor's door. The supervisor shouted, "I've had enough with these damn reference letters!" He never emailed me to tell me he had decided to stop writing! I followed the procedure I describe above. The admissions administrators were helpful. I do not believe it had any adverse effect on my consideration in the admission process.

Your supervisor's attitude is extremely unprofessional. Specially since the bulk of the work is to write the first one.

@Davidmh Yeah, it was weird. Definitely not a model for others.


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Project design and scope: "interesting" vs "incremental" science
I very recently came across a blog entry which was about a PhD candidate quitting a few weeks/months shy of completing the degree due to frustration with the way academia works in general.
Now you may agree or disagree with the notions put forth, but both the anonymous letter and the long row of comments it has attracted certainly provides an interesting and lively discussion, relevant to many academics if not all.
One particular subject it got me thinking about is the choice of projects, safe-and-uninteresting vs daring-and-interesting. For those who do not feel like reading the discussion in the blog, essentially it's about how many researchers go for projects that have little to no impact practically, in fields where a lot of the "interesting" work is put forth. Such projects are essentially after small incremental additions to the literature, more often than not special case scenarios, or replication of previously demonstrated results with other methods than previously reported.
I am currently at a large conference, and I started reflecting on this subject. I noticed how the "better" speakers claim of excellence, or ground-breaking research, the-whole-picture type projects (e.g. "mapping out the entire human kinome", or "developing antibodies for each and every human protein"). Currently I am sitting with my iPad observing people passing by my poster from some distance. Just like I suspected most people just pass by and barely even stop to read more than a sentence. That's how poster-sessions work you might say, but I am confident that a major contributor to this is the fact that the project I am presenting is inherently not that interesting; it's about a rare disease, effecting mostly elder patients, and does not involve the newest and hottest instrument or technique. I can only imagine that editors and reviewers will be equally unimpressed with the manuscript when we submit this study.
That being the case I got into thinking whether or not it's actually worth getting into such a study. I feel like I have put a lot of time and energy into something that's not really my field of study and not liekly to have a rich "return-of-investment". Before I go to my supervisor and have a serious chat about this I would like to get some feedback on whether or not this is a common phenomennon, within the biomedical sciences/academia in general. As scientists-to-be is our primary responsibility to ourselves, to our bosses/departments, or to science itself?

I really like your questions but I often feel that they deserve a discussion rather than a simple answer.

@Bitwise thanks. The problem with easily and readily answerable questions is that they rarely hold any long term value, I feel. Nevertheless, I try to formulate my questions to try and avoid discussions as much as I can, while keeping the questions as open as possible.

You have different but overlapping responsibilities to all three; you can't say that one "overrides" the others.
You have the responsibility to do "good science." By "good," I do not mean "high-impact" or "prize-winning" or anything like that; I mean "ethical": you carry out your experiments or calculations without trying to achieve a desired outcome to support a preconceived model or explanation.
You owe your advisor and yourself the same level of professional conduct: do the science properly, and let the results be what they are. You also have the responsibility to respect and properly use the resources your advisor provides: money, facilities, and time.
Finally, you have a responsibility to yourself: do work that you feel satisfies you, and that keeps you motivated. Don't do research in an area just because that's what's "hot" right now; fads come and go, but good research survives that. Second-rate research likely won't survive.

This is such a great answer. In my opinion, it covers all the right motivations. But unfortunately, I sometimes feel the same as the OP: that this view on science is somewhat Utopian. I know (some of them very respectable) academics who I feel do good science but for the wrong (in my opinion) reasons: they want to do quality research so that they could publish, as opposed to publishing because they made an interesting/important/valuable discovery they feel should be shared with the community.

I can't judge motivations. Some people want to do good in the world, some people want the fame and notoriety. I can't reject a sound scientific paper just because it's been written to improve someone's profile, rather than for the sake of furthering scientific knowledge and possibly improving society,

No, of course. A good paper is a good paper. But, I've started to read the blog post that motivated the OP, and while I can't agree that current scientific output is becoming mediocre because of the wrong attitude towards science, I sometimes feel that it is limiting the creativity and potential research directions. But anyway, sorry, I'm not trying to start a discussion.

As I mentioned to to Peter Janssons answer below, I happened to revisit this question after a some time... Your answer is ethically and theoretically sound, almost as a textbook answer. However, I cannot shake that feeling that it is also (at least partially) unrealistic, almost as if it's self-contradicting; is it at all possible to meet all three criteria throughout your graduate studies?
Interesting mini-discussion with @penelope btw... I have admit that I agree with her(?) regarding this description of science being inherently disparate from the reality in this field, utopian almost...

@posdef I'll let you know in a couple of years if it's completely unrealistic or not, but as for now, judging by my views (I refuse to do something I'm not enjoying at a big level, and I refuse to shape my long term work plans by upcoming conferences), what my advisers say till now (they seem happy with my work) and what my colleagues know of my approach to science (apparently: "I am one of the pure ones", they said)... it's possible. And, as they say, change should come from within, so I'm sticking to my Utopian views for as long as I can hoping they'll rub off on people around me.

The first comment that comes to mind is "If I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't be science". Much of the science will out of necessity be at a basic (and therefore perhaps perceived as uninteresting) level. Ground breaking work originates primarily from two things: luck or huge funding (thinking of human genome as an example). As a PhD student you are not likely to tap into huge funding although your advisor may do so and your PhD might then get a ride on that gravy train. It is not the norm. Luck is not something one can hope for either. It is of course possible to argue that finding a good research question can be a third alternative but again getting the results to break through or the money to fund it usually ends up being the limiting factors.
Along the lines of aeismail's answer, a PhD is about so much more than just a flashy product, it is about learning the basics of science, the attention to detail, the ethics of research and the research process. this does not preclude high profile results but more often than not it is about basic science and about providing or contributing to a firm basis upon which higher profile science is built. Put differently, with out that ground work the rest would not exist. So there is a drive in all of us do do as best as we can and that this some day will reach the headlines. but, I would argue that doing high-quality science is something almost different to high profile science. There is not necessarily an equal sign between the two. And with research you do not necessarily know when or where the breakthroughs will appear.
As an example, I worked with a group of colleagues trying to prove an hypothesis through experimental work. We found something completely different and hitherto unknown and it was not by design. this gave us a publication in Nature (whether this is the pinnacle of good science I will not say) from a project that otherwise would have been looked upon as fairly middle of the road.u

I happened to come back to this question and re-read the answers given. I have to say that I must have missed the quote: "If I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't be science." It's a bit sad how accurate that statement is somedays... :)

As scientists-to-be is our primary responsibility to ourselves, to our bosses/departments, or to science itself?

I'm not even sure what this phrase means. IMHO, the only principles are
1) Do what you find interesting and try to get good of it.
2) Never publish junk (BTW, no medical research that works is junk: even if the disease
is rare and affects only few "old people" and you found a cure, you improved this world quite a bit; the junk is something that either doesn't work or is perfectly clear from what everybody knows already and I should say that many papers involving "hot techniques" fall into that category).
3) Watch out a bit so that your can live and support yourself and your family on your salary (but don't try to fight for promotion, etc. beyond that level).
4) Never tell other people that what they are doing is not worth doing unless you can easily do it yourself and never listen to anybody telling you something like that unless he can demonstrate that he can do it himself better and faster than you.
5) Don't envy anybody. There is always a bigger fish in the pond (a lot of them, really).
As to "losing belief in academia as something useful to the world", since the linked letter uses quite a strong language, I'll use equally strong one to answer. It is not greedy and irresponsible academicians that make the beautiful world worse but the rather disgusting world that makes academicians greedy and irresponsible. We work for God but have to deal with people and I can quite understand the attitude of Wernher von Braun, which, if I understand anything about him, was "I'm here to get us all to the Moon and my time is short, so if you make it impossible without sending people to gas chambers, it is your moral problem and not mine". Whether you want to share this attitude or to protest against it most fervently is your choice. The point is that this is not a choice a scientist invented and forced upon the world but the choice the world invented and forced upon a scientist. So, I don't buy the rhetoric about scientist's responsibility to the humankind unless I see some reciprocity. Making the most brilliant rocket engineer of all times a Nazi is quite an unforgivable crime and it is not the only one the academia can charge the humankind with. So, if somebody insists that we are not up to expectations, I'll retort that the world should be grateful that the scientists still work for it at all, not judge them from the viewpoint of idealistic moral standards or their utility for its purposes.

Would you mind changing the example in your answer so it does not include Nazis and killing Jews?

I'll have to change the history then and, alas, it is beyond my power.

@Bitwise However, I can remove the explicit reference to Jews without altering either the main point or an example :). Not sure what good it makes (the WWII events are still widely known to everyone), but if you ask, I don't see why not :)

Your points are quite sound, but then you start with some obscure God argument, and everything just collapses like a card house. The rough guide to quickly invalidating own's own arguments.

Obscure, but not meaningless. Some things are hard to put in words, you know. Think of the moments when you are deep in thought over some problem, the moments when the work is really done. At this moment you are not driven by the desire for credit, necessities of life, etc. Your bosses, publishers, yourself, rewards and grudges, and the entire world cease to exist. Whom are you working for then? It is not specific to academia. A bus driver navigating his vehicle on a mountain road on a rainy night has the same experience. Saint-Exupéry would be able to say it right. I'm just bad with words...

To elaborate a bit more, if someone sees a scientist only through his interactions with people and the society (which one of my friends calls "biped games") and judges him based on this, he may be right as far as "general human values" are concerned but he is usually completely wrong as far as the other side of human life and quest (for which I cannot find a better English word than "spiritual", though I agree that this word smells of church nowadays) is concerned. The quoted letter misses that side of the academia life entirely, and that is its main flaw.

Thanks. I was not suggesting this is untrue, quite the contrary. Because it is true, it is also quite emotional for some - that's why I thought it would be best to leave out if it is not necessary for the answer.

@Bitwise The story of von Braun's life is, IMHO, one of the most tragic and most controversial stories as long as we are talking about the collision of a lofty quest with the surrounding realities, so I prefer to keep it. If you want a different example, the way Grisha Perelman "burnt out" over all those "ugly things" in academia (which I loath at least as much as that hapless graduate student, BTW) may be quite illuminating too. The student himself, possibly, falls into the same category, though I need to see his work first to make any opinion of this.

I think the points Peter is mentioning in his answer should be told to everybody before thinking about to start a PhD odyssey or at the beginning. Unfortunately, isn't. Especially, when the only bigger "scientific" project before entering a PhD was a bachelor thesis, many PhD students probably have rather big misconceptions about the essence and benefit of a PhD, personally and for the society.
In germany, during the much longer master thesis you gain more experience, how exhausting it is to produce incremental progresses that can be published.
So my first advise is, when you are unsure to enroll into a PhD program, rather think about earning a master degree and gaining more experience. After this you can still decide for a PhD, but with much more knowledge on your personal interest and ability.
The second advise I would like to suggest is that one has to understand, for academia much more than for industry, to have a successful academic career culminating in a tenured professorship depends on many factors you cannot control. The factors you can control demand discipline, a lot of work, but also searching and taking risks, e.g. by reading literature from neighboring fields or visiting broader conferences. Especially the latter becomes more and more important (in my humble opinion and being myself in the postdoc phase) due to increasing number of researchers and competition. The "safe-and-uninteresting" PhD work you describe is unlikely to facilitate you an academic career, only with extreme luck. So, at the lastest at the end of your PhD or beginning of the postdoc phase you should start thinking about and looking for interesting risks in your field. There is also a reason, why you only have a high likelihood or in some countries are at all allowed of being granted funding, when you have a PhD. Before, you are not really considered a full and independent scientist by the community.
To close this answer, my PhD work developed from initially incremental work over time towards quite interesting/exciting to me and maybe also very helpful to society at the end of it. The potential for this was enclosed in the object of my studies (I was aware of this) and the idea to realize it technically came up at a disuccion while presenting my poster with someone from a very different field. And I work in a field that doesn't need big teams to conduct experiments vs. clinical studies or particle physics demanding even bigger personal patience and sacrifices. I wrote an application and got funding granted. To write a successful application needs a lot of this sometimes very uninteresting and incremental work and experience one did and gained during his PhD (knowing your field, research methods, state of the art, communicate your results/ideas...) This is in my opinion the deeper and hidden essence and point of a PhD, also only a minority of PhD graduates will ever start writing their own research proposal for submission to a funding source. But it explains quite well to me, why so many Q&A's here stem from frustration/misconception of doing a PhD and it feels often like odyssey.

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"Poster Paper" vs. "Short Paper" vs. "Full Paper"
I have come across author instructions for conferences that differentiate between full papers/short papers/poster papers by length only.
Sometimes shorter paper types seem to undergo less scrutiny.
Let's say I have made a significant finding that can be well expressed in 1 or 2 pages (shouldn't we all aim for being brief?), how would I decide what track to submit to? Why wouldn't I choose the poster/short paper track? Is there a difference in reputation between a short paper and a full paper? How would a reader be able to tell (other than by page count)? I've sometimes seen papers prefixed as "Short Paper: ...", but is this the norm in Computer Science? How do IEEE/ACM handle this?

You should also check if all the versions have formal proceedings. Those that don't are meant for works-in-progress and will have a significantly lower "reputation".

Also, I don't understand how the tracks can differ on length only. Is there a minimum length requirement for full papers then?

Note that some "posters" are for work in progress, not completed works. I met a lot of students in ACM poster sessions who were "not quite done."
I would suggest submitting as a short paper if you have a significant result. The program committee might ask you to move it to a poster, however. But, for the initial submission, probably short paper is better.
Reputation likely isn't affected by the distinction between long and short papers, since some significant things can be expressed compactly. I don't think that would be the same for a poster, though not all conferences are equivalent.


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Citing "Academic Editor" in Journal Article
MDPI lists "academic editors" for some of their papers, e.g.:

Is this name to be reproduced in the bibliography when using common citation styles?

As far as I'm concerned, the answer is no. I should however add that every journal can have their own policy for references and you should read it whenever you submit something.

Academic editors don't contribute to the paper's contents (not directly anyway), so no - you do not reproduce their name when citing the article. For comparison, you never give the name of the editor-in-chief of the cited paper's journal when citing the article, either.

Interesting. I've been told to cite editors of proceedings, for example. Also editors of collections.

@mritz_p Proceedings are not articles, however; they are a collection of articles, and which articles are included in the proceedings is decided by the editors. So editors do affect the contents of proceedings directly.

The answer is given by MDPI themselves on the corresponding article website (see section "Share and Cite", scroll to bottom):

MDPI and ACS Style
Wen, Y.; Chen, H.; Wei, X.; Li, K.; Liu, F.; Liu, X. Examining Predictors and Outcomes of Decent Work among Chinese Female Pre-Service Primary School Teachers. Sustainability 2023, 15, 730. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15010730

AMA Style
Wen Y, Chen H, Wei X, Li K, Liu F, Liu X. Examining Predictors and Outcomes of Decent Work among Chinese Female Pre-Service Primary School Teachers. Sustainability. 2023; 15(1):730. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15010730

Chicago/Turabian Style
Wen, Ya, Huaruo Chen, Xindong Wei, Kai Li, Fei Liu, and Xia Liu. 2023. "Examining Predictors and Outcomes of Decent Work among Chinese Female Pre-Service Primary School Teachers" Sustainability 15, no. 1: 730. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15010730

So no, the academic editor name of a journal article is not to be reproduced in the bibliography when using common citation styles. A citation style requiring that would be rather unusual.
I do not know from where exactly you got your example, but, although the formatting does not reflect this, it seems to me that what is listed after "Citation" ends with the doi. The "Academic Editor" would be a separate piece of information, then.

The example is from the PDF of the article (left column).


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Acknowledge Funding for Contributions in Kind
I have won an academic research grant by a major "Cloud" computing platform to run a large agent-based simulation. The grant is not paid in cash. Instead I receive credits to spend on the computing platform.
How do I acknowledge this? The usual X is partially supported by... line doesn't feel applicable for this type of award as it does not directly benefit me personally.

Usually, grant providers will indicate how they would like to be acknowledged.

Research grants often do not go to the researcher personally. They go to the university account earmarked for this research project. It benefits me, in the sense that I can do the research I want to do. But that is no different to the benefit you got from your grant. So, can you clarify what the personal benefits are that you expect from other types of grants?

Thank you @mmeent, I will reach out to them. Thanks Maarten, I am self-funded so I don't really know how grants work. What I wanted to say was that cash grants given to an institution might "trickle down" to individual researchers in the form of salaries. Benefits in-kind, however, cannot be used in this way but can only ever cover "direct" research costs.

How do these "credits" compare to say an allocation of compute time at a high-performance computing center? Can the credits only be redeemed for compute time, or are there other possibilities?

Technically the credits can be used for any service offered by the platform operator, @Anyon.

We gratefully acknowledge X for in-kind contributions.

X is the legal name of the corporation.
Also mention any conflicts of interest related to the corporation.


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UK: Does my institution incur direct costs when I make use of an open access agreement?
My institution has several publisher agreements that allow me to publish open access without cost (to me). What happens when I make use of such an agreement? Will my university incur direct costs (money that could be better spent elsewhere)? Will I take up a slot that could otherwise be used for other (more important) research?

This would depend entirely on the agreement your institution has signed with the publisher. Maybe you could ask your librarian?

I think there are some standard agreements that a large number of UK institutions have signed (e.g. https://beta.elsevier.com/open-access/agreements/jisc?trial=true). Would be interesting to learn about those.

If you're asking about specific agreements, it would probably be helpful to mention them and provide references/links for context for others (in the question body of your post).

Somebody has to pay. Journals aren't public charities or tax funded. Your university spends other monies to support your research. This isn't that different.

Yes of course: the nature of these deals is (presumably) that participating institutions pay a reduced fee. The question is whether these fees are commonly per-publication (in which case I wouldn't want to make use of them) or one-time (in which case I would want to use them).

Presumably, the number of papers published under the agreement will factor into any renegotiation of the agreement even if there is no per-publication fee.

@mritz_p Who are you to judge the importance of your research compared to anyone elses? Just publish your things and be happy about your publication! Don't think everone else is doing "better" research. In the EU, there is lots of funding that goes into open acces publishing and I am pretty sure there are also local government subsidies. I never heard of such a fund running out.

Where I work (not UK) there are some agreements where university pays in advance and then gets a certain maximum number of articles published open access. In such a situation it may be that your paper takes a slot away and others may not be able to use it (I could use our agreement early in the year but slots had run out in November.) If slots are not all used (which also happens), you just make good use of money already paid. Chances are not all agreements work like this though.

@Sursula The question was not what the questioner should do; and I think it is well of interest regardless of what consequences the questioner draws from the answers. And (see above) in my university slots can run out.

@mritz_p I have recently received an offer from a (smaller but reputable) publisher that they offer German unis and reserach institutions a flatrate deal where they pay a (reasonable!) fixed amount per year and have unlimited access to the publications and can submit as many papers for OA publication to their journals as they want at no APC. So if the deals with the Unis are similar elsewhere and with other publisher, there is no need to worry to take away ressources.


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Selecting Journals or Conferences to publish research work
I am working on a multidisciplinary subject which involves mechanical engineering, chemical engineering and chemistry. I have a decent amount of research completed and now I need to select a journal to publish my work. How do I select a good journal to publish my papers?
Also for the same topic I need to select conference to present. How do I select that too?

In general if you are looking for a journal where to publish a specific type of manuscript do a survey of the material you have referenced. Where are those articles published? You should pay special attention to articles that are multidisciplinary such as yours. The next step if you are uncertain about the appropriateness is to e-mail the journal editors of journals and ask if they consider multidisciplinary articles. I do not think you should send the manuscript to them because they usually do not have time to read anything substantial just to answer a question but do paste in your title, author list and abstract.
As of conferences, I cannot see a patented answer. If a conference is a recurring event you can always go back to collections of abstracts to see if other multidisciplinary papers have been presented. Another option is to see if you cannot organize your own session at a larger conference that permits sessions.

If the journal accepts pre-submission inquires try this way.
Alternatively consult Elsevier Matching tool, it should help.

Don't use Elsevier Matching, because (a) it's not very good, (b) it is restricted to Elsevier journals, which form a minority of the journals in many fields

Well, one can also use Springer Marching tool and compare. But surely, some of journals that are most reputable in the community might be published elsewhere. http://www.springer.com/authors/journal+authors/journal+authors+academy?SGWID=0-1726414-12-837833-0


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What does it mean to be on a short list?
I recently applied for an academic job that did not request letters of recommendation at the time of application, but only a list of potential references. I just now received an email from the search committee chair that I had made it to the "short list" and to please contact my references to arrange for my letters to be sent.  I thought that a "short list" was the list of people who were going to be flown out for an in-person interview, but it seems that the "short list" in this context just means "the list of candidates whose letters of reference we'd like to see".  Is there an agreed-upon definition of "short list" that I'm missing?

short list: a list of selected candidates from which a final choice is made (New Oxford American Dictionary)

I think the information you take from being on a short list is that they threw out some other people's applications and didn't throw out yours, nothing more, nothing less.  Felicitations!

Nope, there's no widely agreed upon definition of "short list".  Sometimes a committee draws up an official short list, while sometimes people informally talk about a short list based on who is being seriously considered even if there's no official list.  Sometimes the short list consists of the people being interviewed, sometimes it's the people for whom letters are being requested, and sometimes it's in between.  Things can get more complicated when there are several forms of interviews (e.g., interviews at an annual meeting vs. fly-ins).  Sometimes a reference to the short list is a meaningless pleasantry meant to soften the blow of rejection when a committee member knows an applicant personally.  Ultimately, the only thing you can say for sure is that it's better to be on the short list than off it.  Beyond that, you have to guess from context or ask for clarification.

"Ultimately, the only thing you can say for sure is that it's better to be on the short list than off it" - I love your answer, it sounds like something from Seinfeld.

@Bitwise I read that comment in Jerry's voice.

"The short list" doesn't have an agreed upon meaning besides "The list that's shorter than the long list" in my experience.
In some places, it does mean the people they're intending to interview, but not necessarily. In your case, since they've been kind enough not to waste the time of (potentially) hundreds of people writing letters for candidates that never stood a chance, it might actually mean what you thought it meant, just that there's an additional step between "We like him" and "Fly him out". Namely, get letters of recommendation before they spend airfare, department time and resources etc. for someone who has some hidden flaw that will come out in the letters. So the intent might be there, but with an added bit of due diligence.
It might also be that they have a "short list" and then a "shorter list", which would be the scenario you're assuming.

Your interpretation is similar to how things work at my institution.

We scrutinize the applications and filter them
For the filtered set, we ask for letters of recommendation (this is the stage you appear to be at). We do this because it takes work to track down the letter writers, and we don't want to invest the effort unless the candidate has some chance of making it to the next phase.
We go through the letters very carefully, solicit extral informal feedback if necessary, and then develop a (partial) interview list.

We don't necessarily tell candidates that they've reached phase 2, and in some universities there's no step 1, so it's not always clear what "asking for letters" really means. In your case, since the department explicitly mentioned a short list, you've likely passed a plausibility filter (which is good!), but you can't draw any further inference from it.
From the department's point of view, this is also a way to make you excited and motivated to push your letter writers into action (so it saves them effort :))

Being on a short list does not necessarily mean that they are going to interview you.  It costs them quite a bit to fly you out and put you up in a hotel for a few days.  But it is very possible that candidates ahead of you will ultimately turn the job down.  And at some point they may well consider you, and fly you out.
Quite likely, also, they haven't decided who they are going to call for an interview, and they want to read the letters to get an idea of who they want to interview.
Finally, these decisions may be based upon things beyond your control, or your talents.  For example, they might be looking for candidates with a very specific skill set, and you might not be a good fit.  Or there might be some internal politics in the department - perhaps one person really wants to hire you, and another really wants to hire someone else.  It's all out of your control.


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Using materials from a CC-BY-licensed poster with logos
I would like to borrow a figure (likely as is) and/or a stylized table (likely adapted) to use in a survey research paper, to which I'm contributing my part(s) as one of co-authors (those materials nicely summarize the trends of the subject matter). The source, from which I want to borrow the above-mentioned materials is a poster, licensed under CC-BY and shared on figshare (). According to the CC-BY license, it seems that there should be no problems whatsoever, given that I will follow the terms of the license. Specifically, I plan to properly cite the materials (including DOI) as well as make a note, specifying which one is adapted, if any. Is there anything else I should keep in mind?
Also, the CC-BY license "stamp" on the poster states that companies'/products'/projects' logos on the diagram are not covered by the license (obviously!). So, in this case, I assume that I should either include the same note or a statement along the lines of "logos of companies, products or projects are the property of their representative owners", which seems like a valid case of fair use.

I'm a little confused: are you just using the poster wholesale, including all the logos, or are you pulling you a part that doesn't include the logos? If you are using the logos, what role do they play in the image?

Possibly related http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10481/reproducible-research-and-corporate-identity

@StrongBad: Thank you for the link (+1) - that discussion is quite relevant.

@jakebeal: Neither one of the options you've mentioned. I'm considering using one or two parts of the 3-parts poster, and one of those two parts is a diagram, containing logos (circular diagram - see below). Specifically, this is the poster in question: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1286826. Actually, I don't like the circular diagram much and, if I'd have time and all logos in source form, I'd consider transforming it into more traditional diagram with time dimension on x-axis and an additional benefit of all logos and phase names being placed horizontally for improved readability.

In Addition to the citation, you should give the exact copyright information of your source below the figure and table you (remixed and) reused.
For your source you should give: CC-BY-SA, all logos excluded.
Please note that the license is CC-BY-SA and not CC-BY. Even so CC-BY is given on the web page, the poster says CC-BY-SA. The SA means:

ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

In other words, if you remix the figure and table, you have to publish under the same license, i.e. CC-BY-SA.

I ended up not including the content in question into my paper, however it is always good to know the right approach for the future. Thus, it's a good answer - thank you for clarifications. Upvoting and accepting.


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Postdoctoral job search: freedom
As I'm currently pursuing an academic job search (in parallel to the industry one), which includes potential postdoctoral positions, I would appreciate some clarifications on the following aspect.
Freedom. I assume that there are two major options for postdoctoral positions in regard to academic (research) freedom: 1) postdoctoral researcher joins a group, lab or project and contributes to one or more of their research projects under PI's guidance; 2) postdoctoral researcher joins a group, lab or department and contributes to one of those entities' research portfolio by conceptualizing and performing her/his own research (still under PI's guidance), based on previously negotiated agenda, which fits and supports larger groups' research themes.
Question: are my my assumptions correct; does a postdoctoral title reflect the type of freedom (or lack of) of the position?
Note: My field is Information Systems, a discipline, which can be considered as a sub-domain of Management Science, which, in turn, is a social sciences discipline.

Note how the PI/professor views the postdoc in the following: How people in science see each other ;)

I believe this varies strongly between different research cultures. It would be helpful for the answers to note to which countries and/or fields they apply.

@MadJack: Thank you for the link - the meme is funny and, likely, somewhat true. :-)

@Mangara: I'm applying almost exclusively to US institutions. Note on my discipline/field is at the bottom of my question - you most likely missed it.

The answer is a resounding Yes.
That is, it's not "either-or", but "both". On the one hand, as a postdoc, you will be expected to start coming up with your own research ideas and projects and take an active role in pitching your ideas to funding bodies, possibly even become PI on smaller grants yourself. Your supervisor will of course still play a major role.
On the other hand, your research should still tie in to your supervisor's area of expertise. Otherwise, why do you work with him and not someone else? And how should he help you with advice and contacts?
In the end, there will be a mixture between the two options you describe. When you join a group, you may respond to a job opening for a specific project, but even then, you will need to develop your own ideas in relation to this project and pursue your own interesting questions related to the project. Or you may have your own idea, possibly even your own funding, and more-or-less cold-call a potential supervisor, but even then, for the supervisor to accept you as a postdoc, you will need to explain to him how your idea ties in with his own work.

Nice answer (+1), and positive as well - thank you very much.

Excellent answer. This was my experience - I was expected both to go find new and interesting things to work on myself (preferably leveraging what the lab was good at) but also to contribute to the major projects of the lab.

Follow the money!
At the end of a grant, the PI usually has to demonstrate to the funding agency that it was used for more or less the same research as was set out in the original proposal. If a postdoc is funded through such a grant, there will not usually be too much flexibility - someone has to do the work the PI has proposed, and it will probably be you. In large research projects, other people may be dependent on your piece of work being completed in a timely fashion. While many PIs will encourage you to develop your own ideas in parallel, the 'main' project must come first.
On the other hand, if the supervisor is not financially accountable to anyone for the funding  (e.g. the postdoc is supported through the supervisor's startup grant), there may be more scope to pursue your own ideas. Whether the supervisor is happy with this depends on (a) the quality of your ideas, and (b) the supervisor's character.
At the most extreme end of the scale, you might be able to get a postdoctoral fellowship. These typically allow you to work entirely independently, on research of your own choosing. As such, you will not have a supervisor (but often one or more 'advisors' will be involved.

Excellent points (+1), very useful. Thank you so much for clarification.


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Research statement and dissertation abstract
Based on reviewing multiple examples, a description of one's dissertation research seems to be a mandatory (or, at least, expected) part of any statement of research document. Question: is it appropriate to include my dissertation abstract (as is or lightly edited) in my research statement in lieu of the above-mentioned part (in my case, it is past research, which I plan to extend as part of my research agenda- that will be discussed in the future research section)? Any related advice?

I have never seen this done, though sometimes people include abstracts to their work on their webpages.  The reason it doesn't make sense to me is that they serve very different functions.
For abstracts, you want to briefly explain the contents of your paper to experts, or at least people in your field, quickly so they can ascertain whether they want to take a closer look at your paper.
For research statements, you don't want to be terse.  You want to provide background context and motivation for your work, and you're not trying to convince people to read your work, but rather that your work is good and interesting and they should hire you.  Also, you want to convince people you can explain your work well. (Depending on the kind of position you're applying to, your research statement will either be written for non-experts experts.)
Of course, you can say basically the same thing as what you would in an abstract in an introductory paragraph, perhaps being more informal, but I definitely would not set it off as an "Abstract" block inside the statement.

Thank you for your answer (+1). I understand your points. I was just a little overwhelmed by a large variation in contents and styles of research statements (RS)... (to be continued)

(cont'd) ... from very (IMHO too) detailed or conversational (I realize that this is not a proper RS - just wanted to emphasize the style) to the ones that include thesis results as a separate section and the ones that "conceal" that information under section Past Research (this is the approach and structure that I plan to use).


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Can I negotiate a research assistant position if my PI moves to a new univerisity?
I am currently in the second year of my post-doctoral fellowship. My PI will be moving to a new university in ~9 months.
As the story of the potential move developed, I was honest with my PI during discussions and told him that it was likely that I would go with him if he left, but it was never discussed in detail.
Now that more specifics are known, it is time to talk details. I would like to negotiate for an upward move to a research associate position. I believe this would be fair considering I'm sure I will "lose" some amount of research time while the new lab is getting set-up. However, I'm worried about negotiations because a) this is not a "new" job, just a continuation of my fellowship at a new location with the same boss, b) I've already indicated that I would like to move to the new location, and c) my resume has not yet reached a point that I am able to strike out on my own for any other upward job move (though, I can probably make a lateral move to another post-doc, that is not ideal).
My questions are:
Is it reasonable to ask for a title promotion in this situation? Or do I have no room for negotiation?
What else should I add to the negotiations in order to help my career progress to the best of its ability during a transition to a new university in another state?

What does a "research associate" position mean in your field/country?  In mine, there's not really any such standard title.

I think it is more than reasonable to ask for a "bump", but you may want to reconsider moving. The way I see it is you are currently in your 2nd year as a post doc and the move isn't for 9 months so at the time of the move you would be approaching 3 years as a post doc in the same lab. This is getting to be a long time and you do not want to lose the time associated with the lab move to move to a new lab for a year. You need to make the move to the new lab desirable enough that you want to stay for 2+ years. The reason you may want to reconsider the move is that you would be effectively doing 2 post docs in the same lab instead of 2 labs. This means less of a chance to learn new things (both technical and interpersonal skills) and meet new colleagues (specifically ones who can write letters of reference for you and help you get the next job).
If you chose to stay, the argument for a bump is that (1) this would effectively be your second post doc, and (2) you would be taking a hit in your research associated with the move and need additional support to over come that. The reason keeping you is advantageous to your PI is continuity and the ability to get started quicker. Finally there is the issue that the PI probably has a start up package so can actually afford a bump (both salary and resources).

This is a good point. However, I would respectfully add that the length of a postdoc has little effect on your CV. What matters considerably more is the quality/number of your publications. The lab move comes at an unfortunate time for me (I've just reached maximum efficiency), but I believe there is merit to staying longer. That being said, you're right I could learn many new things in another position. However, wouldn't the start up time to learn said new things and get projects off the ground there be comparable to the time I would lose going to a new location within the same lab?

Secondly, you're right about establishing connections. And true, another postdoc would bring new connections. However, wouldn't I will receive the same benefit by moving to a new university and starting up new collaborations there? Moreover, if I stayed on with my current PI at the new place the timing would be perfect to write a K-99 guided by a new mentor from the new university. And certainly, if awarded a K, that would be quite a feather in my cap that I don't believe I would as competitive for if I were to switch to a new postdoc.

Thank you very very much for your comment. It has helped me view this situation in a new light.

I think it's reasonable to at least ask for the title bump. What do you have to lose? Administrators are more familiar with this situation than you might expect. It's essentially a case of the worst they can say is "no" when it comes to giving you a revised position/title. It likely comes down to their budget and/or the budget of your PI and whether their faculty see you fitting in there longer term. Remember they may see you as an asset and someone they wish to also "pluck" from your current university, which ultimately makes the plucking university look better overall as far as reputation stuff goes.
I recently witnessed a very similar scenario in my department, where a faculty member left and took his lab with him, including two PhD students and a post-doc. The faculty member (not the post-doc) negotiated with the new department to get his post-doc a research professor position. So it does happen. So you may not be the one who should be doing the negotiating directly, this might fall on your PI to negotiate for you. Also, in this situation the negotiation happened after the faculty member had accepted the offer, so the negotiations can still occur after the initial offer is accepted by the PI. Remember this is the honeymoon phase between the administrators in this new department and your PI, so they may do whatever it takes to make him happy (for now) including whatever he asks for on your behalf. Or they could say no, but I don't think anyone is offended and even expects this.
Another consideration might be whether you wish to stay with this PI long-term or not? Prior to him telling you he was departing, did you see yourself working with him beyond your current post-doc? These university moves are common and can shake you up when you are caught in the middle. It's a very important time to keep your career goals in sight.

Very interesting. Particularly, "the negotiations can still occur after the initial offer is accepted by the PI." My career goal would be to have a lab very independent and different from my current PI. However, I feel that by staying on with my current PI, I could greatly increase my competitiveness for a K-99 which would be very very helpful in progressing my career goals towards an independent investigator.

Depending on the relationship you have with your PI, I would think it would be general to assume that there will be quite a bit of work / research / papers (however you want to define work apart from the integral of a force curve over the distance) to do after the completion of your current postdoc.
I would think it would be more reasonable to go somewhere else for your second post-doc position at a lateral position as you will be extending your contact base for people to work with and because the work under the previous fellowship will probably still continue (at some level).
I would think that a title would not be of any import, unless you can come up with something that would be reasonable and continue on past your time there, i.e. the beginnings of some type of endowed post-doc chair and some associated name to go with it.  Even going from post-doc to say 'Research Assistant Professor' would be fine.


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Can I be an assistant professor to just "try it out"?
Currently I'm in a situation where I was originally working with an university to develop a course while being in industry, but I left the industry job. I'm not sure how to approach the conversation with the university. On one hand I would like to develop the course and teach it, but the university is a teaching oriented one (while I'm interested in research). Would it be better to work out a deal with them that I'll be an adjunct on the class and see how I get compensated for also developing a course? Or should I go in as an assistant professor and see how it goes (even though I think I wouldn't stay there for more than 2-3 years, and I would also pursue research with outside academia)?

In my experience, tenure track assistant professorships have >200 applicants and are extremely difficult to get. Can you give more details about how you are in a position to be choosing between adjunct and assistant professor?

@sessej, I didn't mean to come across as pretentious, apologies if I did. I'm really just trying to inform myself in the case that I do have to decide. I'm in a very small field, and I'm currently in a not that sought after location. I was developing a course for this school while working in industry since there was no one else with my background in the area, and I was going to teach it as well as adjunct. But I left industry and now that project is in the air, so I was just trying to inform myself (a year ago they had mentioned that I should apply as professor, but I was full time in industry

Adjunct compensation (in the US) is very low. Don't do it for the money unless you are desperate. The comment of sessej about competition can't be ignored, but you aren't locked in to a lifetime if you "try it out".
However, you will, in a regular position, take on responsibilities to the students and your colleagues that you must honor as long as you hold the position. It would be unethical to withdraw or simply not do the job if you find after a few weeks or months that you made a mistake. But once the term of the contract is over, you should be free to choose differently than you did earlier.
In some situations, a department might even prefer a candidate who would only stay for a while. If enrollments are expected to drop in a few years, for example or if they think they can find a better credentialed or experienced candidate. But most would likely prefer someone really committed to the profession. It would be difficult, however, for you to learn that in advance without prejudicing a decision about hiring you.
Note that the overall responsibilities of adjuncts and regular faculty are normally quite different.  While you are expected, as an adjunct, to give your own students good advice, you probably won't be asked to be a formal advisor of anyone. Likewise it would be unlikely that you would be chosen as a thesis advisor as an adjunct. The other side of the coin is that you won't have committee meetings to deal with, though that means you have little voice in academic governance.
Your inclusion in research, however, would more likely depend on finding someone to work with and developing a relationship. Likely your existing skills will help with that, depending on the field.


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review paper and authorship of ex supervisor
I am now in another lab now, different from my PhD studies, as a post doc.
We had a review paper in which we included a figure from my thesis, without analyzed or even concentrate the paper to this figure, since it is very common. This figure was included in one of the 10+ topics discussed in this review. Should the authors include the supervisor of my ex-laboratory, as author or could just declare the laboratory and the name of my ex- supervisor to the acknowledgments, where they could thank him personally, as well as his laboratory? (my ex supervisor has not contributed in writing of the review).

You should list what field you are working in, because this is very field dependent. In areas like mathematics it is completely unheard of to even consider putting someone's name on a paper that they contributed nothing to.

I would say that only citing him would be enough. My field is cognitive neuroscience, yours might have different rules. I was in the opposite situation, a figure from one of my papers was included in a review where my supervisor was one of the authors. When they described the figure they cited my paper. A citation is quite a nice thing to have, especially in a review.