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How do you balance producing results with learning new skills?
On the one hand, I'd like to produce a few graphs every week so my project can move forward.  Taking a month off to learn a new programming language, do a literature review, or work through a relevant textbook would hurt the pace of my research, and my advisor would wonder why I haven't done anything for a month.
On the other hand, if I take time off to learn a new skill, it may make my research faster and more efficient in the future.
What is the best way to balance these competing demands?

Why do you need to take time off to learn a new skill? Can't you do both at once (i.e., N% of working time on primary research and 100-N% of time on learning new skills)?

Read on the bus, in the bathroom, or during lunch. Learn a new language of Fridays. (aka, what ff524 said).

@ff524 Sometimes easier said than done. The question gives examples in a computational context, but as an experimentalist, I often find that doing a new kind of experiment takes me 5-10 times as much time as doing a familiar one (that is inferior but within my comfort zone). A major factor when experiments can take hours, or even days to complete!

Your research progress is measure by the number of graphs produced? Curious.

Teach it. Arrange a seminar on the method, this will force you to learn it and to organise it in your mind. Practice will come by using it, but overview is what you need in the initial time, to make the most out of it. The good thing is that, if it is not really important to you to make a seminar out of it, you know automagically that you do not want to spend time learning it systematically.

A common fallacy I observe in students I supervise is that they think they need to spend some time "learning X" before they can use X productively in their research.
If you are doing research, the most efficient way to "learn X" (where X is a programming language, methodology, or subject area, that may be of use in your research) is almost always to learn it by immediately applying it directly to your research.
In other words, I tell my students that if they are "taking time off" to learn something before starting to use it in their work, they are doing it wrong.
I would give the same advice to you: instead of taking time off to learn a new skill, start applying it to your research right now.  You might be a little slower than usual for a couple of weeks (because you aren't comfortable with the new skill yet), but you'll still be making forward progress on your research, while learning the new thing.
Edit: This applies even more if the thing you are learning is a fundamental skill, and not an "extra" technique. Fundamental skills include things like writing readable code, scientific writing, keeping good notes, etc. The best way to learn these things is to actively and consciously work on them as you do research. It's not generally effective to take "time off" to read some books, then go back to doing research and start practicing the things you read about.
If it's a new skill that can't be directly applied to your research, then you definitely shouldn't take time off to learn it. But you might consider spending time on it during intervals of downtime. You can't spend 100% of your working time on your primary research anyways (mental fatigue sets in at some point), so spend time learning the new skill when you need a break.

I disagree with this advice for the specific case of learning programming languages. The problem is that each language comes with a mental mind-set and some idioms. Without acquiring those, code will read like a mechanical translation from some language the programmer already knows. I always learn a programming language by first working through a beginner book or tutorial, before trying to write any code I intend to keep.

@PatriciaShanahan I agree with you for someone who is a software engineer or a professional programmer, but not for someone who is a researcher. The purpose of code written in a research setting is generally very different from code written in another professional setting (also see Why do many talented scientists write horrible software)

@ChrisWhite I don't think "writing code that others can understand" requires taking a month or two off from doing research to learn how. Writing readable code is different from writing idiomatic code for a particular language, which is what Patricia is referring to. Skills related to writing decent, readable, re-usable code are not usually language-specific.

I cannot stress the first paragraph enough. The most striking case I have seen is "I cannot use the printf function in MATLAB to round the numbers until I know C, because it comes from C".

@ChrisWhite  part of the idea is to never stop improving. Maybe your first few weeks in one language are producing horrible IDLesque monsters, but once you have picked up the basics, you can keep reading up, get better, and produce nicer code. And in the process, go back and improve parts of the old code you still use.

Also known as, "on the job training." Honestly, about 75% or more of writing software is self-training, in my experience. And generally speaking, having a grasp of the basic principles of software is all you need to teach yourself a new language. @ChrisWhite Sure, your code won't be pretty when you start a new language, but the only way to really be proficient in a language is use it a long time. Tutorials, training, whatever other sand boxes just won't cut it for that. Also, if you think "enterprise code" is "shiny," you're deluding yourself. Most code is bad, in my experience.

Am example where @ff524 advice would not work is for example learning functional programming when you have been using imperative languages for the most part. This is precisely the reason why so many people struggle with Haskell, i.e. they jump into it thinking they can make it work without understanding the whole shift in paradigm.

@b70568b5 True! It probably also wouldn't work for, say, a history major learning calculus for the first time, or something else similarly paradigm shifting.

I think this approach be avoided, for, when we try to apply the new skill immediately, we try to make things work, rather than understand what we are doing. That is approximate knowledge just enough to get the task done, but what we'll miss is the exact knowledge. Approximate knowledge will get the current work done, but will prove costlier when we need the exact knowledge at some point in the future. I'd follow approach suggested by @nirum while gathering the exact knowledge I'll need for the job. The key will be keeping a constant check on the new learning, which needs to be mastered.

In my school and work experience I agree.  You actually need both approaches: learn-before and learn-as-you-go.  However, I have found Western cultures tend to over-value learn-before, and miss out on learn-as-you-go.  I think its because we go to school so long before we can earn a living.

This is really great advice.  It depends on the context, but in biochemistry, you have a ton of downtime between experiments.  Its hard to sit there and read research, but it needs to be done.  The other thing is side project.  Can you do some cloning while your SDS PAGE is running (which takes us 2 days including immunoblot).  I guess looking back I would look to new skills to help your research project as a whole, and if a new side project helps the main project, then do it.  Time management is a huge part of the doctorate degree.

A sufficiently determined programmer can write (and screw up) a Java program in any language.

-1, this is really not the way to learn to do something the right way. Of course people should apply techniques, programming languages, etc. as they can. Learning something correctly can take awhile now, but often has a huge pay-off in the future.  For example, learning how to properly use Green's functions and some of the related mathematics isn't necessary in much of optics, but can be essential when faced with new problems requiring derivation directly from Maxwell's equations.

I think this is an instance of a more general problem, of trading off short-term efforts to hit particular milestones vs. longer-term investments.  Those longer-term investments might be learning a new skill, but might as easily be organizing your thoughts, refactoring a code base, improving your work environment, hunting through the literature, etc.
When you can do both at once, it's ideal, but often that's not the case.  If you focus on the short term, you end up in danger of neglecting the forest for the trees.  If you go for the long term, you might end up engaged in some serious yak shaving.
I personally struggle with this quite a bit, especially when you also consider the additional responsibilities of writing papers and pursuing grants.  The best solution that I have found so far is essentially duty cycling.  On any given day, I will decide which task is my primary goal for the day, and just keep switching to make sure that neither short-term nor long-term is getting unduly neglected.

This is something I think about a lot as well. Even if you learn new things while doing research, you will still be slower and there are always things you want to learn that aren't directly connected to your ongoing projects.
I asked my advisor about this trade-off once and his recommendation was to do enough work to get to the next stage (ie do enough as a grad student to get a good post-doc, enough as a post-doc to get a faculty job) and then spend the rest of your time learning and thinking about new things. I'm actually quite fond of that answer, but the key is in knowing how much is enough!

Excellent advice! I think the key is to keep a check on the learning direction on the new skill, and, time and again asking if I have already learned what I needed for the current job.

Have other people review what you produce.
Learn by doing is wonderful when it works but if you don't show your work to others you're trusting the judgment of someone who actually doesn't know what they're doing aren't you? :)
In the agile world of software development the typical time box is two weeks.  Produce something (in your case a graph) in two weeks then subject it to review by other people.  If it fails you go back and fix it.  Otherwise move on to the next graph.  Learn what you need to know to make each thing as you go.  Sure, your first few graphs will suck compared to your later ones but worry about that when you're sure you can do better AND you have time.
You can fiddle with the two week time box but keep in mind that the more time you have between reviews the more rope you've got to hang yourself with.  It really stinks to spend two months making something only to be told its worthless or already exists.  You can try to make the time box smaller.  The risk there is that your reviewer will get sick of helping you if you ask for reviews to often.
Neat trick here is that almost everyone can be effective as a reviewer even when they aren't an expert in what you are doing.  So you can take your work before many people to get feedback so long as you can get them interested.
This way you get results and learn as you go.  You will learn mostly what you need to know to finish that project.  If you are feeling the need to take time off to learn new skills then what you're really asking for isn't time off.  It's another project.  One that needs those skills.
Sometimes a project runs you into an area where your skill set is weak.  That's bound to happen eventually.  You can respond by panicking and putting everything on hold while you fill in your skill set or you can get some help from someone and create a plan to learn and create just what you need to get back to your project.
If, say, you want to learn something (that helps you make graphs) then great, what are you going to make while you learn it?  If you can't produce a graph in two weeks what can you produce?  Break the problem down until the first chunk is something you're confident you can do in two weeks.  Whatever it is you should also find a way to test it.  If it's a language, and you've made something that works, you can get it peer reviewed at https://codereview.stackexchange.com/.  So yeah, you're right back into that two week time box.  When times up you darn well should have made something to show someone.
Sometimes you just need some more freedom to explore.  A long demanding project can become a tyrant in your life.  It will force you to learn what it needs, not necessarily what you find interesting.  Taking time away from it and working on something related can be good to help you refresh but don't fool yourself into thinking you're accomplishing something while doing this.  At most you're just learning something.
I've been programming professionally in Java for about 4 years now.  You might think I'd be done learning it by now, but no, I haven't.  I've been programming in some language or another for decades.  You might think there is some language that I'm done learning, but no, there isn't.
I'd hate to think what would have happened if I waited to be done learning a language before producing something in it.  Probably not a career.


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Is it okay for a PhD student to devote substantial work time to projects the advisor is not involved in?
For example, if he spends 20 hours a week on his advisor's project, and 20 hours a week on a project with another professor (that the advisor is not involved in).  Do most advisors find this acceptable, or do they see this as taking up work time that belongs to them?
And what if those 20 hours a week are spent on non-research activities, such as taking classes unrelated to the topic of the PhD, or a part-time job outside the university?

Related: Is it reasonable to collaborate with a professor when you are employed by a different professor? (about postdocs)

Related: Is it OK to start a PhD with a side project still running from your master's?

"...20 hours a week are spent on non-research activities". A PHD requires at least 3 years as a full-time job (most times probably more). If you only work for 20 hours per week, it will take at least 6 years.

Only your advisor can say whether it is ok for her/him. Generally speaking, while I assume that most advisors are open to side projects of PhD students, once the side projects get as important or more important than the PhD work, the vast majority of advisors will likely become less than thrilled (I certainly would not be happy at all about this arrangement).

It also depends on your funding source. If you are paid from a grant of the professor, doing something else a substantial fraction of the time may also be infeasible from a contractual point of view.

Related: Should postdocs work only on the projects they are hired for, or can they work with other people in the same research group on other projects?. Focuses on possible problems with the funding body, which may be relevant to Ph.D. students, too, so +1 to @xLeitix' comment.

I'm confused.  If you're spending 20 hours per week on your advisor's project and another 20 hours per week on another professor's project, when are you working on your own research?

@JeffE: presumably my advisor's project is my own research.

@BenBitdiddle Really? But then it's your project, not your advisor's, no?

@JeffE: Well it's the main project that I'm doing with my advisor.  So I guess I could rephrase it as "my main research project(s) that my advisor expects me to be focusing on" or "my project(s) that my advisor is involved in."

In practice, it doesn't matter what most advisers would think. It matters what yours does.

It is down to the supervisor, i myself believe any extra research projects adds a LOT to your own skills. Being taken out of your comfort zone and learning new skills improves yourself as a researcher. Besides how much "real" work time can you devote to one PHD before your productivity falls off dramatically.
I see a lot of PHD's concentrate soo much on their project that they don't spend enough time learning new things that makes them so much more productive in the long run. However, aimlessly going to lectures where you don't apply those skills is less worthwhile than doing a project. Having said that, if you know a good lecturer whose lecture series illuminates a previously difficult and unknown area, and those gems  are out there, then it is not wasted time. Devoting your time to a job unless it does teach you new skills may be pushing it.

This is very sound advice. Of course, the trick is to find the sweet spot where you don't overdo it.

True, it really does depend on your advisor/supervisor and their personality as to where the sweet spot lies.

It really depends on the funding source.
It is fairly common for researchers in industry to get a Ph.D. "on the side" as part time work away from their full-time job.  Many professors are OK with this because 1) an industry researcher often has more maturity in their approach to a subject than a student fresh out of undergrad, and 2) The professor is likely not required to provide funding for the student.
A professor who is funding a student to work full time from their grants, however, will be rightfully angry if the student does not work full time for them.

A professor who is funding a student to work full time from their grants — At least at many universities in the US, research assistantships formally pay for only 20 hours of work per week, which makes this argument a red herring.

@JeffE Yes, you are correct, but I believe the other half is usually expected to be spent on coursework or their thesis.  I think it would be reasonable for a professor to be concerned about whether their money is being well spent with a student who committed half-time to work on a completely unrelated project.

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Would most PhD supervisors stop working with a student who was unproductive due to clinical depression?
Suppose a PhD student got clinically depressed and stopped producing research for a year or two.
What would most PhD supervisors do in this situation? Would it be considered usual or acceptable to stop working with him?

The use of the word "fire" implies employment. It might help to clarify whether you are in a country where PhD students are employees - in which case they are likely to have some protections in law against being fired for having health issues - or not. (I hope that nobody here would give a straightforward "yes", but in some areas they might be allowed to in law, wheras in others they wouldn't)

Usually advisors can choose to stop advising their students (that's what I mean by "fire").  And then the student is still a graduate student but has to find another advisor or leave.

I am voting to close this question as a poll, for which the SE format really isn't a good fit. (which answer would you accept? the one you liked most?)

@xLeitix (and @BenBitdiddle) - perhaps re-writing the question to "what should an advisor do if their student develops a mental illness" would be better.

Although this question is not suitable for the site in its current state (see [help/dont-ask]), I strongly encourage you to rephrase it in a way that makes it suitable, so that it can be reopened.

Good PhD Advisors(tm) would first of all talk to the student about the issue. Large-scale depressions need to be properly treated and respected. The important thing is to find out if it is the academic work that causes the depressions and to take counter-measures if it is.
Now if the depression lasts, is properly treated and puts obtaining the PhD at >90% risk of failure and all possible measures have been taken to help the student (both on the professional level and as far as applicable and feasible, on the personal level), then the student is wasting time in academia. And nothing is more depressing than that. So a Good PhD Advisor(tm) would help the student with establishing a new working life that makes use of the degrees already obtained as much as possible. This is basically the best the advisor can do to pave the way to a happier life for the student. I wouldn't call that "firing" someone.

The question states that the student has not produced for a year or 2.  A good advisor would try to address the issue before it got to that point.  (Not that your answer isn't otherwise good.)

I assume "clinically depressed" means "major depression".
And I assume "fire" means "get rid of as fast as possible".

As a very first rule I'd say, deal with depression as with any other disease of comparable severity. Would you fire a student who had a bad accident and needs a year of rehab? I mean, fire as opposed to think together with the student of how to deal best with the situation.
Secondly, (at least in my legislation) a work contract does come with more duties for the employer than just to pay the wages: typically there are duties of care (? not sure about the correct English term - the German word is Fürsorgepflicht; this covers things like work safety, but also includes e.g. the duty to get an ill employee to a doctor, and about accomodations for chronic diseases, etc.).
I'd say that for depression this would at least include making sure that the student receives proper treatment (don't worry about doing too much: as a third party you're most probably anyways not allowed to do much) and that the student knows the psychological emergency services of your university exist, and how exactly to reach them. In an emergency, do as you'd do with any other kind of medical issue: get the student to the doctor.
Again, I really don't see much difference here to making sure your students know who's the contract surgeon in case of emergencies or attend the company medical officer's preventative screening for work-related health issues, etc.
I'd argue that a PhD supervisor has at least the same duties towards the student as a normal employer. Maybe even more: the student may have agreed to do research on the supervisor's behalf at low (or even no) wage, and PhD supervisors and PhD projects are typically far more  is done and difficult to change than a job.
Also, remember that agreeing to PhD supervision is not a contract about what exactly is done when, but that a grade will be granted for a corresponding level of research.

Chronic disease/disability may mean that some special considerations need to be taken into account, or possibly that the field of study needs to changed. Maybe even that the profession needs to be changed, as @DCTLib already pointed out.
But this is no excuse for initiating such changes with a kick in the ass.
Consider to help finding a well-suited new field of study if necessary. As in: after accident, student now has metal implants and cannot work near the NMR machine any more => someone else carries out the experiments the student plans and analyses, student switches their focus over to data analysis, switches to other project that can be carried out, etc.
For depression, it may not be as immediately clear what helps and what doesn't. It may be anything from switch away from lone-wolf experiments that need weeks in dark basements to doing things that are in a friendly environment with collaboration with colleagues to switch from computer work to doing more practical work like experiments.
It may also very well be that options need to be tried out. Just as it may be difficult after a severe accident to predict how much and which work the student will be able to do when.
It may also be that you decide you are not able to supervise this student as needed. But maybe you can help to find a new supervisor.
Last but not least, your university may have someone who can professionally suggest what to do - just as for the hypothetical student with the accident. Ask integration office, or the psychological emergency service may be able to tell you whom to ask.

With respect to hat, I sadly have to say that I recommend to any student to get away as fast as possible from a supervisor who thinks about firing PhD students because of a disease.

Very complete and thorough answer.

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Is it better to go to class, or watch the recorded lectures?
I'm in a large class where lectures are recorded and posted online.  The lectures are difficult enough that I benefit a lot from being able to pause the videos and stare at the slides for a few seconds, or even rewind the video if I realize I missed something from an earlier part of the lecture.  It's also nice to be able to pause the video if my mind starts wandering, so I can give the lecture my full attention.
However, if I don't go to class, it's easy to get behind on the lectures, and it's easy to get distracted while watching the videos (so watching a lecture online takes me a lot more time than I would have spent in class).  What do you think is the best approach?
If it makes a difference, it's my advisor's class, and the lectures are at 9 am.

I don't think there's any objective best approach here. Different people learn differently; we can't really say what's best for you. I feel like answers to this question are bound to be opinion-based (in the way that's not recommended by the [help/dont-ask])

Both. Also: read the textbook.

Just go to the class. In class you can ask questions for things you do not understand or answer the instructor's questions as well. Moreover, you also have the chance to interact and get to know your co-students and coordinate assignments (for group assignments) or reading sessions.
If this was a concert of your favorite artist, would you consider watching the concert from YouTube the same as actually being there? Especially, if you already paid for the ticket (since you are officially enrolled to the class and therefore paid the corresponding fees - if any). Live interaction during a course is vastly superior to watching a lecture in your pajamas, which is still a valid alternative for people who cannot be there (sickness, online learning, free courses on Coursera). Do not miss this opportunity you are given to actually be there. And use video lectures as supplementary material as the excellent answer from @PatriciaShanahan already states.

I truly like the analogy between concert and lecture.

Several students watch lectures live in their pajamas.  It's the best of both worlds.

@Heutl That hasn’t been my experience, at least in classes of one to two hundred students in Australia. If one student has a question, a dozen more are probably thinking something similar.

A combination may be best. Go to the lectures. During the lecture, if you miss something, or have trouble understanding, make a note of the time. Afterwards, before attempting the coursework, bring up the recorded lecture and view the places you missed during the live lecture.
That way, you get the keep-on-track benefit of the live lectures. You spend your viewing time in a very focused mode, looking only at the difficult parts of the lecture, which may reduce the tendency to get distracted.

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Interviewing at nth choice school after being accepted to first choice school
When I was applying for PhD programs, I got into my first choice school.  Some time later, a school that was lower-ranked but still a good school offered me a Skype interview.  Should I have declined the interview so they could give the spot to someone else?  Or would that have been considered rude?

If you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you are headed to your first-choice school, then you should decline the other interview. It will save you all time and effort.

I think the only thing that would be considered rude would be to have the interview and not take it seriously. Declining the interview if you're not going to attend saves everyone time, and accepting the interview if you think you might attend is perfectly reasonable. It can even help you if the less preferred school offers you a better support package.

+1 for support package. Take the interview, but be clear and upfront. "I was accepted here, which is my #1 choice right now, what could you offer in terms of position, support, scholarships that would change this?".

Given the recent mistaken admission of several grad students at CMU, I would interview.  You should continue interviewing until you've accepted an offer, and have some confirmation from your chosen school.
EDIT:
Just to be safe, treat admission to a university like an employment opportunity.  Until the ink is dry on your employment contract, you don't have a job.  Same for admission - until you've accepted the admission, and received confirmation, keep interviewing at universities.

That's a pretty rare situation, and in such cases, a correction is likely to come very quickly.

It is rare, but until the you've officially accepted, you should keep interviewing

If there's a reasonable chance you'd consider the second school after being accepted at your first choice, I feel it's okay for you to interview.
That being said, if it's a 1% chance you'd change your mind, I'd pass, especially if it's an in-person interview.


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KAU is accused of hiring well-known professors to boost university rankings by adding affiliation. Is it ethical to accept this kind of offer?
For those unaware of the situation, here are some links:

Messerly, Megan. 'UC Berkeley Professor Critiques Saudi University's
  Recruitment Process Of World's Top Researchers'. The Daily
  Californian. Last modified 2014. Accessed March 16, 2015.
http://www.dailycal.org/2014/12/05/citations-sale/.
Yahia, Mohammed. 'Are Saudi Universities Buying Their Way Into Top
  Charts? : House Of Wisdom'. Blogs.Nature.Com. Last modified 2012.
  Accessed March 16, 2015.
http://blogs.nature.com/houseofwisdom/2012/01/are-saudi-universities-buying-their-way-into-top-charts.html.

KAU is asking people to claim KAU affiliations on papers where no collaboration exists, thus boosting KAU's metrics in the easily-fooled US News university rankings. The existence of ancillary benefits, such as collaboration with local KAU researchers, seem to have been somewhat debunked by now, but this was not clear before. (There are some such benefits, but largely they fail to materialize.)
$72k per year is a lot of money, and there are some very accomplished people who have accepted this association. In a situation not too different from the one I am in now, I could easily see myself selling this part of my reputation for $72k. By no means can I stand above this deal on moral grounds.
Is it ethical to accept this kind of offer? What is the impact on prestige and reputation of the researchers who have accepted this offer, now that its primary motive of citation-gaming is unambiguous?

Welcome to Academia SE. Taken literally, your question is almost certainly unanswerable, as I doubt that a study of the general opinion on academians on this exists. If you are instead asking for our opinion on this (what I assume), it would be primarily opinion-based. There are some questions hidden in your approach that would be acceptable for this platform, like whether giving an affiliation you are not really affiliated to is academic misconduct.

I have changed the question to give it less of a poll focus. I think I am preserving the original intent, but please correct it if I didn't.

Not much different from universities in Texas using oil money to get established people to go there... who'd otherwise have not the slightest interest? :)

Questions of ethics might be better suited for Philosophy SE or something like Mi Yodeya.  However, I think one can safely say (and can conclude from your first link) that many peers would not approve of accepting such offers.

I'm perfectly fine with your edits. Thank you for rescuing the question, David.

The fact that there is a question in the last paragraph doesn't rescue this, IMHO. Phrases like "easily fooled rankings" and "somewhat debunked by now" etc. make this read more like an attempt to critique researchers who take the affiliation than an honest question looking for an answer.

@paulgarrett: I think the (perhaps minor in your view) distinction is that many of the people at KAU actually holds a full time job elsewhere and only visits KAU for a few weeks each year. Such arrangements are explicitly allowed by the employment contracts at some places (e.g. University of Oxford), and explicitly disallowed at others (e.g. Michigan State University). As far as I can tell the Texas oil chairs are actually usually full time positions.

This behavior seems just as unethical as to put someone's name on a paper while he has not worked on it, and for the same reason: it provides the academic world with a wrong information about attribution, and the academic world wants to use this kind of information. Less abstractly, it means that students or scholars might be fooled into going to a university expecting to be taught by or to work alongside high-profile professors while the university really has much less to offer than it pretends.
Now, it could be argued that it is the job of the rankings to design them in a way that is not so easily played, not the job of the professors to act according to such ranking.
Also, we currently do not have clear and well-admitted ethic rules for affiliation, while we do have such rules for authorship. This makes the ethical lines much fuzzier, but in my opinion the conclusion to draw is that we should give ourselves such rules.


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I have been asked to change the review I gave to a paper
I rejected a paper after careful review and consideration, writing six pages to justify my decision.
In less than 24 h I have received a petition to change my verdict to major changes. The rationale is that the other two reviewers have given major changes and that my review is too harsh and not well enough substantiated.

Is this normal?
Is this ethical?
Any further thoughts?

Thank you

The other reviews certainly shouldn't be a reason for you to change your review. However, "too harsh and not good enough substantiated" -- this is perfectly possible, and the objection would then be normal and ethical.

You were asked by whom?

The idea that a persons opinion should change due to a majority disagreeing is, in my opinion, not normal.

Not normal... the editor could just override the decision of any reviewer's. Is this one of those open review journals that everyone can see the reviews?

I'm slightly confused as to why it matters. Generally speaking, with the journals I'm familiar with the reviewer's recommendation (reject/major changes/minor changes/publish as-is) is just that - a recommendation. The Editor has final say. (I don't know if this journal's policies are different, here.) -- In many cases the reject/revise recommendation is a separate private communication to the editor, never seen by the authors. ... Is that perhaps what the editor is asking? For you to remove any mention of  "recommend reject" from the comments which will be sent to the authors?

@Parrotmaster The idea that a persons opinion should change due to a majority disagreeing is, in my opinion, not normal. Being given feedback and being asked to reconsider an opinion in light of it is quite normal. I don't understand why so many answers seem to think ignoring the reviewer is OK, but asking the reviewer to reconsider is not OK. It seems the latter is strictly more respectful towards the reviewer.

What field and community are you in?  What is normal depends on the field.  Different fields have different reviewing practices.

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/86758/conflict-with-conference-program-committee

What's meant by a "petition"?

@Thomas Being asked to reconsider and what I said aren't related.

@witizer can you give any details of the review system? Which publisher? Do you have access to the other reviews to inform yourself of the disparity?

Is the journal pay-for-publish "open access"? They tend to misunderstand the peer-review process (the decision to reject is up to the editor, not the reviewers) and also have a strong monetary incentive to publish all papers regardless of the quality.

It happened to me once.  I suspected that the co-authors hadn't actually read the paper (besides a lot of grammar mistakes, and the co-authors being native english speakers while the author wasn't), it didn't relate the work to that of the co-authors to say how it was different .... and it didn't cite any of their work, only the author's.  The editor wanted 'major changes'.

I wonder if this is in some academic field in which editors must transmit all reviews to the author. Why can't the editor just send the other reviewers' comments to the author and withhold yours if the editor disagrees with them?

I think it would help if you reproduced the wording of the request. There's a difference between "Would you consider revising your opinion?" to which you can reply "after considerable thought, no". Versus: "Please revise your opinion," which is not the same thing. Although you'd want to consider whether the person writing to you is a native speaker, before jumping to conclusions. If they ask you to change your verdict, don't. If they ask you if you would consider changing it, think about it and then accept/refuse.

...the eidtor can simply disregard your review if they deem it is inappropriate. What you are describing makes no sense whatsoever. Are you sure that this is a real journal and not a predatory one?

Is there a real cost of a new paper being written compared to the current paper being rewritten?

I have written quite a few reviews, with a significant percentage of them recommending rejection. Editors often made the decision to reject; sometimes they deviated and asked for major corrections. This is normal — editors have to take reviews into consideration, but are not bound by them. Not a single time have I received a request to change a review.

Is this normal?

No, this is not normal, in my opinion. There is no good reason for the editor to ask you to change the review. If the editor believes the paper deserves a major correction, they simply have to make their decision, noting your recommendation.

Is this ethical?

No. Under no circumstances should an editor disclose the recommendation of other reviewers to you to ask you to amend your recommendation to join the majority. You were asked to express your own opinion, which you did. The editor is trying to receive an unequivocal agreement, which is not necessary and not fair to you. The editor does not have to follow your recommendation, but they have to respect it.

Any further thoughts?

Please make the name of the journal known. I would refrain from ever using the journal(s) which allow such reviewing process to take place.

While in general I agree that you should never be asked to change your review, one slight sublty is systems like the one they use a eLife. Here, once all the reviews are received, the reviewers have a teleconference, chaired by the editor, and a consensus decision is reached.The authors then receive a single review that is the consensus opinion of the reviewers. If revisions are recommended, then the authors receive a single set of recommendations. All reviews are and correspondence is made public with the paper on publication.

+1 in general, but I'm not sure I agree about making the name of the journal known here.  If it's a respectable journal, the issue is likely with the editor and maybe the appropriate thing to do would be to discuss this privately with the editor-in-chief.

Under no circumstances should an editor disclose the recommendation of other reviewers to you That is simply false, at least in my field. Reviewers are often expected to discuss the paper and reach consensus. In particular, if one reviewer has a concern, the others are asked to comment on it. In my field, it is expected that you will edit your review after conferring with other reviewers.

I moved the extended discussions in comments as well as the debate on interpreting the question to chat and only left the main objections here. Please only post further comments if you can reasonably expect that they will lead to the answer being improved. Also see this FAQ.

The last paragraph of this answer advises escalating the situation. That is very likely to be bad advice. Please either remove it or qualify it (i.e., "be sure you are not misinterpreting the editor's intent"). Also there are other, less drastic, options that can be suggested, such as writing back to ask for clarification of the petition, or contacting the editor in chief.

@Thomas : Writing "in my field" might be more useful and more comprehensible if you said what field that is.

@MichaelHardy Computer science, but that doesn't matter. This answer makes an unqualified general assertion that is simply not universally true.

In my experience, the decision whether to reject an article or request major changes is up to the editor. You, as reviewer, give input on this but the editor has to take the final responsibility. In particular, this means that you don't have to change your verdict for the paper to be given major changes.

+1 Simple and clear. If they do not like your verdict, the editor can override your suggestion. To ask you to change the review makes only sense if it is insulting or offensive, or grossly and factually wrong.

This isn't normal. The process I'm familiar with is to simply forward the reject review to the authors along with a letter by the editor saying that "we find your paper acceptable if the reviewers' comments are addressed" etc.
I'd tell the editor your comments are what they are, and he/she doesn't have to follow your recommendation. You might also want to check if they're a predatory journal. I'd probably do the same thing if they are predatory, but it'd still be a good thing to know.

Playing devils advocate: if OP was totally wrong in their assessment, and other reviewers were well respected and gave sound endorsements for the paper (I've certainly seen that a few times...), a proactive editor might reasonably point out the inconsistency and ask the outlier to reconsider.

But can't that editor simply ignore the hypothetically inconsistent review and proceed how they wish to proceed? Why bother asking the reviewer to change?

@beldaz, exactly: "ask to reconsider".  Not "please change your verdict to 'recommend major changes'".

@Mark agreed - directing someone to give a specific verdict does not sound appropriate

@beldaz But what does the editor gain if OP reconsiders?

@sgf sometimes if a review is an outlier it can be due to a misunderstanding. If the review takes the opportunity to reconsider and decides they are in agreement with the other reviewers, a consistent verdict is reached and the editor can be satisfied that the final decision on whether to accept a paper is based on sound opinions. But as Mark points out, directing a specific verdict, as appears to be the case here, would not be appropriate.

@sgf the implication of this is that the paper isn't up to scratch but the editor wants to accept it anyway. The editor gains by having an extra paper to publish (this is especially the case for smaller journals that struggle to fill their issues).

@Allure But the editor doesn't need the reviewer's approval to accept the paper, so what does he gain from making the reviewer reconsider?

@sgf that would present a united front - it makes the decision seem more unanimous instead of the editor rejecting a "reject" review.

@Allure ... which benefits the editor how?

@sgf you've already asked that question and I answered it above ... ?

@Allure No, you haven't told us how the editor benefits from a unanimous decision. Your answer above was that the editor gains by having an extra paper to publish, but that's also true if he just accepts it without changing OP's mind first.

@sgf that would present a united front - it makes the decision seem more unanimous instead of the editor rejecting a "reject" review.

You should change your review if and only if you are honestly convinced that your original review was wrong.
As a reviewer, I have no objection to being overruled by the editor --- even if he accepts without changes a paper that I said should be rejected (or vice versa). That is his right as editor.  I would, however, object very strongly to a request to submit a review that does not represent my honest assessment of the paper. In my opinion, it is unethical for an editor to make such a request, and it would be unethical for me to comply with it.
(In your situation, I would also feel somewhat insulted that a six-page report is considered insufficient substantiation.)

Re “…insulted that a six-page report is sufficient substantiation”: longer doesn’t necessarily mean better.   For my part, I have to admit that a couple of the longest referee reports I’ve written are ones where I got annoyed about some shoddiness or other scientific irresponsiblities in the submission, and got a bit too emotionally engaged in documenting the problems carefully — so, while I do stand by those reports, I could imagine an editor reasonably asking me to reconsider whether I was being overly harsh.  (Of course, the editor must be ready to take “no, I stand by them” as an answer.)

Any further thoughts?

I recommend giving yourself a minimum of 24 hours before you send back a reply. This will make sure you don’t do anything rash or allow emotional issues to dictate your actions.
Just in case you’re one of those people who have a hard time saying “no”, especially to requests coming from figures of authority, it’s good to remind yourself (multiple times if necessary) that you are not required to comply with the request.
Regarding the ethics question, others have addressed this, but I think it’s worth sharpening the ethical lines here a bit. If the request is simply that you reconsider your position (since it is perceived as too harsh by the editor and other reviewers), I think that’s an unusual request but not an unethical one. It is fine (if usually futile) for either the author or the editor to push back and ask you if you might revise your position based on new arguments or because they believe you haven’t given the matter sufficient consideration (which sounds unlikely in this case, but I suppose it’s theoretically possible). The point is that in that case they are asking you to actually change your opinion, not to change your recommendation to something that is different from your true opinion. People do make mistakes and do change their opinions about things in response to feedback. I’m not saying you should change your opinion, just that if you did, I wouldn’t see anything wrong with that.
Now, if on the other hand the request is simply that you revise what you wrote to some specific recommendation regardless of what you actually believe, then such a request is blatantly unethical. Being a reviewer is a position of trust, and the whole refereeing system is built around the premise that editors, authors and readers can trust that referees are stating their true opinions rather than being influenced by irrelevant factors. Writing something that is not your opinion would be a betrayal of that trust, and undermines the entire system of academic publishing. I assume that such a betrayal is not something you would want to be a part of.

Thanks Dan, this was nearly identical the answer I would post. If the editor wants to allow revisions, they don't need the OP's permission, so for this to be straight up unethical pressure on peer review seems less likely than some sort of miscommunication. I wonder if the editor really just wants to know if the OP would be willing to review a round of changes that address their concerns and possibly accept a revised manuscript, given that they or the other reviewers see them as fixable rather than fatal flaws.

+1 especially for the first two points. There is likely some misunderstanding and a rash response would be ill-advised. However, I would add that there are situations where it is ethical for the editor to insist on changes, such as the review being inappropriate and unprofessional (e.g. insulting the authors). I'm not saying that is the case here.

@Thomas Or even just not really to the standards of the journal...some journals do reject anything that isn't either essentially perfect or incredibly groundbreaking, others would typically give the authors a chance to revise unless their work is truly unsalvageable in the reviewers eyes. If a reviewer recommended rejection for, say, a missing control experiment that the authors could produce and salvage their paper I'd balk too if I was the editor.

Ultimately, the decision is up to the editor and in this case they disagree with your assessment. This is not uncommon -- sometimes the reviewer is wrong or it could simply be that the reviewer has high standards and this is a low-quality journal. It sounds like the editor thinks the authors should be given an opportunity to address your concerns, which is reasonable.
Is this normal? Yes. The editor makes the final decision and often deviates from the reviews (indeed reviews are rarely unanimous, so deviation from some reviews is necessary). The editor wants to send the authors more consistent reviews, in order to minimize author complaints. And if your review seems excessively harsh, the editor may want that toned down to spare the authors' feelings (they are human too).
Is this ethical? To some extent it's just necessary. Some reviews do need to be fixed. If you feel that it is going too far and you are being asked to lie, rather than just change the tone, then you can push back and explain why you disagree. If you really feel that your input is being ignored, then refuse to review for that journal again.
Any further thoughts? Editors might even edit the reviews themselves without consulting the reviewers, since that might be quicker and easier. However, I think that is a bit inappropriate and disrespectful to the reviewer.

+1 This is close to what I was about to write. I think it's OK (barely) for the editor to ask you if you could lighten the tone, since the review will be sent to the author. I don't think it's right to ask you to change any conclusions. The editor is of course free to weigh the reviews any way s/he likes. That's the editor's job.

This isn't a case of simply lightening the tone of a review, they're asking the reviewer to retract their recommendation of rejection. Yes, editors are free to make a final decision irrespective of reviewer recommendations, but I have never heard of a reviewer being asked to change their assessment to be more in line with what the editor wants - this isn't normal. Peer review is supposed to be an unbiased assessment, exposing reviewers to other reviewers' comments or pressuring them to give a positive assessment flies in the face of that.

Changing reject to major revision is not a huge change. It’s really just a question of whether the authors should have a second chance to fix their manuscript. Although I do not know the exact situation it may simply be that OP is applying high standards and the journal in question  would have no papers if it applied those standards.

@Thomas To me, there's a huge difference between reject and major revisions. Major revisions means the paper can be fixed, maybe there's something missing or something is unclear, but the principle is sound. Flat-out rejection suggests something is more fundamentally wrong - the reviewer cannot even articulate a set of changes that would make the paper acceptable for publication. The OP gave 6 pages of comments, but evidently didn't feel that even addressing all of them would fix the underlying issues.

@NuclearWang You are presuming that OP has correctly decided that the paper is irredeemable and the editor and two other reviewers are wrong. People should be open to accepting that they may be wrong. My answer says you can push back and explain why you disagree but I don't think it's advisable to stubbornly refuse to reconsider.

@NuclearWang I think the fundamental disagreement between you and me is that I am interpreting the question as one where OP is potentially being too harsh. After all, the editor and two other reviewers feel that way. OP has written 6 pages and yet the editor has said the recommendation is "not good enough substantiated." What seems more likely: OP is being too harsh (perhaps because of inexperience) or everyone else is wrong?

Is this ethical? To some extent it’s just necessary. Hmm, interesting that you hesitate to use one of the words “yes” or “no”. It’s a simple question, and a good answer would answer it rather than equivocating. If you think it’s ethical, please say so.

@DanRomik It's a bit unclear what "this" is. It really depends on whether it's justified. My answer explains why it might be necessary and that there is a line where too much is being asked. I don't think a yes/no answer suffices.

@JeffE I don't understand your comment.

I don’t think a yes/no answer suffices — Perhaps not, but the lack of a clear yes or no makes your answer unclear. You’ve replied to “Is this ethical?” with “Sometimes it’s necessary; sometimes it’s excessive”, but necessary/excessive and ethical/unethical are not the same things.

I have received a petition to change my verdict to major changes. The rationale is that the other two reviewers have given major changes and that my review is too harsh and not...substantiated.

A more precise understanding of the circumstances is necessary to answer your questions. I wonder whether the editor is trying to establish whether to outright reject or whether to offer major corrections. Since you're the only reviewer that recommends rejection, it is absolutely normal (and ethical) that the editor is consulting you. They want you to further help them in making their decision.

A more precise understanding of the circumstances is necessary to answer your questions. – Yet you arrive at an absolute assessment (“They want”) rather than an educated guess (“They may want”) at the end.

@Wrzlprmft You're cherry picking. I open with I wonder whether, everything that follows should be considered in the context of that.

(Admittedly, I could have been more precise. But, precision takes time and I aim to maximise those I help, rather than crafting precise answers to all.)

First of all, I am assuming that the editor is explicitly primarily asking you to change your verdict, and not to reconsider specific rationales of your review in light of the other reviews or to phrase your review more friendly or to substantiate some of your claims.
If this is the case, then it indeed raises some red flags as it is completely unnecessary in a healthy situation:
All decision-making processes I know do not allow reviewers to decide a paper’s fate directly.
Instead the editor decides on base of the reviews or it is even the editor-in-chief who decides on basis of the editor’s recommendation, which in turn is based on the reviews.
Thus, if the editor wants a major revision, there is no need to change your verdict – in particular since this is the least surprising decision anyway, given two reviews recommending major revision and one recommending rejection.
This poses the question why the editor would like your verdict changed, and all I can think about is that they want to bypass some sort of quality control, for example:

The decision is upon the editor-in-chief and the editor wishes to illegitimately improve the chances of the paper.
The journal is one that publishes reviews, and the editor expects that accepting this paper given your current review could negatively affect them.
The journal is rather competitive and has some strict unpublished rules that would force the editor to reject the paper with only one reject recommendation. In this case, it would be completely out of line for the editor to meddle like this. Of course, one may consider such rules harmful, but if that’s beyond your responsibility.

I would thus recommend to do the following:

Double-check your interpretation of the mail.
Consider asking the editor for clarification as to what they want.
Look for further red flags, e.g., that the request was sent privately and not via the journal’s channels (does not apply to those journals that do not have a respective system).
Escalate the situation to the editor-in-chief, publisher, or public (in that order if the previous escalations did not yield a satisfying outcome).

Another reason to add to your list: The editor may simply want the review changed because he or she thinks the harshness is unwarranted and does not wish to forward it to the authors as is. Academics are people too.

@Thomas: Please see the first paragraph.

Given that journal editors are notorious for (almost surely) never changing their "reject" verdict (which is a policy originating in the long-held belief of publishers that writers of any sort are "immature" creatures even though talented, and so they are to be treated with strict authority to keep them in check), it is poetically unjust for editors to ask from reviewers to change their reject verdict.
Serving poetic justice alone demands from you to reject the editor's submitted request, let alone all the other aspects of the matter already analytically discussed in the answers here.

Outright rejecting a paper denies authors the opportunity to correct issues raised by reviewers (and to publish at that venue). By comparison, major revisions afford such an opportunity. Authors might not be able to make the sufficient corrections, hence, reviewers may still reject. But, if they do make sufficient corrections, then the community benefits from the value added by reviewers. By comparison, no such value is guaranteed from an outright rejection, because authors may simply resubmit elsewhere without modification.
Perhaps the editor is trying to maximise community value.

I would think, if somebody writes six pages, they include enough details which allow for a major revision. If it was so bad that it should be rejected, six pages is a lot. I would think a reject decision would be like "We found three unacceptable and unsolvable issues" and six pages with detailed criticism would be constructive enough to create a revision.

Authors can still revise paper before submitting it to another journal. In fact they should.

@allo I can't see a relation to your comment and my answer, are you commenting on the OP's question?

@DmitrySavostyanov Indeed: They can and should, but there is no mechanism to ensure they do.

@user2768 The mechanism is caller peer-review. If the paper still contains errors, it will likely be rejected again.

@DmitrySavostyanov Are you claiming that no manuscript has been rejected by one venue only to be accepted (unmodified) by another?

No, outright rejection does not deny such opportunity. Given the review, the authors can write a new paper. It seems like you argue that a complete replacement of the paper with something else could still count as just a "major revision"... -1.

This misses the point. Just because one reviewer recommends rejection, it doesn't mean the editor is obligated to do it. So if the editor is seeking to "maximise community value" there is no need for them to seek the reviewer's permission to do so.

@einpoklum How does it not?

@MJeffryes True, but that perhaps depends on policy.

I downvoted because the statement "Outright rejecting a paper denies authors the opportunity to correct issues raised by reviewers." is simply false. Even assuming the paper gets rejected as a final verdict by the editor, that is not an absolute order to throw the entirety of the paper away and never touch the topic again. Rejection denies nothing other than the publication of the manuscript in the target venue as a result of the manuscript's current submission process.

@user2768 I have never heard of a journal policy which requires that an editor rejects a manuscript if a single reviewer recommends it. This is why the reviewer verdict is called a recommendation.

@O.R.Mapper That's rather pedantic: I did think of phrasing my answer to exclude exactly that case, but, frankly, I thought it was obvious/unnecessary.

@MJeffryes I don't dispute. I haven't heard of such a policy either, but it seems perfectly conceivable and, given that the editor is pushing for a changed recommendation, it seems that such a policy could exist.

@user2768: I literally answered your question in my comment.

@einpoklum It seems you haven't understood my answer: Rejection denies the authors publication (at that venue), it also denies the authors the ability to have their revisions checked by those that made them. I'm unclear what "a complete replacement of the paper with something else could still count as just a 'major revision'" even means.

@user2768: Your last comment says something different than your answer. Indeed, the reviewer will not re-read the paper after the changes you have made, but that's not denying the opportunity to correct the paper. You'll just not get the same person to re-read it in the same context. While a second read would be convenient, that is definitely not something you are entitled to.

@einpoklum I see no difference between my comment and answer. (I do note that I didn't make the same venue aspect explicit in my original answer, because I thought it was obvious, and I have edited in response to O.R.Mapper.) A major reject signifies an entitlement to a second read.

By the logic of this question, it's wrong for any paper to ever get rejected from anywhere! Additionally, it doesn't address the question asked and instead criticises the OP's original decision to reject, which is not the decision they're looking for help with now.

@Meelah Erm, no... Rejection is fine. I merely highlight reasons to recommend major revision rather than reject.  I do not criticise the OP, in fact, I don't even mention the OP, I merely explain why the editor might want a major revision. In any case, the community doesn't seem to like my answer....

I am amazed at how this answer got bashed. This is indeed a point of view I hear a lot, and while I do not fully agree with it, I do not think it is some statement that should be somehow discouraged. I thought downvoting was meant for low-quality input and not for ideological manifestation!

Editors always try to “maximise community value”. When they reject a paper outright it’s precisely to free up their and the referees’ time and the journal’s other resources to pursue higher quality papers, with the goal of best serving the journal’s readers and the scientific community. So I don’t see the point of the last sentence, nor of several other statements in this answer (like the opening sentence) that are technically correct but do little to address OP’s question.

@DanRomik It seems you're disagreeing with me, yet your argument supports me: Outright reject maximises value in the right cases and major corrections does to. I'm basically suggesting the editor is trying to maximise value.

I neither agree nor disagree with you, I just don’t see how any of what you wrote helps OP with any of the things they asked about. Also, as @Meelah said, your answer makes it sound like you generally oppose rejection of any paper under any circumstances, since you only state the benefits of giving the authors another chance to revise, but ignore the opportunity cost that goes along with that option. Now that you’ve clarified things I understand that your view is more balanced, but your answer needs to be rephrased if you don’t want people to misunderstand your position.

@DanRomik For the OP, I was just trying to explain the editor's position. Regarding Meelah, I didn't mention why papers should sometimes be rejected, because that seemed outside the OP's scope. Of course they should. I think I clarified that somewhere above.

I merely explain why the editor might want a major revision. – If the editor wants a major revision, the editor should just decide a major revision – which would even be the least surprising decision, with two reviews recommending major revision and one recommending rejection. However, it does not justify making one reviewer (the asker) change their review.

@user94036 Rejection only ever comes from the editor, never from the reviewer. So, [from the editor] is implicitly included.

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


text:
Should I continue working for a professor when I do not like the work only for letter of recommendation?
I am working as a research fellow to a professor in a college. This is my first time as a research fellow. I was working as a software engineer before this. I want to apply for grad schools, and to gain research experience I decided to work for this professor.
The professor has his own startup that is in very early stage. He already has a product that he is trying to sell.
I don't really like the work with the professor that much. It has been two months and I worked mostly on operations work for his startup (like converting the monolith server to microservices..) and not much research. Even the research work is not interesting because we are not trying to solve a problem but just trying to get a good accuracy score (trying to hack the existing solution here and there to get a better score), that will help to publish a paper. As I am planning to apply to graduate schools, I have to start application by this October. So I don't think I will able to do anything substantial in the meantime.
Until now I was a staff in the same college where he is a professor and was designated as a research fellow. Now I want to work remotely because of my health condition and the college is not okay with it. So I have to quit working for the college and work for him alone remotely. The college is paying me, but if quit working for the college, I will not be paid by the professor.
So is it worthwhile to work for free, when I do not like the work just so that I will get a letter of recommendation. How much of an impact will the LOR generate in my graduate school application?

If you don't have an agreement in writing, you have no agreement. I can guarantee you he will not put this agreement in writing as it sounds very close to Quid Pro Quo, which can be illegal. Working for free is for charities and personal passions, not for someone else's pocketbook.

Graduate schools are going to want to know that you have good potential to succeed in research. One way to show that is by having research experience and having someone that can talk positively about your research experience.
It doesn't sound like you're getting research experience. It does sound like your boss is abusing a research position for his own financial gain. If it's for his financial benefit, he should be able to pay you himself and the university shouldn't enter in to the situation at all. He's not, though, he just wants you to work for free or work with someone else paying you, for his benefit.
The "research" component you describe sounds fraudulent. Perhaps this sort of fraud is common in the area you are working in and other professors will be excited to hire someone familiar with this sort of fraud, but hopefully not.
This all sounds like a terrible arrangement for you. I don't know what benefit a recommendation letter from this person will hold. Maybe he will never give you such a letter because he'd like to keep getting more free work, and can only get more free work with the promise of some future letter.

Yeah he might never give a letter even if i work for free also. Thank you for your inputs. i will think about it.

I am struggling to think of an upside for you. It sounds like a terrible idea from all angles.

If you are working for free in the hopes of a good letter of reference, he will not give you a letter, because you will then get the only thing that's keeping you there working for free.
Forget about putting this deal (free work for letter) in writing. He won't put this illegal arrangement in writing, and if he does it won't be enforceable. Like someone once told me: the best contract is dealing with honest people in the first place. No amount of paperwork is going to make an unethical person behave.
If he does give you a letter of reference, it might not be worth much coming from him.
Even if he were to write the letter, he can't speak about your research abilities, since you are doing no research.

There's nothing in this deal for you.


text:
How to properly address an unsolved problem that is very hard to solve in mathematical thesis?
I'm preparing my thesis presentation and I'm trying to address a situation in which the general case has no known solution and is an open, very hard to solve, problem. It involves non-isolated singularities, so, if you're a mathematician, you could have an idea regarding this kind of difficulty.
How can I spell this out in a more appropriate way? I don't want to say "one should notice that solving this problem in the non-isolated singularities case is very hard". It seems out of place and subjective (I mean, what do I mean by "very hard"? That the case I solved in my thesis was easy?).

Is there previous work? If so, the difficulty of the problem should be evident through your explanations (and possible conjectures) towards why previous works haven't yielded a complete solution.

Is it provably hard in some sense? For example, in computer science, an optimization problem may be difficult because it has been proven to be NP-complete (e.g. traveling salesman), or its complexity itself may still unknown (e.g. factorization of composite integers).

Do you mean probably as in "there is a probability that it's hard" or in "I can proof that the mathematical knowledge so far is not enough to solve this problem" or "I can proof that this is not easy - somehow"? It is simply because this singular set might have topological properties for which some techniques will not work.

A problem with no known solution isn't quite the same as a very hard problem. In fact, one is rather the opposite of the other.

Shouldn't the title be "How to properly address an unsolved problem  subjectively as 'very hard to solve' correctly in a mathematical thesis?"

Perhaps add references where people have stated this as open (important) problem, and where people have solved various special cases.

I am assuming you're talking about a presentation to be given at the defence of a PhD thesis.
Let me address a few points you raise.

It is perfectly appropriate to include subjective judgements about the difficulty or significance of certain results in a mathematical thesis (or paper). Mathematicians make these judgements all the time in deciding what to work on and in evaluating other people's work. What matters is that you have a solid rationale for the judgements you make. In your situation, the rationale for considering the general case "very hard" is that it involves non-isolated singularities. That seems perfectly reasonable to me.
If you're worried about presenting subjective judgements as if they were statements of fact, there are various standard forms of wording you could try. Instead of writing "solving this problem... is very hard" you could write "solving this problem... appears to be very hard" or "solving this problem...is generally considered to be very hard" (assuming the latter is true). If there are published works affirming that the general case is hard, you can cite them in support of your point.
Finally, asserting that the general case of a problem is very hard does not imply (in any sense of that word) that a special case is easy, only that it is easier. But that is completely fine: experienced mathematicians are well used to people restricting themselves to more tractable special cases. I don't have any examples to hand, but I have read many papers in which the author does exactly this. This is not interpreted as an "admission" that the special case is "too easy". (In fact, often when someone does prove something that really is too easy, their rhetoric is the opposite: they try to puff it up to make it sound more difficult than it really is.)

Totally agreeing on the third point. Once you have devoted a whole thesis to a topic, it seems relatively easy to you because you are now an expert on it. But objectively, this problem might still be hard. On the other hand, people telling me in talks that the problem they solved was oh so hard immediately seem suspicious.

I don't think you have anything to worry about. Presumably you and your advisor have agreed that the problem you did solve is hard enough to justify a thesis, else you would not be at the presentation stage. That's what your audience will judge. A small improvement in understanding the zeroes of the zeta function could make a fine thesis; no need to apologize for not settling the Riemann Hypothesis. Just put your work in context. Keep the audience interested in what you have done.
Finally, almost all the time the formal thesis defense is just a formality. You want to do it well, but need not fear failure.

Can you say something along the lines of "The general case is a long-standing open problem..."

So, perhaps explain that the general case is unsolved, but, with the following assumptions, the following solution is relevant for this particular case or cases...
But your question might well receive better answers in the Mathematics stack...

In Mathematics, a problem is hard because people can't solve it, or can only solve it with long and technical proofs. It has happened many time that a problem was thought to be hard until someone solves it easily. See for example Quick proofs of hard theorems (which should really be called “quick proof of previously-thought-to-be-hard theorems”).
What is bullet proof is to say, or write, “I could not solve the problem in presence of non-isolated singularities“. And you can explain why what you proposed for isolated singularities does not extend to non-isolated ones. Each one of the obstacles that you encountered will support the hardness of the problem, but let the reader have its own opinion.
So in my opinion, don't say that a problem is “very hard” unless it is a well-studied open problem. In particular, at the PhD level, I would advise not to judge yourself a problem you tackled as “very hard”:

either you solved the problem and it lacks humility
either you did not, and it sounds like you exclude the possibility that you missed something simple.


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Where can I find information about the demographics of Finance PhD applicants to US schools?
Where can I find information about the demographics about previous majors of Finance/Econ PhD applicants to US schools?
I mainly want to know what are their undergraduate/graduate majors. I assume most of them would be Econ/Finance major, but how many actually comes from a different major? How many of them carries a math double major?
Even information of a particular school would be helpful.

Do you want university, nationwide, or worldwide statistics? What makes you think this information is publicly available?

I don't know if the nationwide information is publicly available. But a particular school's information or some estimate of the nationwide situation would be very helpful

Perhaps the Survey of Earned Doctorates (http://www.norc.org/Research/Projects/Pages/survey-of-earned-doctorates-(sed).aspx ) will help. I am not very familiar with the contents (you have to pay to get the data), but a summary report http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf06312/ has enough detail to look promising.

Other than surveying separate programs and students in these programs, you might find the PowerStats (National Center for Education Statistics) product helpful. NCES collects data on undergraduate majors, graduate majors, etc. It'll take some exploration to see if the data is there -- and you will likely have to merge different datasets.
http://nces.ed.gov/datalab/powerstats/default.aspx

authors: อาทิตย์ บุญครอง


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What is the approximate composition of a statement of purpose in Mathematics?
I am writing a statement of purpose right now for US graduate schools in mathematics, and am I bit bogged down on figuring out the approximate ratio of my background versus my actual research goals. I currently have three paragrahs of background, mainly involving seminars and projects, and a discussion of the non-traditionality of my situation, and one of my actual research goals, and I am trying to determine if this is what is desired? The only source of examples I could find are here, and I am not sure if these are actually good examples of what is desired.
Edit: I keep using the wrong word since statement of purpose and Personal statement means different things to different departments (for example, Northwestern seems to want only one essay, which they call a personal statement)

When I was applying to schools, a few schools required something called a "personal statement" which was mainly "orgin of intrest" type fluff [sic] which I did not take writing seriously and I doubt committees took seriously either. All schools required a statement of purpose (which I think everyone takes seriously). The purpose of a statement of a purpose is to summarize your relevant experience with regards to research, identify the goals of your research and hopefully potential advisors/research groups, and not very much else. Fluff is (in my opinion) inappropriate.

Northwestern seems to want only one essay, which they call a personal statement) — Don't listen to them.  It's a research statement.

When I review graduate applications, the statement serves three purposes:

If you are not a native English speaker, it may tell me something about your English proficiency.  However, it cannot be relied upon too heavily since you may have gotten at least editorial help from a friend or even a professional.
More importantly, it is an opportunity to demonstrate that you know something about a research area that interests you.  This is more important for PhD applications than for MS applications, obviously.  If you have already done some research, hopefully your recommendation letters speak about that.  Your statement can sometimes be useful in showing that you keep up with some research area even though you haven't yet contributed to it.
Finally, your statement can address issues in your application, like a period of low grades related to something in your personal life, a gap in your schooling/employment, etc.

There is in my opinion no correct ratio of personal versus research components; it depends on the individual.


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Should I list my research interests that are not popular on a statement of purpose?
I am currently applying to Ph.D programs in the US in Mathematics and am trying to decide what to list for my research interests. I am very interested in field Y, but I also have a background (and slightly less interested) in field X. I have enough knowledge to discuss both, but I definitely know more about field Y. That said, field Y is very small, with most departments I am applying to having only one or two people working in it, while X is definitely more common, popular topic. My question is, should I discuss more the topic which is less popular or more? Does it matter, or is it just my interests in something that is being assessed?
Edit: In this case Y=topological modular forms, and X=gauge theory, in particular floer homology.

I don't see much merit in being less than honest about your own research interests.  As I see it, much of the advantage of being an academic mathematician is that you get to study whatever interests you (maybe the level of interest of others affects your interest, but that is for you to decide).  Here's an idea: since you are anonymous here, why don't you tell us the values of X and Y?  If Y turns out to be "showing that there are no odd perfect numbers", you'll probably get different advice from if Y turns out to be "the ergodic theory of numbers", although both meet your description.

Note also that depending upon where you are applying, what you list as your research interests could be very important (e.g. in Europe, where you apply to work under a specific professor under a specific topic) or not very important at all except as a rough measure of your background (e.g. in the US, where students are expected not to know what they want to work on and/or change their minds to a greater or lesser degree).

I am impressed that an undergraduate student could speak knowledgeably about either Floer homology or topological modular forms, let alone both.  I would include both interests in your applications: by describing both, it seems implicit that you are not wedded to either one, so I don't see your interest closing any doors.

In general, your goal in applying to schools is to get admitted. Anything that improves your chances in that respect is helpful. If that means listing some esoteric areas in the hopes that someone at the department sees that listing and thinks "I'd like to work with this candidate!", then by all means go for it. (That assumes, of course, you actually want to study that topic. Lying to gain admission will eventually backfire on you.)

Thank you for your answer! Though this begs the question, do my chances increase or decrease by appealing to speciality? Is there a good way to guess?

Either it increases your chances of being admitted to a department that likes your taste in research, or it decreases your chances of being accepted to a department that doesn't like your taste in research.  Either way it helps you.