text:
Path from humanities undergrad to math PhD
This is out of left field. I have recently been realizing that, since my favorite classes are math, my best friends have all been future mathematicians, and I love nothing more than thinking about math, perhaps I should look into a PhD or career in mathematics. I just finished my second year at St. John’s College in Maryland, a fairly selective liberal arts college with an integrated Great Books curriculum. I will graduate with a double major in Philosophy / History of Science and Mathematics. I was wondering what it would take for me to get into, and succeed in, a math PhD program, or even a well-regarded one. I have a GPA of 3.9 as it stands, with all A’s in my math courses, but there are no opportunities for modern mathematical research at the College.
What would it take if I wanted to pursue a career in math? What could I do, starting now? I think this might be a crazy question, so I’m okay with hearing crazy answers. Thanks.

If you've just finished two years of undergraduate study, and you're absolutely sure you want to do math, you should transfer to a school where you can get a math degree.  Otherwise you're in some sense wasting your next two years.

As someone who did engineering and loved the math, and now its an academic in a maths department: I feel you, but careful! My engineering math and the math-math are wildly different, its absolutely not the same thing...

@DavidKetcheson different college

@AnderBiguri Alongside that warning, there are many opportunities out there to use the type of math learned as a liberal arts undergrad, way way more than there are opportunities to develop "new" math doing math research.

I knew someone in a top 10 math phd program who had never taken a calculus course so had to learn it to TA calculus.  He was specializing in functional analysis nonetheless!  Like you, he was also from a liberal arts college with an unusual background.  I think like him, the key is to get advised by a math prof that understands how to get you into a good program.  Without that advice and a decent rec letter, you wouldn't get into a good program anyway.  Speaking of rec letters, participating in a summer research program at a prestigious school would be another way to get a strong rec letter..

Sorry but to put it bluntly, SJC's program will do nothing to prepare you for graduate study in math or science. Really no one cares about how well you master Euclid's Elements, and the program is hopelessly devoid of the fundamentals of modern mathematics. I would suggest that you consider transferring to a school with a proper math program first...

@Chan-Ho Suh: who had never taken a calculus course so had to learn it to TA calculus --- FYI, I've never taken a calculus course (high school or college), but your context suggests there was more to it than simply having never taken a calculus course. In my case, I worked through one of those 3-semester elementary calculus texts (this 1968 book) early during high school and later obtained credit-by-exam for the calculus sequence where I was an undergraduate.

What do you plan to do with the rest of your life, if you get that PhD? That context matters.

Presumably the faculty at St John's have some experience with this and can either offer some advice or put you in touch with past students who have followed this path. Ask them too! I know our math Ph.D. program had a St. John's grad who was successful; it's not unprecedented.

What you need to be admitted to a mathematics program is to meet the admission requirements of a PhD program. These will vary from program to program. Some might require math degree, some might have set of courses that are required. But you just have to look.
I would caution you about drawing the line from "I enjoyed math courses" to "I should do a math PhD."
What level were the courses at? Were they computational classes (e.g. calculate this, find the derivative of that) or proof classes? Did you get to abstract concepts like vector spaces, groups theory, topology, etc? Junior math classes are radically different from senior ones, especially ones intended for math majors.
More importantly, are you interested in inventing new math? There's more to a PhD than learning a bunch of math.
Math is a field where my impression is you are expected to have a fairly specific technical background. You might be able to survive without thos background, but you'll end up having to speedrun a full undergraduate course in the first couple weeks of a graduate class.
Something to consider might be a second degree program or a post-baccelaurate certificate that would let you get all the required math courses you need without doing an entire second 4-year bachelor's.

Appreciate this.

I'm an SJCA graduate with a PhD in physics. I graduated with your dean.
The SJC education does not provide the math education you'll need to enter a PhD program. You won't know the language, you won't know the tricks, you won't know how to do problem sets (n.b. put a box around your answer), or even how to take notes in a lecture (n.b. take notes). But you can learn all of these. As others have mentioned, you can transfer to another school, you can take classes somewhere else, you can do a post-bacc (https://www.mathalliance.org/our-partners/post-baccalaureate-programs.html). No one knows the cost/benefit ratio of these options better than you.
I had an outstanding high school education and knew enough integral calculus, physics, and programming to jump into advanced undergrad classes in diff eq., computer science, etc. This gave me a massive advantage over the other SJC students I know who tried advanced STEM degrees. Plenty try.
Committing to a PhD is a big decision. Have you met a math PhD? Have you talked to a university math professor? Get out there and network in person. The post-bacc link above looks like a great place to start if you're committed to staying at SJCA.

Thank you—written by someone who actually attended SJC, this should be the accepted answer

I graduated from St John’s College (Santa Fe campus) in 2013 and got my PhD in math (statistics and data science specialization) without any other coursework in between. It is absolutely doable, just uncomfortable! Prepare yourself to feel unprepared, and recognize that although the SJC math program doesn’t teach you how to do ODEs or linear algebra (this one was probably the biggest gap, catching up on linear algebra) it does teach you a lot of the fundamental number and set theory that you need to succeed, to say nothing of the critical thinking skills you’ll also need. You can do this if it’s what you want to do, and you’ll never be or feel totally prepared for the next step, just don’t quit after a few bombed exams (par for the course) and eventually you’ll look back and realize you figured it out even though it may currently feel like a long shot.

This is another good answer from someone with direct knowledge! I would caution that other branches of math will be much harder to transition into as there isn't even a HS level entry point (abstract algebra being the simplest example), so depending on what OP finds interesting, it could be a lot more difficult than described here.

To address OP's situation directly: it will be very difficult for you to go straight into a math PhD program directly after completing the St. John's program.
If you were at any other liberal arts college, the solution would be to start taking a few math classes, and then eventually changing your major. But this doesn't seem to be possible in St. John's, where everyone basically studies the great books curriculum.
Of course, the St. Johns curriculum has its own merits, and you would learn lots of things outside of math. If you decide to finish your current program, potential routes to a math PhD might be (1) do a second undergraduate degree or (2) do some math-related masters program.
I would suggest you spend some time this summer studying mathematics, either through self-study, or by taking classes at a nearby university or community college.  Also do some research (e.g by reading this website!) to learn about what a PhD in math is actually like, what the typical career pathway of a mathematician is like, and what career options exist for math PhDs (spoiler alert: not everyone becomes a math professor).
At that point, if you are still interested, you should seriously consider transferring to a different institution to finish your undergrad studies.

To be honest, I don't have a very positive opinion of SJC's Great Books curriculum, but that's out of the point, so I'll not discuss that. What is on point is that, from the perspective of doing STEM as a profession, SJC's purported "science education" pretty much misses the point. No one really cares if you've studied Euclid's Elements from cover to cover, or have read Newton's original writings on calculus; those are really only of interest to historians of mathematics and not mathematicians, so the math & science component of SJC's curriculum is really about the history thereof.
Mathematics and science is all about understanding the important ideas and, more importantly, how to use them. (Unlike in the humanities, the "original text" is usually a terrible source to learn these ideas.) It seems that SJC's curriculum fails miserably in this aspect. There is no modern mathematics in the curriculum! (modern analysis, linear algebra, abstract algebra, topology, etc.) There is a bit of problem solving involved, but on such a low level (roughly equivalent to what I learned in junior high and high school) that it could by no means be sufficient preparation for graduate study in the sciences. The SJC's curriculum seems to foster a very specific skill set and a very specific type of person, and it doesn't align at all with the skills and traits required for a professional mathematician or scientist or engineer or so on.
As others said, you can dual enroll in nearby institutions like the USNA or UMD. But I don't think this is worth the hassle and the extra effort (the SJC curriculum entails a lot of work already).
Since you know that you are into mathematics, it is unlikely that SJC's education is exactly the one you need: if you want a liberal arts education (which I had and loved), there are hundreds of SLACs and/or smaller, teaching-focused universities, with excellent math departments! Transferring into one of those seems like a very good idea.
And, if you like the rest of your curriculum, it's not that you can't pursue these subjects elsewhere. While those institutions might not follow the exact same "Great Books" curriculum, their course offerings will generally cover the material taught at SJC, with similarly small class sizes, close-knit discussion based classes, and highly qualified professors.

Finally, another answer that makes sense. Too many of the answers here simply assume SJC is just another liberal arts college

Hearing about the SJC curriculum, I would have LOVED this as a supplement to my more standard curriculum as an undergrad. I have a great love for the history of mathematics and other sciences. Seeing it side by side with the actual courses would have been great. I agree though, this does not sound remotely sufficient for graduate education.

@CameronWilliams Similar programs in fact exist at many top-notch American universities: Columbia and UChicago's core curriculum, Boston College's Perspective Program, Wesleyan University's College of Letters, and Revelle College (of UCSD)'s Humanities program. I agree that it would form an eye-opening addition to an otherwise standard undergrad project. I doubt the value of an education that entails exclusively study of such "great books" in the 21st century.

You would not the first person to do this.
This has been done before.
One example If know of is a professor I knew in grad school.
She was an English major and working as a technical writer.
She realized she liked math so she took a bunch of leveling courses through a local college.
Then, applied to several programs and got into an Ivy league school.
She realized she liked applied math rather than pure math and went with that program.
After getting her PhD, she was at a national lab and is now a professor.

In the United States, most graduate programs don't really care what your bachelors degree is in, as long as you meet whatever prerequisites are required for entry into their program.  The assumption is, I think, that you have already demonstrated (by earning a bachelors degree) that you are capable of learning, and that you are likely to be a competent self-learner.  Whatever background you lack, you can make up quickly.
That being said, there are prerequisites for admission into graduate programs in mathematics.  These are not universal, and there are lots of places where you might be able to get away with less, but I would expect that most places will want you to have done upper-division coursework in

Real Analysis:  This is essentially a recapitulation of introductory calculus, but with an emphasis on proving those results.  When you took calculus, did you talk about epsilon-delta arguments?  Well, you will now!  For a lot of students who think they like mathematics through high school and the first couple of years of college, this is where they hit a wall and choose to pursue other things.

Topology:  Historically, topology developed as a way of abstractifying notions of "closeness" which show up in analysis.  The modern field of topology does a lot more than that, however, and is concerned with a wide variety of questions which end up touching on a lot of different areas of mathematics.

Abstract or Modern Algebra:  This is the study of abstract structures on sets.  The objects introduced in such classes are things like groups (a set with an additive structure), rings (a set with compatible additive and multiplicative structures), and fields (rings with a little extra structure).

If you haven't taken at least one semester of each of these courses, I do not think that it is likely that you will have much of a chance of being successful in applying to graduate programs in mathematics.  On the one hand, you would be starting a year behind anyone else in your cohort; and on the other hand, without these courses, you have not demonstrated that you know what research level mathematics might look like, nor have you really shown that you are interested in that kind of mathematics.
As generic advice to someone who has just finished their second year of college (at an American institution), I would suggest that your best bet is to plan on taking whatever your institution considers their "bridge course" to higher mathematics (if you have not already).  This might be a course in "discrete mathematics", or it might actually be called "transition to higher math" or something similar.  Generally speaking, the intention of such a course is to take students who are planning on majoring in mathematics, and preparing them for the rigour of upper-division classes.  Presumably, you have an advisor who can help you to figure out what this class is at your institution.
If no such class is offered, the courses I listed above are likely where you need to go next but, again, talk to an advisor or someone in the mathematics department who can give you advice for your institution.
Finally, I assume that your institution allows you to choose a major and a minor.  If you are already heading into your third year, you may not really have time to complete a mathematics major (depending on what coursework you have already completed), but you likely still have time to pursue a minor in mathematics.  If you are serious about graduate school in mathematics, I would suggest that you consider this option.

St. John’s College doesn't offer a "bridge course" or any of the standard upper level mathematics courses (e.g. abstract algebra, real analysis, metric spaces and topology, upper level linear algebra, advanced calculus, complex variables, etc.).

@DaveLRenfro Weird.  I made a cursory search for a catalog, but didn't find one, so gave general advice to a general third year student in the US (SE is meant as a general reference, after all). In any event, it sounds like "Talk to an advisor" remains the best advice.

@XanderHenderson There are no "courses" at SJC! Everyone follows the same program of study, focused exclusively on (to say it in a tongue-in-cheek way) books written by dead European men.

@xuq01 That seems to contradict what the original asker said, in that they specifically talk about taking courses, and majoring in a particular field (which implies that there is a particular program of study that they are following).  In any event, I'll repeat myself: the advice given is general advice (since the audience of SE is supposed to be general), and one should always be able to talk to an advisor for more local advice.

This would have been a great answer if the OP were at a typical liberal arts college, but OP is not, and that makes the advice in the latter half of your answer pretty much useless.  See my answer, or one of the other new answers (including the one by the SJC alum)

@Aqualone Perhaps you could be more specific... as I read it, the advice in the last half of my answer is (1) take a bridge course (which may be useless advice at this specific institution), (2) talk to an advisor, (3) consider a more focused major and/or minor (which, per the asker, seems to be possible).  And, for the third time, SE is meant to be a place where answers are generally useful to a large number of people.  My answer is not only for people from this odd institution (though I still think that most of it is applicable).

@XanderHenderson perhaps you can some basic research on SJC before jumping to conclusions? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St.John%27s_College(Annapolis/Santa_Fe)   SJC is very different from other colleges. Yes, as OP implied, there are some options so that not everyone literally studies the same thing, but by and large SJC only offers a program in the humanities.

@XanderHenderson If you really intend this to be general advice, e.g. for students from other liberal arts colleges reading this in the future, you could have mentioned this.  Currently (from the answer and your comments so far) it seems like a misguided attempt to give advice to the OP.

@Aqualone I did attempt to learn more about the programs at this institution before I answered.  I found very little which I found helpful, and chose to write a more general answer to the question, which would be useful to more than just a student from this one institution.  Again, SE is supposed to be a general repository, and if the answer to a question depends so much on the specific institution being asked about, then the question should probably be closed as "too local".

@Aqualone I don't think that anything I've said implies that this is meant to be specific advice to a specific person from a specific institution.  The most specific advice I have given relates to one having just completed their second year.  I suppose that I could change all of the "you"s to "one"s, but this seems overly formal...

The OP mentioned a dual major, but in reality all SJC students have the same "dual major" and take the same courses.

@xuq01 I genuinely do not know how I can be more clear about this:  the advice I have given is general advice, since the goal of the StackExchange network is to create question & answer pairs which are useful to a large number of people who might encounter this question in the future.  Other answers have given much more specific advice, much of which would be useless to a potential future reader who does not come from this very particular institution.  In a generic and general sense, I believe that the advice that I have provided is good advice for American students.

Granted this was decades ago, but I had a friend who graduated from St. John's in Annapolis with a degree in mathematics, and though he did not, he certainly could have gone on to a PhD program in mathematics. Looking at the program (https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/undergraduate/subjects/mathematics), the emphasis is certainly more classical (geometry, set theory, number theory, mathematical physics) than most other programs, but ultimately if you're pursuing a PhD in mathematics, the undergraduate degree is more about learning how to address and solve problems...how to work your way from "huh?" to rigorous proof. Very few students enter graduate school without what some would consider "holes" in their undergraduate mathematics resumé. My undergraduate program did not include classes in number theory or topology; other students in my graduate classes had different deficits.
The lack of "modern mathematical research" opportunities can be remedied in multiple ways. At St. John's you are less than a mile from the US Naval Academy, which has a large, active mathematics department. Understanding the security situation is different there from most institutions, you may be able to attend their research seminars, and get to know people there...a faculty advisor at St. John's may be able to facilitate. University of Maryland and UMBC are both within a 45 minute drive, as well. You may be able to hook into these institutions for activities like the Putnam Exam and the Mathematical Contest in Modelling, if St. John's does not host.
I'm not saying it will be easy, but as St. John's is the environment in which your interest in mathematics seems to be blossoming, I'd be loath to recommend you leave just for a potential future that time may steer you away from.
UPDATE
I'd like to address several criticisms of my thoughts that have popped up in the comments. The first is that the St. John's curriculum does not prepare a student for modern mathematics. The world may have changed in the decades since I went to graduate school, but I don't remember jumping into cutting edge research during my first year classes; rather it was about strengthening skills and deepening knowledge in core disciplines. One can learn to study mathematical texts and write proofs from 400 year old mathematics as well as from 100 year old mathematics. I agree that this is a harder way to go about it, and the student will enter with knowledge deficits. But that doesn't mean impossible, and there will be skills that students learn in the St. John's curriculum that will put them in a better position than many others to close their knowledge gap.
The second criticism is that the student will need to leverage outside resources. Well, yes, but isn't that true for most other mathematics programs? At how many schools is a student who simply takes the classes required for a mathematics degree prepared for graduate school without some level of external preparation? Out-of-class research, enrichment activities like the Putnam exam, and attending seminars are always encouraged for students looking to attend graduate school. Again, this will be harder at St. John's, but with at least three active research departments within an hour's drive, it is not impossible.
Several commenters, and other answers, suggest that the OP should just change schools. And if the OP were attending a smaller state institution or liberal arts school I would likely agree with that advice. But St. John's is such a different environment from other schools that such a transition is not risk-free. My friend who attended St. John's told me several stories of some of his eccentric fellow students, and admitted that he himself probably would not have been successful at a more traditional institution. My answer is attempting to meet the OP where the OP is, and offer strategies that the OP can use to increase engagement with mathematics, without second guessing a personal choice to attend an unusual institution. I freely acknowledge that this will be a significantly harder path. But it is a path that can absolutely lead to a fulfilling career in mathematics, because I know someone for whom it worked.

I think you're being a bit too generous with St. John's here.  Looking at the page you linked, it's more than just "classical"—it's more about studying the history of math than math itself. St John's is probably a great place to study the humanities, but as someone seriously interested in STEM, and only in their second year, OP should probably think about transferring elsewhere.

@Aqualone I disagree strongly. I'd argue that studying calculus by reading Newton is likely to provide more insight into the process of actually doing mathematics than from one of our modern calculus tomes. If the emphasis were on literary criticism of Newton versus actual calculus, I'd agree, but having known a graduate of this program I feel confident that actually doing mathematics is also a component of the course.

it's not clear from the website what the coursework actually entails.  If they really work through the Principia as if it were a physics textbook—ok, you will learn stuff, but very inefficiently.  There is a reason why no math/physics departments at research universities actually base their education on historical texts.

Have you tried to read Newton's calculus? It's in a completely different language that most modern calculate classes, and requires a genius (like Newton) to understand it. Simply put, you're going to be behind a year or two most other incoming graduate students if you do that. A smart, motivated person can certainly make those up, but we shouldn't ignore the fact.

@Aqualone No real disagreement here, I acknowledge the OP would be pursuing a harder path.  But not necessarily a bad path. Gaining the skill to learn directly from source materials will pay great dividends in actually doing math research. Should that be deferred to graduate school? For most students, probably yes. But as long as the basics are covered, I don't see that gaining this skill early is intrinsically less valuable than additional mathematics electives.

I agree that I would not want to try to learn calculus from Newton. But I also would not succeed in a Great Books environment. By the OP's self-description, the OP has chosen this environment and is succeeding there. I'd argue that already indicates a smart, motivated person. And a smart, motivated person who knows how to learn without hand-holding can make up a large knowledge deficit quickly.

No, God no. An SJC education leaves you woefully underprepared for a math PhD. You're not just one or two years behind, you're probably 4 years behind. It's like training someone in swordfighting and then expecting them to excel in a modern air force. The number of transferable skills is vanishingly small. Inefficient does not begin to describe it. If you want to succeed in a mathematics career you will need to lean heavily on outside resources, to the point where there's little value staying in SJC. Remember, a PhD is not enough: the post-PhD portion is hard even for top students.

Yes, I must agree that an SJC education constitutes no preparation for graduate study in STEM. Most of the mathematical (not mathematics historical) content of what is taught at SJC is at junior high (not even high school) level! (at least I learned these topics in junior high)

You have time remaining in your degree?  You can take mathematics courses if you wish?
My advice:  Take the math course in abstract algebra; take the math course in real analysis.  After you do that, if you still want to do graduate work in math, then go for it!
Those course are what math admissions committees will like to see in your record.  If you have not done those courses, I do not see how you can "know" that you want to go into math.

Mathematics courses (or rather, electable courses) do not exist at SJC.

You do not say exactly what is to your mathematical taste, but you might consider computational mathematics. This might be regarded with scorn by some purists, but you would be following in the footsteps of Newton, Euler, Lagrange, Legendre, Fourier and numerous other giants. There is still ample scope for imagination and creativity, employment and funding opportunities are good, and access to the Naval Academy could provide great connections to departments that treat the topic seriously.


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Can a pure mathematics PhD dissertation consist largely of incomplete and/or failed attempts at theorems (with an overarching theme)?
The Question:

Can a pure mathematics PhD dissertation consist largely of incomplete and/or failed attempts at theorems (with an overarching theme)?

Background:
I have just started my third year of a PhD in group theory here in the UK, where PhDs last at most four years of study; I don't have the funding for a fourth year.  I have about five theorems so far, two of which are kind of small - more like lemmas - and only one that I can say makes a conceptual difference to the literature, despite being relatively easy to prove.
There's a conjecture I've been working towards for months now that, if proven, would be the meat of my dissertation.  Research is unpredictable.  I could fail to prove it in time.  I have tried hard to prove it; very hard, in fact - but to no avail.
I could modify the scope of my research.  I could look at particular cases of the conjecture.  I could try proving something else.
That's not the point.
The point of this question is: what if I fail to prove anything big enough for a PhD dissertation?
Could I put together all the things I've tried during this project then claim the resulting document as a dissertation, and "get away with it"?
The research fits into an overarching theme.  I feel like I have valuable things to say about these attempts.
Thoughts:
A PhD is about a "significant, original contribution to knowledge".  Failed or incomplete attempts at theorems are still worth sharing if only to warn, guide, and inform future explorers of the area about my approaches.
After all, I have gathered sufficient data for a realistic conjecture. It could be of use to the community.

I think you can get a PhD with this, but you should ask your advisor and potential examiners.  Standards differ in different places.  As to whether you can get an academic job afterwards... - well you should still ask your advisor.

You get a PhD if your adviser and your committee sign off on what you have done and written. You need to ask these people what they think, not us.

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Is it ethical/acceptable to recommend a reviewer who gave a positive review to a previous submission of the same MS?
I (and my co-authors) recently received a rejection notice regarding a manuscript we submitted for publication. We had one positive and one negative review. The positive reviewer chose to reveal his identity; however, the negative reviewer remains anonymous.
We plan to submit a revised version, following both reviewers' feedback, to another journal. Is it acceptable/ethical to recommend the reviewer who provided us with a positive review as a reviewer for the revised MS? If so, do we need to 1) reach out and ask him first and 2) reveal the situation to the journal's editor?

Yes, recommending the same reviewer is an acceptable recommendation, especially if their feedback was constructive and insightful in a way that helped improving the manuscript. At the end of the day, it's the editor decision to send them the manuscript or not. Therefore,
2-) Is necessary. Providing this information to the editor is a must to give them a complete understanding of the manuscript revision, and to allow them to make an informed decision about which reviewers they will send the MS to.
1-) Is unnecessary and can be awkward.

There is no guarantee the editor will send them the manuscript,
and if so, it's an editorial job to ask about their willingness to
review it again. Within the same journal, reviewers are usually asked
if they are willing to review a revised version of the MS when they
submit their feedback. In this case, the reviewer revealing their
identity can be at least a sign that they are open to be reached out
again about their feedback.
From a reviewer perspective who revealed their identity, receiving
the MS again from a different journal should tell the whole story:
the MS was rejected in journal 1, revised and resubmitted to journal
2. Knowing whether they were recommended by the editor or the author is irrelevant.

Avoid "cherry-picking" reviewers and be open with the new journal editor
Using the same referees across multiple submissions has the benefit of avoiding duplication of review tasks, so it has at least some desirable properties.  The drawback occurs when authors "cherry pick" only reviewers who previously gave positive feeback, which has the potential to bias academic publication decisions.
It is acceptable to recommend the previous positive reviewer as a reviewer for a new submission, but you should also strongly consider recommending the previous negative reviewer as well.  (After all, are you not confident in your revisions since that reviewer previously read your paper?)  It is also desirable to explain the full situation to the editor of the new journal so that they are aware of the reviewers' previous exposure to your paper and previous recommendations on your paper.  As long as you are open about the history of your paper, this will be ethical action and it will ensure that your actions do not bias the review process.

I feel confident we have addressed the issues highlighted in the negative review; however, the reviewer remained anonymous. Therefore, we are unable to recommend them as a reviewer during the future submission. That said, I have no problem being transparent with the future editor. Do you think I should share the full reviews with the next editor, during submission of the manuscript? Or will a summary of the key points addressed suffice?

Ah, good point (sorry I missed that).  I think it would be fine to let the editor of the new journal know that you can provide the previous reviews if those are helpful.  Since you have addressed the old review points, the editor might decide that fresh reviews are more helpful.

Yes, but 2) is necessary. It is unusual for a reviewer to have revealed their identity, so the editor will not guess that you know they previously gave a good review, and it would be dishonest to take advantage of that.
And 1) would be a good thing to do too. The reviewer might not guess that you are going to recommend them in this way. It is better to be open and honest.

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How to protect my own ideas/solutions when another of my supervisor's students is studying the same thing?
Edit: Since teamwork has come up in the answers, I think it would be useful that I add this. The other student has requested to team up with me, and the advisor has rejected this. Besides, I already have the solution to my research question. Not much left for teamwork on that section. I will have to share my solution with my supervisory panel, and then start the evaluation which I can't and rather not to do in secrecy.
A student recently moved from another area to study with my supervisor. Along with this change in supervisor, the student has also changed direction and has started working on the same problem as mine.
The change in subject is quite a sharp turn too. For example, think of a student with a background in microbiology(all the way up to masters and over one year work of their PhD), suddenly starts working on a machine learning model for aggression in dogs. While I have deidentified the subjects, the problem I have been working on is even more specific than the imaginary dog problem. It might be worth adding that the subject of my study was proposed by myself after over two months of literature review.
The change sounded weird to me at first, but I wasn't worried until I saw part of my study plan and one of my ideas in this student's review presentation.
I am sure that this has been my big mouth not keeping what I say in check, primarily because I usually think very positively of people. I can keep my mouth shut from now on, and the supervisors I have are quite good. However, I imagine they have quite a challenging task in remembering which idea/solution was shared by which one of their students, and not to talk about it to the other student unintentionally.
I am not sure why the hell someone would throw away years of background and start working on something that they have no background in and is already being studied under their nose. A tough challenge is that how do I exchange information without a worry that these ideas might leak out? One of my supervisors is a very busy person, I am sure that this person has a fantastic memory. However, is it possible that they forget which idea was shared by who? and unintentionally share it with the other student?
What should I do? Suggestions?
To my principal supervisor, if they happen to see this:
Please do not take offence, I have great respect for you and will always be grateful for all the incredible support I have received. This issue is part of my learning process, and I'd like to tap into all resources available to me so I can tackle and learn about it to the best of my capability.
/walloftext

You should probably talk to your supervisor (in a calm, non-combative way) about your concerns. Presumably he/she can advise you much better than we can, since we lack a lot of context.

Thank you, I will be happy to provide additional context as needed. I tried to include all relevant information. I have talked to my supervisors, and while they were very reassuring, the issues I have mentioned in the discussion remain.

I was referring to context that only your supervisor has :) but glad to hear you've already had a conversation with them about this.

I think the title of your post "Can a supervisor have two PhD students studying the same thing?" is not really what you want to ask (and the answer to that is obviously "yes"). Perhaps you can [edit] it to reflect what you are really asking - "How to protect my own ideas when another of my supervisor's students is studying the same thing?"

I was hoping to find more information on that. There is a clear risk of unintentional plagiarism when two students study the same problem under the same supervisor. I will change the question. It is worth noting that the subject of my study wasn't from my supervisor and was proposed by myself after two months of literature review.

How similar is this other dude's topic? Even a slight difference in emphasis its enough that you could both work on it. My major proff. had 5-6 students working on one project line over the years. Each, for the most part, refined the last guy's project. Mostly, then, sequentially. I actually worked with another guy in similar topics. We worked great as a team. Our projects, while similar, were not identical.

I am with @ff524.  For perhaps a majority of questions asked on this site, "Talk to your advisor" is relevant, helpful advice.  But this time "Talk to your advisor" is really the answer: it is the only way to resolve issues of the type you've raised.

Somewhat related: Am I obliged to share my most promising data?

@TheNate Think about getting a problem statement and paraphrasing it. The problem itself is identical, with minor differences in the pitched motivation. The project is not large enough, nearly sufficient work for one student. I mainly looked for such an idea to keep the scope of my work in check and to be able to complete it on my own in time.

Just because you are a grad student, and your advisor is an established researcher, does not mean:

that you do not have the right be be supported in a positive way by your advisor
that your project, that you came up with, and defined, and started to work on, should be assigned to another student
that you should have to pussy-foot around protecting your small, medium-sized, and big steps towards your thesis from your own groupmates and your advisor, for god's sake
that you do not have the right to assert yourself with your advisor

In my opinion, if you want to continue to work on this topic, with this advisor, and hold onto your self-respect, you have an obligation to yourself to assert yourself with him or her.
I'm not saying it will necessarily be easy (although you may be in for a pleasant surprise -- you never know!).  I'm just saying it has to be done.
If you want to, you could talk over the problem with your dean of graduate studies in your department first.
It is precisely the imbalance of power between you and your advisor that makes what s/he did (giving your topic to another student) appear so questionable.
Let's hope s/he did it out of thoughtlessness, or in the belief that the topic can somehow be subdivided neatly enough into two theses that the two of you can continue without being in competition with each other.  (If the latter case -- I hope it is true.)
However, I suggest you start thinking about a possible different advisor, just in case.

It is precisely the imbalance of power between you and your advisor that makes what s/he did (giving your topic to another student) so unethical. - I think it is premature to decide conclusively that the supervisor's behavior was definitely unethical. We are only hearing one side of the story, and it's definitely possible that the OP doesn't fully understand the second student's direction, or know what instructions the supervisor has given the second student. There's still a very real possibility that this is partly a misunderstanding, and just a matter of poor communication.

@ff524 - fair enough, will edit my statement, but only slightly.  I can only base my opinion on the information provided, after all.

Note that the information given does not include anything about what transpired between the supervisor and the second student. Hence my hesitance to draw conclusions.

@aparente001 Although this is a bitter reality to face, not all students are nice enough to respect and credit others' work. What makes it harder is that this advisor has been supporting me from way before my PhD. I don't think that they gave the subject to this other student, most probably the other student picked up my project during meetings. I will reflect on how I can work on the solution you have provided. However, I am afraid to lose more than my PhD project in the process.

@dan "Most probably the other student picked up my project during meetings."  I see.  Well, in my view, when this happens, the advisor has the role of explaining that that project is already taken.  Analogy: groom's sister has been planning to make the wedding cake ever since the engagement ring was bought.  Two weeks before the wedding, Aunt Bessie announces she has ordered a wedding cake without checking with anyone first.  Someone with a kind yet firm, authoritative tone, must call Aunt Bessie.  In your environment, that someone should be the advisor.  Does your advisor have a...

... problem with being assertive?

I just read the deleted answer and the comments connected to it.  Based on that, I would suggest that you keep the lines of email communication open between you and the new student.  If the news student were to ask some of those uncomfortable questions about your work via email, a simple forward to your advisor might open her eyes. ... Question: are you and your advisor in the habit of emailing each other?  If so, a short email giving her an update about the uncomfortable questions might not be misplaced at this juncture.

@aparente001 I agree with that as well, why allow unnecessary friction within the group when they can complement and reinforce one another instead? I just finished writing an email to my supervisor. I think she is not taking this seriously, or at least it appears so. The sad thing is that this supervisor has helped me beyond imagination and I don't want to disappoint her, which is why I was uncomfortable with making a stand. I think this other student sees all this as well and is taking advantage of the situation.

Teamwork
It's rather common for teams to work on "the same thing" research wise - on a single project, shared research and (most importantly) collaborating and sharing ideas, not hiding them from each other. That is a good thing.
It may be dependent on the field, but I'd guess that having such teamwork is far more common than a "two person" team of a supervisor and a single student.
The attribution of a particular idea within a single team isn't that important - doing the work in implementing and verifying that idea is almost all of created value in a research project. Simply coming up with an idea for possible work and nothing else generally justifies a mention in acknowledgements, not even a co-authorship. Since there are more valid research ideas than time to work on them properly (and this is true even if a student needs two months of literature review to pick one suited for him/her), it is rather expected for advisors to spread interesting research ideas around - it often takes years and multiple attempts to do a particular idea properly, and treating it as "taboo" because someone else is working on it would be rather counterproductive.
If you have two or more people working on a single sufficiently large problem, that's great - you will inevitably specialize to certain parts of that problem and depending on how you (or your supervisor) organize the work, you can co-author the resulting publications or split the results in smaller pieces to publish separately; but you will go further beyond the other researchers in the same subfield than if you were struggling at it alone.

I used to work in larger team projects before starting my PhD and completely get what you are saying. However, the research subject is not large enough. There is one particular problem to solve, and then a set of benefits and evaluation. I specifically looked for such a subject to be able to control the scope and finish in time. I basically have the solution now, which I have to validate. I don't know what happens if I say anything about it, and it gets out.

@dan: Is your advisor aware that the topic is so restricted? Does he or she agree with that assessment in the first place, or do they possibly see a lot more options for research connected to your topic?

@O.R.Mapper I have developed a clear cut definition of my project over the past few months, it is basically impossible to ignore the restrictions. The other student has requested to team up with me, and the advisor has rejected this. Besides, I already have the solution to my research question. Not much left for teamwork. However, I will have to share my solution with my supervisory panel, and then start the evaluation which I can't do in secrecy.

@dan: To play devil's advocate: While the situation that this is happening within your group is unfortunate, another researcher somewhere else on the world might be preparing to publish the very same solution (that you haven't heard about because they are equally secretive about their work). Possibly, you are about to find out that "specifically look[ing] for (...) a subject" that consists of "one particular problem to solve" is indeed not a very viable way to "control the scope and finish in time."

@dan: To respond directly (and more helpfully) to your comment: "it is basically impossible to ignore the restrictions" - again, does your aupervisor agree with that stance? Please talk to them about this issue, maybe they see more options that you cannot currently recognize (professors sometimes have that almost magical ability). "The other student has requested to team up with me, and the advisor has rejected this" - interesting bit of information, maybe add to question. "Besides, I already have the solution to my research question. Not much left for teamwork." - unless all students need ...

... a clear-cut topic like you, teamwork can also mean some "getting on-board" by assisting in your evaluation (and knowing what they're doing because they worked on the same problem!) before starting some more autonomous work.

@O.R.Mapper Thanks, I added this to the question. I am fine with someone else who beats me fair and square and solves the problem first. What scares me is that this other student has no problem with taking my work, as I have mentioned in the question. As for the scope of the problem, I have written a relatively large research proposal defining it.

@O.R.Mapper It would have been an ideal situation if the new student came onboard for the evaluation, and respected my authorship. The fact of the matter is that the student appears to want the meat of my work to pass as her own.

The OP's description indicates that the other student's decision may not be independent from having seen OP's work. OP is right to be concerned. If OP has a good relation with the supervisor and trusts them, they are the right person to state the concerns with and find ways to avoid interference and conflicts of attribution. It cannot be in the interest of a supervisor to gain a reputation of permitting fellow travelerships.

@Peteris "That is a good thing" only when all parties are respectful of one another's authorship.

Main point here is to prove who got what idea first. In other words, every new idea has to be dated in one way or another.
In the old days, you would mail yourself printed documents, and you would keep envelops sealed until there was a contentious situation and then opening the relevant envelop would demonstrate you had the idea first - or else.
Nowadays, you could email yourself, (use Facebook?, a published or unpublished blog?) or use a cloud solution with document versioning or change tracking options, both ways that will enable ideas/content/data to be tracked and dated.

Thanks! That will be useful in case we get into a dispute. However, I am hoping to find a way to prevent it from happening.

Sure you do. Prevention always better. And better be safe than sorry too ;) In general terms, you can never enough research trail during doctoral research, and probably beyond. A research diary is widely advised; again the whole point is to know what happen-s/-ed and when, for your own sake and the sake of others (supervisor, for instance; but it could also be any type of funder). Serves as personal development instrument too.

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


text:
I am citing from a paper which confused the word "affective" and "affectionate", what should I do?
I understand that with minor spelling mistakes you use [sic] or just [brackets]. However, in this case, I think the author accidentally wrote the wrong word.
It looks odd to write affect[ionat]e and if I just write [sic] it is not obvious which word he intended to use.
Should I use a footnote instead?
I am using APA style.
Thanks!

It may look odd, but "affect[ionat]e" would be pretty standard if you do have to directly quote that section, though paraphrasing it instead of directly quoting it might be better.

Is it necessary to quote? Most academic citations, at least in fields I am familiar with, are not quotes. And are you quite certain that they've made a mistake? "Affective" is quite a common word in, say, psychology.

@WhatTheDuck thank you for this idea

@BryanKrause Hi, I am referencing a model called the Gender Role Conflict Scale, and one of its patterns was called "Restrictive Affectionate..." by its original author. The author whose paper I read has called it "Restrictive Affective...". I am not sure how else to refer to this term/name of a pattern. Thank you for your help.

@Ali I'd say that's sufficient to be quite certain it's a mistake. But why is it necessary to quote them?

Hello, thank you. I feel I ought to quote them, by putting "" around the term Restrictive Affectionate Behaviour, as it is a specific term that the original author came up with, it is not a widely known one. Have I understood what "quoting" means correctly? Is there perhaps another way of making it clear the term is not mine? Thank you for your prior explanation which makes me reflect.

You don't generally need to use quotation marks for terminology, even if the terminology comes from somewhere else, just make sure it's clear where it comes from. But in any case, in this scenario it's not coming from the source that got it "wrong", you would not want to quote them for coming up with that phrase because it's not their scale.

I would use - "affective (sic: affectionate)"

I don't think this makes it clear which one they wrote and which one is correct

The fact that the words "sic: affectionate" are in parentheses tells the reader that they have been added. And, in any event, it should be clear from context that "affective" is original and incorrect and "affectionate" corrects it.

Sic usually appears on its own in brackets after the word that appears, not with that word inside the brackets and separated by a colon. So it seems unclear to me. And it will only be clear from context if the reader knows what the two words mean, which might not be the case.

If that's too difficult for an average reader. how about "affective (sic, i.e., affectionate)"?

That is not clear either. This would be clear: affective (sic; the correct word is affectionate).

Well, I think that most readers would easily understand both suggestions. OTOH, maybe I'm giving readers too much credit. Perhaps someone else can chime in. –


text:
Publishing parts of my thesis under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License in journals
I am about to electronically "publish" my PhD thesis under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Some chapters will eventually be published in journals, and I am wondering if that type of license can cause problems. In particular, I am considering a Springer journal. I couldn't find any information on that. I suppose we have to be careful in the type of license we use for the thesis, depending on what journals require on their end. Should I use another license instead?

Depending on the journal, you may also want to check the policy on prior publication.

Before you "publish" yourself, understand the specific policies of any journals you might want to submit to. In particular, Some (at least) Springer journals permit publishing on "preprint servers", but it may not extend beyond that.
For preprint policies see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_publishers_by_preprint_policy
The license question is a bit different, since a license affects copyright and what you can give a formal publisher. CC Attribution is quite generous, which means a lot of rights are already given up. Again, know the policies of the publishers you are considering
For copyright policy guidance see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_policies_of_academic_publishers


text:
How should I handle a consistent academic misconduct by a certain group of researchers
I recently encountered an incident in our research field where a group of researcher falsely claimed credit for our work in their publications. They have been consistently publishing papers containing these false claims, even though they did not actually achieve the results they've claimed. What's more concerning is that they've gone to the extent of distorting facts to make it seem like the state of the art is worse than it actually is, misleading readers in the process.
As a reviewer for some of their subsequent papers, I found it unethical to allow such false or misleading information to be published. I provided evidence of the plagiarism and asked the editors not to include this misinformation. However, to my surprise, multiple editors supported the authors' actions, citing it as an issue with prior works that needed resolution before anything could be done.
The editors offered me several options, including directly confronting the authors, but given their awareness of the situation and their persistence in this behavior, I doubt this would be effective. Reporting to the Editor-in-Chief was another option, but colleagues warned me that given the support from multiple editors, addressing the misconduct in the original paper might be challenging.
Now, I'm faced with a new review assignment from an author who has historically supported this misconduct, and they continue to propagate these false claims. I'm torn between reporting the issue in this review, which feels morally imperative to prevent further dissemination of misinformation, and fearing potential retaliation, which has already occurred to some extent.
I would greatly appreciate any advice or feedback on how to proceed. Thank you in advance for your input.

What is your current role/position?

@BryanKrause I'm an assistant professor, which is why I'm very concerned about the consequences of this issue.

There seems to be 2 issues - plagiarism (bad) and misrepresenting the state of the art (which I think is more widespread) in fields. I'm a little surprised that editors wouldn't accept clear evidence of plagiarism. Perhaps you could describe a bit more on how grave it was?

‘false claims, even though they did not actually achieve the results’ and ‘distorting facts to make it seem like the state of the art is worse than it actually is.’ Is this a science-related area where one might expect claims to be backed up and facts to be cited?

Thanks @Someperson for your comment. I share your feeling regarding the gravity of the 2nd issue, which also suggests an intentionality behind the misconduct. Here are some context on the series of events:
In essence, our research line involves deriving some mathematical bounds that have engineering implications. There exists a seminal work, let's refer to it as result “A”, which the authors in question attempted to build upon, resulting in an improved but suboptimal result denoted as “B”. Independently, we completely solved these questions, providing a bound superior to both “A” and “B”.

@Someperson(part 2)
Following the publication of our work, the authors persistently attempted to lay claim to our findings. Initially, they falsely asserted that “A” and “B” remained the best, ignoring our solution. Despite our repeated interventions through the peer review process, they continued this behavior in their new submissions. Eventually, I became so frustrated that I asked them to stop in a review. In response, I received an aggressive reply accusing me of judging their intentions, falsely claiming they had never done this, and stating that my actions were quite grave.

@Someperson(part3) The author's tone was so convincing that I began to doubt myself. I decided to revisit their earlier paper to see if there was anything I could appreciate. To my surprise, I discovered that the journal version of their work, which they cited repeatedly but was posted years after our work, claimed that the entirety of my work was also discovered by them. When I examined their proof, I saw that they did not even bother to copy my proof but simply claimed it was trivial. This led me to report the plagiarism misconduct in my previous review assignments.

@Someperson(part4)
I cannot precisely judge why the editors chose not to address the non-plagiarism part of the issues, but one of the editors mentioned that he had communicated with the authors and decided not to include me as a reviewer for their future revisions.

@Aruralreader These results are in the field of mathematics which means everything I said can be concretely verified. But unfortunately that 1. it is difficult nowadays to convince an editor that is non-expert in our field to spend time read into details. 2. even if they read and are convinced of the authors' misconduct they refused to fix them.

I would go with this to my line manager/head of department or similar. They should know the particulars of this better than we here and be able to provide some advise.
Also, it would be helpful if you could summarise the situation more succintly/concisely than in a number of comments. (TLDR)

Contact the authors first, then consider complaining to their university
If you wish to take action on suspected research misconduct, a good first step is to contact the authors whose actions concern you and clearly (and politely) set out your concerns.  This will give them an opportunity to provide an explanation of their conduct, give supplementary information, or take corrective action.  If you are unsatisfied with their response, you can lodge a complaint with the university/universities that employ these academics.  Every reputable university has a research code of conduct and related rules that bind their academics and they are able to receive and act on complaints of research misconduct.  They typically also have rules against retaliation against a complainant.
You say in your question that there is "consistent academic misconduct" here, but actually, there is not even a single finding that academic misconduct has occurred.  If you wish to change this, you will need to make a formal complaint to the relevant universities and have the matter assessed.  In the event that the university finds that academic misconduct has occurred, they can impose sanctions on the employee and/or take action in their own right (i.e., as an institution) to correct incorrect information in publications, etc.  Academic journals are also far more likely to take corrective action themselves if a complaint is backed by an institutional finding of misconduct and recommendations from a university.

Write a review article and set the story straight. You can present your research, showing a clear progress timeline, and, with some diplomacy, contrast this to the attempts to distort the facts.

I have some sad news for you - as long as you can't convince your own scientific community of the availability and correctness of your superior solution the authors aren't even wrong: the state of the art is indeed still "A" and "B". It's not enough to publish your own results somewhere and be personally convinced of their correctness - your peers need to know about your results and, crucially, they need to agree. Recognition is given by your peers, not claimed by you.
It feels to me you are spending your time and energy on the wrong problem (getting competing authors to agree with you, who also happen to be the people with the least incentives to do so), when you should be writing follow-up papers that demonstrate the value and correctness of your results, and giving presentations about your work. I would also suggest thinking about why your results currently get ignored (and it's most likely not because you are not sufficiently famous, if that's what you are thinking):

Is the proof (too) difficult to understand?
Are the people who need your new bounds most not aware of them?
Did you publish in a venue that your target audience would not be reading?
And, of course, is your proof even correct, or are there limitations that others see but you do not?

And, if nothing helps, I strongly suggest letting it go. Getting "not-really-but-kind-of" scooped by a different group that published their results later but was more successful in dissemination happens. Sometimes history corrects this eventually, and sometimes it never does (especially when things are often not as black-or-white as they seem when you are one of the involved people). It certainly sucks when you had the right answer first but everybody applauds the genius of somebody else, but throwing around accusations of "plagiarism" mostly makes you seem like a quack.

I think you set the facts straight in the literature. It sounds like you have a standard A, their method B, and your method C. You write a paper that says something like, we are interested in the problem of improving A. We test method B and find that, in contrast to previous literature, B only slightly improves A. We then propose and test method C, which fulfills the original goal of improving A.

Also I am confused by the story, I think. Did they actually steal your work, as in copy it? Or are they publishing on the same problem as you? You said, “independently” which implies the latter. Then you said they ignored your work, which is something that is regrettable but happens and can be solved in reviews (but is not plagiarism).


text:
How to discuss traumatic experiences that might sound fabricated or distorted in graduate school applications
I'm applying to doctoral programs, and I've noticed that a few of my programs of interest either request or allow for a "personal statement" to be included with your application. In contrast to a statement of purpose, these "personal statements" exist to allow the applicant to provide a personal narrative, or to discuss extenuating circumstances, a non-traditional educational background, or other information that they feel is necessary for a holistic review to be performed.
I'm considering writing about what you might call a traumatic experience that I endured, and which impacted me in that it prevented me from ever attending middle or high school. As you can imagine, this in turn had a significant impact on my performance in my first year or two of college. I didn't do terribly, but I also didn't do well, nor was I as nearly as involved as I could have been (although I turned things around pretty sharply in the last 2 1/2 - 3 years). I'm concerned, however, about the following:

Firstly, the story itself is perhaps so strange that it might sound partly or wholly fictitious. I'd prefer not to provide detail, however imagine something along the lines of pretty serious abuse. I've found that discussing it in detail requires some pretty graphic language, while discussing it in little detail leaves everything sounding a bit vague.

Secondly, I'm worried that, instead of providing useful context within which to evaluate my academic performance ("hey, he went through ___ and still managed to do well in school") that graduate programs might be averse to admitting someone who prior to entering university had only an elementary-school-level education, and who you could reasonably conclude might lack interpersonal skills and/or suffer other effects. I did pretty well in school overall, and as someone that would eventually become quite involved the latter is demonstrably untrue, however it would have to be a concern that at the very least comes to mind while reading about this.

On the other hand, I feel that such a story would:

Provide useful context within which to evaluate my academic performance ("he had a lot of B-'s his first two years, but he also hadn't been in school for ___ years").
Explain my lack of involvement in my first year or two of college (I lacked social skills and financial support, and endured a lot of stress).
Show that I have am resilient, and have an industrious personality (both of which are quite relevant to doctoral programs).

Are traumatic experiences the sort of thing you should write about in a Personal Statement? How should they be approached, and when are they beneficial to your application?

Did you overcome the past with the help of counsellors and/or other professionals? If so, are they happy with your progress?

Is it necessary to go into detail beyond a one-sentence summary? "At the age of X I suffered a major traumatic event that left me unable to attend middle or high school". If you feel this is insufficient, what additional information do you think needs to be conveyed? Thinking about it from this perspective may help you write a minimal summary. Depending on circumstances, you might ask one or more of your letter-writers permission to address the issue in their reference.

B- are above average for the first two years of college. I would leave out any story which could be a potential turn-off ("this guy's got issues") to merely explain how you got grades that were somewhat better than most.

@avid Thanks for your suggestions. I guess this was one of my concerns. I don't feel that the details are all that important, however I wasn't sure if an admissions committee would desire a story of some sort to go alongside a claim of this magnitude.

@Buffy I did not seek the help of counsellors or other professionals, however there is a faculty member who is pretty familiar with my circumstances (although I did not ask them to write a letter, in favor of profs. who were much more familiar with my academics and research skills).

From an admissions perspective, the important part of the narrative is "missed N years of school; managed to do pretty well considering". I don't think why matters too much. If someone wants to believe that you're making it all up, I'm not sure that they will be persuaded by lurid (but potentially also made-up) details.

Why don't you write that? The theme would be "If it hadn't happened to me, I would hardly believe it". Make the reader feel an out-of-body experience. Suggestions that you leave out details are like suggesting "leave out your soul." I missed 4 years of school because I was in a trench on the border between France and Germany, but hey it was a long time ago and let me not bore you with the details...

I think the key aspect of this is the schooling part. You don’t need as much detail as Buffy provides. Avid has the right start. “ At the age of X I suffered a major traumatic event that left me unable to attend middle or high school. Therefore, my freshman year at university was my first experience with formal schooling in over X years. It took me through my first several semesters to learn skills in A, B, and C. I have now fully adjusted to the rigors of formal schooling and mastered the skills necessary, as demonstrated by my grades the last several semesters.”

Emphasize soft skills learned (very useful in any role) and the ability to overcome personal difficulties.  Don't emphasize the trauma, emphasize the skills you developed to overcome it and deal with it.

Agreed, spending additional words to back up the last couple of sentences with more examples would be useful, but I don’t know enough about the situation to write those.

To give some context, I read a lot of scholarship application essays.  While these are somewhat different from graduate school application "Personal Statements", there are a lot of commonalities.
When I read a scholarship application essay, I am generally looking to answer one question:  does this essay demonstrate that the student is likely to be successful?  Any anecdote or personal story which does not help to convince me that the student is likely to be successful in their classes is fluff—I don't mean to sound callous, but I typically skim over or ignore these sections.  Everybody has some hardship that they have overcome (common essay topics here, at a small community college in a highly impoverished, rural area are: "I am in recovery", "I got pregnant in high school and am now a single mother", "I am the sole provider for my multigenerational household", etc); having a traumatic experience in your past does not, in and of itself, make a convincing case that a student is going to be successful in their future classes.  As a reader, I don't really want or need to know about your traumatic past—what I want to see is how you are going to succeed going forward.
My suggestion would be to elide details about whatever trauma you have suffered.  The fewer words spent on it, the better.  Indeed, what is written in the question is, I think, as much as I would say.  For example:

When I was in middle school, I went through a traumatic experience which took me out of traditional schooling through high school.  When I started my college education, I was unprepared for the rigours of my coursework, and I didn't do well in many of my classes.  My grades during my first two years were not terrible, but they weren't great, either.

This sets the foundation, and doesn't require a lot of details (again, avoid details).  From here, get more focused.  Give some specific examples of the actions you took or the changes you made which ultimately led to your success as an undergraduate.  Emphasize successes, and deemphasize failures.  You are trying to convince someone that you are a good risk; that you have the skills and disposition to complete graduate level coursework and to conduct research in graduate school (and beyond).  A personal statement should be forward looking, and should touch on the past only enough to give context.

First, I wouldn't give any details. Second, this was long enough ago that the poor performance is much less relevant than your recent outcomes. To explain:
I'll make up an imagined scenario, though yours may be different. In my scenario, saying something like "People who were supposed to be my protectors were, instead, my abusers, and it took me a lot of time and effort to overcome that. But I have." No details. People can understand both that it happens and that people who suffer from such things don't want or need to discuss the details.
If your more recent outcomes are good, and you indicate they might be, then that is what people will (or should) find most relevant to expectations going forward. If your letter writers can honestly and confidently predict your success in doctoral studies and beyond, then you should be OK for doctoral admissions in the US. Upper level grades in the field of study are more important and relevant than others.
The improvement in outcomes is, itself, evidence of resilience. I was a terrible student for many years, though improved prior to starting college. For me it was just boredom with school, but the numbers might be similar. We change. Your journey has been harder. Good that you got through it. Good luck.

Note: For those applications that have only an SoP and not a separate personal statement. I'd leave this out altogether. Focus the SoP on the future only. If asked about poor early performance say as little as necessary, as suggested above.

How far in the past the traumatic event happened and how far its effects lasted?
If it is old, and in your case it can be considered old, don't mention it. It was already overthrown by more recent and more relevant experiences.
The most important thing is that you successfully graduated. With increasing scores. Focus on that.
Mention the trauma only when asked "why were your scores so low in the beginning?". Then brief answer "I couldn't attend high school in-person because of [the trauma] and first year in college I was behind."
This approach shows:

You do not take excuses for past disadvantages.
You focus on present and future.
It emphasizes humbly the above-average derivative of your learning curve.

On the other hand if you put in claim "When aged 7 I broke my leg and missed lectures training letter 'g' and since then I struggle with spelling words including 'g'." will put you in completely different light:

You add unnecessary and irelevant emotional detail.
You trigger warning "We will hear that story everytime".
You trigger warning "We will hear simillar story for any other possible mistake".
It emphasizes your focus on long past you are expecting other to be sorry for you.


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Should I discourage using messaging apps for research group communication?
I've seen a growing trend in later years: graduate students discussing research questions through Facebook or Whatsapp like it was the standard channel to solve all kind of issues (Could you send me script x? Where are the data y? How did you perform analysis z?)
These questions are at center of research reproducibility and I'm worried  using tools as ephemeral as Facebook messenger may cause me headaches in the future. What if the conversations are deleted and later I can't track a important exchange? (or worst case scenario, dig a case of scientific misconduct, like purposefully obscuring the origin of data?). Emails and other utilities like Google forums provide, in my opinion, a better platform to report issues, get them rolling until they are solved, and finally keep a record of the exchange. On the other hand, Facebook Messenger seems linear and messy, unsuited for this kind of purpose.
Maybe I'm getting old too quick, but should I discourage this practice? For instance, by promoting other tools like Google forums. Has anyone had a bad research experience because someone used Facebook or WhatsApp for scientific communication? How did you address the issue?

Especially in tech-heavy labs, I've found tools like Slack (for communication) and Trello (for organization of tasks and progress) to be particularly common...but I would warn you of trying to find a strictly technological solution by itself, because the older version of this is simple: just talk to the person directly, by phone or in person, which leaves no useful record or documentation at all. So internet tools can be handy, but I tend to doubt they are inherently more problematic than undocumented in-person discussions.

Our lab uses Slack also. It allows the easy sharing of code, results etc. and is completely track-able. We also use git heavily for both report/journal writing and code control.

I agree with @BrianHall that the technological approaches are, if anything, an upgrade to documentation over phone/in-person communication. In my group, some of us have made it a point to email certain details, even if they are discussed in person or on some other medium, just for our own records. I wouldn't say it goes toward reproducibility of the work necessarily but does make it easier to order an item from the same manufacturer, recall our decision making process for a particular approach, etc.

I think the broader point as that none of these mechanisms should be the primary way of documenting how research is done. A solid lab notebook (paper or electronic, preferably backed up in some way) can go a long way.

No. If you are worried about your colleagues being able to delete the messages from Facebook / Whatsapp, how do you cope with them calling each other? Or worse: actually talking, walking to their office and just copying files?
I'm all in favor of making communication easier, as insufficient communication between researchers is wasting millions of hours every year. But it should be with the goal of facilitating communication, you'll never get an environment that's completely traceable. That a wiki will have some kind of versioning or history will be an additional benefit, not a reason to use a wiki.
And besides, who's going to check all that communication? Scientific literature is full of fraud and misconduct that's in plain sight and not corrected. Errors in literature are there because people do not care and have no time, not because they lack the forensic tools.

I put too much emphasis on the scientific misconduct part in the question. What really worries me is not being able to track important communications and I have edited the questions to reflect that fact.

@j91 Same difference. If you're worried about being able to track important communications, how do you deal with communications where your students talk face to face, or over the phone? If you're worried that information that is important for reproducibility is going unrecorded, then you can encourage your students to record those conversations. (How? for example, by providing usable facilities to archive WhatsApp exchanges as part of your lab's research documentation, which obviously includes easy and allowed editing out of personal parts of those conversations.)

However, unless you can find a channel that your students find genuinely more useful, I would say it's pointless to try to ban specific 21st-century channels that you personally don't use/like/understand when there are 19th-century equivalent solutions (and indeed BC-era solutions as well) that are worse as far as your intentions are concerned.

@j91: I still think it's much more important to actually encourage good documentation behavior. If you're in an academic group, you're probably not even attaining any sort of quality standard. Are you absolutely sure that all lab journals are complete and up to date? Does all your code have sufficient documentation? Is your equipment regularly calibrated and do you have records for that? Can you trace all your raw data from the source to the output? Unless all of this is 100% in place, putting in rules for communication is really a step too far.

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


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For each of these cases which is the designation that best describes my role in class
Since I've finished my PhD I've been asked to perform some teaching duties. These duties correspond roughly to the three cases I describe below briefly.
1) So in this one course I was responsible for preparing the contents for classes which were mostly theory on the course subject. I would hand out problem assignments each week,I would discuss them with the students in class but not solve them. In the department I was the only one responsible for teaching this course.
2) On this other course I was responsible for solving problems in class for students. There were other professors teaching the course. Namely, theory.
3) Finally, on this other course I had to supervise students while they conducted some experiments in lab.
For each of these cases which is the designation that best describes my role in class? For example, in 3) I would say that the best designation that describes my role in class is "lab instructor".

Rather than adopting a title, you should use whatever title your institution gave you (instructor, teaching assistant, etc.) and then explain what you actually did.

Welcome to SE Academia! I suggest you move your question to the end (including a question mark) as to increase chances other users interpret you clearly and provide you the best possible feedback.

At my old university, those would likely be described as 1) assistant instructor, 2) discussion teaching assistant (TA), and 3) lab TA. However, terminology varies, so for e.g. job applications you should absolutely try to stick to Brian Borcher's advise.

At my university: (1) teaching assistant, (2) teaching assistant, and (3) teaching assistant.

@BrianBorchers Can you turn your comment into an answer?

@Scientist Thanks! Good to be here. I've edited the text as you suggested.

@BrianBorchers Actually my idea was to use these designations or titles in my CV to describe succinctly what my role was on each course I was involved with though I can do this using more words.

Teaching Fellow (which is a title usually reserved for an instructor who is also otherwise affiliated with the institution as a student, usually graduate), alternatively, I have seen a few graduate students who taught classes in their own right and were given the title of Lecturer, which is analogue to "adjunct" at some institutions--generally, though, even at institutions that use the title "adjunct" and not "lecturer" for their adjunct professors, graduate students who teach courses in their own right will usually still be referred to as a "lecturer". The reverse, as far as I know, is not true though--at institutions that use "lecturer" over "adjunct" or where both "adjunct" and "lecturer" are in use, students that teach are not called adjuncts, but are usually identified as "instructor" or, though rarely, "moderators", or even, the difficult-to-cv pseudo title of "Course led by...".
Teaching Assistant. Your overview might literally be the definition of a teaching assistant.
Monitor. Proctor. Or, more specifically, Lab Assistant or Lab TA.


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How much does the PhD institution matter for getting a Post Doc position in a top institution
how much does the image and ranking(provided by various institutions) matter irrespective of individual work of an institution where you pursue your PhD in getting a Post Doctorate position in a top institution. How much weight will it hold against one's work as in publications etc


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How do I build connections as a Masters student to get letters of recommendation for PhD programs?
I am going back to grad school and considering getting a PhD, but even though I got top grades and my professors usually have a great connection with me during classes because I am engaged and ask a lot of questions and get good grades, I am not good at building lasting relationships.
Do people keep in touch with professors after leaving? Do they get a letter of recommendation as soon as they graduate? Do they have to nurture the relationship for years and then fall back on it to get the reference? How do people get these letters of reference?
Forgive me that I don't understand how this works but I know this will be a requirement to get into top universities for a PhD program, so I better start doing it in my Master's program, because I didn't do it for my undergraduate.
I am very open to any advice, even if it seems elementary or obvious to you, because what you may think is obvious, I may not know, so I am very open to feedback. I'm not great with building relationships but I am willing to learn and grow.
How do I go about doing these letters of recommendation?

I'm not clear what exactly you're asking. I think you are saying that you are now entering a Masters program, and you are wondering how in the future you will get recommendations for PhD programs, and what you should do as a Masters student to help with that PhD application process?

Yes, you understood correctly

PhD programs are very different from all the coursework you've done as an undergraduate and before (this recent answer posted here includes a nice depiction: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/195669/63475). The center of a PhD program is research, so for applications to PhD program you want to show potential in research, specifically.
By far the best way to do this is to get experience doing research - for that experience, you will need a mentor/mentors, and those are the best people to write letters of recommendation for you. It's not about "learningaddict got a good grade in my course", though in a pinch that may be sufficient, and if you need 3-4 letters, it's likely at least one or two will be of that type.
Of course, the easiest thing to do then would be to apply directly for PhD programs while you are close to finishing your masters degree. If your eventual goal is a PhD, there are really no academic reasons to wait. If you have other personal reasons to wait, then yes, you will need to maintain these connections a bit, but I think it's far easier for someone to just remember you when you've worked closely with them on a research project rather than simply being another head in their class.
I'd also recommend discussing your future plans with people you want to eventually write letters for you, and letting them know you plan to ask for a letter in the future, even if you don't plan to apply right away. You can even share with them exactly the question you've asked here - don't forget that these are people with a job that includes mentoring you. They may have their own advice for you, or they may choose on their own to pre-write a letter.

Excellent advice, thank you.

I was lucky to meet my first mentor when I was 18. Because we shared similar substantive interests, he molded me into a statistician. If you seek a PhD, you should do the same. Seek out a mentor to collaborate with. Do research with them. Learn what academia at the higher levels is like. Don't be afraid to email people and speak with them. You will be surprised how far an email can take you. In this business, networking is invaluable, even compared to your grades in some ways. So, getting experience as a researcher is the main thing you should focus on. Most masters programs offer a thesis, just for this exact purpose. So hone your skills while you can.

Thanks for the tips


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Should I retract my submission to a CS conference after finding a couple of errors in manuscript?
I spotted two errors in my submission post-deadline for the first round of review (the next and final round is a rebuttal round where we can address the reviewers' comments). The errors are as follows:

The abstract mentions a performance increase of 3.4x, whereas the results and the conclusion mention 3.8x (correct), and the absolute numbers also show 3.8x.
Two citations in my literature survey are described incorrectly. However, they are not used in the evaluation and, even after correction, would not be considered a valid comparison and would not be added to the evaluation.

I understand such errors can irritate some reviewers. I am looking for any advice on how to deal with this situation. I am unable to focus on my research in the meantime since I am panicking and overthinking about how my carelessness will undermine our positive results. How does one deal with this situation?

These would not be sufficient reasons to withdraw the paper.
Whether the errors will result in a rejection depends on the conference. Some get so many submissions that they need to be very selective. Since there is a rebuttal, you have a chance to set the record straight. You should do so, even if the reviewers do not catch your errors.
Your first error will generate some initial confusion, but it is more in the line of a typo. Those things should not happen, but they do.
Misrepresenting previous work can really irritate people, (especially if they are the "victim"), and, if noted, will lead people to be much more skeptical of your work. If it is more in the nature of a clerical error, it is much more forgivable. It is a bit concerning that you chose to include these citations but then state that they really do not contribute to your argument. However, this might just be the reason that none of the reviewers will check, unless they are very familiar with the matter at hand. After all, reviewers cannot devote an unlimited amount of time to a paper and will not be able to check everything. However, you should set the record straight in your rebuttal.
From the tenor of your question, you seem to be a graduate student relatively at the beginning of your career towards a Ph.D. Conference rejections happen to all of us and you better get used to them. Errors on submissions also happen. But what about your advisor? That person should be able to calm you down. Making stupid mistakes is also standard and the conference format with its strict deadlines contributes to it. Stop panicking and continue to work on your project. At this point, there is almost nothing you can do about it. You could, in theory, write to the PC chair(s), but that would put them in a dilemma of giving you preferential treatment if they allow you to update your submission or of giving the reviewers knowingly bad data. I am not sure whether I want to suggest to you to not try this or whether I should advise you strictly against it. However, withdrawing the paper now is not going to work well for the conference either. For all you and I know, it might be a valuable contribution after these errors are fixed. Authors are notoriously unreliable when it comes to the merits of a submission.

Thank you for your response and for putting things in perspective. To elaborate on the nature of the citations, they help describe the landscape of the overarching research space but are not directly comparable to my work. Regardless, I will try to make peace and move on.

I'm not in CS so I'm not super familiar with the differences between submitting a conference paper vs a journal paper.
But, assuming you can make some more revisions during the second round of review, the first mistake is a non issue - I would not even worry about it. A reviewer may mention it at which point you can just thank them for pointing out the error and fix it. If no one catches it, just mention that you fixed a typo when you submit the next revisions. This one is not a big deal.
You're second error confuses me a bit. It seems a bit bigger. When you say you described them incorrectly, it makes it sounds like you misinterpreted the original papers. But, with the correct interpretation, they do not change your results. Is that right?
If that is the case, I would be worried that a reviewer would consider the work amateurish and dismiss the whole thing. That might lead to an overly critical review/rejection. But, really, they may or may not pick up on the mistake. If they do, there is a pretty good chance they will just say that you misinterpreted it. Just admit you were wrong and correct the mistake. If they don't, just correct the citations and make a note that you did that.
Either way, I would just wait to see what happens. The worst thing that can happen is the paper gets rejected (which may or may not be a result of the mistakes). If you withdrawal it, you're just preventing your results from being published - so it's the same outcome but there is no chance to fix the manuscript and get it out there.

Yes, I am worried they will consider it amatuerish. I will wait and see what happens! thank you for the response!


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In a CV for an epidemiology PhD application, should you put a summary at the top?
I am applying to PhDs in epidemiology in the US and would like to know the following:

should you put a summary on top of the CV? I see some examples have it and some do not.

if you had teaching roles, do you out things such as how the class was improved (not in an academic sense)?

should you put action words to describe or emphasize experiences on the CV?

how do you quantify experiences that are not quantifiable?


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What would I do if an editor didn't publish my manuscript?
My paper was accepted to be published as a chapter in a SPRINGER book after it was presented at an IEEE-sponsored conference and gaining a high score form their peer-reviewers. The editor of the book series (also the chairman of the conference) invited me to submit an extended version of the paper (at least 30% of new ideas) so, I emailed the final manuscript but didn't get any feed-back until I figured out that the book is now available online but the title of my article doesn't appear in its table of contents! I asked the book editor about this issue but still haven't gotten an answer.

How long have you waited for a response from the book editor?

It's been one week now

To have a publication in a book, there is usually a deadline. Did you submit your final version within the deadline or late?

As these things go, a week is pretty short. Had it been a formatting issue you would have learned long ago, I think. If you don't get satisfaction after a bit, formally withdraw the paper for publication elsewhere. But try to get a good explanation first. Perhaps it is even a misunderstanding.

Yes of course I submitted the final version in time, except that I emailed it in LaTeX instead of in Word format, but before doing that I checked out the Springer website and found that there some LaTeX templates.

Something is unusual here.  Misunderstanding is a possibility. You should have been informed anyway, like in standard submission.

I suspect that the book editor (the conference chairman) has omitted to forward the article/chapter to Springer, knowing that this book is now published! For this reason I think she wouldn't answer me.

What's the timeline of this? When did the editor invite you, how many months later you sent a revised manuscript, how many months later you saw the book online?

The IEEE conference was held on Nov 15-18, 2017. On July 2, 2018, I was informed by email from the chairman that my article was accepted to be published as a book chapter in Springer, the deadline to submit the extended version was July 10, 2018, I emailed the final version in LaTeX in that day and afterwards I didn't receive any email neither from the chairman nor from Springer until I discovered in Feb 8 that the book is now available for sale!

Based on your timeline, my guess is that your email didn't reach the editor. Perhaps it went into her spam folder, or he saw it and then forgot about it, etc. There's little chance this is malicious. After all, the editor has nothing to gain by holding your manuscript unpublished. Now that the book's been published, there's no chance of inserting your manuscript into it either.
You've already emailed the editor, which is all you can do. At least it'll make clear where the error was, and more optimistically, perhaps the editor will find somewhere else to publish your manuscript. It's all you can do, and next time, you can ask the editor for a confirmation of receipt if you don't hear back from her after a while.

Request a confirmation of the editor that the paper - for whatever reasons - had not been included and that you will proceed to publish it somewhere. If they do not feel that they are going to get into too much trouble with OP, they may be more willing to admit a hiccup.

The editor of the book series ... invited me to submit an extended
  version of the paper (at least 30% of new ideas) so, I emailed the
  final manuscript but didn't get any feed-back until I figured out that
  the book is now available online but the title of my article doesn't appear in its table of contents! I asked the book editor about this
  issue but still haven't gotten an answer.

So you are invited to submit a paper as a chapter for a volume in the book series. Book chapters are also reviewed (although things are easy when you are invited), and once it is accepted, the editor will tell you which volume of the book the chapter will appear.
As you haven't received any review, it is not a surprise that your paper does not appear in the latest volume of the book. Unlike conferences, it can take years for the chapter to appear (in my case, 2 years since it was accepted)
You see the book editor is also the program chair of some conference(s). He also has to do his own research, and likely to be a professor with teaching duties, and so on and so on. It is not unusual that he does not response to you within one week.
You can shoot him an email again, but there is nothing to worry here.

This interpretation is certainly a possibility. It is not quite clear from the OP's statements whether this interpretation is correct, or whether they were indeed invited to submit an extended version of their article for a particular book that is handled by the same editor as all the other books that happen to be in the same series.


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How to properly include research papers that are still not published in a curriculum vitae?
I'm currently working on two research papers that I will send in a month to a peer-review journal, but I need to write my CV right now to apply for a job.
In my CV there are currently three sections:

Refereed Journal Articles
Refereed Conference Papers
Other scientific publication [where I've included some non-refereed publications]

In your opinion, what is the best title for a section about the two papers I'm currently working on, which are going to be submitted to peer-review journals soon, but are currently in progress?

Work in Progress is good and it  is good to have such a section.
You can also annotate each paper title with the expected time to (or of) submission. "Submission expected in December 2020", for example.