text:
How to respond to the trivialisation of one’s work and unjustified demands for a considerable extension of the research?
I am a graduate student in engineering whose work includes a lot of programming and implementation of the developed theories. I am not a computer scientist, but I am a fairly skilled programmer, at least when compared to other people in the field.
In the recent months I went to a few conferences and to meetings with partners participating in my research project. In most cases my supervisor attends these events as well. We do not have the same background, and while I get a lot of support from him, there are some gaps where he is not proficient and does not have a good overview, especially about the amount of work required to get something implemented. In such tasks we have a relation that is based on trust that I am doing a correct job, which gets disrupted when other researchers are involved, as described in the continuation.
At such events I have encountered the problem that some people boldly enquire why I did not research or develop a particular (usually irrelevant) feature, and give suggestions for the extension of the work which are far beyond the scope of my project and time. This is especially the case about programming, and it comes from people who have never implemented anything. For some of the suggestions, I would need my own research team and a few years of funding. And sometimes the people asking such questions try to show-off in front of others by trivialising my research. This is annoying. And this situation gets worse when I give a simplified presentation of my work in order to make it more understandable to a wider audience. On conferences I see that other young researchers experience the same problem.
Indeed I am a young researcher and it may look like I am overestimating my work, but I have a good overview of the field and I have no issues with suggestions that require an additional but reasonable amount of work. My papers so far all got good reviews, and at my department I am one of the most productive graduate students, which makes me confident that I am on the right path and do more than enough work.
While I tend to ignore such demands, this puts me in a difficult position when it is about a topic where my supervisor does not have expertise. My supervisor gets a wrong impression that I am not doing a right job, and that my work is basic touching only the tip of the iceberg. Other people in the audience instantly get such opinion as well. This escalated today when I have received a very good review of a paper that I have submitted with my supervisor. From the beginning I was very confident about the work, however, when presenting it around, I run into issues described above. So the comment of my supervisor on the review was “I am happy to see that you have improved your work after the initial hiccups and confusion. You did not research what others told you to do, so we have been lucky here.” This was really annoying because my work was never in question, and from day one I have followed the same path and did not encounter any difficulty. So this gives you an idea how much such comments on conference may influence one’s opinion about a work.
Is there a general way how to deal with such situations at conferences and meetings?  Luckily I have not encountered this behaviour during peer-reviews, but if I had, it'd be easier because it doesn't require an instant reaction.
I have some generic answers such as:

“Thanks for your suggestion. I have been thinking about this, but it requires too much work, and that is outside the scope of my project. Further, it would not significantly contribute to the value of the work.”
“I have considered it, but I don’t find it of interest, so I have decided not to do it. If you are interested in this topic, I invite you to collaborate.”
“That seems to be an interesting point. We can discuss this at the break in further details.”

but sometimes they do not give the desired outcome because people can be persistent.

I cannot understand this "..however, when presenting it around". Presented it where? Since your paper just got reviewed, where have you presented it before?

Related: Useful strategies for answering “dumb” questions in a talk?

@Alexandros: The OP is not in CS. Papers and presentations are not linked, and conference presentations are not normally reviewed in advance.

http://xkcd.com/1425/

@Alexandros: the papers I submit to conferences go through the review. Sometimes I have present the work in progress or currently under review to the other stakeholders in the project, before the conference.

When you say 'conference' do you mean internal meetings?

I'm interested in your perspective as a fairly skilled programmer, would your goal be a "real programmer" or a "humble programmer"? In any case, I know that sucks, it happens in most jobs, specially when considering characteristics of the code that are hard to verify (e.g. maintainability). I'm personally sick of that and very interested in the answers to your question.

@CapeCode, no, by conferences I mean the regular scientific conferences with peer-reviewed publications and often hundreds of participants. Internal meetings with stakeholders are another venue which I have indicated as "meetings with partners".

Programming may currently be a bit undervalued in Academia. You get no points for releasing an open-source program. Some interesting thoughts on the topic https://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2014/08/22/hacking-academia/

I see, so this is happening to you at both conferences and internal meetings (that is what your last paragraph suggests)?

@CapeCode: indeed.

@Trylks: I'd say more a humble one, but it's not so easy to answer on that. People in my field do not always verify theories with code, and when they do, the code is basic and limited. Sometimes even suspicious. I try to code a robust and mature product (in academic standards), and even publish it open-source so others can take advantage of it. Unfortunately, it seems not to be  appreciated. Moreover, it is often trivialised and questioned.

As a software developer, I feel that the tree swing is an accurate representation of how we all feel a lot of the time. The fact of the matter comes down to it not being a code issue, but a communication issue. People will always be unhappy with something. You should be willing to defend your thought process unless your counterpart convinces you of a better way. Argue efficiently without being argumentative.

It is important to recognize that this is not happening to you because you are a junior researcher. At every point in your career, somebody will feel (and, distressingly often, openly state) that your work is not good enough, goes into the wrong direction, is not "real" science, tackles the wrong problems, uses the wrong tools, or is in some other way flawed. Learning how to react to criticism regarding your work, even and especially if said criticism is coming from more senior researchers, is a crucial skill that every PhD student needs to learn. I feel it is best to stop relying on your advisor to justify your contribution as soon as possible.
In that vein, I think you should see these situations at conferences and meetings as opportunities to learn rather than ugly situations that you need to weasle out of as fast as possible. I do not mean that you should get into nasty fights with the audience during the Q&A part of a presentation, but I am certain you do have good reasons why you did some things and did not do other things. Do not try to evade ("Let's discuss this in the break, ok?"), but try to explain calmly why you did what you did. Yes, maybe that person asking the question will disagree, but so what? The fact that your actual peer reviews are good shows that there are a non-trivial amount of researchers that actually agree with you. The person asking the question is not your supervisor, you don't need to agree with him/her specifically on your research agenda or approaches.
Let me go over your proposed blanket statements one by one:

“Thanks for your suggestion. I have been thinking about this, but it requires too much work, and that is outside the scope of my project. Further, it would not significantly contribute to the value of the work.”

That's ok, but I would leave away the part about "not significantly contributing to the value of the work". That sounds a bit too confrontational to me. Better just leave it at "that's really interesting, but we currently do not have the resources to tackle this complex problem".

“I have considered it, but I don’t find it of interest, so I have decided not to do it. If you are interested in this topic, I invite you to collaborate.”

Stay clear from passive-aggressiveness.

“That seems to be an interesting point. We can discuss this at the break in further details.”

Ok, but can come across as too defensive. I use the "ok, let's discuss this one-on-one" phrase usually only when somebody is asking variations of the same question over and over again, and it seems likely to me that the rest of the audience is already zoomed out of the conversation. However, in that case, a good session chair has already stepped in anyway.
How you could react is the following:
"Thank you for your interesting suggestion. We have indeed discussed a variation of this before, but implementing it in practice would require us to first do [complex thing A] and [complex thing B], which have been shown to be non-trivial efforts in the first place in [optimally you have some reference why this is indeed hard]. This would certainly improve the quality of our solution, but we are currently more looking towards extending our work into [more feasible other direction]. Of course, if you are interested in this, I would be very happy to discuss potential collaborations over [hot beverage of your choice]."
(a variation of your first suggestion, but a bit more formal and respectful while still making it abundantly clear that you are not actually going to do the thing that has been asked for)

My my! Such acting in academia honestly never fails to amaze me! We all seem to be a bunch of pretentious pricks mocking each other.

This is academics for god's sake! We should be honest enough to say, "You know you are irritating me, right? Do you not understand I am talking about something different?" Unfortunately we are expected to be sober and polite.

@LandonCarter Academia, like all other places, is populated by humans. The sooner you get to terms to that the happier you will be.

@LandonCarter This is academia, not a collection of rude people! Being respectful and polite is important in almost all human conversations

I think the underlying problem is that people you work with don't value the same thing as you.  In your comments, you are talking about your code to be 'robust' and 'mature', which is a great thing if you're developing a commercial product but might not be given much credit in an academic environment.
Look at this thread for the many reasons why it is so: Why do many talented scientists write horrible software?
As for 'open source' it starts to be valued more and more because people understand the arguments of reproducibility and the need for more scrutiny in the evaluation of methods. But it's only a nice additional feature, not a necessary criterion.
You can look for ways to change their mind, but it might be a useless struggle. Your situation is frequent with people who are doing a lot of programing in engineering or biology labs. Other people don't necessarily value the amount of work put into programming, they are happy when it works but would rather buy a commercial solution if they could.
What they value is when your work answers fundamental questions in the field, that could be the case even when your code is ill-structured, suboptimal, badly-documented, slow, has variables named aaaaa and requires users to copy-paste folder paths frequently.
You might want to consider steering your efforts towards something less code-y. Because ultimately you will need to satisfy your thesis committee, not your fellow githubbers.

I have found that the best way to deal with such questions is to know what you are talking about, preferably much better than whoever is asking you.
As a junior researcher you may (won't) be an expert in everything in your field but should still know your particular project really well.
If you know your project you have probably thought about most of these questions already. Therefore, you can give an actual reason why something is a bad idea/won't work. For example when asked, "Why didn't you use method X, which is known to be more stable?", you could reply, "While method X is more stable, unfortunately in this case it produces an incorrect result because of Y."
For your particular answers:

“Thanks for your suggestion. I have been thinking about this, but it requires too much work, and that is outside the scope of my project. Further, it would not significantly contribute to the value of the work.”

I think these are two separate answers and it should either be "I have been thinking about doing this but haven't got around to it yet/don't have enough time/need more money." or its "No, that wouldn't be useful as its not relevant/wouldn't work/generally a stupid idea (give a proper reason though).

“I have considered it, but I don’t find it of interest, so I have decided not to do it. If you are interested in this topic, I invite you to collaborate.”

Personally, I wouldn't say something is not interesting, as that implies it boring but would say its not my priority right now or similar. Alternatively, you can say why you think your work is more interesting/important to do. For example, "Interesting point, but I think it is important to finish my work on X as it will have Y implications to your suggestion".

“That seems to be an interesting point. We can discuss this at the break in further details.”

I would keep this answer for where someone has actually made an interesting point that you are either not sure about or think is valid and would like to discuss further.
Final points: Whatever you do keep it civil and don't dismiss people opinions out of hand. That will only make it appear you don't know what you are talking about, and every so often someone might say something of real value.

Expertise doesn't help. AFAIK.

What about "This is an excellent suggestion. If you wish to do this yourself based on my work, I will gladly support you as my time allows".

Good answer, in the comments of the question, thank you. I was going to reply with a comment, but this is becoming too long.
I think the problem you mention is common  to any work that cannot be simply quantified. Formal proofs and even papers are also examples of this and I'm sure people will find many other examples. In short, making some destructive criticism is easy, specially if it completely ignores or overlooks crucial aspects of the work. For people that don't have some knowledge to have their own criteria or opinion this criticism may seem legit, and there is very little to do wrt to that because explaining why it isn't legit may require educating these people on something they don't care enough about to be educated and they are going to perceive it as poor excuses.
So what to do?
First of all, the answer by @xLeitix is perfectly fine. I have another answer to replace all of the three you both comment (it's a variable template so you can change it):
Thank you for [your suggestion|pointing that out|that nice reminder], we actually [considered|evaluated|thought about] that [proposal|approach|option|alternative] and it is [certainly|definitively|quite|fairly] [interesting|relevant|promising], however we have [focused on|prioritised|addressed first] the presented work and we will consider that for future lines.
You will consider it and discard it, because it's stupid, but you don't need to say that in their face. That is a general answer that can be useful for many people. If you (specifically) want to slap them I have a different proposal.
I infer you have a good expertise in making questions, proving theories and programming, you seem to be in the right track for data science, stick that buzzword to everything and reply to any criticism with something like:
"I get your criticism on the triviality of the current work and of course that is something that can be perceived when the work is considered superficially. Upon closer inspection you may notice that being rigorous from scientific and engineering points of view and ensuring the quality of the process and results requires a work that is not trivial at all, so we may wonder what is the value of non-trivial conclusions that are reached through non-trustworthy processes".
(please change non-trivial and non-trustworthy with proper words, it's getting late for me)
You may as well physically slap them or spit them in their face, but don't expect to make many friends that way, use only with absolute jerks when you are absolutely certain that everybody else is thinking the same thing but keeping their tongue for politeness. With this I mean: never, because absolute certainty is never available.

Late answer...
Q:  "why didn't you implement XYZ feature?"
A:  "Well...in any project of this nature, we can easily see that there are many extension points where additional features and/or functionality seem plausible and even desirable. In the scope of this project, we decided that proving a baseline implementation of the core concept was the boundary we would stay within given our resources and timeframe, though it's certainly valuable to note that extensions, for example the one you've quickly identified, are ripe territory for further study."
Q:  "why didn't you use language/tool/library/system XYZ for this instead of what you did use?"
A:  "first of all, language XYZ, though generally known within the CS discipline, doesn't enjoy widespread commercial support.  Whether or not it's an ideal tool for this job is certainly a valid topic for discussion, but the goal for the researchers was to solve the problem at hand, not to learn and become fluent in a then-unknown language.  I'm sure a more efficient implementation will emerge, should this project become commercialized."


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Can frequent messages to an editor about the status of a paper under review be a cause for rejection?
I have submitted a paper on mathematics to a journal and it was there for more than one year. I asked the editor many times about the reason of the review delay. At the end the paper was rejected with trivial comments. Some experts told me the reason of the rejection is that: I had asked the editor many times about the paper, which make him insist that the reviewers make their decision fast, and thus they gave trivial comments which led to the rejection. Can this really be a reason for rejection?

What's many? Three times? Four times? Every week? Every day?

every couple of months

One thing that is not clear to me from your question is the assertion "thus they gave trivial comments which led to the rejection." Were the trivial comments positive, negative, or neutral?

It really should not be a reason for rejection.  But the world of journals (even restricted to mathematics, which is my field as well) is vast and variable, and no one person gets to see more than a small part of it, so could it happen that repeated messages to the editor are a proximate cause of a paper's rejection?  Unfortunately it could and probably has at least once...but all kinds of crazy things have probably happened at least once.
What I want to convey to you is that you are perfectly within your rights to check in with the status of a paper at appropriate intervals.  In fact it is often wise (or even necessary) to do so, because a lot of processing jobs get done slowly on the part of the referees without specific reminders.  (I am speaking in particular both about my experiences as an author and as a referee.)
There are better and worse ways to deal with editors -- as a quick example, when I submit a paper I like to suggest that I will inquire about the paper after N months (I fill in a value of N, never less than 4) and see what kind of response I get.  I have never been told not to do this; at worst, I get a "contact us whenever you like, but don't expect expedited service because of this" type of response.  As ever, being polite and professional catches more flies.  But fundamentally: no, it is completely unprofessional to reject a paper because an author wants it to be processed in a timely manner.  Reputable journals and editors should take it as a point of honor not to do this.
It would be different if you gave the editor an ultimatum: e.g. "I need a report within three weeks or I will withdraw the paper".  Many editors will respond to that by cheerfully accepting your withdrawal.  But that does not seem to be the situation you describe.

This advice is only for mathematics; other subjects have different cultures.
I think it really depends on the tone you use and how often you make inquiries.  Getting rejections for seemingly trivial reasons by people who don't appear to understand your paper is par for the course, and you should try to develop a thick skin about it (it happens to us all; the common wisdom is that if you are not getting rejected 50% of the time, then you are not sending your papers to good enough journals).
I usually inquire at 9 months, at 1 year, at 15 months, and then every two months.  My emails are very low-key and non-pushy; here is an example:
"Dear Prof. {last_name},
I'm writing to check to see if there has been any progress in the refereeing process for my paper "{title}", which is currently under consideration at {journal_name}.  Thank you very much for your consideration.
best,
Andrew Putman"
If I know the editor, I might be a little more casual, but the above is a good template if you are just starting out.

"Getting rejections for seemingly trivial reasons by people who don't appear to understand your paper is par for the course"--  its shocking that "rejections for seemingly trivial reasons by people who don't appear to understand your paper" is normal, It makes editors careless, isn't it?

To some degree politics play a role in the final decision an editor makes. For a manuscript that has reviews that make it a borderline decision between major revisions and reject, if the editor finds you problematic, that could make an outright rejection more likely. Except in extreme circumstances, politics will not result in a manuscript that has stellar reviews being outright rejected (or vice versa). There are many reasons beyond an editor's personal opinion of you that can cause a manuscript with trivial comments to be rejected. Reviewers can generally submit confidential comments to the editor which can include serious criticisms, the scope of the work is often grounds for rejection as is how the manuscript fits into the scope of the journal. For some manuscripts and journals, the absence of negative comments is not enough to warrant publication, but rather you need a reviewer to champion the paper and make positive comments.

The question seems to be conflating two different possibilities.  It sounds like the "experts" you consulted suggested that referees feeling pressured about time may do a superficial job of reviewing the paper, and superficial reviews aren't good for the paper's chances of publication.  But your wording (especially in the title) suggests that the editor actively decided to reject the paper as a direct result of your messages.
As Pete says, the second scenario really shouldn't occur, but in a big world, lots of things happen at least once in a long while.  The first scenario also shouldn't occur, but in a system run by imperfect, busy human beings, it's possible and probably happens rarely but regularly.
In any case, I agree with Pete's bottom line: it is perfectly reasonable and appropriate for you to make polite, professional inquiries every couple months.

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How do I transition from a Ph.D. in engineering to a career in medicine?
I am in a Ph.D. program in Engineering and I do probability, statistics and differential equations. My relevant previous works are: Modelling of blood flow, programming using DNA molecules. (But most of things I do, which will lead to a Ph.D. are very mathematical and don't involve any medicine.)
But lately I feel very inspired to pursue a career in Medicine instead. I am planning to complete my Ph.D. (I am from India) and then join a MD program (in USA).

I am interested in the mathematical modelling of living systems. I have read some papers in this area. I noticed some of these papers don't get the maths or physics right at times. I feel I would have the right skills to contribute here.
I am also interested in Bio-medical instrumentation. I have degree in Mechanical Engineering and I feel I would have the right skills for this industry.

I am aware that to be able to pursue either of above, I don't need a MD degree. But lately, I feel very passionate about actually saving lives and working closely with people. It is like a dream that keeps me inspired and working all the time. I want the MD degree.
So I want to know:

Is such a thing possible? Would I be eligible to apply? I am not very well clear about 'pre-med' course requirements.
I am asking specifically about the MD program in USA on mind. However     information about MD programs in other countries, would also be useful.
If it is possible, I want some advice on how to go about preparing for it?

(If you feel strongly the need to discourage my decision, please feel free to do so, giving adequate reasons. I would find that useful too.)
Thanks!

Medical doctors with a previous experience in engineering are indeed in an excellent position to do clinical research involving technology or modelling. From your question it seems like you are more interested in the practice of medicine than research, and that is fine because in some fields of medicine (e.g. radiology) an engineering background is a definite advantage to practice medicine efficiently.
I know 3 people who started (a 6 years) medical school after another degree. Two after a degree in Physics and one after a PhD in biomedical engineering. All 3 are happy with their choice but their situation is not yours. Can you afford to go to school for many more years?
If you do, in North America a previous degree (and engineering is a frequent one) is usually required prior to entering medical school. Med school usually lasts 4 years. Admission criteria vary between schools but the previous degree should typically include the following, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges:

At a minimum, students will likely complete the following types of courses:

One year of biology
One year of physics
One year of English
Two years of chemistry (through organic chemistry)

To browse through institutions, you might find this site useful.
At the institution I know, the requirements include:

1 year of biology
2 years of chemistry
1 year of physics
some laboratory experience
1 year of maths (calculus and stats)
1 year of a course requiring writing.
"[being] comfortable with upper-level mathematics (through differential equations and linear algebra), biochemistry, and molecular biology

An additional requirement is that you completed at least one year of university in the USA or Canada.
In Europe it varies a lot. For Germany, Switzerland and Austria, there are no requirements for a previous undergrad degree and it's usually hard to skip years if you have one. Most universities require that you have a high school diploma from a country they recognize. The programs are usually over a 6 years period. They typically involve a lot less mathematics than in North America. You need to be reasonably fluent in the local language.

Proficiency in local language is a must in almost all European countries for medical education. Moreover, if you are from non-European country, you will have to pay (high) tuition fee.

You have a few questions going on here, so I'm going to try to address the largest issues.
The field of biomedical engineering is a fascinating one. It is also only tangentially related to the actual field of medicine. If you wish to perform engineering, as you indicate in your first two points, then you should finish your PhD and grow your career as a researcher performing medical research. If you wish to perform medicine, as you indicate later in your question, you should complete your degree (always a good idea), then apply to medical school, become a doctor, and treat patients.
If you wish to do both, well, that is very hard to do. You essentially have to take a path involving the worst of both worlds; you need to do all the schooling of both, and then balance the requirements of being both a medical practitioner and a researcher. In many, many cases, this is extremely difficult to do. This is particularly true in the current medical climate, where doctors are being pushed towards seeing more patients than ever, and their research time is being decreased significantly, if not eliminated altogether.
All that being said, there are many MD/PhD programs across the country that strive to educate individuals for exactly what you are asking about. These highly competitive programs do exactly what you're asking for; have students both perform research and complete medical school, thereby earning both an MD and a PhD.
It sounds like you are simply looking to enter medical school, though, as you are already earning a PhD. To that end, I cannot answer whether you are eligible, I can only suggest you check individual department requirements. Regarding advice, it sounds like you only need advice on the medical school component (since you're already in a PhD program), which I'm not qualified to dispense.

Thanks for the informative answer. "in the current medical climate, where doctors are being pushed towards seeing more patients than ever, and their research time is being decreased significantly" - I found that to be particularly useful.

A couple of things I found out: 1. If one already has a Ph.D. then they aren't eligible for the MD-Ph.D. program at most places. 2. Most US universities discourage foreign students to apply. The few that do allow, take very few. 3. The MD program is very expensive. I have to figure out how to finance it. Nothing looks right at this moment!

@Inspired_Blue - Medical school is incredibly expensive, you can easily spend >$200k over the four years of schooling. You may be able to enroll through the military (not sure if foreign status prevents that), but then you owe them years of service. It's an expensive, long journey.

I understand your interest in pursuing medicine from an engineering background. I have a bachelor's in computer science and I have physician friends with bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical, chemical, and electrical engineering.
However, all of us have nearly completely given up our former careers and devote our time to clinical medicine. We still have an avid interest in engineering, but simply don't have the time for it.
If you are considering medical school, I encourage you to think of it as a true career change, rather than hoping to merge the two careers.

It is difficult to add something to the excellent answer by @eykanal (+1) on such a challenging and important topic (+1 also goes to the OP for that as well as the excellent formulation of a question).
I just wanted to add that I have seen quite a number of people, who became medical doctors after taking some other career path (usually, engineering), but most of those cases imply switching from engineering after bachelor's degree, not later stages. Part of the problem is that studying for an M.D. is not only extremely stressful, but also very long (I'm not sure whether you have relevant pre-med credits and if you'd be able to transfer them). Time (that is, the length of study) is quite an important factor, unless you're young and/or have no family obligations and other circumstances.

Could you tell me more about "whether you have relevant pre-med credits and if you'd be able to transfer them"? Thanks!

@Inspired_Blue: The pre-med credits that I meant are minimum academic requirements in relevant for medical school disciplines. The details are spelled out in a nice answer by Cape Code (+1), along with some links. It is pretty easy to find all those prerequisites online, but there might be some slight differences in subjects and/or other aspects across medical schools. So, my best advice is to visit websites of the schools that you (potentially) target and study their admission information.

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Is there a Post-doctorate Equivalent for an ABD (All-But-Dissertation) status?
I am an ABD (all- But-Dissertation) student. I have done all my work, completed my credits, passed my qualifying exams, I passed my oral exams, but I am having trouble finishing my thesis (advisor problems) , and
I was wondering if there may be some variant of the standard post-doctorate for
people in an ABD status.
EDIT: Basically,  are there post-doc programs that will accept someone who did all the work but did not finish their thesis? Or are there programs similar to a post-doc for people who have
SECOND EDIT: I am in a Mathematics Program. Does anyone know of schools that will
allow me to transfer with relatively few requirements, i.e., not needing to take years worth of classes?
Thanks.

See this

What do you mean by "variant of the standard post-doctorate"?

I mean a program similar to a postdoc, or maybe an actual post doc for someone who is an ABD.

The only thing I can think of is an internship in a national laboratory or in industry.  Otherwise, post-docs require that you already finished your PhD before you're hired.

Why the downvote? I am not trying to be top-score, but I would appreciate actual input/feedback instead of a Couric.

A postdoc without a PhD is called a PhD student.

My father was ABD when his advisor failed to get tenure and was fired. He had already lined up a post-doc position at another university when this happened, and he managed to make arrangements to start that post-doc before finishing his dissertation because his old department cut off his pay and health insurance (about 1 month before I was born). He was so mad he couldn't finish his thesis for a year. This was 28 years ago, so maybe things have changed, but at least it used to be possible to start a post-doc before finishing dissertation. Probably depends on department and professor.

At this point in the year, nearly every mathematics post-doc position being advertised in the US will be to start next summer anyway. Why not just apply like every other candidate who is finishing this year, and get your thesis done by next May? There are usually also some teaching-based positions that specify they will accept ABD.

If you have come so in this process, what do you need your advisor for? Do your research, write your thesis, defend and get out.

Looks like a dupe of four other questions today...

The fundamental misconception is that there can be "someone who did all the work but did not finish their thesis".  The thesis is the focus of a Ph.D. program, while coursework and other requirements are nothing but preparation for the thesis and are of negligible importance in comparison.  Postdoctoral positions are meant to give people a chance to deepen their research experience beyond what they achieved while writing a thesis.  If they haven't written a thesis, then they haven't completed graduate school and do not yet need to move beyond it.
Occasionally people do begin a postdoctoral position without yet having received a Ph.D.  This happens when they have completed their doctoral research but have not yet graduated, for example because their institution awards degrees at only a couple of times each year.  I've never heard of someone starting a postdoc if their thesis wasn't at least nearing completion, and I think it's so unlikely that it's not even worth looking into (although I can't conclusively rule it out).
Although postdocs per se are not the right program for this, one could reasonably ask whether there is anything else.  There are plenty of postdocs intended to help recent Ph.D. graduates gain additional experience, but are there any programs aimed at helping students who are struggling to finish their degrees (perhaps for reasons beyond their control) become successful and productive researchers?
Unfortunately, I don't know of any.  The general feeling is that this is the responsibility of the department you are studying in.  They know better than anyone else what you have accomplished so far and what your future potential is.  If they have faith in you, then they can help you try to find additional funding, transition to another advisor, or whatever might be appropriate.  If they don't have faith in you, then it will be difficult to convince outsiders to take up your case.  It could happen in theory (if, say, a faculty member somewhere else is impressed with you and helps you transfer), but I don't think it's likely.  Looking outside your current department/university will be seen as a sign that they have given up on you, and unfortunately that will tend to put other institutions off.

Simple answer: you can't be a post-doc until you're a doc.
If you want your Ph.D., what you should probably instead be looking do to is to change advisors, within your institution if possible.  I know a number of people who have done that, sometimes rather late in the thesis process.  You'll likely need to change your research and take more years to complete, but there's nothing shameful about that.  Think of it as no different than finding out that your first research project simply wasn't possible to complete.
Alternately, many institutions will allow you to take a Masters and leave, at which point there are still lots of research jobs available in industry, government, and even non-traditional posts in academia such as project research staff.

For someone who has actually completed every requirement except submitting the final thesis, I'd be a little wary about recommending changing advisors. At such a late stage in the process, it's worth doing everything possible to try to work things out with one's current advisor before looking to change.

I know of at least one person who was hired for a postdoc and began work before his dissertation was officially filed.  I also know of someone who applied for and was interviewed for a tenure-track job; she didn't get the job, but if she had, she would have begun work before receiving her PhD (and the people offering the job were aware of this).
However, these were both cases in which the people were clearly on track to complete their PhD and simply needed more time to see it through (e.g., more rounds of revisions).  In other words, they were not people who hadn't finished their thesis, but people who hadn't finished their thesis yet --- the people hiring them were confident that they were obviously going to finish.  Indeed, they basically were finished with the actual writing, but were just making some revisions in response to committee comments.
You don't say exactly why you haven't finished, but the phrase "advisor problems" suggests it is not just a matter of needing more time to do another round of revisions.  No one will accept you if the reason you haven't completed your thesis because you are locked in some sort of stalemate with your advisor.  However, they may accept you if you are clearly on track to finish, even if you may not actually officially receive the degree by the official deadline.  I would imagine that in most cases the letter of recommendation from your advisor would be a major factor here.  If you haven't received the degree yet, but your advisor says your research is coming along nicely and the end is in sight, hirers may be satisfied.  If your advisor mentions that the two of you are at an impasse over substantive issues (i.e., he wants you to do something with the thesis that you haven't agreed to do) that will raise a red flag.
As a side note, my impression is that many hirers would not see a problem if you have not officially received the degree yet due to purely procedural problems (e.g., it has been approved by your committee but not yet officially filed because your margins were the wrong size).  I gather that is not the nature of your situation though.

You can certainly get hired as teaching faculty at a lot of places with those qualifications.  But you're not going to get hired into a research oriented postdoctoral position without the PhD.

There are pre-docs for people who are in their final year. They are usually called dissertation writing fellowships and are more common in the humanities and social sciences.
That being said, they always require a functioning committee in your home university and a strong sense that you will be able to finish and submit your dissertation (at your home university). The fellowship supplements but does not replace your home committee.
My advice is to scrounge and beg together a new committee at your university.

In the UK it is possible to be hired as a research assistant on EPSRC grants.  You receive a lower salary until your corrections (if any) are accepted, at which point you're upgraded.  It can be a tough grind though if you discover e.g. a gap in your PhD which needs plugging.  Your new boss may not be happy either.
In all cases I know of, there is a expectation that you will complete quickly.  I certainly don't think anyone would hire you into such a position if you told them you weren't going to finish the PhD.  A postdoc is partly for training future faculty.
I have lots of sympathy for advisor problems but really encourage you to persevere with finishing the PhD.  It might take another year, possibly living on baked beans, not talking to your advisor much. [Are there other grad students in your area to chat to?]
Without a PhD, you might get one (or exceptionally two) assistant positions.. but, realistically, long term you'll be scrabbling for teaching jobs assuming you stay in academia.  Not sure about industry jobs.

I don't think that 'corrections' is exactly what the OP is talking about. I think `hasn't written up' might be closer, although I'm not sure that's quite right.


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CRediT contribution statement: Pros and cons of including non-author contributors?
An increasing number of journals require a CRediT – Contributor Roles Taxonomy statement for, among other things, "Enabling visibility and recognition of the different contributions of researchers, particularly in multi-authored works – across all aspects of the research being reported (including data curation, statistical analysis, etc.)."
Here's an example provided by Elsevier:

Zhang San: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software. Priya Singh: Data
curation, Writing- Original draft preparation. Wang Wu: Visualization,
Investigation. Jan Jansen: Supervision. Ajay Kumar: Software,
Validation: Sun Qi: Writing- Reviewing and Editing.

However, the ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on fulfilling all of 4 criteria (including 1) contributions to the conception/acquisition/analysis, and 2) critical contribution to the actual paper). Most journals (in my field, psychology) follow this recommendation regarding authorship. Based on these criteria, none of the "authors" above warrants authorship. Yet, they all contributed to the paper in critical, but different (even complementary) ways, and should be acknowledged meaningfully.
A common scenario is that students providing critical contributions and substantial time commitments don't end up coauthors because they do not fulfill all four criteria (e.g., Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, and Project administration, but not Writing of the paper, which could be written by another, graduate student perhaps). It feels weird to acknowledge the minor contribution of one author (e.g., minor part of analysis, minor contribution to writing of paper) but not the student who did all the legwork. Or even the student who ended up spending dozens of hours collecting a large proportion of the data (Investigation).
Given that the ICMJE recommendations are not expected to change anytime soon, I wonder whether the CRediT contribution statement could also be used as a convenient tool to formally acknowledge non-author contributors, since right now, their contributions are often buried in obscured, unstandardized (even meaningless) acknowledgments sections. This way, non-author contributors meta-data could eventually be picked up and indexed quantitatively on different platforms (ORCID?).
Question
What would be the pros and cons of using the CRediT contribution statement to acknowledge non-author contributors more formally and transparently? Could it coexist with the current coauthor system or can only one of the two survive? Should you do it even if journals don't expect it?

I think this question is too opinion-based for Stack Exchange because you're asking about a hypothetical future and a "should" question. That said, I think it's important that potential authors who meet the first ICMJE criterion (which contains a lot of "or" statements) should be given an opportunity to meet the other three. Only if they do not want to participate or do not feel they should be an author should they be omitted. None of the requirements state that authors must write the paper but only that they "revise it critically". The "common scenario" you describe should not happen.

Thank you for your input. Do you think there would be a way to edit the question to fit Stack Exchange? Alternatively, what platform do you think would be appropriate for my question?

However, the ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on fulfilling all of 4 criteria (including 1) contributions to the conception/acquisition/analysis, and 2) critical contribution to the actual paper). Most journals (to my knowledge) follow this recommendation regarding authorship.

I do not think that most journals do follow the ICMJE recommendation regarding authorship, at least outside the medical field. To take the journal Nature as an example

Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it

To take another example away from the medical field, the American Physical Society say that

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the concept, design, execution or interpretation of the research study. All those who have made significant contributions should be offered the opportunity to be listed as authors. Other individuals who have contributed to the study should be acknowledged, but not identified as authors. The sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Again this is much less stringent than the ICMJE guidelines.

Thank you for your answer. However, I was hoping for an answer to my question: What would be the pros and cons of using the CRediT contribution statement to acknowledge non-author contributors? Thanks in advance if you decide to edit your answer accordingly!
I edited my question to say "Most journals (in my field, psychology)" rather than "Most journals (to my knowledge)".

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PhD application with mediocre grades, 2 SCI co-authored pubs., LORs from very well knows profs. in the area?
I am going to start my master thesis now. During my master I performed not well, my GPA is about 2.9/4 which is really bad for me. I am not excusing but my mother had cancer and she died in september, even though I studied very hard I performed poorly in my exams. I would like to apply a PhD program when I graduate, however I scare like a little rat due to my low GPA. On the other hand, I have two co-authored publications in not excellent but very good journals. Moreover, I have been working two of my professors about 1 year and going to start my master thesis with them which would be really good I think. Furthermore, my university and department is well respected in the Europe.
Actually my main fear is that, in my transcript my low graded courses are in very tangent to my thesis and past projects that I made with those two profs. I believe that in the future, when the evaluator look at my application folder he would be very suprised about my transcript and qualifications, the discrepancy. When I said my grades during this semester to my advisors, they are shocked as I expected. I fear that, that discrepancy would form second thoughts in people's mind.
So my question is, as far as I cannot change my GPA anymore. What should I do more to contribute my application, and show to people actually I know the subject in contrast to my low grades?
This is not a duplicate question, I am asking what should I do. I am not asking the admission process, furthermore I am not in border imo.

Comment for the edit. Your GPA is low (2.9/4). The  linked question is about how to  make it up.

I'm not sure whether your grades are that important. If they were good before and you are good in your thesis, everyone will understand that this was just due to external reasons.
Me personally, I'm more interested in the person and in the thesis then in the rest of the grades as long as they are not the core topic of the PhD work. But this might differ from person to person and institution to institution.

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What does define the quality of the master thesis?
I have been doing projects nearly 1 year with my future supervisor. I think he knows me enough. We were talking about many topics for thesis. Among all the topics, he is in favor of one topic which is pure science ie. development of new material. There will be lots of repetition and testing. On the other hand, I am a mechanical engineer and wanted to do some mixture work of science and design task, we ofcourse have an idea about it.
After my masters I would like to do phd, and I have low/mediocre GPA Low GPA. So I think that my thesis should be very good to compansate it. My supervisor admitted that the topic he is in favor of would be hard, lots of pain and hardwork and has high rate of failure, on the other if I somehow find something or improve a little bit, it would has very huge impact. He added that failing with new devopled materials would be again success, since in future they will skip what is failed.
Other topics that I am in favor of are more on design and less science focused, ie. using new developed material(I will make it but there will be only one material) in newly designed systems, our aim is to make an end product with low weight and low cost, ie. increasing the fuel cell performance in the ragone plot.
My question for researchers and committee, can you define a good master thesis? What do you look for?

Do you want examples of good theses as per the last phrase in your question body? Or do you expect us to come up with topics? which is not on topic here... Your best option is to discuss with your advisor / supervisor...

Dear @SolarMike I am asking about examples of good theses, not the topics.

Your edit does clarify the question.

Any such definition is necessarily broad and somewhat vague. Here's my attempt at offering a categorisation:

An instance of an outstanding master's thesis is one that significantly advances state-of-the-art research, such results are rare.
An instance of an excellent master's thesis is one that contributes to state-of-the-art research, such results are infrequent.
An instance of a good master's thesis is one that satisfies the institution's criterion for the highest grade, such results are common amongst PhD students.

(This categorisation is highly subjective.)

Really, I don't think "quality of thesis" will do much to improve your application.  It's good that you have something.  But having a great one is not going to do much more than having an average one to compensate for low grades, scores, etc.  Your next project will probably be different and nobody sees you as a functioning professional in R&D until your Ph.D. (or at least deep enough into it that you are publishing strongly and are the world expert in your microsubject).
I would be very leery of projects with high likelihood of failure.  Your incentives and the advisor's incentives are not aligned here.  You need to pass a hump.  But for him, sure he wants you to succeed, but if he burns a couple students to get there, big deal.  (Note this is worst case, but in any case the dynamic remains even if not that coarsely blatant.  And there definitely have been instances of professors doing exactly this and blatantly.  You could even argue science advances more from it...but it doesn't serve the student's interests.)
However if you can still publish the results when "it fails" than that is fine.  For example, a grant proposal might be oriented towards finding Avatar's Unobtanium.  But when you fail to synthesize it, if you can still publish some papers with crystal structures and electronic measurements of non-superconducting cuprates that is fine.
I would also be leery of something requiring apparatus building or exploration of very different methods or materials (new to the lab group).  Even as a Ph.D. these are negative factors.  But at least for a Ph.D., there's some time to spend 5 years (no joke) building a laser.  For a master's student, you need to be productive ASAP.  Not spending 5 years building and rebuilding and fixing something and then 6 months collecting data and 6 months writing it up.  You have a different time horizon.

Given (1), I would not jump into a killer topic to save yourself.  Even though you are trying to combat the low grades, you still need to consider the risk/reward of a master's project and be conservative.  A "Hail Mary" pass is not a good strategy, here.

Thank you for the answer. I think my supervisor would not burn students to get to the point since he has 38 h-index and very well known person in the Europe. Actually one reason that I want to work with him is that he is very relaxed, never pushes me, never sets some strict path. I work in peace and hard. He told me in very detailed, this project has high risk to get good results. I believe that it is publishable even though there is no success.

@existence is futile If you can publish it "when it doesn't work" than that is fine.  For example new nonsuperconducting cuprates are still very publishable (albiet not in Nature or Science) since you can describe the crystal structure and physical properties and even the relation of the two.  Conversely some things really aren't publishable if they don't work (e.g. if apparatus just won't do what you need).  As long as there is a fallback plan, than have fun and go for it.

By the way, being a big name doesn't mean won't burn students.  May even be correlated with it, because he now has the freedom to go after "big game" versus someone who needs datapoint papers to make tenure.  All that said, if the guy seems chill, that is a good sign.


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Is qualitative method welcomed by editors/reviewers?
I've written two papers, one using a qualitative method and the other one using a mixed method.
Although I think that every method is significant in its own area of research, however, based on my experiences, I find out that my paper with the mixed method is more appreciated by the editors or reviewers; and my other paper with the qualitative approach seems to get rejected more often.
my qualitative methodology includes these sections:

the swot analysis that I've been used.
details of several visits with the specified date.
qualitative interviews to better understand the case.
sources of secondary data.
and the process of the paper.

So my question is "Is qualitative method welcomed by the editors/reviewers"?
If the answer is yes and it is not the issue so what am I missing here? Should I include something more? should I use a new method or kind of model to attract reviewers' comments?

The title and the questions at the end don't match, which is confusing.

I assume this depends heavily on field. For some questions in philosophy the only possible approach might be qualitative. But even within a field, I would guess, and hope, that you need to align the approach (methodology) with the question(s) asked.

In the social sciences it even depends on the journal.

What does your advisor think - you must have discussed both papers at length...

@Buffy one editor commented this: "aspects of methodology and method were not sufficiently well developed, or thoroughly explained and justified in your manuscript". however, I mentioned the whole process of conducting research in the introduction and methodology. I just don't know what I am doing wrong :(

@SolarMike I don't have an advisor for the qualitative paper. I asked one professor once, but she didn't give me a specific answer or an instruction.

Perhaps the editor isn't familiar with that sort of research. The implication might be that a different journal would be better, or that you need to re-think the paper. Without an advisor, I'd only suggest you find a couple of papers that are trying to do something similar and figure out how they do it.

@ thank you for your great advise :)

You seem to be trying to draw conclusions from a sample size (of papers of each sort) of 1.

Every research method can be thought of much like a movie genre. What makes a good comedy doesn't necessarily make for a good drama, and anytime genres combine deciding what is good can be different (as with mixed methods). Judgements change over time, and vary between sets of critics as well. Research works like that - what makes for a good paper is devilishly hard to pin down, and what one community loves another community can hate.
People with more than 20 years of experience in this process have told me they are still surprised how some of their favorite papers end up poorly reviewed, while others they thought were marginal or unlikely to be accepted won awards. Sometimes they feel that what was unacceptable one year suddenly became hot the very next year. Reviewers are conducted by humans, and lets face it - humans are a wild and messy lot!
Everything I've been told and seen points to only one solution: develop your own tastes and judgement in research to use to guide your own work, try to learn what sort of things some people like and some don't, and write what you think will be good - but then get other people's opinions (formal reviewers or informal colleagues) and revise according to what you think makes sense, but taking into account what other people tell you. Try a lot, get rejected a lot, keep at it.
Some things people have in common - almost everyone wants to know why out of all the possible methods you could have taken, these are the ones that are appropriate the research topic, and that the conclusions you derive are supported and valid given the methods you used. Some people care about rigor more than others, but both quantitative and qualitative methods have their own standards and methods of being rigorous, so you have to know your method and learn to speak about it clearly and convincingly.
Try different styles, different techniques, different venues. Read what other people like, what people criticize, and what they praise. Accept that there is a heavy random factor in both the sampling of who you get as a reviewer as well as how the weather made them feel that particular day they reviewed your paper, and get use to a whole lot of rejection and noisy signals. Improve what you know to improve and try again.
In the words of a cartoon scientist, "Sometimes science is more art than science".


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Why conference chair asks for accepted papers sources?
I got my paper accepted to a conference, whose proceedings will be published in IEEE digital library (Xplore). The General chair asked me for the paper source, I was astonished when she insisted on me submitting a Word version even though the conference offered LaTeX template which I used.
My question is twofold:
Why would the conference chair need the source of my paper?
Knowing that I couldn't convert my pdf paper to a decent Word file,
is it my problem at all to do that since the conference allowed using a
LaTex template for paper writing but did not alert that a Word source would be required in case of acceptance?

Have you asked the conference chair by e-mail about how to proceed and highlighted the technical issue?

I did let the chair know about the conversion issue and whether i can submit a LaTex source as it is usually possible in  IEEE conf. She insisted on a Word version.

It sounds like there was a change in editorial procedure and they forgot to update the instructions.  A nice headache for you!  If you are in her shoes someday, I bet you will not be so slipshod with the instructions for authors.

Not an answer to your question but perhaps a solution to your problem: Pandoc does a great job of converting latex source files into word.

While we obviously do not know the Chair's intent (unless she happens to be a stack exchange poster), the most likely situation to me is that there's some sort of formatting related issue (or possibly some typos, etc. that need correcting) in your submitted version that they are incapable of fixing given your PDF file.
This does not necessarily imply it's your fault - typesetting systems are sometimes fussy, but asking for both a Word version and the source indicates, to me, that they want "A version they can edit".
On a practical level, yes, it's your problem. You could refuse of course, with unknown results.

The outcome would be rejection. The chair has chosen Word since most authors used Word. I do not have choices, but still find annoying that they offered LaTex templates and did not  inform us that a Word source is required after paper acceptation.

@hmitcs I assumed the outcome would be rejection, but for all I know your submission is the finest work ever to grace your field, aberrant formatting issues and all. My guess is that LaTex templates were offered with good intentions, and a Word source was not intended to be required, but something happened.

If the paper is to be part of a published proceedings, an editable source format often reduces the cost (and sometimes the annoyance) of print production (and even reformatting into XML, where that is a thing).
For good or ill, many such production workflows start with Word. Others do start with some flavor of TeX.
I agree they ought to have told you what they expected. Unfortunately, they hold all the cards here and can demand of you whatever format they need.

I somehow feel neither this nor the other answer are very satisfying in terms of saying why a Word file is required. Various conferences I have submitted to offered both a LaTeX and a Word template, and I have never heard about one subset of authors being required to rewrite their submission in the other format because they happened to pick the less popular one. In the contrary, most editors seem to be totally fine with having to process both LaTeX and Word documents into the final proceedings. Therefore, the explanation with the production workflow may be a realistic, but a really weak one.

Seems fairly straightforward to me: one workflow is cheaper and easier than two.

For the editor, yes. Not for the author who has to reformat their document. IMHO the described case is the situation where some professors I know, who are otherwise not directly involved with writing a paper (just with guiding the research on a higher level), will step in and take over the e-mail communication with the editor from the first author (usually a doctoral candidate or so) to explain their dissatisfaction with how their employees' time is being wasted in clear words. I have seen how the apparent issue would suddenly disappear like this, but of course it might not work for everyone.

@O.R.Mapper You don't know that a whole subset of users "LaTeX" has to rewrite their submission - it's possible it's just this submission that's going wrong. For example, I once had a paper that needed to be reformatted because of an error between the PDF preview and what got sent to the editors. We could have spent a long time tracking down errors in a proprietary publishing software platform...or I would rewrite it. You'll note the OP hasn't asked the chair why.

I totally share Mapper's point of view. I wished my supervisor or my co-supervisor could step in, but they took a pragmatic reaction and asked me to convert the source to Word. Now, I guess the editor required the format that works best for them. This is frustrating particularly since i have many formulas, algorithms and graphs to embed in the Word file.

Papers are typeset before publication, requiring (LaTeX) source files.
I see absolutely no reason for the Chair to request a Word version. Personally, I would withdraw, rather than going to the hassle of reformatting a paper. Before withdrawing, it might be worth double-checking that a Word file is truly required. (Young, first-time Chairs may make mistakes, I don't know whether that's the case here.)


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How to find only the papers that cite a particular article in an important way?
I'm having the following problem: There is some interesting paper (in machine learning) which is cited by 180 other papers (according to Google Scholar). From these 180, I want to find the papers that build up heavily on the original paper. I mean, not the ones that just mention the original paper briefly and are not REALLY related to it, but the ones in which the original paper is one of them, let's say three, main references.
Now, obviously, I cannot read 180 abstracts/papers now. Any clever and experienced ideas? I'm a PhD student.

"Now, obviously I cannot read 180 abstracts/papers now." You should probably start skimming them.

"obviously I cannot read 180 abstracts [...] now" [Citation required]  I opened a random paper in pubmed and read the abstract, and get an idea of what it was about in 27 s.

I know it can appear overwhelming but the more you do it the more efficient you will become.

Even just reading the titles will probably let you quickly eliminate at least half.

You can search for citing papers that at least mention x. This should narrow it down quite fast.

1) Ask your advisor.
2) Scanning 180 abstracts to find the most relevant ones can be done in under a day if you're efficient about it (most can be excluded within the first two sentences of the abstract if they are not relevant).

Of course asking my advisor goes without saying, and reading 180 abstracts in a day is not a good solution because such a problem can happen to me quite often.

@cruvadom How often does that happen to you? If it happens often enough that spending a day reading abstracts seriously affects your overall productivity, that seems really strange.

Also scan the sentence that cites the paper.

You don't need to read abstracts nor papers, you can use the following method to skim papers.
Method. Find the paper on Google Scholar and click the "cited by 180" link, that'll give you a link such as https://scholar.google.fr/scholar?cites=7297898505323682187, repeat the following steps for each of the 180 papers: 1) download, 2) find the citation to the original paper in the bibliography (hopefully in numeric, e.g., [1], or alphanumeric, e.g., [AB17], form), and 3) search for the citation (e.g., search for AB17) in the paper and check whether it is cited in a meaningful way.
Cost. Step 1 will cost you ~5 seconds if there's no pay wall and possibly minutes if there is, Step 2 takes ~30 seconds, and Step 3 takes ~50 seconds. (As you get better those timings will reduce.) Thus, a lower-bound on cost is around 1 1/2 minutes per paper or around half a day for all 180 papers. Factoring in pay walled papers, it might take 1-2 days.
Alternatively, if you know roughly what you are looking for, then you can reduce your search space, e.g., you can consider all the papers that cite the original and contain "keyword" (https://scholar.google.fr/scholar?cites=7297898505323682187&scipsc=1&q=keyword)

More recently, you can also use Semantic Scholar to do this. They have an option to sort citations to a paper by "Most Influenced Papers". For example, for the paper "Latent Retrieval for Weakly Supervised Open Domain Question Answering" you can see:

You can read how they determine "influence" here:

"Influential citations are determined utilizing a machine-learning
model analyzing a number of factors including the number of citations
to a publication, and the surrounding context for each. You can read
more about our approach in “Identifying Meaningful Citations”."

In my experience looking at computer science papers, it works quite well for those!


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Addressing Errors in Master's Thesis Results and Potential Impact on Degree
I recently completed a Master's course in the UK, during which I submitted a dissertation in June 2023 on machine learning. Unfortunately, I was dealing with some personal issues at the time, which limited my ability to double-check my results thoroughly. Despite these challenges, I graduated during the summer, receiving a first-class degree and a high mark for my dissertation.
Now, as I've started a PhD in machine learning at a different UK university, my intention to publish my master's thesis led me to revisit the work I had done. To my dismay, I discovered major errors in my code that significantly impacted my results, rendering the work essentially incorrect.
As an example, I unintentionally used the same dataset for testing the quality of the machine learning algorithm as the one used for training (an error in my code led to this oversight). Additionally, there were numerous mistakes in my code, causing the model presented in my work to differ from the one implemented in the code.
I am genuinely concerned about how these errors might affect the credibility of my Master's degree. Specifically, my supervisor for the master's thesis often presents previous students' work to others. I worry that if someone attempts to replicate my results, they will uncover inaccuracies. Should I reach out to my supervisor and inform them of the errors in my results? Additionally, if my work is indeed found to be incorrect, what are the chances of my degree being revoked?

Relevant, but not a complete duplicate

I would assume that your degree is safe assuming no-one alleges actual misconduct or fraud. Mistakes happen. In your case they were missed by others as well as yourself. I'd relax on that. I'm not the judge, of course.
However, before you publish your thesis, redo the work so that it gives more reliable results and say in the resulting paper that it is based on (and corrects) your masters work.
It would be a mistake, I think, to try to publish something that you don't trust yourself, but you have a chance to correct the work. Even if your subsequent research shows that the MS thesis has incorrect results it is better that you publish that fact than if someone else does.
If you contact your supervisor, say you are revisiting the work for accuracy and completeness and wait until you know something more before going into unnecessary detail.

You say your intention to publish your master's thesis led to you discovering these mistakes. What do you mean by publishing? My understanding is that theses in the UK are automatically published by the university, and the version thus published will be that approved by examiners; you will not be able to amend it.
If your thesis was not published by the university---for example because it was more of a final year project report rather than an actual thesis---just let your previous supervisor know that the results may be incorrect and move on. PhDs in the UK are too short to spend time fixing up one's master's work.
If your thesis has been published by the university, there isn't really anything you can do. But you are not unique in your predicament: at least in machine learning, the vast majority of master's theses are of dubious quality and rigour. I wouldn't worry too much about it.
As Buffy said, there will be no impact on your degree. Theses being wrong is routine, and honest errors are not punished.


text:
Unclear referee's message
I receive a message from a referee, but I didn't understand what was required of me exactly. The message is:

please check again the typeset text of these lines

What kind of error do they refer to?

Typesetting could refer to font, font size or even line spacing...

Are these lines somehow strange?

The message is vague, but check the text the referee has highlighted. Chances are you can see something wrong. The word "typeset" here could indicate a typesetting error - for example, perhaps you forgot to include a reference that the text cites (this makes LaTeX go [??]). Or it could just mean there's a spelling error, an ambiguous sentence, etc.
Either way, the reviewer pointed out which lines they're referring to, which should help you solve the issue.


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Somewhat bad grades and repeated courses in first few semesters, will it affect my chance to write a bachelors thesis?
I'm currently studying Computer Science in my 4th year and due to some personal reasons during my first few semesters, I wasn't really performing too well and had to retake a few classes.
Although my grades have improved significantly over the past semesters, I worry that I will have troubles finding a supervisor for my bachelor's thesis. Many professors wish to receive a copy of a student's transcript of records in order for them to apply for a thesis.
Ultimately, my question is, whether the professors will simply reject my proposals based on my grades from first years or if they give you a chance nonetheless. Does anybody have experience with similar situations?

Which country is this in?

I think it depends on the country and university you are writing from.
In some countries, your failed courses don't count, only the passed ones with their grade and calification.
So in that case, you wouldn't be affected if you just didn't pass. If you passed with a bad grade, that's another thing, because that indeed count.
Nevertheless, I do not know how professors choose their students for the bachelor thesis, and I suppose that it depends on the university and their internal rules. Some may ordered the students by general GPA, other only by the GPA of the last year, in other universities and countries maybe (just maybe) do the failed courses count (or "not presented", that means, you didn't go to the examinations). Or maybe they just choose by order of solicitudes or according to the interest of the topic you proposed for the thesis. There are lots of ways, really... They might also take into account if you participated in this or that other project, or if you had a particular scholarship before, or lot of things...
So far as I know, even in the same faculty may different professors have different ways and criteria for choosing.
So my advice is to know how it works on your faculty, cause it is not the same all over the world when it comes to what you are asking.

I did not see your country, but my experience of working with people from different origins this tends to be universal (any country). Good grades will get you the interview but your life story could give you your job (thesis student). If you have backing evidence (e.g. documentation, doctors notes, etc), you should be fine if the University values your life story. Everyone has a life story. Some people's life story are more meaningful than others. Defining who has a better life story is up to the committee who decides whether to accept you as a thesis student. Now, you should note that if you have a life story that is not compelling, lacks evidence, and motivation (lacks work ethics), any professor who decides to work with you will have a short temper. Any signs of underperformance from you, and the professor will drop you. At the bachelors level, it may be more relaxed than at the masters or doctoral level.


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Research topics
im a 2nd year Computer Science student, and I wanted to start doing research.
Im looking for a topic to research on, or more specifically i want to know how researchers do the following:

Find a research question they can answer
Manage to actually solve that question

Do they try to research in more than one area and see where they can do progress? or are they focused on some specific question? If so, then how would you know you can actually solve it?
In addition, where can I find inspiration for research topics?
And just general information on me: im an 18 years old student, and i do my CS degree through a special program. Last year, i have done a project with 4 of my friends (under supervision of the program director). In the project, me and my friends took a (20 years old) paper, and wanted to improve and implement the ideas shown in it. Honestly - It was really fun to try and think up new ways to improve it (and we did!), and since then I really have wanted to write a research paper of my own - but i have no idea how to get started

Interesting question, but do you have an advisor/mentor?

You may want to edit the question to remove personal info like the name of the director.

Im doing this out of my own curiosity, so there is not mentor or advisor currently helping me out in this.
But i think that if i will find a research topic i might be able to ask my program director to advise me (like he did with our group last year)

Yes. Thank you!

There are a few ways to go about it and you have already found a good one. Take an existing paper and study it. Try to determine what it doesn't say that could be extended. Of course you need to look around to see if others have already published whatever ideas you come up with. Maybe the intersection of a couple of related papers.
Another way, for a beginner, is to have a guide. In graduate study you normally have an experienced advisor who should be more adept at coming up with problems for students to work on.
The third is also hinted in your question. Find a group of like-minded people and work together with them. This "circle of collaborators" is a powerful technique.
Eventually you get more experienced and are able to follow up leads from your own past work. Maybe now you are ready to be an advisor.

Thanks for the help! I will make sure to keep that in mind


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If I have a single word as my official name since birth then what should I fill in as the second name in the GRE form?
I have just a single name "Anubhav" in every one of my official documents, be it my passport, my official birth certificate, my secondary education certificate, my senior secondary certificate etc. What should I fill in as my second name in the GRE form?

This is a very interesting question, but perhaps the safest solution would be to contact ETS and ask (and please write an answer here if you find a solution! It would be very helpful for future readers).

Do you mean a middle name (in Western convention)? I ask since you appear to be using a second name in your user name.

@Jon Custer , the second name in my username is not official, I have a first name only

OK, I was a bit confused there. For some places, one uses things like NMN (No Middle Name) or NMI (No Middle Initial) and NLN (No Last Name). For GRE you would have to ask (and there may well be a FAQ somewhere on ETS' site).

https://www.quora.com/How-would-you-fill-GRE-form-if-you-do-not-have-a-surname-in-passport may help

I know of a couple of cases where a person with only a single name put it in both the "first name" and "last name" fields of some forms. But I don't know whether ETS approves of that.


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What can be done to improve mental health in academia: more research into mental health of academics or better preventative measures?
I am speaking from my experiences with mental health in academia:

After being a grad student and a postdoc for several years, I developed severe mental health issues (after being completely healthy in my youth, as far as I can tell).
My friends (around eight people who I knew well) who were graduate students or postdocs at the same time have experienced terrible mental health problems/breakdowns (such as bipolar disorder, psychosis, suicidal tendencies, needing to take a year off work, being placed into a mental hospital for some time, forgetting to eat).
Three other grad students I knew developed severe illnesses (unknown physical illnesses for two of them and an instance of extreme anxiety for the third one) that are not compatible with working and they have been unemployed since then.
A professor and another postdoc I met can only function when they are taking heavy doses of antidepressants (the professor in fact tends to experience prolonged periods of time when he is not able to function at all). As far as I know, all these people developed their mental health problems after being in academia for some time. In addition to these, I have heard many more people in academia talking non-specifically about often going through periods of depression, which is frequently accompanied by inability to work.

I am wondering what can be done to improve this situation.

Should there be more research into mental health in academia, especially among grad students and postdocs?
Should there be more preventative measures that can ensure better coping of junior academics with mental health difficulties that are likely to befall them? (During my years in academia, I received virtually no specific information or training that could help me to prevent mental health problems).

Note: I see a lot of interest and comments/upvotes even though the question has been closed for being opinion-based. If you are interested in this question and have at least 3000 reputation on this website, please vote to re-open it (apparently I already have at least two votes to re-open, and I need five to re-open it)! Also, feel free to leave any comments (comments are still open, even though a question cannot accept answers while it's closed). In particular, please use comments to suggest ways to reformulate/change this question so that it can be posted as a new question on this website which is less likely to be closed for being opinion-based. I am also interested in any suggestions for other suitable Internet forums where this or similar questions can be asked successfully.

To the close voters, would you please explain why this question is opinion-based? It sounds a legitimate question to me. I have reviewed hundreds (if not thousands) of questions on this site from those academians who have mental illness . It's a real issue.

@scaaahu It is asking "why isn't there more research" - that smacks of opinion - unless you have the categorical answer. Perhaps there should be some, any or more research but the reasons why may be legion.

@SolarMike Could you suggest how to reformulate this question and/or its title so that it is less likely to be closed? All I want to do is to draw attention to the dire situation with mental health of the people I know in academia and to ask what can be done to save the young people who are going into academia now from similar problems.

As unfortunate as the situation is, "I want to draw attention to X" is not an intended use of this site.

@lighthousekeeper Perhaps you could suggest a different forum for which this question would be more suitable?

You seem to be diagnosing people based on what they write here. "those academians who have mental illness". How can that be valid?

Reddit has dedicated forums (subreddits) for academic audiences, for example, r/Academia/ and r/AskAkademia/. Twitter has big networks of researchers, some of them discussing mental health issues in academia. You can start an interaction with them by mentioning them.

@SolarMike Also, I don't understand why some people are voting to close this question if there are enough people who like this question, are upvoting it, and presumably want it to be answered. Isn't it automatically a good question for this site if there are enough people on this site who are interested in it? Shouldn't the people who don't like this question just let the people who like it at least get some answers before closing it?

I assume it is down to reputation - and a certain amount has to be gained, but I don't see the detail of close votes so it may be outside reputation.

The body of the question is mainly a list of anecdotes, rather than the formulation of a question.  The OP also doesn't seem to have checked how much research there currently is on this topic (or even whether there is any), which seems like a necessary step before posing the question.

@DavidKetcheson I included anecdotes to draw attention to the relevance of this topic and this question. The anecdotes indicate that the current level of effort in dealing with the issue of mental health in academia is insufficient, and my question is to try to understand what can be done to improve the situation (whether more research into the topic or the implementation of better ways of dealing with the problem in practice, if the research is sufficient).

@Mentalhealth First of all, best of wishes on your health. In my observation, this site doesn't often take up questions about whether academia as a whole should change. You might ask a question like one of the following: Are mental health issues unusually prevalent among academics? What can a grad student or postdoc do, to improve their own mental health? What can a professor do, to improve the mental health of those in their department? Have any universities introduced substantial preventative measures concerning mental health issues, and have they been effective?

Hey, I can see that you edited an answerable question in there 'what can be done to improve the situation', even if it's a bit broad. However, you then continue asking 'should this or that be done', and that still makes it very opinion-based. I think the overall question would be improved if instead of "should" you ask "is there any current research on ..." "what would be good preventative measures which research teams could implement..." "are there any examples of institutions providing information, training or guidance on how to cope with mental health issues"

Or, (my above suggestions came from the institutional level, so they might not be as interesting to you) if asking from a PhD student/postdoc perspective instead, you might ask something along the lines of "What steps can a student or a postdoc take to learn how to cope with current or future pressure and/or mental health issues coming from the academic environment, and how to approach getting help and support from their own team/institution? Which steps could I take right now to improve the situation in my current team/group for future students?". This could get you concrete suggestions

I edited this to make it a bit more readable; perhaps that will help with your attempts to get it re-opened (I see you already have two reopen votes). I would also suggest that you clarify the actor you have in mind. Questions like "what could academia as a whole be doing better" might be fun, but questions like "What could I, as a professor, be doing to help my department do better with respect to X" are much more useful.

Very nice job with all the edits. The question looks much improved. Voted to reopen.


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In what situations would it be appropriate to include one's photograph in a CV?
I think I have only seen one CV where a photograph of the CV owner was included. I personally wouldn't want to put my photograph in my CV, but I was wondering, in what situations would including a photo if oneself within the CV be appropriate?

I don't believe photos are suggested in any CV format I have seen. In most cases, if a photograph is required, it is asked for separately, for example, in medical school applications.

I think it is country-dependant. For example, in South Korea, it is quite a norm to put a picture on top of your CV.

It's expected in most of the world outside the US.

There are even academic papers that have photos!

TIL CVs outside the US have pictures. Pretty cool!

To add what @Taladris said, in the UK I believe it is illegal for the employer to require it, so universities recommend not including it, but without forbidding.

I tend to reject them if they have a picture. I suppose in the USA it may be suitable for a modeling job or similar but certainly a no-no in academia as far as I am concerned. Anonymous Mathematician explains why.

In the United States, you should never include a photo in an academic CV.  It comes across as somewhat inappropriate, like you are deliberately drawing attention to your appearance and hoping it will influence the decision.  (I know that's not actually the intent, but many people's gut reaction upon seeing the photo will be "Why is the applicant showing me this?  Do they think I should know what they look like before making a decision?  How is that supposed to be relevant?")  If you are from a country in which photos are often included, then that will be understood as a reasonable explanation, but it will stand out as foreign.  If you aren't from such a country, then it will look bad.

It's basically against US equal-employment laws to consider photographs.

However, I want to disagree with the point about not including photographs where they're normally included. If you're coming from a tradition where it's not done, I think people will accept that. I also think it's not such a big deal to omit a photo as one gets higher up in academic circles.

I'd be interested in knowing how many people link their LinkedIn profile (or similar networks)(with a photo) in their CV, how many employers/recruiters/whatever, check the profile and find appropriate that there is a link to that and a photo there.

@aeismail, that is an interesting and strong statement (somewhat meaninglessly weakened by basically). Is it or is it not? Or is it genuinely legally ambiguous and to be tested by the courts? Is it state dependent or federal?

Another purpose (perhaps still inappropriate) is to remind the person reviewing the CV that this is someone they have previously interacted with. Some people remember faces better than names.

If you apply for a job or for grad school in Germany, a photo will be more than appropriate (unless there are other rules or specific forms for the position or school). Indeed it is quite the norm to have a photo on your CV for job applications in Germany (both inside and outside academia). However, if you have a CV attached to, e.g., a grant proposal, then a photo would look strange.

First, there is no clear cut right or wrong here and the short answer as I see it is that there is no question of appropriateness, but maybe of impact.
I see quite a few CVs at different stages in academia and the majority lack photos but a fair number carry them. From my perspective, I would say that persons in or aiming for academic education are the ones that to a larger extent add photos to their CVs. People applying for higher academic jobs, after their PhDs, do it less. The latter is likely due to the fact that when applying for such a job it is the merits (publications, teaching experience etc.) and the experience in research which receives all focus. An image is irrelevant.
So why will (mainly) younger persons add photographs? I agree that tradition (e.g. in different countries) plays a role. I can also imagine that it may seem like a good way to present themselves amongst a more anonymous mass. Whether or not this is successful, I am not certain. But, it is true that these applications stick out and are noticed and for good reasons. As social beings we are used to see faces and communicate with persons so an image may have an effect. Unfortunately, due to irrelevant reasons but hopefully in very few instances, some people may also let the picture influence their views of applicants that overshadow the official selection criteria but that is another story.
To add to the picture, most people have personal web pages of a facebook page with images of oneself and other things related to life and activities. A link to such pages (e.g. through a QR patch) could be more efficient to relate personal traits and interests than a photograph in a CV. This does not mean that all will take the time to see the pages.
So for any academic use, I do not see an image as important. Use of a link to social media incl. web pages may suffice, if one thinks there is something valuable to see there. So the appropriateness is not an issue as I see it but the positive effect, if any, may decrease with time since important assessment criteria are progressively filled with information.

+1 for the question "Why?" The explanation for why to put a photo which I've picked up at some point is that it's to help interviewers with a visual memory to link you to the CV when they're reviewing the candidates after the interviews. So if you're expecting an in-person interview and to be one of many candidates, there may be a benefit, and that would correlate with the decreased frequency higher up the ladder, where there are likely to be fewer candidates.

My rule of thumb is to put a photo on a CV when there is a chance it will help you. Have you spoken on a conference and you want to be easily recognised by someone who could have seen you there? Have you talked to someone important, who happens to see a lot of people, and you want your CV to better remind them of you? Is the photo required officially or by local culture*? Then yes, put your (smiling) face on the CV .
On the other hand, if there is a strict anti-discrimination policy in place at the particular institution, that discourages photos on CVs, then you better avoid sending yours with a photo.
* As @Dirk mentions, it is appropriate to attach a photo to your CV if the recipient is in Germany (my current employer is a German company and I can say the photos are very useful very often), in the neighbouring Czech Republic, however, a CV with a photo is rarely seen and not really required.

This. When you are fighting for a job, the appropriate action is any action that will help you. But to add to your example. The only study I am aware of found that pictures on CVs help you when you are a hansom man or an ugly woman. So if you have a choice, that probably should be a consideration, or at least guide you in which picture you include.


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Mathjobs.org cover letter: Address to "Hiring Committee Member" or to faculty member listed on job posting?
On mathjobs.org, each posting often has at the bottom of the listing "further info." Sometimes the name and contact information for a faculty member is listed. Instead of addressing my cover letter, "Dear Hiring Committee Member," would it be better if I wrote, "Dear (name of faculty member)?"

Perhaps you could use the generic "Dear sir or madam."

@aparente001 To me, that sounds old fashioned, is it also perceived this way by search committees?

It's not old fashioned, it's classic.  And non-sexist.

No.  Although the person listed for further information might be on the search committee, they certainly won't be the only member of the committee.  Furthermore, the person listed for further information might not even be on the committee.

I was very confused by this, so thanks for clarifying.

For example, the "for further information" person listed on the advertisement that my institution just posted on mathjobs.org is a staff member in the human resources office and not a faculty member at all.

I would definitely go with "
To whom it may concern".


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Ethics and etiquette, and permissions of posting student work to my online "teaching portfolio"
I want to create an online teaching portfolio on my website, and I want to post examples of student work on my blog and teaching portfolio.
What are the ethics and etiquette of posting student work online?  What are the steps I should take in doing so?
I know it is standard to take out any names, but do I need to ask the student for permission if I post their assignment without their name?
I want to post student work not only for my portfolio, but also as examples for my future students for the kind of work I am expecting.
If it matters, I am in mathematics, and teach at the undergraduate level.

Do I need to ask the student for permission if I post their assignment without their name?

Yes, you do.
As a matter of etiquette, certainly. How do you think your students would feel if after leaving your class, they came across your website and saw that you had posted their work without asking them?
As a matter of ethics, you should not use student's work for personal gain, unless that use also serves a legitimate educational interest. I recommend that if you do this (with the students' permission), you should wait until after the course is over and the grades have been submitted, to reduce the power imbalance and so that a student will feel comfortable saying "No" to your request.
As a legal matter, possibly. At many institutions, students retain the copyright to their coursework. If the work is sufficiently creative to be copyrightable, then you are not legally allowed to post it online without the author's permission.
As a matter of policy, possibly. Your institution may have a policy forbidding this.
But even if the work is not copyrightable and your institution has no policy forbidding this, you should still ask the students for permission as a matter of common courtesy.

Should they give me written permission or is verbal enough?

@FelixY. Get permission by email, so that both you and the student has a record of it.

This is what was done when my lecture notes were reused online in OpenCourseWare.