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Importance of individual postdoctoral fellowship
I have recently been awarded an individual postdoctoral fellowship (independent external funding for my own project) to join a research group at institution A. At the same time, I was applying for other postdoc positions, and finally I was offered a position by a professor at institution B. The group at B is more well-known and a slightly better fit for my research overall, but other than that the conditions (including salary and the institutions themselves) are similar. I cannot take the independent funding to institution B, so I have to choose between accepting the fellowship at A or a standard postdoc position at B.
Is having individual postdoctoral funding important enough to outweigh the disadvantage of being in a slightly worse group? I feel like having been awarded the fellowship is enough and I should choose the group that's a better fit for me, but people obsess over these named "prestigious" fellowships nowadays so I'm a bit worried that it'd be stupid to decline one and take a "regular" postdoc instead.

I have been in exactly that situation, except that the notification for the fellowship came when I had already moved to B. Eventually I negotiated that I could use a reduced amount of the funding for a three-month research stay at institution A during the postdoc at B. I would say that it was the best decision, since that way I got to collaborate and produce papers with both institutions (the prof at B got a bit annoyed, but we're on good terms now).

Opinion only, of course.
Since the finances are a wash, at
this stage of your career I would choose the job that I thought would best allow me to do the research that most interested me.
I would not let "prestige" weigh my decision.
Congratulations on having two good possibilities.

Thank you. I can only hope that hiring committees share your opinion!

Regardless of which choice you make, it's in your best interest to keep good relations with research groups in your field of expertise. It's a very small world after all.
If money and career is a factor in your decision, you need to do some soul searching. Nobody can give you any advice here. It sounds like you really want to go to institution B due to higher research quality but you're afraid of a missed monetary opportunity from institution A. So, what matters to you more and what do you expect to do to maximize your potential once you make a decision?

Thanks for the insight. Actually, "missed monetary opportunity" was never my reason, as the salaries are comparable (there is additional research funding in the fellowship though). I wanted the question to focus only on whether the prestige associated with an independent fellowship is worth choosing a group that is otherwise 2nd choice, all other factors being comparable.

This answer makes it sound like career considerations are beneath scientists, which is silly. You can’t do science if you don’t have a career in science.

Indeed it's silly to state that career considerations are beneath scientists. If money's not a factor, you're basically asking if a title makes a difference in your career versus working with people that you're better suited to work with. Well, I guess that depends on what you want to do with that title. Hence, how do you plan to maximize your potential once you make a decision?


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How do I know if my research skills is valuable in industry if majority funding is from government?
As a postdoc, my research is funded from a grant that's 70% government and 30% aerospace industry.
I work in collaboration with experimental groups and these groups have the collaboration with industry. The part of the industrial funding was acquired by the experimentalist PI working on the project. My PI who works on only modeling/theoretical research, doesn't have direct industrial contacts.
How do I know if my research skills is valuable in industry if majority funding is from government and the industrial funding is predominantly acquired by the experimentalist group?
I like what I do. My research and predictions is commended by experimentalist and since it's very applied, it gets published in experimental focused manufacturing related journals.
But I don't see my skills directly being used or sought after in industry. This would be a problem if I plan to move to industry in the future or in a tenure track position apply for my own individual research grant.

If this makes you feel better, I'm yet to see an engineering Postdoc or PhD (myself included) of the many I know currently in the industry that were hired to do what they did in their research, instead of something loosely correlated with it. You can be sure that your skills are broader and more valuable than you think. That said, here are a few suggestions that worked for me during my PhD to make sure I didn't spend too much time on completely pointless topics:

Attend talks in conferences given by people from the industry. Also be sure to talk to them about your work after their talk and ask them about the usefulness of your work. At the end of the conversation, get the person's card and be sure to send them an e-mail every six months or so to remind them of your existence.
Attend talks in your school given by people from the the industry and follow the same approach as above.
The best option but maybe the hardest one to find: find a lecturer in your school with 20+ years of experience in the industry not necessarily in exact your field to be your mentor. Higher-ups in the industry know where to fit all sorts of talent, including yours. I got a PhD in civil engineering working with water infrastructure and found a lecturer in the school of public administration who made a career working with transportation engineer. This guy saved my in various ways: giving me career advice, introducing me to people from areas connected to my industry, reviewing the e-mails I sent to these people, teaching me how to talk to higher-ups in the industry, and offering me his guest apartment after I graduated and had no stipend to pay rent.

In the end it all boils down to one or more mentors in the industry. The higher their position, the better. Given that most students and postdocs are too shy/awkward to go out and just talk to them, by just saying hi you'll be doing a lot better than everyone else..

While I am no expert in material science, I know that a lot of people leave academia and very few of them do exactly what they have done before.
So I would not worry too much, especially as you are already on the applied side.

Yes, if your work is on the applied side (as previously mentioned) it should not be an issue to move over to industry.  Also, my impression was always the PhD is about gaining skillsets (i.e. technical basis and how to perform research) not necessarily something in a very specific research area.  This may not be true for material science but I know most of my friends in computational science who went into industry work with different data than they did in their PhD.  It is expected you learn new skills/gain new knowledge and the familiarity with the specific area is just considered a plus.

Even in industry, significant funding can come from a government source. Especially if your industry happens to align with areas of defense technology. I currently work outside of academia. About 90% of my funding is somehow sourced from the federal government.
Even companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon have funding sources that are government backed. (See for example the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure [JEDI] contract in the U.S.)

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What do people exactly mean when they say "PhD supervisors guide their PhD students in their research"
I am a statistics PhD student, and I just want to know what do people exactly mean when they say "PhD supervisors guide their PhD students in their research".
My supervisor is a Statistician. He has a master's and a PhD in statistics. His area of research is analysis of open-ended survey questions. Him and his past graduate students has worked on basic machine learning algorithms like KNN, SVM, etc to analyze open-ended survey responses. None of his previous research had involved applying a sophisticated deep learning based language models (e.g. Transformer, RNN ,LSTM) to analyze open-ended survey questions. He is in general not an expert in natural language processing (e.g. like those natural language processing professors from computer science department).
When I was starting my PhD program, I asked my supervisor about my general research direction, and my supervisor gave me a list of papers for me to read, and told me that this is where my research is heading. All of these papers were computer science papers on deep neural language models in natural language processing (which has no hint of analyzing survey open-ended responses). I got slightly confused and asked my supervisor that whether I am to apply these state-of-the-art natural language processing models to analyze open-ended survey responses. My supervisor told me that I won't be analyzing open-ended survey questions like he does.
So I read those papers, came up with research questions, and ran experiments and tried to make publications all of which were failures. I can't really discuss any technically of my work with my supervisor even at a broad level because he lacks the general knowledge about the field (e.g. he told me one day that he has never heard of the words like "syntax" and "semantics" before. These are all basic terminologies that any one in natural language processing community understands). I can't discuss technicality of my work with any of other faculty members / phd students in my department neither because the type of research I am doing mainly concerns with computer science and they don't do this type of research. It also took my supervisor quite sometime to understand that I need an access to good computing resource to be able to carry out a quality research. I'd really hate say this but these things tell me that he in general does not understand how natural language processing field works, and what natural language processing research entails.
So far the "guidance" I received from my supervisors over the past 5 semesters are:

the list of papers that he gave me to read while I was starting out in the PhD program
writing help with my publication drafts.

I would like to ask anyone who reads this posts if this is the right level of "guidance" that I am to expect as a PhD student, and whether I am entitled for more "guidance" than this from my supervisor. I personally feel that doing a research in natural languae processing / artificial intelligence all by myself in isolation is very risky and that I am not receiving adaquate supervision from my supervisor, but I might be wrong in that. Maybe I am bad as a researcher, or maybe I am just not good enough to make any publications. So I am just very confused about my situation and myself.
Could my lack of performance as a researcher be due to the lack of supervision I am receiving? or is this level of superivison normal for PhD students?
Thank you,

I have finished my PhD in biostatistics. In my case, it works like this "proposal -> correction". I had a real dataset with research questions. I used existing models or developed new models to answer them. My supervisor corrected me whenever necessary. I am curious why he lacks knowledge in that field but has PhD student working on that field?

He told me once that he purposefully discouraged me from pursuing analysis of open-ended survey questions because doing so takes learning many social science concepts which he figures that I wouldn't enjoy (he is wrong in this. I am willing to learn whatever the social science concepts that is necessary for me to learn in order to make successful publications or to graduate).

@TrungDung I do understand that as a PhD student, I am to do the literature search on my own and come up with my own research questions. Is it common for PhD student to expect to be somehow guided in their proposal stage as well, based on superviosr's knowledge? I understand that my supervisor can't be 100% familiar with the specific research topic that I've chosen, but I would imagine that if supervisor is familiar with the field in broad sense, then he or she would also approve/disapprove the proposal that students comes up with. am I wrong?

It is unclear what you are asking, but if you think your supervisor is unhelpful you should seek to get a new one.

I get that I somehow need to improve my question, but I don't know how to do it. Should I erase all my personal circumstances and just ask for the example of supervisions that PhD students are entitled to receive from their supervisor?

Possible duplicate of Working with a supervisor who is not expert in my research field.

he has never heard of the words like "syntax" and "semantics" before --- Interesting, as these are words one would also see in the kinds of very basic introductory logic courses that some (U.S.) universities allow to take the place of a general education required mathematics course(s) (usually satisfied by a college algebra course or and/or a math appreciation course), and the words are also "vocabulary words" that one would expect a strong high school student to have seen ("strong" in the sense of including anyone having the potential to later do any kind of post-undergraduate work).

Have you talked to other PhD students in your department/university? Is this hands-off supervision style common there?

Does this answer your question? Working with a supervisor who is not expert in my research field

I'm in mathematics, in the U.S.
For me, "advisors guide their students" means giving advice on reasonable projects, to say the least. And advice on what may work, or fail. And weekly feedback on what has happened so far.
Although I do encourage my students to think about whatever comes into their minds, "good (naive) ideas" is/are not the same thing as "good PhD project". So we (collectively) negotiate a middle ground.
I do understand that there are some models of "advisor" in which the "advisor" does essentially nothing, apart from eventually signing... I do not understand this. And I do not believe anyone who claims that PhD students are somehow supposed to do something, unaided, which more serious people have cared enough to try to understand/resolve, but have failed.

Hi Professor, thank you very much for your reply. in my situation, would it be appropriate for me to ask my supervisor for changing my research direction from natural language processing to analysis of open-ended survey questions? My supervisor told me that he is taking on a new project of analyzing the survey open-ended responses with deep learning models, and I think that if I ask him this question, he will probably get me work on this new project. My fear is that this venture is not likely to be successful.

Applying deep neural network for analysis requires a big text data, and in general survey texts does not fit into this "big data" category. I have talked to a group of people who has worked on applying deep neural networks to analyze survey analysis, and they all tell me the same thing that doing so is meaningless unless the survey data is large....which isn't the case for my supervisor's data.

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Improving motivation in qualitative research motivation
My PhD project has evolved into a very qualitative methodology and approach. As my training and background is very positivist and focused on outcomes, I am really struggling with this shift into a more conceptual endeavour. Initially my PhD was going to involve complex surveys and some interesting statistical approaches (Selecting the Theory Underpinning the Research Project). However, as the literature review progressed, the many assumptions that the field explored earlier seems to to be poorly founded and I find myself keen to challenge and develop a new synthesis of the issues.
It seems clear that that what is required is a more open ended, interdisciplinary approach. Grounded theory, a methodology that aims to analyse data to develop theories seems like a great fit. Grounded theory draws on all sorts of data sources to explain complex experiences and phenomenon which seeems to be what is required in my field. Although I understand the intention of constructivist grounded theory on the whole, I have now lost a lot of faith in my project and have come to a standstill for weeks now.
I am really struggling to believe that my research will help draw clarity that I was hoping to find. Also, I am worried that once I start my research, the interviews and data that I collect will only consolidate stereotypes and biases that I found in the literature review. I will become another researcher that will only contribute further to the ongoing difficulties in the vulnerable group that I am researching. My supervisors have been encouraging, they supervised grounded theory projects before. Grounded theory and intercultural facebook groups have also been encouraging and argued that my experience is common. I feel that I just need to somehow snap out of my reverie and self-indulgence. I would appreciate some advice and perspective on how to get perspective and to get back into a more motivated state.
How should I deal with discouragement as a graduate student?
Student supervision when student loses motivation to work
Are there any ways to improve perspective taking and motivation in doing qualitative PhD research, rather than quantitative research which seems to be the main discussion in this stackexchange?

What is your question?

Ways to snap out of it and to get motivated and get started again.

Let me try to make two points, one about you and the other about Grounded Theory. First, though, I don't know you and so am extrapolating and I'm not involved with grounded theory other than having evaluated a thesis and a tenure decision.
About you: Many students reach a point in their research at which they start to doubt the value of it. This happens in many fields. But one of the reasons for the doubt is that the student begins to know and understand the theory and so it starts to seem somewhat simple and maybe inconsequential. But that is a sign of growing expertise. What seemed hard at the beginning, now seems less hard and maybe more obvious, so, what's the point. This is the sort of thing you just need to power through, hopefully with the help of advisors. If the advisors are good enough, and actually involved in grounded theory, rather than just external observers of students, then you should be able to trust their advice.
About Grounded Theory: I'd never heard the term until I was asked to serve on the tenure committee of a new faculty member. I reviewed her work and was astounded at the depth of understanding she brought. I became one of her chief advocates through her attaining a Full Professorship. Why?
I was trained in mathematics and later switched to computer science. They are similar to each other in some ways. I've written here in response to other questions about what is required to be a mathematician. It isn't just deep knowledge of mathematics, but requires insight into how a field of study works. It is one thing to be able to follow or reproduce the proof of a known theorem, but it is a completely different level task to be able to propose what might be true with enough confidence that it is worth spending time and effort evaluating the truth. It is easy to make random statements in math and easy to extend things trivially, but much harder to even conceptualize something over the horizon.
But it is just this sort of thing that grounded theory attempts to do. It is very difficult. But, when done well, it will come up with questions worth studying. Integrating the various threads of thought what are unfocused and incomplete into something that can be rigorously studied is a big deal. The world is a messy place. Grounded theory attempts to make some sense of it.
But, and you have pointed it out in the question, it has to be done carefully and rigorously so that you don't just put a stamp of "science" on shoddy thoughts and preconceptions. It is very difficult to look into messy data, even contradictory data, and discern the inner workings. Even to discern what might be the inner workings is very hard. You need to rigorously question every assumption as those may lead to error. But you already know this, and, I suspect, that since you recognize it, are well placed to follow through on the required rigor.
You've chosen a hard path, actually. I wish you well along the way.

Thank you Buffy, I really appreciate your kind words and encouragement. Pre-coronavirus, my motivation and enthusiasm was quite broad and I felt far able to handle all the various outcomes of a grounded theory project. Now, the apocalyptic intensity of it all eclipses my project, making it hard to focus and question it all. Really appreciate your thoughts and hope to be kinder to myself.


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Supporting a fellow PhD student with newly diagnosed ADHD - inattentive type
A fellow PhD student told me that they have been diagnosed with ADHD (inattentive type). This seems to have been an assessment done for work-related purposes as they are a part-time student. I am not familiar with inattentive type ADHD as I am more familiar with hyperactive ADHD as I knew of fellow high school students with hyperactivity.
Unfortunately, my colleague is struggling to find a psychiatrist comfortable with ADHD prescription and there does not seem to be clinical services focused on adult ADHD in the local area. I am also not sure how useful medications are especially for adult inattentive symptoms.
The question : I am wondering how useful any interventions are - accommodations, student support, therapy are?
I will not be advising or directing my colleague but they have asked for support. They are not ready to tell their supervisor as yet.
~ The most similar question I could find on SE was - What specific techniques can help someone facing mental health problems (depression, anxiety, ADHD) have a productive academic career? However I think ADHD deserves a full discussion especially this focus on the inattentive type.
~ Elizabeth has made some useful answers related to ADHD as well - Academics with ADHD or autism: What workplace accommodations have helped you?
Supervising a research student with attention problems - what can I do to help the student be more independent?

This is confusing.  The question implies you and the person with ADHD are both faculty, but the explanation says you are both PhD students.

Therapy and medication are best left to the professionals and are off-topic on this site.  Accommodations and student support are not your business if you are a student.  That's the business of the PhD supervisor and disability office.  Do respect other students' privacy.

Yeah they asked for my help and I am just keen to look at the research too. I have edited the question. I am aware that I would not be giving clinical advice...

Also later over the weekend I am keen to summarise some of the research studies and discussions I have had with people...

I have inattentive ADHD and medication fixed my life. Therapy is useless.

What is the question? Independent about what?   The question is off-topic (refer: https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic). And even if we'd like to help there is not a defined enough question about the current process or even if the answer is how to help you encourage them or what the supervisor can do, or what.

Thanks @deags - is there any evidence that any interventions are worthwhile to improve the rates of university progression for people with ADHD. Especially for newly diagnosed ADHD...

@MattSamuel Talk therapy can be very useful for addressing long-term psychological issues arising from the blame, guilt feelings, or self-defeating behavior that ADHD adults have often internalized before they get a correct diagnosis. It's true that it's much less helpful for day-to-day strategies in managing ADHD.

Where did they get the diagnosis? The diagnosing practitioner should know local psychiatrists who know how to medically treat ADHD. They could also try asking at the student health center. As for clinical services for ADHD other than medication management, that's going to be harder if you're not in a major metropolitan area, plus it's difficult to get insurance to pay for it. If your classmate wants one-on-one coaching, it might be necessary to look for it online. Some ADHD coaches will do telephone or internet coaching.

Thanks Elizabeth. Your answer is very helpful. A private psychologist has made the diagnosis. The hunt is now on for a prescribing psychiatrist. Much appreciated!

In the US, many insurance plans seem to require that a diagnosis be made before Age 7 or 8 to qualify for pre-authorization.  So while I'm not too familiar with the specifics, I suspect that this might be a complicating factor.

They might also seek pharmaceutical advice about over-the-counter options.  For example, I've heard that caffeine can help.

Finally, it may help to understand the condition.  My personal understanding is that ADHD is sorta like an absence of a deep-seated respect for authority or a compulsion to follow orders/directions.  For example, if a non-ADHD person is like a country with strong governmental control, then an ADHD person is more like a country with a strong focus on individual freedom.  Then the person themself is like the government: the non-ADHD person can more directly control what the country does, while the non-ADHD person must motivate themself more indirectly.

It's also worth understanding that ADHD isn't all bad.  I mean, the big thing that hurts people with ADHD is that their lack of internal directness makes them less able to participate in external social phenomena that require it, e.g. an ADHD person can complete a standardized exam, but unlike a non-ADHD person, they can't internally compel themselves to focus exclusively on the exam for the short window in which it's given.  The up-shot is that they enjoy the benefits that come from free-market economies over government-controlled ones.

I was diagnosed with severe inattentive ADHD when I was 12ish. I'm now 32 and am an instructor at a university. I've dealt with it in all ways and am not shy about it.
Medication worked for me. It might not for everyone. ADHD is also over-diagnosed, or was a decade or two ago. It's also a real pain in the *** to get medication in the USA because it's a controlled substance. It's a pain to travel with because my medication is illegal in some countries. But it works for me.
Your friend should find a psychologist who can diagnose ADHD. After that, getting medication is normal. You should encourage your friend to explore the support services offered by your institution. They'll be experienced in how to support your friend and will be able to direct them to other resources and psychologists.
Good luck!


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Schoolteaching Research and Academia
I am struggling getting research interest in a suite of schoolteaching research topics. I feel that many of my topics should not threatening and should be of interest to schoolteachers and schoolteaching lecturers. One is looking at the use of letter tracing when learbing writing and the other looking at integrating misconceptions in teaching.
However I am getting a lot of hostility and discouragement from university lecturers. I have emailed many lecturers at my institution and some outside but without success.
I am used to academics referring me to others rather than discourage and not progress the debate. It seems very unacademic and uncollegial. I am not sure what I can differently or whether you all have more context and strategies that I can try. I would like help in what else I can do please?
I feel very passionately about my schoolteaching research interest. If we improve schoolteaching and support schoolteachers more we can make a huge difference...

I am not sure what you mean. Is education research your primary field? What is it that you want these university lecturers to do for you?

Ideally I would love to do a phd. But I have two papers under review on my own. So I can go the independent research route of needed...

Whose interest are you trying to capture? What are you wanting them to do, that they don't want to do? Why "hostility"? Etc. If you're wanting advice, I think you're being too vague about the "problem to be solved"...

I am not keen to drill down into topics because the details are confusing.

One topic is on the issue of tracing letters and words in very early handwriting learning. The other topic is integrating common misconceptions in the teaching of maths broadly through a case example.

Is it "College of Education" faculty you're trying to engage? And what do you want them to do that they are "hostile" about?

I’m voting to close this question because it does not contain a question.

I have emailed lecturers and researchers in my research interest without success.

Are you trying to recruit these people to be your participants? Or asking them for research advice?

Sorry, research advice

I already have supportive large facebook groups that are willing participants

@Poidah Well, since no one else is giving you advice, I'll give you one piece: MAKE SURE YOU HAVE HUMAN SUBJECTS RESEARCH APPROVAL BEFORE STARTING HUMAN SUBJECTS RESEARCH. Given your independence, you may have missed that step. If you're not in the US, rules may differ from the ones I am familiar with, but importantly note that it may not be up to you to decide if your research is "exempt" or otherwise less regulated than other research.

It sounds like you are an early-career independent researcher looking for research mentorship.
The ordinary way that people get this research mentorship is by joining a degree program - a masters program with a research component, or ideally a PhD. Undergraduates can also look into opportunities for research mentorship. Advising a new researcher is a lot of work; it's quite reasonable to expect the trade off of time invested versus research output to be negative over the first couple (or even several) years: that is, an experienced advisor would be more productive if they spent their time on research rather than training. However, advisors have a responsibility to mentor their students in these programs, both to their employer institution and to academia as a whole.
If you cold-email people asking for their advice on your research project, you're going outside this system. Would you cold-email professional sports coaches to help you practice your athletic skills and expect a response? Certainly not; probably not even if you have extreme athletic promise! They'll have a system of lower-level coaches and scouts who seek out those sorts of athletes. Even if you offered a good sum of money, their schedule and contractual obligations likely prevent them from even considering the offer.
I don't think the rejections you are getting are based on the quality or importance of your research project, you're just asking the wrong people for the wrong thing. If you want to research and learn to do research, apply for training programs in research. You mention you can try an independent route...I would very strongly discourage that. Research is very difficult and you'll get stuck a lot. You need a mentor who can help you through those spots, and slowly build your skills to work through these problems on your own in the future.

Thanks Bryan. It is different in Australia

Usually one can informally email potential supervisors and then formally apply to the institution for a program.

I did say that I am interested in a PhD and usually that would lead to suggestions of potential supervisors to approach. That has not been the case so far.

@Poidah Your question didn't say you were interested in a PhD, just that you've been emailing your research project around.

Yes in my previous discipline, research discussion happens a lot more and then if there is a good working relationship then a PhD forms. Sorry if I was too vague. Thanks for your help Bryan


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Double blind peer review: authorship can be inferred from the manuscript
I am considering submitting to a journal that only does double blind peer review.
As I have no experience with this kind of review process I have a question. I removed any direct reference to the author information (name, address, email address, affiliation and so on). However, the paper deals with an extension of a numerical code that I previously developed, so it is overtly clear from the manuscript and from references to my previous works that I am the author. There’s no way to remove these self-citations without making the discussion poorly referenced and extremely vague. And besides citations, the paper is clearly part of the same activity as the previous ones. ‘‘Hiding’’ this would be impossible and is certainly not in the interest of the readers, as the clarity of the paper would inevitably suffer.
I have no particular interest in having a double blind review, I am considering that journal because it fits my work and has an excellent impact factor.
However, I can consider other journals if this may be a problem or ground for rejection. Do you think this may be the case?
EDIT: I know there are similar questions, but this time it is not about some little giveaways. The paper would not survive without putting it into its context, and that's what mainly reveals who the author is.

The generic recommendation is to switch from "previously, we [Neutroshock et al., 2020]" to "previously, there was [Neutroshock et al., 2020]", or in other words "refer to own works in a third person", not that it would be a universal remedy.

Thank you, Oleg, I followed your suggestion and submitted it.

You know the luggage locks people buy for their suitcases when travelling? They look good, they're reassuring to have, they supposedly deter people from stealing the suitcase because they can't open it. But it shouldn't be surprising that they are ineffective: after all, to open the suitcase in spite of the lock, all one needs to do is cut up the suitcase with a knife. Sure, that ruins the suitcase, but the thief probably only cares about what is inside the suitcase.
Double blind peer review is similar. It looks good, it's reassuring, it supposedly remove bias from the peer review process. But the fact is that if the reviewer really wants to, they can probably deduce your identity regardless of how you diligently you anonymize the paper, especially with the aid of search engines like Google. The journal probably knows this too, in fact I'd bet that one of the reasons double-blind peer review hasn't become the industry standard is because people question the benefits for the amount of work one has to invest.
So I would not worry about it: anonymize the obvious things, remove explicit self-references (such as saying "[neutroshock did this]" as opposed to "we did this"), and submit it.

Thank you! Submitted :)

Very funny comparison, +1. Actually one of my co-authors once was so meticulous at making our identity as authors disappear that some well-meaning referee chastised us for not giving the originators of the line of research (ourselves) enough credit. That was sad and funny at the same time.


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How to ask a potential postdoc supervisor to give me the postdoc interview results sooner than he planned
25 Mar 2018
I had a Skype interviewer with a potential postdoc supervisor, and he mentioned that those who passed the first Skype interview will be informed after he interviews all people, which is around 2 weeks prior to a second formal interview held at his institute.
I am in another country and will need 2-3 weeks to apply for a visa to go abroad for the second interview. If I am told the results after he finishes interviewing all people, I am very likely not able to obtain a visa in time for the scheduled second interview.
Could you please give me suggestions on how to write to him about this situation without being rude. Thank you very much!
----20 June 2018
Sevel months have passed! How time flies.
To follow up, I didn't ask him to give the results sooner than he planned.
And I didn't get the job either.
That was my first skype interview, so I didn't have much experience and failed it.
But now, I have received a great offer.


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What are the most credible rankings of US computer science departments?
I am wondering what are the most well-regarded rankings of computer science departments in the US. Preferably, this would be broken down into rankings by research output and rankings by student labor market outcomes.
Surely, one can find a myriad of such rankings by google searching, but I am wondering whether there are some common rankings that are referred to as standards by academics and practitioners. Thank you kindly.
EDIT:
Let me clarify. Most answers below answered the question "are academic rankings useful/unbiased/etc." but this is not at all what I was asking. I know that such measures are noisy and subjective. This is well-known. But in every profession there are some rankings that are well-regarded among other researchers in that profession.
Please, I know it's hard, but try to stop yourself from answering why rankings suck, even if you feel very strongly about it.

As a side note (but perhaps extremely relevant), one reason no rankings are considered very credible is that they are not that useful. For example, in deciding where to apply or attend, ranking is much less important than the potential advisors and research groups and how they match your interests. As for academics and practitioners, they have little need to refer to them at all. If you want to engage in curious light entertainment, read rankings; but if you want to make good decisions, don't do more than glance at them.

You could look for ACM programming contest winners. North America 2017: http://naipc.uchicago.edu/2017/

My favorite anecdote about how inconsistent rankings are: a few years ago USNWR ranked Cal Tech the best university in the world, but not in the top 5 in the US! They used different methods for the national and international rankings.

But in every profession there are some rankings that are well-regarded among other researchers in that profession - you are under a misapprehension. Other researchers in this profession have shown up in droves to tell you that they do not regard any of the rankings well, no matter how much you dislike that answer.

I see your edit, but I stand strongly by the first sentence of my answer which does, despite your complaint, answer the question as asked. Although many people think in terms of rough tiers, there is no ranking system that are well regarded in this profession.

@splinter I'm not sure what kind of answer you are looking for. Please clarify why you want a ranking. Otherwise it's like asking "what is the best car?" I don't know. Do you want a cheap car? a fast car? an environmentally friendly car? a big car? an all-terrain car? a car that shows off your wealth? Different cars suit different purposes, and the same applies to CS departments.

Putting aside the whole problem of objectivity in these rankings, what is your end goal with this list? "Best" by itself is not a very good metric and can yield very different answers depending on how you define it.

Very few computer scientists (or academics in general) think highly of any ranking system. The main reason for this is that rankings are pretty arbitrary, highly biased by personal opinion, and not super informative. There's very minimal feedback pressure on rankers to get it "really right," and there's no particular reason to think that they do.
The methodologies vary widely, and small differences can result in wildly different rankings because the gradations between schools is usually not very big. In the US News and World Report Ranking, five schools all got a perfect score. Their methodology is to solicit rankings from researchers on a scale of 1-5 and then average them. So there were five schools that everyone gave top marks to. But there were also 17 schools that received higher than a 4.0 without receiving a 5.0. Due to their methodology, that means that there are at least 17 schools for which at least half of respondents said it was a 5/5. It seems unambiguous that all of those 17 schools are outstanding, because at least half of researchers gave them a 5/5. However, it likewise is very unclear what a 4.1 vs a 4.5 actually corresponds to.
This also shows how much the presentation of the results matter. The following three statements are all true of the USNWR ranking:

UIUC is ranked 4 slots behind CMU.
UIUC's ranking is five times that of CMU.
UIUC's raw score is 11% lower than that of CMU
UIUC is a top 3.3% school and CMU is a top 2.8% school.

Other sites use a weighted system that scores universities on a variety of factors and then take the weighted average. The issue with this methodology is that the results are highly variable with differing weights, and there doesn't seem to be any principled way to decide if "mean impact factor of faculty" should be weighted 0.3 or 0.1. Even choosing to measure "mean impact factor of faculty" could be disputed, and one could use median instead of mean or only look at the 5 most active professors. There are arguments for and against myriad tweaks like this, and again there seems to be no principled way to decide which is best. This wouldn't be very concerning if it mattered little, but it matters a lot. This is easily seen by looking at 5 random rankings and observing that there's a very high variance in the ranking of universities from site to site. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that universities try to game ranking systems (note there are two links there).
How your school is ranked can also vary massively with the discipline or sub-discipline.  My alma mater had a fabulous CS theory program, a less-reputed systems program, and (at the time) a non-existent AI program. Someone who says "I studied theoretical computer science at Stella's alma mater" gets a very different response than someone who says "I studied programming language theory."
Not only is your discipline going to matter a lot, who your adviser is will as well. Sometimes the word experts on fields or subfields work at universities that are, in general, not thought as high of. But if you can go study the problem you're interested in with the world expert on it, you should jump at that chance, even if it means going to some podunk school you'd have never heard of if your adviser wasn't located there. And these kinds of concerns are entirely ignored by rankings. Some rankings have breakdowns by sub-discipline, but there's no real way to get them nuanced enough to be particularly meaningful.
University rankings are also comically America-centric, and actual perception of the quality of universities widely varies by region, both within the US and across the world.
Finally, university ranking doesn't matter that much compared to other factors.

@Thomas All ranking systems are biased based on how they are designed. Different ranking systems can focus on research only (csrankings.org), teaching (SIGCSE) or a combination (CRA) or just some vague class-system reinforcing "peer reputation" (USNews). This makes comparisons meaningless because one should join a department for holistic reasons, not one thing.

For further study, read the book "How to Lie With Statistics."

As an anecdote, I study at a university that usually doesn't even make the top 5 in my state in most rankings, yet I've taken a couple of classes from someone I would consider a top expert in their field

There are many rankings available. For example, five minutes of Googling turns up the following.

http://csrankings.org/
https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings and https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/computer-science
https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/university-subject-rankings/top-computer-science-schools-2017
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2018/subject-ranking/computer-science#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats
https://lucatrevisan.wordpress.com/2014/10/23/an-alternative-to-the-seddighin-hajiaghayi-ranking-methodology/

You can see that they differ quite a bit. This is because such rankings are highly subjective. The first one listed even lets you adjust the ranking by counting or discounting different areas.
The rankings pretend to be objective. But the truth is that there is a lot of freedom exercised in how to weigh different factors. You can achieve drastically different rankings by tweaking your criteria slightly. (Weighting publications by venue. Comparing departments of differing size. etc.) I strongly suspect that the people who collate rankings will tweak their methodology until it "looks right" which means objectivity flys out the window.
This is why academics generally scoff at rankings (and mock them). Generally when I look through a proposed ranking my internal monologue goes as follows. "OK the first three seem reasonable. I don't think the fourth and sixth ones should be so high. Hey, wait, where is my alma mater? That's nonsense. This is garbage." Likewise, I think most academics quickly find something they strongly disagree with in any proposed ranking. All rankings are essentially nonsense, particularly outside the top 10 or so (which will have been tweaked to look reasonable).
The computing research association has a statement expressing how most academics view rankings: https://cra.org/cra-statement-us-news-world-report-rankings-computer-science-universities/
Unfortunately, some people do take rankings seriously (and thereby embarrass themselves). For example, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2017-10/30/content_33891752.htm and https://www.cs.utexas.edu/news/2017/ut-austin-ranked-top-computer-science-university-us-second-best-globally and https://www.umdrightnow.umd.edu/university-maryland-rankings
If you are interested in rankings, the first question you should ask is what you actually want to know. If you have a more specific question (e.g., where should I go to grad school?), then you can look at more specific -- and useful -- information. Unfortunately, this is probably going to be more work than just Googling for a list.

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


text:
How to avoid redundancy in the faculty application materials?
I'm applying for a faculty position. The required documents include:

a letter of application
statement addressing the candidate's teaching interests
statement addressing the scholarly/performance agenda
curriculum vitae
contact information for three references
graduate transcripts
evidence of demonstrated or potential excellence in undergraduate instruction.

I'm a bit confused about items 2, 3, and 7.
In my previous applications, I submitted a teaching philosophy statement, where I elaborated on my views on different aspects of teaching a course and how I plan to engage students with the class. I also had submitted a cover letter where I briefly discussed my interest in the position and my qualifications.
However, it seems that a lot of what I would prepare for this application would be repetitions. For instance, how would items 2 and 7 differ? I should add that I only have been a teaching assistant for a few courses. I can request to teach a class this summer, though (I'm a first-year post-doc at the moment).
Edit:
Lastly, in item 3, what is the meaning of "scholarly/performance agenda"? Is this just my research so far or what I plan to do? or Both? Since the application does not further elaborate on what the search committee expects in each document, I would appreciate any suggestion on preparing these documents with the least amount of overlap.

how would items 2 and 7 differ?

They messed up the wording a bit.  2 is a "statement" and 7 is "evidence."  My interpretation is that 7 should be your teaching evaluations or some other evidence from a third party.  2 is the regular teaching philosophy.

item 3 would also be similar to my cover letter

Well, maybe.  The contents of your cover letter would really depend on the type of university you are applying to; if it's a research university, emphasize your research.  If it's a teaching intensive university, emphasize your teaching.  Certainly the cover letter should briefly summarize all the other documents.

I agree that in item 7, "demonstrated" refers to teaching evaluations, but not sure what "potential" is referring to. Is there anything from my TA experience that I can include?

Do you have an evaluation of your TAing by the person in charge of teaching the course?

@AlexanderWoo No, I can ask so, but it won't be ready for the current application.

I think people hired for their "potential excellence" are former high school teachers who subsequently earned PhDs but have no experience teaching undergraduates.

Specific to 3 and your edit, even a teaching college wants "scholarly activity" from the faculty. At a teaching focused university near me the expectation is 60/20/20 for teaching/research/service activities. You are still expected to have scholarly output and before hiring you would like to know what your plans are for that. "Performance" is a bit harder to understand without explanation unless connected to scholarly activity. But course development and such is a kind of performance connected to teaching for example.
Scholarly activity includes things like conference attendance and participation, papers, even development of pedagogy. Maintaining and developing connections to other scholars and teachers can be important.
All of those things can be important when it comes time for tenure review as well as at initial hiring.


text:
What is an academic profile?
I am filling out an application & research profile form for a Masters program. The form consists of four open-ended questions, with plenty of space to fill out information for each.
One question is 'Research Experience and Interests: Comment on why you would like to pursue graduate studies, with a clear identified objective. Further clarify if you have a particular research interest, possibly in the context of
past experience and accomplishments'.
A third question is 'Academic Profile: Describe your academic profile, highlighting particular achievements and relevant scholarships or awards'
My question is: I have worked on a research project which spanned over the course of a year. I would like to describe this project, but I am not sure which section to fit this information in. It initially seemed obvious to fit in the first question (research experience), but wouldn't research (especially considering it's my only major research opportunity) also fit under 'academic profile'? I want to avoid overlap to my answer for both of these questions.

Academic profile seems to have two meanings. An academic profile in the overall field and discipline is the "status" or respectability of the academic in the universe of academics in the area as implied in this other question. However, that definition of academic profile is not relevant in your current application.
Your masters application refers to your academic interest as explained by your past achievements and awards, conference attendance etc. It is more of a narrative and evolution of your work and study history. Your academic profile allows you to include all the evidence to support your interests and passions. Even school related and work related awards and experience that is relevant only adds to the development of your interest. I have seen how people incorporate their activism and volunteering roles into their profile with good effect for example.

Thanks for the information. Then, according to my understanding of your answer, I should describe my research project under the research experience question, and possibly elaborate it (with a link to a relevant page) under my academic profile?


text:
my first authorship paper from my PhD was changed at last minute to a co-authorship... is it gonna affect in any way my career?
I recently finished my PhD in Developmental Biology in the US, but I left a couple of experiments completed prior to finishing the paper. (This paper was developed during the course of my PhD and has had numerous changes).
I have since finished my PhD and my supervisor started to take my paper and made decisions on it. He never once asked me for my Drosophila collection, and we never ever discussed the paper and how we could finish it.  I became depressed as he treated like I am stupid, even though the paper was almost done and it was worthy of a high-impact journal... He never seemed to trust in my capabilities.
I have since realised that he found a new grad student to finish those experiments (that I could perfectly have done faster and in a much shorter time)... and now (almost a year later) my paper was submitted. Unfortunately, he decided to make the other PhD student the second first co-author of my paper.
I would like to hear some opinions as I don't know what to do.
Is this going to impact my future career?
I also don't understand how someone that knows deep inside that I am the first author of a paper can do this?

Please add 1.  Your current job.  2.  Your career goals.  3.  How many first author papers you have published.  While it is always better to have more fist author papers, one paper usually is not enough to make a big difference.

I am starting my postdoc position. I just finished my PhD,  have two other papers in developmental biology (one second author in a good journal), and this was my first first author paper.

Want to become a PI at some point, if I can, but not in the US, I am from Belgium.

Multiple first author papers from your PhD would be very useful for those goals.

I can tell you don't understand how life sciences work. The "multiplicity" of publications does not happen in the course of a PhD. Usually after 5 years, one high impact (IF >10) paper is enough.

If you are still the first-first author, I don't see too big of a problem? You still get the main first author position, and this other student who spent a year on this project also gets his (smaller) recognition. It is probably better to give too much acknowledgement than to give too few.

Advisable not to name your department and university in full. It is poor form and possibly defamatory as people can potentially be identified from your post.

The title and body-text of your question do not match. The former describes the change of authorship as "last minute" whilst the latter says that the paper was developed from your drafts "almost a year later".
Also, could you clarify what you mean by "second first co-author"? Is that a euphemism for "second author"?
Anyhow, there is a big difference between:

a complete paper having the authorship order changed unilaterally by the corresponding author at the time of submission (which is what "last minute" would imply); and
a draft paper being developed and completed by a new co-author, who is then given precedence over the person who wrote the original draft (which is what the body of your question implies).

If §1 applies, then the person who acted unilaterally acted improperly (even if the authorship order does warrant change, the change should be done transparently).
If §2 applies, then, based on the information available, the situation amounts to a dispute rather than to misconduct. In some circumstances, it may be perfectly reasonable for a person who turned a draft into a complete paper worthy of publication to take precedence over the person who wrote the draft originally. Without knowing the details of the case, it is difficult to say who is in the right.
Your options:

A) complain to the editor/publisher (be prepared to provide detailed evidence to substantiate your argument, such as the drafts with their original timestamps) -- possible outcomes include nothing happening (if the editor/publisher disagrees with your claims), change of authorship order, addition or removal of co-authors, or retraction of the paper;
B) (may require you to have attempted §C already) complain to the university's research conduct office or equivalent (as with §A, be prepared to provide detailed evidence) -- possible outcomes as per §A, plus possibility of disciplinary action if the university considers serious misconduct to have taken place;
C) complain to the corresponding author (you may want suggest that it was oversight rather than out of malice... it is possible that, with the distance of time, your contribution was forgotten unintentionally) -- possible outcomes as per §A, although if any changes are made to the author list, the corresponding author will then have to convince the editor/publisher that the changes should be made (editors do not permit changes without justification, in order to prevent "gift authorship");
D) engage legal counsel and complain through the courts: IANAL, but a likely argument would be that your moral rights (specifically, the "right of paternity": that is, to be recognised as the creator of a work) were not recognised properly (if, moreover, you have not assigned copyright to the university, you may be able to sue for copyright infringement).

Second co-first author usually means an author list "Author A*, Author B*, Author C, etc." with a footnote stating something to the effect that the authors marked * contributed equally.

If your post doc is at a different location, then all these options should be considered. Hopefully your PhD has been accepted and passed through all the university hoops and your previous supervisor can not postpone it as punishment.

Assuming that you continue to publish in your field, I predict that this will have only minor and short-term effect. You already have moved on and secured a position from which you can advance.
Don't assume that your doctoral work will be the best work you will ever do. It is only the first. Your later work will determine your career far more than the specific authorship of this paper.
But you have a warning that you need to consider and negotiate authorship in future work, especially collaborative work. I also assume you will have more control in the future, though some PIs also play tricky games. Watch out for that and protect yourself as needed.

Specially, you should always negotiate, upfront, who "owns" a project. Don't assume that just because you worked on it, a PI is going to allow you to own it. In this case, the PI clearly believes that the project belongs to them and they just "allowed" you to work on it, and so what happens after you leave is up to them.  Its not uncommon for a PI to convince a student to finish up someones old work by promising a good authorship position. Be aware of this going in.

Let's focus on the "Is this going to affect my future career?" question, and set aside any issues of whether having your authorship changed from first to co- is fair or not.
This probably is not going to affect your career significantly. In the fields in biology that I'm familiar with, the difference in prestige between a first authorship and a co-first authorship is not huge. That's not to say there's no difference; if everything else is exactly equal, a first authorship is preferable. But a search committee will almost certainly still consider a co-first-authorship to be "your work", which is what matters most to them.
(The slight loss in prestige between sole and co- first authorship may be partially balanced by the suggestion that you are a good team member and collaborator, too, so it's not all negative.)
What I've seen done, and what I've done myself, is for letters of recommendation to try to disambiguate co-first authorships. I'll write something like "In this work, two people worked extensively on the paper and justified co-authorship, but person X conceived and planned these parts that are relevant to your department" -- In other words, explain to the search committee why this co-authorship should count as a first authorship as far as they are concerned.
In the list of things search committees weigh, an enthusiastic reference letter from a former supervisor carries much, much more weight than does the tiny difference between sole and co- first authorship, so keeping your former supervisor happy with you is, pragmatically, a smart move.


text:
If I publish my paper in non-ISI journal, Will it appear on PubMed and other electronic databases, to the public?
If I publish my paper in non-ISI journal, will it appear on PubMed and other electronic databases, to the public?

Why did you repeat your question?

Check with the publisher - they are the ones who will know. In particular, look at the journal's website and see if they have any "abstracting" or "indexing" information.
For example, Elsevier's Journal of Theoretical Biology is not ISI-web of science indexed, or PubMed indexed, but is indexed by a variety of other databases.


text:
Doing high level thing great but forgetting simple things
I'm a mathematics PhD student and I have a question.
I am writing my thesis, and I'm looking for a postdoc too. I would like to do research long-term, but I am not sure that I will be successful as a researcher because of the following problem.
I am very good in the research that I am doing. Everyone confirms that I am very good in what I am working on. But, I have a big problem that I can not solve simple questions. Let me explain in further details, some month ago, I wanted to use the fact that supremum attains for every upper semicontinuous function on compact space. My supervisor asked me to prove it in front of him, but I couldn't do it. These happens a lot to me. My supervisor said he did not know how to possible someone do high-level research, but he couldn't prove simple things either. I am suffering because I think everyone can prove simple things, but they can not do high-level research. Does someone have any ideas or advice for me? I want to improve this issue, because I have a final exam for my PhD. I am so scared that they maybe ask some basic questions that I do not know.

“supremum attains for every upper semi continuous function on compact space.“ For what it’s worth, that sounds like higher level maths than I’ve ever done at all as someone in the IT space, so it’s possible that you’ve just got Imposter Syndrome, though I’ll let someone more familiar with high-level mathematics Answer this since I’m not sure.

Doing things at your own pace is generally very, very different than doing them under time pressure (do it now) and in a socially pressured situation (do it while I stand here and disapprove at your lack of effortless performance) - much less both together. If you were asked to prove the same thing and bring back the answer tomorrow, or to the following weeks meeting, and you could do it, this suggests it is the implied time limit and/or the demand to do so on the spot or be judged harshly that you are having trouble with. That can be overcome or bypassed, and is not suggestive of inability.

I would suggest just working harder, more practice and build your confidence gradually in solving "simple" questions. Ignore also your supervisor's opinion. It is important to understand that an opinion of someone is not a fact, but only an opinion.

I'm noticing your use of the word forgetting, as if you were supposed to remember the proof.  You're not.  I'm a tenured mathematics professor, with publications in analysis, and I don't remember that proof either.  But I have enough experience working with compactness and the other concepts that I can recreate the proof, or some version of it, if you give me a few minutes.  (Choose a sequence of points that approach the supremum, and then pass to a convergent subsequence...)  And I bet you can do the same, if you just keep calm.

Do you do some TAing / teaching? Often people say it's a waste of time, but I think it would help a lot with your problem. Some say that you don't ever really understand something until you have taught it.

Anecdotal evidence and some introspection indicates that the more one specializes in a math topic, the less one is able to do simple math. I have completely lost the ability to compute discounts at outlet stores, but can tell you how to compute the VC dimension of complex hypothesis classes. Such is life...

@BrianH : Thanks for your comment. I agree with you, but fear overcame to me. I can not do any things except my research. If i have time, then i have to check in net about answer, then i regret why i did not know. I was destroyed my self confidence. I accept i had some weakness in my knowledge, but not like now. i would like to mention that when i have some exam for specific course i always get either 4 or 5.

@NateEldredge Thank you for your comment and supportive comment.

@FedericoPoloni : No, i thought about it. I am teaching calculus 1 next semester.

@Spark : I am so happy to hear it. My supervisor said a good researcher must know every basic things, otherwise who could not do research. He told me, when i did not remember Green theorem.

Sounds completely normal for PhD level work.
Many people doing PhD:s are like this. Some people who are envious or feel threatened of your high level abilities may try to shame you or make you unconfident with your lack of low level skills. There really is only one advice to give for this...
Trust in yourself and don't let it discourage you.

most if the time people suffering this will only overcome it once they start lecturing. many of those who don't won't overcome it.

Let me suggest a reason that you may be experiencing what you are, and it has nothing to do with any lack of ability. But it may, I think, involve intensity of focus. And "brain freeze".
When I'm working on something intensely, I tend to separate myself from all other thoughts and concerns. I dive very deeply into what I'm doing. I tend to do it even when writing here, actually. If someone asks me a question - any question - I freeze up for a bit in order to change context an reestablish a new one before I can answer. Maybe this is all it is with you, also.
If you are thinking deeply about some research issue, large or small, you focus very closely on the problem and various potential solutions, evaluating pros and cons, etc. If someone asks you, right then, to go get the mail, you won't, perhaps, even hear them.
But some people need a bit of time, when asked a question, to establish a context in which that question can be answered. If the question has any complexity, so might the context, and it may take a while to get there. You are "struck dumb" by the question and the impatience of the questioner just makes it worse.
So, here is a thought experiment. Take the same question that "stumped" you when asked and consider how your thought process (and potential success) might have been different if you posed the same question to yourself while sitting quietly with no specific other focus. I suspect that I would be able to work it out fairly quickly, and fill in the empty parts sufficiently well. Perhaps you would also. But the questioner wants an immediate, well formulated answer, just as if you had memorized it.
But memorization is a poor tool in mathematics. You can't (unless you have a very differently organized brain than others) simply memorize all of mathematics, theorems along with proofs. A much better tool for a mathematician is insight that lets you re-assemble the concepts and why they are valuable and true. If you are doing valuable research, I suspect that you have such insight.

But a bit of advice about oral exams. Don't worry too much about having answers instantly on the tip of your tongue. Don't worry too much about wanting to "work out an answer". Doing so aloud can be valuable as it is obvious to the questioner that you aren't stuck, just working. Don't worry too much about making an error, but then, admit that the train of thought isn't going to be productive and say why. This reveals to the questioner that you have a good grasp of fundamentals, and can think productively even if the actual answer eludes you.
I once, taking an oral in Algebraic Topology (not my strong subject), did exactly the above, working out the answer to a question and not getting there. After a bit, I said something like "I'm sorry but this line of thought isn't going to end properly. I can't see the answer, but I can at least explain why this isn't working...". Later I was told that it was a great response. Like a lot of things, it is more important to demonstrate competence than it is to answer every question on demand.
Insight, not memory.

Thank you very much for your answer. I do believe what you said, but i wish my supervisor thought like you.

I agree with all the supportive comments here and that the relationship between the rapid recall and a research career is poor. Your supervisor should not have shamed you or put you down due to your poor memory recall. Your question of whether you can improve or rehabilitate your memory is a difficult one and I think an irrelevant one as others have argued here.
However, if you think there is a bigger and significant neurological issue that needs and you want further investigation, then definitely do so. Not because of your professor's inconsiderate remark of your poor memory recall, but because you have other concerns or patterns that have impaired your life and ability to enjoy life. Many people are being investigated and diagnosed with neurodiversity issues at an older age. So full neuropsychological testing that can place your memory issue as either isolated or part of a broader phenomenon is useful. Find a psychologist who is able to do formal cognitive testing, ideally a neuropsychologist.


text:
Is it rude to visit a professor's office during office hours after they don't respond to my email?
I'm currently about to enter my final semester of undergraduate life and plan on continuing graduate studies (master's) at the same institution.
Applications for the fall semester this year open in April. I recently (around a week ago) emailed a professor whose lab I want to enter and expressed my interest in his research and that if he would spare me a few minutes to meet in person or a phone call that would be great. I sent my resume as well. I had fairly high hopes because I have spoken to a former student in that lab and she happened to say he has a very nice reputation of communicating well and will reply to my email even if it's a rejection.
However, he hasn't. I'm wondering what I should do. I've confided with my parents who are also professors, and they told me that once semester starts next week to just visit the professor's office during his office hours. My question is, wouldn't showing up unannounced and bringing up the topic of my email come off as a bit rude? My parents say that professors get paid to deal with students and so I should think of it as my right, and also that "office hours" are meant for professors to keep their doors open and answer questions. I'm curious as to what other people believe, though.
It was either visit his office, email him again, call the student lab via phone and ask them what I should do.
Thank you.

UPDATE
I just thought I'd share the result of taking @Buffy and others' advice in case anyone's curious.
I was planning on visiting the professor in question's office today. I was planning to just visit, but yesterday I decided to send one last email out of courtesy saying that I'd love to visit his office during his scheduled office hours. If that didn't work then I would just show up "unannounced." He did reply to that and asked if tomorrow is okay.
I sent him my resume with the first email, but I wasn't sure if he had read it or not so I decided to print it out and bring a hard copy with me. Plus, I myself always prefer having a hard copy in my hands to flip through rather than looking at a computer screen. Sure enough, when I asked him if he would like a copy of my resume he said that it would be great and that "students normally send them by email but I prefer hard copies" and that likes my sense of preparation.
He was impressed at me taking the initiative and offered me an undergraduate research position on the spot - despite them lacking openings - and showed me around the lab introducing me to everyone and advising a PhD student who shares interests with me to give me a more in-depth explanation. He said that if I do decide to pursue graduate studies ("since people change their minds all the time" as he added) that it would be better if I naturally transitioned from an undergraduate research intern to a full time graduate student at the lab.
So yes, lesson learned. Also thanks for the advice from the community.

Related: What does it mean if a professor does not respond to an email about research in a week and Is ignoring emails acceptable in academia?

and also that "office hours" are meant for professors to keep their doors open and answer questions --- I'm surprised this is a question. It's like asking if it's allright to enter a library during operating hours. As someone who has taught several years at smaller and more teaching-focused colleges, "office hours" took on the meaning of "I'm guaranteed to be there", as opposed to most other hours of the day when "I'm usually there and available, if I'm not in class". Even during non-office hours, I often left a note on the door saying I'd be back soon if I had to run a quick errand.

Nice question with follow-up. Sometimes I set aside emails because I want to write a thought-out answer. And then I forget.

I'm with your parents on this. Go talk to him. The missed reply could be for a variety of reasons, including just needing time to think about it. But scheduled office hours are a perfect time for a conversation.
It isn't rude at all. Polite, actually, to go in person.

Thanks for the answer! Come to think of it I guess it is more polite that way, and there really isn't anything for the professor to be offended about if I walked into his office.

Adding to this: during a recent interview round, one candidate stopped by our group leader's office unannounced to hand in her application in person. She was hired for multiple reasons and the initiative she showed was certainly one of them.

I agree with Buffy, there are a number of factors that could account for the lack of communication. For example, the chair of my master's thesis committee would conducted research in rural Central America and be unreachable for months during winter/summer break. Simply due to the overall lack of internet service. That said, office hours are the perfect venue for introducing yourself and discussing your ambition to pursue graduate study.
While others may disagree I would wait at least a few weeks. In my experience most professors are inundated with student request during the first 1-2 weeks of the semester, but this is obviously situational.

Yes, you're right and I remember one of my professors took two months to get back to me. He apologized and said that grading hundreds of exams while trying to publish a paper has been excruciatingly stressful. The problem is, though, that I wanted to make sure I get my name across because I wanted to do a research internship which may naturally let me get the lab experience and transition into graduate studies. You do have a point, though.


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What happens if a math PhD student fails to find a proof that is the main objective of their thesis topic?
How exactly do Math theses/dissertations work?
Is it fair to assume that the work involves trying to prove something? What happens if you can't?
I did a thesis in Computer Science, and though my results weren't great, I still had something to show. I learned from it and had a plan for future work.
But if you have X years to prove something for, say, a PhD and you can't, what happens? Do you just not get a PhD?
I understand that advisors will try to pick a problem that they think is doable, but what if they misjudge?

I often heard the phrase "If you can't prove it, prove something else." It's often possible to salvage the work by relaxing the conditions of the statement you wanted to prove.

"Relaxing the conditions" gives you a better result too :)

If every research attempt yielded a breakthrough, the world would be a very different place and everyone would be super successful scientists instead of fighting for funding so often. Just like oil wells, sometimes you get a gusher, sometimes you get a dud, often times you get a well you have to put a lot of work into to get a return on. Doesn't stop us from drilling!

@darijgrinberg It also makes the conditions feel less stressed ;)

@corsiKa: Who says that the breakthroughs would guarantee their authors funding? :)

@darijgrinberg I guess you could look at it as "If everyone is making breakthroughs then we have to prioritize which ones get funded." But I would like to think that considering we have millions of scientists, and given a guaranteed success of research, we'd likely have billions of scientists, we would quickly be in a post-funding, post-scarcity Gene Roddenberry happy hour and start exploring the galaxy (which, by laws of physics in this fantasy world, would also be successful!)

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30995/what-to-do-when-you-spend-several-months-working-on-an-idea-that-fails-in-a-mast/31082#31082

I wrote a failed dissertation myself.  No papers resulted from it.  Fortunately, I had a significant side project which was published, and 11 years later, the main thread of my research still comes from this side project.  (I suppose I could have written up the side project as my dissertation instead, but I didn't.)
First, no project is ever a complete failure.  At the very least, you manage to prove some (possibly almost trivial) special cases, you prove some helpful lemmas, you find that certain lemmas you might have hoped would be helpful have counterexamples, and you find certain methods that you might use don't apply because some hypotheses needed to use those methods aren't satisfied in your case.  It's possible to write all of these things up, ending up with a dissertation that's basically about "How not to solve Problem X (except in this very tiny special case)".  (This is basically my dissertation.)
Second, it's rare for mathematics graduate students, especially at top programs, to work on only one problem.  Your advisor might suggest a main problem for you to work on, but you go to seminars and hear about other problems, talk to other graduate students or postdocs and learn about other problems, and so on, and graduate students are generally encouraged to spend at least a little time thinking about these other problems.  If you get stuck on your main problem, you still have other problems to solve, and it's quite common that what you learned to work on your main problem ends up helping you in solving these other problems instead.  (This is basically what happened to me, except this other problem didn't end up in my dissertation.)
Third, especially in the early stages of working on a problem, advisors are usually fairly quick at pulling the hook if it looks like no progress is being made.  Most advisors know of lots of problems, and they know what complete lack of progress due to a problem being too hard looks like.  Even later on, advisors can sometimes suggest simpler problems that can be solved in a shorter time frame (given what a student has already learned).  In some cases, after a few rounds of failed problems, the student ends up with a dissertation that's about as weighty as a half-decent undergraduate research project (and results in zero papers or one paper in a "write-only" journal).
It's true that a dissertation written out of a failed or almost trivial project tends not to bode well in applications for jobs where research matters (unless there is a more substantial side project).  Sometimes an influential or convincing advisor can make a strong enough case in recommendation letters for the student to get a postdoc, but this is harder now then it was 10 years ago given how much more competitive the job market is.

Out of curiosity, did your exam committee have serious problem with your dissertation?

@scaaahu: IIRC, I cleared my approach with my committee before doing much of the actual dissertation writing.  They could have asked me to write instead on my more successful projects, but they didn't.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation (which was very interesting - so please do follow the chat link if you want to read more) has been moved to chat.

+1 for "First, no project is ever a complete failure." This is something that should be taught more often in academia.

A good advisor will steer students away from "all or nothing" problems, the sort of problems where complete failure is a realistic possibility.  For example, one stereotypical case is an elementary attempt to resolve a famous question in number theory, where the most likely outcome is a concrete understanding of why this specific approach just can't work, and nobody else will be terribly interested since they never thought it had a chance in the first place.
A good thesis problem needs to have several properties:

It should be interesting and attention-getting if solved.  This is the easy property to achieve.
It should be in a rich and diverse enough area that any serious attempt to solve it will uncover something worthwhile in its own right, even if it doesn't lead to a solution of the original problem.
It should help the student build knowledge and prepare to branch off in several new directions.  (I.e., you shouldn't reach the state of being done with nothing more to do, and continuing work should naturally grow broader rather than narrower.)

In particular, #1 is far from enough by itself.  If you have #2 as well, then it doesn't really matter whether the original problem is solved, while #3 is important for setting the student up for success beyond graduate school.
So the optimistic answer to your question is that the advisor should take care to prevent this from becoming a problem, by guiding the student to a problem where failure to solve it is not a disaster.  Of course there's also the pessimistic scenario in which the advisor screwed up or the student wouldn't take advice, and the problem really isn't suitable for a thesis.  In that case you have to muddle through as best you can, probably by writing a suboptimal thesis and then trying to make up for it by other work afterwards.  Fortunately this scenario doesn't seem to occur all that often.  (And the worst case of all is when the student just isn't accomplishing anything, but that can happen in any field.)

There are a number of successful outcomes that don't involve finding that desired proof.  Here are some examples:

Very often, a good mathematical question is good not simply because the answer would be useful, but because the techniques that might lead to an answer are useful.  If you develop new mathematical tools, those might form a worthy thesis in themselves even if they don't amount to a proof.
You may achieve some intermediate result that opens a new possibility to prove the bigger result.  Indeed, many theses only aim for this if the bigger result is something huge like the Riemann hypothesis, the BSD conjecture, etc.
In searching for a proof of X, you may discover a related question Y and find a proof that resolves Y.  Y might be more interesting than X, or simply more approachable.  This is discussed in Uri Alon's well-known short paper on choosing a problem; I recommend that paper to anyone who is asking this question.

A good advisor will help you find a thesis topic that has multiple avenues and multiple stages of potential progress, so that it is not an all-or-nothing venture.

My stats professor last semester said that she is saddened by the fact that journals no longer tend to publish failed studies/theories. A failed theory is just that, it shows you had a theory, but you proved it wrong! That is an incredible amount of information and if you combine that with multiple other studies that show the same thing, you have mounting evidence that the theory is wrong. For instance, if we only publish the successful theories/studies, we are biasing our results in a sense, because there may have been 50 studies that show there was no evidence for the theory being true, but if there was one single study, who just barely made it over the threshold for proving the theory true, that one could have been published and now boom, the only published information about said theory is one that "proves it true". I am also not a math major, but I thought this was an interesting topic enough to share with you. The result of an inconclusive experiment still holds a very large amount of data that could still be very important to someone else years down the road.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias

With regards to stats, I think that's a slightly different angle. I believe your professor was speaking in regards to scientific questions that require empirical evidence: "does coffee increase risk for heart attack?"; you can't prove that logically, but you can collect a lot of data and make a conclusion. As such, I agree that a paper stating "we observed 100,000 patients and found no connection between coffee and heart attacks" is worth publishing, yet I would be a little more hesitant with a paper that states "I tried to square the circle for 10,000 hours and was not successful".

@CliffAB: in fact the growing trend to demand pre-registration of drug trials is on the basis that if you observe 100k patients and find no connection between coffee and heart attacks then it's unethical not to publish that fact simply because it's not the result you hoped for.

That is very good to hear. and yea, @CliffAB i definitely agree with that, we don't need inconclusive results from a theory/thesis that has no reason to even be tested.

@CliffAB: and in addition papers differ from theses in that the paper should concentrate on the increase in scientific knowledge, whereas a degree should be awarded on showing that the student mastered their required professional working techniques. The scientific advance then is a surrogate marker for the "worthiness of the degree" that works for positive results, but doesn't say much in case of negative results as they can be due to the object of the work being truly impossible (or not attainable with a reasonable level of professional ability for the degree in question).

"you proved it wrong" IMHO would not be a negative/failed result of a thesis. A negative outcome of a thesis for me is, that after a lot of work, still nothing can be concluded (as in there is no proof of anything).

I have more evidence to add to this, for example: Tom Scott, on youtube recently did a video on the Null Hypothesis, and mentions that the topic is dear to him, because his degree was the result of him having proved his null hypothesis (not the result he was desiring). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOJnOCdBr4s

Is it fair to assume that the work involves trying to prove something? What happens if you can't?

No.  Not all theses are about "proving things," at least not in the narrow sense.  A thesis may be very computational, may be about formulating conjectures, or it may be about finding examples/counterexamples of some phenomena.  Many theses (and papers), even if they prove a theorem, boil down to understanding some theory and doing some (not necessarily numerical) calculations.
As Alexander Woo says, even if you can't prove what you set out to, you can typically find something new (sometimes just a new point of view) if you're reasonably competent and spend enough time on it.  Actually it's  more common than not, even for professional researchers, that you don't prove what you set out to.  I didn't prove what I tried to for my thesis, but I got some results and a couple papers out of it.  Several years is plenty of time for most people to get at least something.

But if you have X years to prove something for, say, a PhD and you can't, what happens? Do you just not get a PhD?

As I said, the chance is good that you will at least get something new, or you may move to another project when it seems hopeless.  Your advisor will hopefully help guide you and keep you from following dead ends for too long.  I try to make the projects for my students in areas where there are lots of nearby problems, so if their project doesn't work out, they don't need to learn much more to try a different problem.  When your advisor thinks you have enough for a PhD then you can submit a thesis, but of course you don't get a PhD just for having worked on something for X years.
I don't have hard data on this, but my experience is that most PhD students who make it through the first couple of years (say, at good schools in the US) do get a PhD.  Where I went, almost everybody who started got a PhD--and almost all of the ones who didn't left during or after the first year because they realized a PhD wasn't for them.  At less prestigious schools, the success rates aren't quite as good, but I still think most of the people who don't finish their PhD quit before they spend a long time on research.

One case:
I had in mind an interesting problem.  I thought of the absolute simplest case, and gave it to the student to work on.  After that I thought we could try more general cases, working up gradually to the whole thing.  Well, it turned out that initial special case took two years for the student to finish, so that was the thesis.  (As far as I know, the more general problem has never been done to this day.)

You're not always trying to prove an existing theorem. In my experience, the central theorem(s) of the thesis are not known initially. You tackle a rough problem and try to find some new results - in my particular case, it was about analysing a situation where partial results existed, but no reasonable estimates for some of the constants had been found. My central result was a theorem characterising situations where you could find optimal constants, plus how to actually compute them.
I had the same problem with 'no results' initially though - in the end I had to select a new topic after 2 years. There were still some results along the way, though. Even if the main proof won't work it's unlikely you won't even get some partial results or discover something new along the way.
I was still able to fill about 30 pages in my thesis with the results I had from the first topic. It wouldn't have been enough for a PhD on its own, but it wasn't nothing either. It helped that the topics were similar and one could draw a few parallels.

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


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Differences between review Perspective and conclusion
Sorry if this is a simple question, but I am new to scientific writing. I noticed that some review papers uses a "Perspective" section as the final part of review (with no conclusion section) while others have a conclusion.
Since I understand what both means, my question is whether I can cite from the "Perspective" section? Does it matter whether it is not a traditional conclusion?
Thanks.

I hope the edit is OK, Rain Man and I didn't change the intention of your question.

excuse my bad English :)

Please cite and ideally link some examples of the kinds of articles you're talking about, as well as your research discipline. This could help you get better answersI, for one, am not familiar with articles that end with a "Perspectives" section.

yah sure .. this is a link of a review with Perspective section https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26284247

ad this is a review with conclusion section http://www.ijmedrev.com/article_80797_51bfab445f3deffe62a3f08e9c316af0.pdf

I think that a perspective section of  a review at best offers material to reference to at best in the introduction of your work. The things likes "currently there is renewed interest in ..... and bla bla". Yes, cite it. Anyway you will cite the review, not a part of it.  As far the reference corroborates your claims (actual text claims, not results), you can cite what best serves the purpose.

thanks, kindly if I may ask .. if the reviewer said in any part of the review  for example (  since author A  proved C matter and author B proved C matter, so its possible for C to be a solution for matter Z ) ..that's mean I can cite his claim ( its possible for C to be a solution for matter Z ) away from the results for A and B data ??

For actual and factual data is correct to cite the original source. In that scenario I would likely cite the review in my introduction, and then againt together with the original sources, A seems not really needed, and in doing this I would legitimately cherry pick. If I understand the situation.

so ..according to this ..  I can cite from review introduction as long as the reviewer describing a matter himself with no use of any references right ??

I mean I would cite a review in general. So likely in the intro of my work, where you give a broad frame for motivation. If I need to refer to a specific fact, eg A > 2, or B > 5, I cite the specific papers asserting that. If a review point out that B is  > A because of some other reasons or logic, and I agree, I would cite the review and what lead to B. This makes me cite the review anyway, and so I will mention it already in my intro even if originally I was thinking of better or more up to date reviews.  It is not that you cite the intro of review, but it is that likely you need it in your.

... own intro. With exceptions as those I gave an example above .//  Yes rereading your last comment, it is something like that.

thanks a lot , so logically I can cite from the review paper as long as the cited information is by the sound of the review author when he/she doesn't talk about someone else work  ( information with no values, numbers , specific results or reference is mentioned )  wherever it can be found in the review sections regardless which section is it

very appreciate your kind patient in answering, I am new to this field


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Prospective PhD-How to keep in touch with potential PhD supervisor
I'm applying for several Ph.D. Programs in Human-computer Interaction. I contacted a potential supervisor and asked him a bunch of questions about the program. The professor wrote a very detailed answer and recommended some books for me to read.
I would like to keep in close contact with him until result of the application is available.
How should I thank him for the information?

I fear that "close contact" is probably too much to hope for. Academics are very busy and it is rarely possible to devote a lot of time to prospective students. Close contact (hopefully) comes once you are their student, but usually not before. The best thing to do would be to see if conversation grows organically. Thank them for their email and recommendations now and let them know you are applying. Meanwhile, get in contact with them if you have something kind to say, interesting to report or important to ask: that you are coming for a visit and would like to meet, that you have finished all the suggested readings and wonder if they might have more recommendations on another subject, to congratulate them on a new publication, etc.
Don't be offended, however, if you do not get much response to these. Like I said, we don't have much spare time for such correspondence before you are a student.

Thank you. I will send a short email to thanks him for the information and read books he recommended. I will let him know when I have questions.