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Deadline for resubmission in Physical Review E
As the title suggests, does anyone what is a typical deadline for the resubmission in the mentioned journal? As it was not specified anywhere.

Consider asking the journal staff.

Or the editor who handled your paper. That's that person's job: to help you with these sorts of questions.

I have only published in other Physical Review journals, but I'm not sure they have a hard deadline. If there is, it's never been communicated to me anyway. As written in the comments, the best way to know for sure would be asking the journal staff or the editor... As a semi-relevant anecdote, I was once quite slow in finishing a minor revision for PRB, and the editors asked me about the status of the paper after roughly one and a half months. They then accepted me saying that it'll be resubmitted in two weeks.
Generally, if you have long delays (think over one month) - especially if there's decent justification for it - I think the journal will be happy to work with you if you communicate this to them.


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Is it ethical to "arm-twist" a faculty-member into passing more students or improving the class average?
I recently got "arm-twisted" [2] (by the department chair and the dean of faculty) into passing the whole (undergrad Math) class who appeared for the final (minus that one student who we all knew was not going to make it anyway) by the most lenient grading-on-a-curve I have ever done. Isn't it immoral to pass students ahead who aren't ready or those who are gaming the system? Or am I overthinking this? The final exam was set easy and "OK-ed" by a senior colleague (I am a new faculty member). I had to pass 6 students who were way below average...
Some additional remarks based on posed questions:

This is not a rant, it's a serious concern if I should go to higher authorities.
Arm-twisting ==> pressurised a lot over 4 days of meetings.
I don't think the dean of faculty is unethical at all but it looks like she is strongly influenced by the department chair, who, in my opinion, could be borderline-toxic (but I am not sure).
Grading wasn't tough - it was nominal, of course, to the best of my knowledge.
How does passing students who are way below average make them a good educator? After having spent a semester with them and/or just looking at how they scored on exams and quizzes, they definitely could benefit from repeating it.

What circumstances led to this intervention by the chair and dean? Did they receive complaints from students? This is a delicate situation for a new faculty member. I think there is more to this story that you are sharing. More detail would allow a more informed opinion on the part of responders.

Did the students leave the course unprepared "enough" that will make a difference in their professional future?

Think of the 'just good enough student'. Has this student passed, or failed? If this student has failed, then maybe your marking is too severe.

How did your grading go at your previous institution, or is this the first course you taught?

Do you think everyone who is below average (50%of the class!) should fail? Isn't it about learning the material, not being above average?

Re: "How does passing students who are way below average make them a good educator?" 1) Why educators? 2) Students should be graded for what they know. Either they know enough, and they pass, or they don't and they fail. Other classmates performances should not matter. Re: exam being too hard. I don't think that it is wrong to make it really really hard to take an A, and almost impossible for an A+. But the pass grade should still be the minimum knowledge required for the course. I.e. make the difficulty curve steeper as you wish, but don't translate it vertically.

Along the lines of what scmi asked, is the curriculum new or is it your first time teaching this course? As a student I can assure you that newer courses and lecturers tend towards lenient grading. Is the course intended as the weed-out or 'come to Jesus' course for these students, or is it just a GE that requires due diligence and no particular success or retention? (Perhaps a bad attitude to say it like that, but there are courses that are intentionally easier to pass.)

I don't know about specific numbers, but there are a number of universities in USA where professors are basically forced to make sure that the grades follow some pattern (e.g. at most x % with maximum grade, minimum grade % in a certain range).

Can you clarify how you define "Average"? Below-average students in one class may be much more proficient than average students of another class. If you're curve is normal and distributed among just your class, then their grades basically depend on a lottery of who ends up in the same room as them. They can't game the system if the system is a game to begin with.

I think the ethics depends on a few things. First and most importantly, what was the intention of the department chair and dean of faculty when they “arm-twisted you” into passing those students? One can imagine two different scenarios:  in the first one, the chair and dean are greedy, amoral people who are driven by selfish, short-term considerations such as maximizing their institution’s profits and winning themselves a promotion, and are pursuing a strategy that they know for a fact is bad for the students. That would be pretty unethical. In the second scenario, the chair and dean are passionate educators who are looking out for the students’ best interests, and simply disagree with you about what is best for the students, and believe that the students you wanted to fail deserved to pass. In that case, you could argue that they’re wrong, but it would be quite unreasonable to accuse them of unethical behavior.
Of course, there are also situations between those two extremes that fall in a gray area where it would be hard to say much about the ethics of the actions. You simply haven’t given us enough information to say anything meaningful.
Another factor that I think matters is what you mean by “arm-twisting”. How exactly did they twist your arms? Did they literally command you to change your grading decisions and refuse to listen to any opposing arguments? Or did they leave you some room to argue the case? It’s clear that you think they behaved unreasonably, but it’s not clear to me if they also would agree to your description of your actions as “arm-twisting”. Could it be that their perception was that they had convinced you of the merit of their request and that you went along with it willingly? In that case, the responsibility for the actions might lie (at least partially) with you. It all depends on the details of what took place, so again I don’t think anyone can give a general answer based on the information you’ve provided.
Edit following clarifications by OP: I understand that you perceive that you were pressured to change students' grades, and that the department chair specifically is an unpleasant person to deal with. All of those things may well be true. However, ultimately I think that it is a mistake, both logically and from a strategic/practical point of view, to use the words "unethical" or “immoral” to describe the behavior of any of the actors in this story. These are very strong terms (stronger than you may realize, I suspect) that suggest the worst possible intentions behind the actions you have observed. It would only be reasonable to use these words if you had very concrete evidence that something truly nefarious is going on (e.g., the department chair taking a bribe from one of the students, or telling you to pass all the students because his own nephew was one of the below-average students who were about to fail).
A much more likely interpretation is that the department chair simply has a broader set of concerns than you and a broader perspective on the situation. Perhaps he feels that it is important to have consistency across all instructors, to avoid students feeling that they were treated unfairly just because they had the misfortune of taking a class from an especialy harsh instructor. Or there could be any number of other legitimate concerns or causes for disagreement between you and the chair. None of this involves anything remotely unethical - it is simply a professional disagreement between colleagues.
Finally, I will add that the mere fact that the department chair "put pressure" on you is also not evidence of anything unethical, or even bad. I was a department chair for several years and had occasions where I had to go to an instructor and have a frank discussion about their grading methods, and even suggest that they retroactively change a few grades. I never had to resort to any sort of direct pressure (I suspect because of a combination of my being fairly good at articulating my side of the argument on its merits, and dealing with people who were ultimately pretty reasonable), but it was very clear to me that by my mere presence as a party to the discussion I was exercising a kind of "soft authority" that may well have been perceived as pressure by the other party. This is unavoidable and sometimes necessary, and in fact I dare say that a department chair who hesitates to exercise his/her authority in this way is unlikely to be doing a very good job.
That being said, if the chair's behavior is indeed "borderline-toxic" as you say, then that's a problem, but it sounds in any case like a very different issue than them being "unethical".

Setting aside the intentions of the senior staff members who put pressure on you, it is certainly bad educational practice to "move the goalposts" for successful completion of a course in order to pass students who would fail substantially under the standard that was approved during the course.  This leads to problem for later lecturers, and for the students themselves, since these students go on to take later courses that they are poorly prepared for.  It also undermines the accreditation standards of the university, and can contribute to reputational risk in the long-term.
It is unusual for such a high proportion of an undergraduate class to pass a course (usually even a modest-sized undergraduate class would have many more failures than one) and I also note that the final exam was reviewed and approved as reasonable by another staff member prior to being administered.  Essentially then, it seems that these senior staff have pressured you to depart from the previously approved standard in order to "lower the bar" to pass an unusually large number of students in the course, many of whom should have failed.
Your concerns about this are reasonable, and it is worth raising them formally if you are willing to go through this process.  The question of whether this is "ethical" is a complex one, which requires consideration of the accreditation role of the university, but I tend to agree with your view that this is unethical.  Nevertheless, I would recommend re-framing your concerns so that the issue is couched in the language of what is good or bad educational practice, rather than what is ethical/unethical.  This keeps the focus on the propriety and results of the process, with respect to the educational and accreditation role of the university, rather than waylaying you with issues of personal intention, morality, etc.  Any higher-up staff who consider the matter will implicitly formulate their own view on the ethics, and they might make adverse findings in this regard even if you don't explicitly raise the matter in those terms.

I completely agree with your first 2 paragraphs... in certain contexts.  But (1) moving your goalposts lower isn't necessarily terrible if you had high expectations to begin with (I often find myself in this position), and (2) in many classes it's reasonable that almost everyone will pass---it really depends on the class (both type of course and student population).  We don't know the OP's situation.

Yes, I agree.  It's more a matter of moving the goalposts after having already designed an assessment that was checked and approved as appropriate.  In those cases you might scale up if you come to believe (in hindsight) that things were too hard, but the evidence for that is usually a high failure rate by the students.

Grading is really based on the philosophy of the people involved. Therefore, it is difficult to say what is right or wrong. Many teachers hold to some form of absolute grading. Absolute grading is a hard standard that students must reach in order to move forward. Almost no accommodations are made in terms of marking assignments. In other words, either the student did well or they did not.
Many teachers also ascribed to some form of relative grading in which grades are based on how the students are doing. The most common form of relative grading is "grading to the curve." Other forms include some sort of capping system in which a certain percentage of the students receive A's, B's, C's etc. For example, my department generally limits A's to the top 10-15% of the students. If more students are in the A range at the end of the semester the lower A's are reduced to B+.
There are pros and cons to these positions. Absolute grading really determines if students know their stuff but assumes that the teacher knows how to assess appropriately which is not always the case. In addition, absolute grading motivates a great deal of academic dishonesty as students try to find ways to survive when they are weaker or a perfectionist.
Relative grading tends to reduce academic dishonesty because the highest grades are limited. However, it can often contribute to mediocrity because in many ways the grades are predetermined. In addition, high performing students can face pressure to relax because they are messing up the curve. If everyone relaxes we get the same spread of grades as if we really pushed ourselves is common thinking.
The most important thing, in my opinion, is that the grading position of the department is clearly documented and explain to both teachers and students. This way nobody thinks that there was any injustice in terms of the assessment.

Perhaps also worth pointing out that relative grading feels awful when there's a class that's well above the average for some reason (I was in an anatomy class reserved for people in something like an honors minor, and the professor had to argue with the dean every year to avoid curving a bunch of 95%s down to B's...)

Relative grading tends to reduce academic dishonesty - Is this true? If I were a dishonest student, I might feel slightly sorry if my cheating would lower the grade of a fellow student, but I don't see (from a rational actor point of view) why it would discourage me from cheating, unless I was convinced of the incompetence (and honesty) of my fellow classmates.

@Kimball please notice the word "tends" in this sentence. I am in no way trying to make a sweeping generalization. I would never make an absolute statement about relative grading.

What I'm asking is if there is some evidence (as opposed to just  opinion) that the percentage of people cheating is lower in relative grading systems as opposed to absolute ones.

You forgot to include a very important relative grading con. Very few employers care about the relativity of grades. A C- doesn't look good to an employer, and you aren't going to get the chance to explain a C at my university is an A+ at most universities, unless it's a super-well-known ivy league.

Only time I've seen something like this happen has been when gross insanity with grading policies ("staple not in upper left 1/2" at 35-50 degree angle, -25 points"), teaching methods (getting people to pay attention in class by throwing things at them), etc. come in to play. And it is usually followed up with people saying things like "Hey, did you hear about Fred suddenly retiring?".  Or a simple "Lock account" notice from HR in the case of adjuncts...
I've also seen other unfair grading targeting individuals happen that cause failing grades, overridden to a C or B by the department chair when another instructor has graded the work or given their version of the final for the same course and the student has passed/done well.  "Instructor doesn't like that I speak my mind and question things, so he takes off more than other students for similar mistakes".  Like my wife - she is a native Spanish speaker, so her high school Spanish teacher took off double points for wrong answers/mistakes.
If nothing like this applies to your situation then I'd do what I could to cover my rear - ask for written requests to do this, or flat out refuse - the Dept Chair/Dean/etc. can always go to the Registrar/Records office and override the final grade themselves - and it will be documented as such.

I think it depends on the goal of the class and how follow up classes are designed.  Some classes are actually design to encourage student so that they can pay more attention to whats coming later.  Some classes are designed intentionally very tough and goal is just to find students who are trying very hard without giving up.  If the reason for changing the bar is to meet the real goal of the class, yes it could be done.  However, if they want to change the bar for non-goal related reason or excuse, or to change the goal without really good reason or cause without adequate discussion with the faculty member, it is almost like a violation.

This is not an answer for this year but, for future terms, I would recommend learning the historic grade distribution for any course before you teach it. Ideally, your departmental staff has this information collected and can provide it for you; if not, you may need to ask previous instructors.
Responding to comment below asking what this has to do with whether students met the goals of the course: The chair and dean seem to have an expectation that almost no one will fail this class. If the OP had seen ahead of time that this is a class that no one fails, he or she could adjust her grading scheme accordingly. It is not so unusual that, in some classes, anyone who shows up and makes a basic effort passes. We could have an argument about when that it is appropriate, but my point was simply that the OP had expectations about what grades meant which didn't match those of the administration and previous instructors, and looking at historic grades would have clarified this.

But David, what does this have to do with whether the students have actually met the goals of the course?

It would seem unethical to base one’s grade on factors outside of objective assessment. Presumably you outlined grading criteria in your syllabus which students agreed to by staying enrolled and I assume was submitted to your department for review/archiving/etc.
As the instructor, you are responsible for assessing student work and grading along your chosen guidelines. Altering your regime due to departmental ‘strong arming’ doesn’t serve your students well or reward those who worked extra hard. Equally, it doesn’t serve your institution - reputable schools have high standards. Maintaining those standards in a climate of grade inflation takes steadfastness.

As important as it is to have high standards, it is important to have reasonable standards (if all students fail your class, what's the benefit of the high standard?), and consistent standards. Even if faculty should be afforded freedom in how they teach, it's the institution that offers the class, within a program, so you cannot afford to have a class twice as hard some semester because a faculty member has different standards.

@MartinArgerami while I agree with you that one should strive for reasonable rather than arbitrary standards, this question is about the ethics of altering ones standards upon outside force. Whether an instructors standards are objectively lenient or harsh, my point was that once these are outlined per (contractual) syllabus, they should not be altered based on pressure from another party, whether it be an angry parent or department chair. As instructor, one assumes personal responsibility for student assessment in the manner they see fit.

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Dates on degrees don’t make sense – will people care?
I got my bachelor’s and master’s from different universities in different countries:

I enrolled for my master’s overseas when I hadn’t officially graduated undergrad yet, despite having done the allotted four years. This was since the master’s was done under the initial plan of it being a combined bachelor and master degree, with a semester abroad included. I ended up doing the entire master’s on its own abroad and graduated in 2017.
Due to some administrative issues¹, the date on my bachelors is only 2019, despite having finished all the credits for it in 2015.

When I put on my résumé: “bachelor’s 2012–2019” that looks weird, especially with a master’s awarded in 2017. How do I best work with this weird situation to avoid confusion and having to explain the dates?

¹ My home uni exchanged my pending BE for a BSc temporarily to satisfy the programme rules abroad (i.e having a bachelor’s before being allowed to do the master’s – an issue that was only brought up partway through my studies there). Then when I finished MSc abroad, I had to mail back my BSc to have that degree exchanged for my original BE.

This question might be a good fit in workplace.SE as well, unless this question is specific to applying to academic positions.

For somewhat similar reasons, a colleague of mine received their PhD in 1990 and their MSc in 1991. They actually enjoyed listing it that way on their CV, and as far as I know nobody ever thought twice about it.

will people care? what people, and in what context?

Is this a CV for a commercial job? They only care about what you have done in a specific year and what titles you have. So either not listing the date of the title in the cv or as an appendix to the study years table only.

Include a footnote akin to the one you added to your question. This explains the issue at hand reasonably well.

Whatever you do, make it very clear how the reader should interpret all information if you deviate from standard practice. Don't leave it up to the readers' assumptions, or that may result in unintentional, but still real, and very much fireable fraud.  See Peter Taylor's answer for a very good example of a non-standard approach that solves OP's requirements while avoiding any possibility of fraud (another very popular answer falls into this trap accidentally).

I received my PhD degree two and half years after the defence, and it's never come up as an issue.

@yo' One and a half and still waiting for mine. It's a pretty normal situation it seems...

I suggest you list the years you were studying/enrolled, not the years degrees were conferred, i.e.,

2015–2017 Master’s, Second Grade, Second University.
2012–2015 Bachelor’s, First Grade, First University.

I believe this is standard for CVs – indeed, employment periods are listed in this way – and does not suggest "you received your degree before you really received it," hence, is not fraudulent as hinted in a comment above, and below:

Don't do this! It's lying to indicate you had a degree before it was awarded...

Administrative delays are irrelevant and it doesn't matter when a degree was conferred. Regardless, the date a degree was conferred will be clear from certificates. To be really careful, dates degrees were conferred could be noted in the text that follows bullet points, but I really don't see that as necessary.

...This could easily get you fired from a job.

This cannot get you fired: It is the truth.
Listing the years degrees were conferred creates problems. For instance, suppose the years degrees were conferred are listed, as per another answer, i.e., 2017 and 2019. Further suppose employment is listed from 2017. This leaves a CV gap prior to 2017 and it incorrectly suggests studying in parallel with employment. Further problems are also likely.

Don't do this!  It's lying to indicate you had a degree before it was awarded.  it is NOT standard practice for degrees.  Employment periods are not at all like degrees.  This could easily get you fired from a job.

@AnonymousPhysicist This is not fraud, periods of study are clearly listed. Administrative delays are irrelevant and it doesn't matter when a degree was conferred. Regardless, the date a degree was conferred will be clear from certificates.

@user2768 “Administrative delays are irrelevant” — No, they are extremely relevant. For instance, there are funding sources for which eligibility is limited to X years after attaining a degree. The period of study is completely irrelevant for the funding bodies. All that matters is the date of being awarded the degree. In fact, delaying this date as much as possible is therefore desirable and commonly done. Listing the years of study is also not more common than listing the dates of the degrees, in my experience.

@KonradRudolph I assume someone applying for funding would need to take that into account, but it's not relevant for a CV

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Different countries have different conventions around the résumé / CV, and you might want very different versions of your résumé for applying for jobs in academia or industry. That said, at a general level readers are interested in the flow (are there gaps which are unaccounted for?) and the skills trained. I would put the dates of study and a note about the date of award so that if an HR department does cross-checks, it won't flag spurious discrepancies:

2015–2017 studied M.Foo, University of Bar
2012–2015 studied B.Foo, University of Quux (degree awarded 2019)

Best answer, specially the extra info between the parenthesis. ;)

This way it looks like the Master's was never awarded.

So just add "degree awarded" to that line, too. It might look odd (degree awarded 2017) but it does nothing to invalidate the answer and comments.

I'm in the same situation with mismatched coursework-degree dates (thanks to a course being retroactively converted to grant a Master's degree), and this is basically how I do it. The main difference is that I write it as "2012-2015 B.Foo[1]" and then in the footnote note when the degree was awarded; to me this seems less confusing than the in-line version.

I suggest you write:

Master’s, 2017
Bachelor’s, 2019

Most people only care about your highest degree.  So they won't be interested in when you got your bachelor’s.  All that matters is the date the degree was received.  When you started is not particularly relevant.
There is no reason to avoid explaining the dates.  If someone asks, explain.

This is the correct answer - always use official dates for degrees etc. However, if the diploma or transcript notes something along the lines of "course requirements for degree completed in 2015" then noting that in the resume can make sense, assuming there's space for it. E.g. "Bachelor's, awarded 2019 (courses completed 2015)".

The comment about including "course requirements for degree completed" is great if you won't have a chance to explain anything, but it will likely further muddle things. If the Masters is in a similar field, don't list the Bachelors. Managers want to know how smart you are, not how many years you spent proving that to a university.

@Anyon I don't think it's the correct answer at all. It suggests a massively different history than what actually happened, and it looks weird.

@DavidRicherby Point taken. Actually, after further consideration, I would prefer Peter Taylor's answer. That part of my comment was mostly a reaction to a (now long gone) comment on the question stating one could just list it as "bachelor's, 2015". Wish I could edit it, because I think the rest of it still stands....

Not good. Looks like a bad typo, meaning you didn't (let anyone) proofread the CV. If the HR people have too many applicants and no good idea whom to kick out (that's the usual case), this one is for the dogs.

@Karl -- that only matters if you don't mind working at a place with lazy HR people. It's a good way to vet out a bad culture fit for the applicant. -- Employers that want things a certain way in an application typically have a mask/filter on the application form anyway. YMMV

@user23715 I totally see your point, and I like the "if you think you can afford not hiring me, the I definitively don't need you as an employer" attitude behind it. ;-) But not everybody can afford that.

If you fulfilled the real requirements for your bachelor's in 2015, then consider this to be the ending year. The fact that your certificate is from a completely different year due to some administrative whatever does not change anything about this.
If, however, you for instance postponed any final exams or such, that it is different and you should really consider to be at bachelor studies until these exams were held.

Dohn Joe's comment is an excellent one and as I am in a somewhat similar situation, that's what I do too: On paper, I attended univ1 from 1993 to 2001, got my degree 2001 summer. I attended univ2 starting 1998 and from that point, I had my univ1 thesis written and everything wrapped up at univ1. So, a footnote is best: univ1 1993-1998 (*) degree conferred in 2001.

Dates on degrees don’t make sense – will people care?

Yes, people will care if your degree dates don't make sense.
This question is a good fit in workplace.SE  post it there for additional perspective (they are more industry than academic).
I believe many hiring managers and most HR people, will "see the mistake" if you list your masters before your BE, and they will toss your resume "because your dates are (obviously) wrong".
My suggestion is three lines:

2019 BE University of FirstPlace
2017 Masters [subject], University of SecondPlace
2015 BSc [subject], University of FirstPlace

If you earned a degree, ALWAYS call that out clearly.
People who did not graduate commonly specify the dates they studied (hoping people assume a degree)

Comment asked what a BE is... I have no idea.
OP wrote this in his footnote:

"My home uni exchanged my pending BE for a BSc temporarily to satisfy..."

If I saw a masters degree granted before the undergrad, as others suggest, I would probably assume they didn't proof it.  Based on that incorrect conclusion, I would put it aside.

@TommiBrander Edited answer - I'm sure you aren't the only one wondering.

There's been some contradictory advice in the answers here, so it may be helpful to speak with a careers advisor in order to figure out what is standard practice in your location and field. Universities you have earned degrees from may have such a service, provided to students and possibly alumni. Failing this, try speaking to your academic advisors and/or industry contacts.

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Citing own results which were obtained under former name
I'm giving a talk about results I obtained in my MSc thesis, some time after which I changed my last name. The result will be published under my former name. How should I state it during the talk? I want it both to be clear that this is my result, and that if someone wants to look it up they should do so under the former name.
Since I've seen it's customary to state own results using only the initial:

Theorem (Y., 2016)

I thought I should write it as:

Theorem (Y. (under Formername), 2016)

The result will be published under my former name. Why no publish the result under your new name?

I've seen it's customary to state own results using only the initial I've never seen this style, perhaps it is a convention in your discipline.

@user2768 I have seen the style fairly often in mathematics (pde, inverse problems) in presentations.

I'm indeed in mathematics, and that's the way I see most people do in their presentations.

@user2768 regarding why not publish under the new name - it was submitted for publication before the change, just haven't been published yet. This is also the name which appears on my thesis. And I like the idea of having my former name commemorated in such a way.

@UrYa'ar If it isn't yet camera-ready, then you might consider publishing under your new name. (There are disadvantages to publishing under different names.)

For the info provided, you can write whatever. I get just the year anyway. If it is a speech, say "from my thesis. .....".

@user2768 can you specify some disadvantages? (or link to such a discussion?)

@UrYa'ar Just search this site.

Theorem (Y. (under Formername), 2016)

Is fine. (I have personally never seen a paper that state[s one's] own results using only the initial. I presume it is specific to the OP's discipline.) Alternatively, Theorem (Y. (formally Xxx), 2016) or my preference:

Theorem (Xxx (now Y.), 2016)

I favour this option because the bibliography will contain Xxx (2016), not Y. (2016). (At least, it won't unless you modify the bibliography.)

I like your second suggestion, I think I'll use that (if no better suggestion pops-up).


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How to cite a reference in another reference?
I am reading the literature review of an article and the review article mentioned that the second article found positive relationship.
Now, should I cite both or just the second article that found the positive relationship?

If you don't believe it is a duplicate, then you should clarify why you don't believe so. Otherwise it is apt to be closed for that reason.

You should cite and read the older article that shows the finding. Referencing articles through somebody else's publication should be avoided at all costs. the reason is simple. When you reference a fact through somebody else's work you are also unwittingly citing their interpretation of the original work. There are examples of misconceptions that have been born and carried through many publications because the original have been misinterpreted or misrepresented by a citing author and from which other have sourced the information.
If no other options exist then citing the work as, for exampe " X (yyyy) cited by/in Y (yyyy)" or "(X, yyyy, cited in Y, yyyy)".

thanks alot for your answer. I read an article in a good journal that mentioned that A negatively influence B based on the theory of Z. when i read the Z theory, there is no direct saying of negative influence. who should i cite here

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Can posting to arXiv ruin your reputation?
Arxiv is permanent.  So if I publish something now, that I feel is not quite high enough quality for traditional publication, and people leave a bunch of feedback showing issues with my assumptions or methods, am I hurt for life?  As I understand it, you can't remove something from arxiv, and people can comment on your work.  So, when someone 20 years from now googles my name or domain, they will find the paper and the comments and other undesirables?
At least with traditional publication you have peer review as a filter, which can in part shield you.  Is arxiv really this dangerous?

Why should you publish your paper which you feel is not quite high enough quality for traditional publication? When you think your paper has not enough quality, do not publish it; not only in arXiv, but also in other journals/conferences.

Do you have a case where this actually happened? It seems to me that people are quite aware that your work as e.g., master student may not live up to the standards you put on yourself as a professor. Everybody matures as a researcher.

@EnthusiasticStudent - Some things are informative but don't belong in journals.  This paper is just that.  It presents helpful information but doesn't develop any ideas or utilize the scientific method.  I would normally just keep it on my website but I want a time stamp.

I tought you are talking about a full paper.

@EnthusiasticStudent - It is a full paper, just not a scientific type that a journal would want.  It's > 10 pages.  I may just keep it on my site and not bother with arxiv

@EnthusiasticStudent: Sometimes there are very useful scientific contributions that don't merit publication in a traditional journal. For instance, observations about the way a particular calculation is handled by some computer codes may be highly relevant to the users of those respective codes, but still not merit a full journal article or paper at a conference.

The lack of publications will probably hurt your reputation more than some not-so-good publications that nobody will read (or at most the abstract). Publish or perish.

@Trylks - but are arxiv posts considered publications for what you're talking about?  i could put my grocery list there if I wanted to, right?

No, you couldn't. (I'm a arXiv moderator.)

@horsehair I have added that to my answer.

I think your comment has very important information:

This paper is just that. It presents helpful information but doesn't develop any ideas or utilize the scientific method.

So, it is not crappy, they are not unbacked claims; it is just nothing new. As long as you are aware of it, and it is clear you are not trying to make it look different, it cannot hurt you.
You can think of this paper as a small review or class notes.
The only thing that may hurt your reputation is if it had very serious mistakes, and you don't address them. To be safe, just ask some of your colleagues to review it, even if it is not a thorough one. They should be able to tell you if it is correct, informative, and clear. And by all means, if it is informative, go ahead and publish it.
Also, ArXiv is not only for preprints of papers. For example, I have seen philosophical dissertations on QM very non technical (a second year Physics undergrad should be able to follow), or another about the story of protein folding research in a certain institution.
Edit:
Regarding your comment:

but are arxiv posts considered publications for what you're talking about? i could put my grocery list there if I wanted to, right?

ArXiv is not peer reviewed, so the quality threshold is not so high. You can publish not so technical pieces, or sneak a bad article that looks just fine, they don't count as official publications. But, on the other hand, they are better than nothing. Specially if you are at the beginning of your PhD, when you are not expected to have publications yet, your ArXive papers are an example of your capabilities.
No one will use the sheer number of submitted papers, but if you have some fine pieces (for example, a good, brief review of your field, previous research and terminology), can show you have a promising career for, for example, applying for summer schools or extra funding.
Depending on your field, this kind of papers can be extremely useful. For example, in Bioinformatics, most people come from a CS background (programming experts and good Mathematics, but knowing nothing about Biology and Chemistry), Biology (lacking in Algorithmics, Machine Learning, and Statistics), Physics (lots of Maths, but basic knowledge of mostly everything else)... For me, having a quick reference of the basic terminology of other disciplines would save me a lot of time, as I have to look up many simple concepts that would be obvious for, for example, a Chemist undergrad.

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


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Scholarship asks for copy of diploma, old university slow to print it
I have just completed my undergraduate studies in the United States this June. I have completed all degree requirements and have paid off all financial obligations. I received a scholarship for my masters for a school in Europe but I need to upload a scanned copy of my Diploma by the 15th of this month to be able to maintain the scholarship, otherwise I will lose it.
Last week I was told that the school would pre-order my diploma for me, however, when I went there today I was told that I would not be receiving my diploma until four weeks from now. None of the people working there seemed to care about my scholarship.
I understand that the school in not contractually obligated to provide me my diploma any sooner. How could I solve this problem?

Have you asked your prospective school if they can extend the deadline for you? Perhaps if you explain your situation they would understand.

The problem seems to be at least as much the new school requiring early access to a physical diploma, rather than accepting a transcript showing your completion of all degree requirements.

@PatriciaShanahan We don't know. Maybe the new school would accept any form of proof of graduation, to be scanned and sent (which seems more reasonable), and the old school refuses to provide it.

It won't really help you, but there's a good chance they're not just delaying to annoy you.  Diplomas probably need a special printing process (fancy paper, raised seals, etc) and so are usually printed in a single batch once or twice a year, possibly by an outside firm.  They probably don't have the flexibility to move up the schedule for the whole batch, and a special order for a single print could be extremely expensive and/or logistically complicated.

So before you complain about the lack of human decency, maybe you should try to find out what it is you're really asking them for, and think about whether your request really is reasonable.

I was told today that it would take up to 14 weeks for the diploma to arrive, I was asking them to just send me a scanned copy. But they will not do so because of the vendor. Is it so unreasonable of me to ask my school for help after all the money I have payed them?

Unfortunately, they cannot extend the deadline and I have been told that I need to scan my diploma and upload it.

Calm down
Getting angry at your university and/or its staff is tempting but solves nothing; if anything, it will make them less inclined to help you.  Focus on solving the problem and being respectful to everybody, even if you don't want to.
In particular, it will help to act as if everybody involved is doing their best in good faith to help you, but may be unable or unsure how to do so.  Don't treat them as though they're just trying to obstruct you, even if it seems like they are.  Don't focus on the amount of tuition money you've spent; that's not going to seem like a relevant issue to anyone who can help, and it might be a distraction to you.
Understand the problem
At the root of your situation is the fact that you're stuck in the middle of a cultural misunderstanding.
In US academia, the diploma is strictly a ceremonial piece of paper. Nobody uses it for anything except to hang on the wall.  If you want an official document that verifies your degree, you get a transcript instead.
As such, within this academic culture, there is no reason why anybody should be in a hurry to get a diploma, so university systems won't be set up to provide it on any particular timeframe; they'll schedule production of the diplomas in a way that is most convenient and cost-effective for the institution.  This most likely means producing them as a single batch, perhaps by an outside contractor.  Trying to do one as a one-off may well be quite expensive and/or a major disruption to their existing process.  It's not necessarily a simple procedure that they're just putting off because they're lazy or uncaring.
However, my understanding (based in part on things I've read in this site) is that in European academia, the diploma is an important official document, which serves as the standard proof of a degree.  Thus, a European institution would expect that anyone who graduates with a degree will get the diploma immediately, and the most likely reason for someone to be unable to show a diploma is that they didn't actually graduate.
I would focus on trying to help people at both universities understand this disconnect, and asking for flexibility from them in helping you navigate it.
Pursue all avenues
It seems like so far, you've been focusing on trying to get your university to speed up production of your diploma.  But it looks like that could be a dead end.  So try something else.
They've offered a transcript and a signed letter.  Take it for sure.  Then, I'd try to get the European university to compromise by accepting these documents as proof of your degree, at least temporarily.  Try to explain to them that these are the standard documents that US universities expect to create and see.
Get faculty involved
It sounds like so far, you've been trying to negotiate directly with administrative offices on both sides.  That's a good place to start, but at the end of the day, they don't have the same investment in your academic success that faculty do.
I'd look for any faculty at your current university who know you, and who might be able to make an impression with a letter to the European institution.  For instance, is there anyone with contacts at the European university, or who at least is familiar with the academic system in that country?  They might be able to help convince them to accept your alternative documents.
Likewise, get in touch with faculty in the European department; either someone in charge of your specific graduate program, or some other faculty member who you've had contact with.  (If it's someone who has some familiarity with US academia, all the better.)  Make sure they understand that this issue, if not resolved, might prevent you from attending their university at all.  They went to the trouble to accept and recruit you; they'll be very disappointed if bureaucratic issues wreck it all.  So they have an incentive to help.
Have a backup plan
Although hopefully you'll be able to get this resolved, there's always a chance that you might not.  Life isn't perfect or fair, and unfortunate things happen sometimes.  But your life will go on.  Make a general plan as to what you will do if this problem can't be resolved and you don't get the scholarship.  Attend a different program?  Take a year off and apply again in a year?  Follow a different path entirely?

Very good advice and explanation of the underlying issues...

Firstly, I was civil with my interactions with administration. It was very strange, I received a call from them today that they now have my diploma for me to come pick up when the day before they told me it would take up to 14 weeks. They came through in the end.

@MunkhbilegSainbileg: Glad to hear it!

One thing to remember about the American University system: If your school is public, it's underfunded. If it's private, it's a business. Every school will tell you that their students are top priority, but in the face of budget cuts and other things that are imo just silly, they usually aren't.
Do you have an advisor at your current school that you can connect with someone at your next program? It might be good to find a way to get them just communicating directly with each other (with you being CC'd). If not, just keep as much documentation as you can, ask via email every day, and send copies of everything to your new school. You should also have an advisor at your new school - maybe they can help advocate for you in some way.
Another thing to consider - ask a lawyer friend to draft a letter to your Undergraduate institution urging them to speed things up?
Hope that helps.

+1 for direct communication. The OP seems to be stuck between one school requiring early access to a physical diploma and the other not being set up to provide that.

Its funny, my school complains about how it lacks money but it continues building expensive new facilities. I have tried talking to my adviser and they were of no help at all. I was told that they knew the vendor was horrible and that they were changing it next year as if that would make me feel better. It seems the best they can manage is to provide me my transcripts and a letter stating that I have completed my degree requirements.

If it's private, it's a business.  This is in fact false A large percentage of private universities in America are not businesses but rather non-profits (http://www.naicu.edu/about/page/about-us-higher-education-and-private-nonprofit-colleges).

Non profit does not mean "not for profit". It's still a business. They still have bills to pay, teachers to pay, infrastructure to keep up, and a board of trustees to answer to. They absolutely do have profit margins and need to keep them up. It's very very rare for any private school to ultimately put students before what the board wants.

Try asking the head of your department if he can send a letter on university letterhead which states that you have received the degree and that the diploma will be available after (give date). If they won't accept that, perhaps the head of your department can get someone associated with the school itself (Dean?) to do so.

I have tried that but it seems everybody is on vacation, everyone from the dean to the presidents of the university. The one person I have talked to did say that they would talk to the school in europe and try to work things out  that way.


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Is it ethical that the PhD student is not offered a chance to become the communicating/ corresponding author?
Usually a supervisor has to focus on many project at once but the PhD student on the other hand has only his project to focus on, PhD student is the person who usually does all the literature work as well as the experiments, so technically he is the master of that particular project then why the PhD student is never offered a chance to become the communication/corresponding author of those manuscript that are published by him on his work. One could argue that in the first 2 years of the PhD work he might have less command over the subject to which I might agree but what about in the last stage of the PhD program or after the PhD program for that matter. Why is he never offered a chance to become a communicating/ corresponding author?
Communicating/ corresponding author here represents the person who would respond to queries and reply to emails, where as the last author is usually the supervisor who wrote the project or took the lead.

What does "communicating author" mean in your field?  In some fields it signifies someone who took a lead role on the project, in others it just means "this person is willing to respond to email".  In either case, it's something that probably should have been discussed, but in the latter case it's not really a big deal.

Very closely related question: Does "corresponding author" carry an implied meaning?. From your description of communicating author, I think it's the same as corresponding author.

Well the question is not about the implied meaning of corresponding author but it's about why such opportunity not given to PhD student who does all the work.

Please specify your field. As @NateEldredge pointed out, it has impact to the answers.

very interesting scenario...my friend also faces similar situation...I think being corressponding author gives you a first hand exposure to the world when you are trying to defend your paper

The field I am in is Biosciences

Two questions: (i) why is it so great to be the one to reply to emails?  (ii) Why do you assume that the student cannot be the corresponding author?  That's certainly not universal.  In my field (mathematics), the student may well be the only author.  Even in the Biosciences one can do theoretical work that does not use any faculty member's laboratory, resources or capital.  If you do that work on your own time, you can submit the paper all by yourself...right?

"the PhD student on the other hand has only his project to focus on" [citation needed]; "his project" is by no means the same as "only one paper" or "just one publication-worthy research endeavour at a time".

"then why the PhD student is never offered a chance to become the communication/corresponding author of those manuscript" that's even more [citation needed]. In my field, the corresponding author is basically always the PhD student.

Things might vary across fields, but I think that you might be overestimating the impact of being the corresponding author.
In my experience the corresponding author handles the communication with the journal (hands in the article and revisions, copyright form, etc). Furthermore, you might get a question every once in a while from a fellow researcher, but they are mostly like: "can you send me the article", or "may I use your figure".
Reasons for your PI to insist on being the corresponding author might be that articles may get questions long after you left the institution, and in some fields the corresponding author indicates who is the PI.
I would not worry too much about this. When your publication list is assessed, people will look how often you are the first author (when that is applicable for your field, some fields put the authors in alphabetical order). And when somebody has a question about the content of the article (which happens less frequently than you might expect) they either write you directly, or your PI might forward you the question.


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Completed a review article based on supervisor's request but then it cannot be published due to lack of funding
Six months ago the PhD supervisor of a friend of mine asked him to write a review article. After a hard work of 4 months he finished an extensive review article. Another two months were wasted correcting the figures and text of the manuscript as the supervisor is a perfectionist and doesn't know where to stop... Well finally it's finished and now the supervisor is saying that he doesn't want to publish it as he does not have enough funds for it. Can anyone suggest what my friend could possibly do now.
Also my friend tried to find some free journals to which the supervisor didn't agree saying it not up to the standards of the group to publish in such small journal.

I'm really confused here... why does the review need money to be published?  In pretty much every field, there are a large number of high-repute journals that don't have any article fees.

@OP: just to clarify: by "review", you mean a "review article", not a "review of an article", right?

Like @jakebeal I am confused. Is the PhD advisor an author on the paper? It is most likely in his interest to publish it if he can. There is a big difference between "doesn't want to publish it at all" and "doesn't want to publish it right now". In the former case this may be a transparent excuse to cover something up (the manuscript is really poor in reality, perhaps?); this needs sleuthing. In the latter case (a) Funds may appear later, maybe the PhD advisor just wants to delay it a bit? (b) Good open access journals often waive publication fees in case of financial difficulty.

It's review article, though often the reviews are invite by the publisher itself but here in this case it was not invited.

@Saurabh, people were concerned that this was maybe a peer-review referee's report on an article that had been submitted to the journal. Thanks for clarifying.

Sorry for not having it clear in the first place, would be careful next time!!!

Please indicate the field

It's in nanotechnology, to be precise on biosensors. @willie yes the supervisor is one of the co authors and the quality of the article is good as per other fellow colleagues.

"as he does not have enough funds for it" -- Wow, this sounds like a particularly lame-ass excuse for... I don't even know what. But there must be something that your advisor is wary of telling you.

@darijgrinberg, we don't know where OP's colleague is located. The OA author charges could amount to several thousand US dollars, and that might be beyond the reach of some academics in some countries. If there was a substantial new result here, it would be one thing, but he might not be willing to shell out for a review article. Now, why he would ask OP's friend to write it with no intention of paying for publication is a different question.

the fee is usually 1500 euros. But that's understandable that when he asked him to write the review he had money but it might be that he doesn't have it now. But then where I see his fault is that he should allow the student to submit the paper is some journal that are free. His logic that journals that are free are not good, sound very ridiculous to me.

The supervisor of your friend is mistaken. Judging the quality of a journal by how much it charges authors* shows a blatant ignorance of how academia works in general. It makes me suspect he only publishes in expensive lower-tier OA journals.
I would recommend that your friend finds a reputable, subscription-based journal in the field and tries to bring her/his supervisor to reason.
Yet it might be that the supervisor is making an excuse I would then ask for the real reason why he doesn't want to publish the paper.

*I'm baffled that we have come to that. The author-pay open access scheme is hurting academic publishing more than I thought.

An important caveat - "Subscription-based" certainly does not mean "no charges"; a substantial amount of non-OA titles still levy page/publication charges. It's less common than it used to be, certainly, but it's still there, and does vary dramatically by field - unknown in some, common in others.

I don't read the supervisor as thinking that author-pay makes the journal better, just that in this case the author-pay journal is higher ranked in his mind than the "small journal" the friend was able to find that was cheaper. Maybe the friend should just find a better subscription journal.

I don't think author-pay OA is to blame here: I can't find it at the moment, but I read an article not long ago that analyzed the current state and found price utterly uncorrelated with quality in OA, even discarding all of the predatory publishers.

expensive lower-tier OA journals Judging from the "calls for papers" that I regularly delete from my inbox, low-tier OA journals are commonly much cheaper than good OA journals. Admittedly, their price/quality ratio is much higher...


text:
Value of a German Industrial PhD in India
I have an offer for a full time job with a contract for 3 years in which I would be a PhD candidate in Germany at a reputed firm. I would have a supervisor at a technical university besides a supervisor at the company. The area of specialization is wireless communications. My plan is to go back to India in a couple of years and start working as an Assistant Professor in an IIT or some reputed institution in India.
Will this PhD have the same importance as compared to a PhD done at a university when looking for such Professorship in India?

As to address the second part of your question, almost all IIT's have a strict requirement that after your PhD (Which can be from Germany) you need to be a post doctoral fellow for a minimum of three years (assuming you took 3 years to do your PhD, bringing your total experience to 6 years). It is also mandated that this must be outside your home country.
Hope that helps.

Do you have a source for this? The formal requirements do not generally seem to mention that a postdoc is necessary.

I did my PhD from IIT-Bombay (graduated 2018) and when I enquired about joining the department, this is what I was told. -sd

Thank you for your answer.

Only a university may award a doctorate, so your study would be done in cooperation with one or more supervisors from one of the German universities and you will be enrolled at this university.
Perhaps you won't have any mandatory teaching duties when doing an industry-sponsored PhD, but it will be very worthwhile to do some teaching anyway. It's a valuable skill you should not miss out on.
One is not necessarily any better or worse than the other.

I think you are going very much in a good trajectory. As for getting an Assistant Professor job in India, do not worry. Doors would certainly be open here. Keep doing the good work that you are doing and you will certainly be rewarded.


text:
What do PhD programs, specifically finance and Econ programs, look for in research experience?
I believe I have the pre-requisite GPA, GRE, tough classes, etc. to get in to a top PhD program in finance or economics. What I believe I am missing is the research experience.
What are these top programs looking for in the research arena, it's not exactly listed on their sites?
Is faculty supervised research experience a must have for a top 10 program? Or will independent research suffice?
If you have basically perfect attributes in the other metrics, does research experience matter too much?

This might be a bit dated, but research experience used to be absolutely not required. If you had some, cool; if not, you're hired on promise (gaged from alma mater, GPA, GRE, recommendations and such). From memory, we had 11 across these two fields in my first year. In finance, one had a Ph.D. in physics; in econ, one had done genuine Econ research. That leaves, say, 8 or 9 out of 11 w/o any relevant experience (including me). That said, these two are now by far the most accomplished researchers. Coincidence? I don't know.

Out of curiosity, what year did you start your PhD?

More relevantly, I graduated in 2002. By then, it was still like this.

This probably depends a lot on your definition of "top."
To get a sense for what successful applicants look like, check the websites, CVs, and/or LinkedIn profiles of current students in the programs you are interested in. (Look at their history from before they entered the program, of course.)
For example, I looked up the list of current econ PhD students at NYU Stern and started Googling. All the ones I checked (the first five names or so currently on that list) had some kind of formal research experience prior to joining the program.

authors: Виктория Колесникова


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What is the difference between "prepare to submit" and "working paper"?
I am preparing my CV to apply for academic position.
I currently have several papers that are able to submit to journals. I wonder if I put these papers on my CV, how should I label them? Should I call them "prepare to submit" or "in preparation for submission" or "working paper"? Specifically, what is the difference between a "working paper" and the paper that is ready to submit?
I have another paper, that requires language checking and proofread before submission, should I call this paper "working paper"?
Thanks for any suggestions

If your papers are so finished that they don’t even require proofreading anymore, why don’t you just submit them and call them accordingly?

Possible duplicate of Is there a difference between "forthcoming" and "in press"?

Be aware that typically, anything that isn't published isn't given a lot of weight so the primary reason to list things in progress would be to help describe the types of things that you are currently working on.

A "working paper" does not mean "a manuscript I've been working on". It refers to a paper that has been published in venues designated for disseminating preliminary research reports. These venues are often (but not always) internal to a department, and they are rarely peer-reviewed (usually they are reviewed only by the editors). See the Wikipedia entry on Working paper. In conclusion, you cannot call your manuscripts "working papers" if they haven't been published in such venues.
The best you can do is to call them "manuscripts", because that's all they are. They're not submitted, under review, under revision, or anything like that. I personally wouldn't pay any attention to entries on a CV that say "manuscript", as there is no way for anyone to know if these manuscripts even exist. What's worse, it looks like CV padding.
I also don't care much for CV entries that say "submitted" or "under review". Anyone can submit anything and have it reviewed, so it says nothing about its quality. I wouldn't list any paper on a CV that either (1) hasn't been published, or (2) hasn't been accepted for publication.

I somehow disagree with "Anyone can submit anything" because it is not the way that goes. However I would not list manuscripts in preparation. Still, I would surely find the place to mention them in a CV, especially if extended and if the document is for internal perusal and won't go out in the wild. As an example "the collaboration with the x group lead to y.......... This result are described in a manuscript in preparation. A similar case is as when my activity was annually checked by a committee. In case of not published (yet) results, I prepared a confidential extract of the manuscript.


text:
PhD advisor lost funding, need advice
I am an international PhD student in an engineering department in US and was fully funded for all two years, but just two weeks before the fall semester (without any warning), my advisor informed me that he cannot support me, apparently he lost all the funding sources this July. He is quite happy with my research and wants me to pay this semester at least half of my tuition and live on half of the monthly stipend. He informed me that after this fall he will find a TA to support myself.
Now, my problem is that my work is experimental and needs constant funding. While TA will cover my expenses, it will not cover the experiments. Even he does not know how and when the funding for experiments will come (he didn't look confident at all). Should I think of changing the advisor now? I am personally thinking of taking an MS with my current work and looking for a funded lab for PhD in the same university.

What does your employment contract say about the matter?

If you are advanced in your research, it will be hard to move to someone else. I'd look around if there are other potential advisors, and think carefully what your options are. Sadly, your question depends too much on personal and details of the exact case to be a fit in this site.

I have 4 years fully funded contract but it has a clause of availability of funding. I was told by peers (before joining) that my department does not let PhDs go unfunded, I hope that turns out be true.

If your advisor can't support you and your research, find another advisor as soon as possible. Your department/grad program should be able to help with this and talking to them should be your next step - it's also possible they can do something to get you funded in the immediate term. In fact, this should have been the advice your advisor gave you instead of suggesting you try to float around for a semester.
You might be able to keep your current advisor as a co-advisor or something, but frankly the way they handled this situation (waiting to tell you until now) is absolutely horrible and unprofessional (and selfish): they would have known long ago that funding was expiring and if they were waiting on some pending grant applications they needed to inform you then so you could line up other support.
I wouldn't be able to trust that person again.

Odd that the department wouldn’t step in. They should go see the chair pronto.

@JonCuster Agreed. I've edited my answer to suggest talking to them as a first step.

Thanks for your reply. Thats exactly what I am doing right now, meanwhile talking to everyone online or offline just to calm myself. My advisor somehow wants me to keep this in person ( I feel he doesnt want the department to know about this situation). Thats why I have decided to go and talk to the graduate advisor & the director of graduate studies.

@Patience_for_everything If he is trying to conceal this from the department and keep it "between us," that is a red flag the size of China.

This is terrible advice! It is only one of the many options, and possibly not the one that will allow you to finish your thesis. The solution is to communicate and try to resolve the situation with the university, INCLUDING your current advisor. It may not be his fault that he lost the funding, and even if it was he may be able to help you finding a different solution when you indicate that you are not comfortable with the current one.

@louic Losing a student's funding 2 weeks before a semester? Yeah sorry, that's the advisor's fault.

Unless there is a unique situation, if your funding was coming through a grant (private or government), there is a very specific set of rules governing how that money arrives at the university and the "chain of custody".  At the vast majority of universities, there is an award contract between the grantor and the grantee, administered by an office of sponsored research (or sponsored programs).  That office (and very frequently the school of engineering, the specific department, and the principal investigator, in this case, probably your adviser) knows the exact terms of the contract, including end date, expected work product, equipment budget, students to be funded, etc.  Usually, the money goes directly to the university, who then distributes it to the appropriate people/organizations in whatever form necessary (e.g., to a departmental account, as a tuition waiver or from the treasurer to you in the form of a paycheck).  There are also university policies governing who in that chain needs to be informed of changes or updates.  Your adviser is definitely one of them but you may not be.
If everything is as you described, I can only think of a single scenario in which either your adviser or the department or both did not break any internal policies by telling you so late:  funding was pulled because of a major violation of the grant terms (or much less likely, something nefarious).  This would be very serious however and even if it partly explained your adviser's desire to "keep this between you", the department and university have a moral obligation to explain it.
All this being said, it is absolutely in your best interest to open conversations with other potential advisers as well as the head of your department, if not the school of engineering.  It is likely there are funds to be found somewhere, especially in engineering but it is not likely you can be added to some other grant before next semester, even on what they call a "no-cost extension".  If there are no teaching or research assistantships, there may still be one or more department "projects" that you could work on.  I wish you luck.

Either find your own source of funding or another advisor.
If you work well with your current advisor, then I would advise you to keep your current advisor and try to find funding some other way. Maybe you can apply for research stipend or scholarship or maybe some deal with your university where you can work part time teaching BSc / MSc courses at the same or neighbouring department. This is not a very uncommon solution, at least where I'm from.
Being able to work with a wise advisor who you are compatible with can be worth A LOT to you in the long run. Not only during your studies but easily as long as at least 5-10 years afterwards.

Except that a big part of an advisor's job is to look out for the student's interests, which this guy has already spectacularly demonstrated he cannot be trusted to do.

Needing to find alternative sources of funding, with an advisor's support and guidance, is common. Needing to find funding 2 weeks before a semester starts because your advisor withheld critical information is not normal. It certainly isn't enough time to apply for any sort of outside funds.

@ElizabethHenning Aha, is that so? That is a quite a new spelling of "trying to matchmake his student with his funders for future work".

@BryanKrause An advisor is often wise, he knows the powers higher than him often have some sort of hidden plan. Also, do we know that the advisor had this knowledge for a longer period of time than that?

@mathreadler At a minimum the advisor knew since July. I don't know of any sort of funding that just dries up without warning that way, funding is typically over some fixed term, so they would have known in advance. There does not seem to be a hidden plan besides "pay half of your own tuition and take a 50% pay cut" which for a graduate stipend in the US is not a livable sum of money. It's also too late for the OP to take other measures to save money like moving to a cheaper living situation. I don't know where you are from but this is all completely unacceptable in the US.


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Sending more than three letters of recommendation to neuroscience PhD application
I am currently a rising undergraduate senior who plans to attend graduate school after I finish this last year. I want to work toward a PhD in neuroscience.
I know this question is commonly asked, but at this point I feel like it's important for me to get input on my personalized situation.
Many of the schools I'm applying to take three or more recommendation letters, often up to five or six. I've had three research experiences (two summer internships plus undergraduate research), so those are my three core reference letters.
This is where my main point comes in: I have been debating about adding a fourth letter from a professor for whom I have taught a weekly chemistry workshop class since freshman year and TAed/proctored for other aspects of his chemistry courses as well as a fifth letter from a professor who is my senior thesis adviser/reader (with whom I also took a graduate course where a large part was based on proposing new experiments in the form of specific aims papers). Essentially, I feel that these additional reference writers (with whom I am in good contact) would only add to my application, but I don't want to overdo it. What are your opinions on adding these letter writers that, to me, speak on different parts of my ability to act as a graduate student and beyond (in contrast to my three research PIs)?
Note that by no means am I trying to “fill the gaps” and reach the highest number of possible reference letters. If I were to do that, I could easily ask for six letters. But I'm approaching it more strategically – I will make sure to only include effective letters that speak diversely on my ability to conduct research and act as a graduate student/young scientist.


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Download videos in the supplementary information section on nature.com
I'm wondering how can I download the videos in the supplementary information section on nature.com (here).
My professor adds them in the slides so I know that is possible to do it, but it's a bit tricky.
I tried from the developer tools of chrome and firefox, but no way, in the media section there isn't a link to the video I'm playing.

It seems they're streaming video rather than directly embedding it. This is why there are transport stream (.ts) files showing in the developer tools rather than a more conventional media format. I suspect you can make something work using the information in this StackOverflow post.

I'm wondering how can I download the videos in the supplementary information section on nature.com (here).

This varies. I'm not sure if it is mainly a function of journal and video file format, or if licensing is also a factor, but different articles require different approaches. For many papers, it's as easy as right-clicking on a link and saving as file (example). In other cases, there is an option in the top right of the player to download the video, as in this example:

However, the article you linked to is a tougher nut to crack. If you don't want to contact the journal or authors, or tried unsuccessfully, there are still solutions. Using the Inspect functionality in Chrome or Firefox, looking under the Network tab as a video starts to play, one finds the file extensions .m3u8 and .ts, indicating the video is streamed in the MPEG Transport Stream format. There is typically a master .m3u8 file containing the metadata for the .ts files, including their URLS. As outlined in this StackOverflow question, there are a number of approaches to download such videos. Some selected options are

A very user friendly approach is the Video DownloadHelper extension for Firefox or Chrome. In order to actually download the video to disk, one is required to install a companion app, which is open sourced. Personally, I'm happy to install and run it in a (Linux) virtual machine, but obviously you'll have to make your own choices about what software to trust. In any case, I found this solution works well, including when the video is provided in multiple resolutions.

Another approach where you might not need to install any new software is to use functionality built into VLC Media Player. Find the master.m3u8 file using your browser's dev tools and copy the URL. In VLC, choose Media -> Convert/Save -> Network, paste the URL and proceed to download it. This seems to work well when the video is provided in a single resolution listed in the .m3u8 (and there is a single chunklist*.m3u8 file shown in the browser dev tools), but not as well when there are multiple resolutions / chunklists.

The nearly manual approach. From the Inspect pane in the browser, simply save all the .m3u8 and .ts files manually. (At least for the videos in the article you linked this is manageable.) Then edit the master.m3u8 file to only reference the chunklist you desire, removing the others. Now you can open the master file locally using VLC and convert it as above. Alternatively, it should be possible to combine the .ts files using ffmpeg.

In principle, it is also possible to use various terminal tools like ffmpeg to download the videos directly using only the .m3u8 links, but I encountered a lot of 403 Forbidden Errors doing so and gave up trying.

Another tool would be yt-dlp. It may be able to handle the page directly, otherwise it should be able to download from the master.m3u8 link. And if they don't support nature yet they may even be interested in adding support for it.

@allo I did try youtube-dl but ran into 403 errors. I didn't try later forks like yt-dlp. For now, anyway, their list of supported sites does not seem to include nature.com.

Try the m3u8 URL, try changing the useragent, and when it still does not work try asking StackOverflow ;)

On their support website, it says that you may need a subscription to the journal to be able to download the supplementary information, so that might be the issue.
They also state that you can contact them in case you can't access the data (an email adress is provided). So you might want to give this a try.

Does anyone have a subscription to Scientific Reports? As far as I know, it's an entirely open access journal. I don't think the question is about "accessing the data", which seem to be freely available, rather it's about being able to save the videos to disk like you can do with the supplemental PDF.

Hello @Anyon yes that's the point.

@GennaroArguzzi But the encourage you to inquire with them per email if you can't access any of the materials, so I suggest you try that.

Hello @Sursula thank you very much for the suggestion.


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Asking a journal for extended payment period
I am in this situation where I have submitted an article to a journal and it is likely that, after the minor revision that they asked me to do, the paper will be accepted for publication (I hope so...). The situation that concerns me is that it is also likely that the email arrives in the middle of institutional vacation, (Clarification: I am a PhD student at the university, and the university pays the publication fee for the article), which means that my institution will not be able to pay at the time of the request. There is no personnel in the corresponding department.
To clarify the timings: I expect that the "acceptance" email will arrive in the middle of August, and my institution is on vacation for all of August. We are most likely not able to pay until September. In case that this email arrives during August, how can I convey, politely and gently that we cannot send the payment due to institutional vacation period? Also, I would like to highlight the importance of the publication of the paper in the journal. As it has one of the highest impact factors on the field of engineering, concretely on Internet of Things and it is the last merit milestone to finish my thesis.
I would write something like...
"Dear Ms. ,
Our institution  is on institutional vacation period during August. Unfortunately, we will not able to emit the payment before the date you request. The department in charge is on institutional vacation too. Publishing this article in  is of utmost importance for us given the  is a renowned journal in the field of the Internet of Things and my current situation as a PhD Student. We would like to ask you for a payment extension until September. Meanwhile, I will be pleased to apply any suggestion of the editor.
Yours sincerely,
 on behalf of the authors of the manuscript.
"
It is the first time I am doing something like this, and I would be glad if you can provide some help.

It looks like you put the answer in the question.

Usually there is a payment window of 30 or 60 days for example, so if it arrives  mid-August then paying in September is not an issue. Journals have dealt with university accounts departments before.
If you are the one stressed as you have to have it published to complete then you may need to be patient, but the payment itself should not be an issue.
For one paper, it took 4 months for the journal to get paid - several polite communications (and they were nice and helpful on both sides...) but all got sorted.

Thank you for tge answer. That’s a relieve. So something similar to what I wrote aboce will do thr job?

I haven’t downvoted anything...

@vicaba no, not you, someone else has been picking on my answers... And the system has been noticing, sorry if you thought I was pointing at you. I will delete my comments. Cheers.


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Emphasizing previous sales skill in finance PhD application?
It seems a rather odd thing to emphasize, but I thought my past experience as a broker could be turned into a positive rather than a moot point.
Do PhD admissions committees take into account soft skill development as a factor, and how heavily do you think they wieght this? Should I note my sales experience in the application, or ignore it?
My field is finance, or potentially economics depending on which program I can get in; I'll have degrees in both at the time of application.

For finance, you certainly can mention that you have worked as a broker. It's not going to get you in, although in edge cases, all things equal, I could see it matter. Keep it short - you can mention passion for financial markets, say; but the only reason to elaborate on it would be if there was a particular topic A you encountered as a broker that you consider focusing on while in grad school. Careful though - if A isn't really a topic to be researched in academia, the admission could turn into a strong negative for ignorance about what a finance Ph.D. really is about.

TL;DR: Don't over emphasize work experience, It doesn't "speak for itself" in academia like it does in business. Think instead of using it as examples of how you will make a good PhD student
This is a very interesting question because the answer depends pretty heavily on the field you area looking at, the university you are applying to, and the program that is looking at your application. I and a current Computer Science PhD student, and my path here involved a Masters Degree, then working in my field for 3 years, and applying to PhD programs twice, the first time after 2 years of work ( failing to get accepted anywhere) and the second time after 3 years of work. After I didn't get in, I reached out to one of the professors (at MIT) that I had shown interest in working under in my application. He read my resume and said, "Well theres the problem right there: you haven't done research in 3 years!" I worked at an R&D company all those years, and was surprised that what I thought would be an advantage was actually a disadvantage. The next year, the only time I mentioned my work (which was still pretty often, after all it was most of what I had done since I finished my Masters) was to exemplify how it made me a good researcher...and the rest, as they say, is history.
Really what it comes down to is, just like in business, how are you going to present yourself? You can highlight your business or not, but from my experience detailed above, it seemed to matter much more how you use your work history as an example, and less how much. The people reading our application are likely contextualizing it with their own experience as a person who once-upon-a-time was trying to get into a PhD program and is now a researcher, and the successful cases from their past students. They are going to look at your application and think, "Does this seem like a person who could really contribute to this field?" For me, when I focused on work experience as a part of what made me an applicant, set apart from other applicants coming straight out of school, it actually hurt me in the top schools. This is because all of the people reading my application were researchers and they wanted to cultivate more researcher from their students. As such, my emphasis on work experience hurt me. The following year, when I emphasized what research I had done at my job, as opposed to the general experience I gained at it, I got in to a bunch of top schools.
From what I understand, PhDs in Econ and Finance have very different goals internally (e.g. People who do a PhD in Econ want to do research on markets, trends, and math, and influencing policy vs. People who do a PhD in Finance want to work in finance, maybe do research in Finance, and get job in Finance). Knowing this, what the goals of your PhD are, and the goals of the application readers will help a lot in deciding what is the best way to use your work experience in your application.
Last piece of advice: don't be afraid to reach out. The worst you'll get is a silence or a "I don't talk to prospective students;" no one will hold it against you. You think that some school or someone's research is interesting? If you can get them on the phone or email they will tell you exactly what they expect of their incoming applicants. Was the best decision I made in this long journey of mine...
Good Luck!

By itself, "selling," experience isn't much an advantage, and may be a disadvantage in a PhD application, since the required skill sets are almost the opposite of those used in research.
If you sold a financially complex product such as options or derivatives, that would work in your favor. In that case, emphasize the product, rather than the selling. You might write, "I successfully marketed financial products with Greek-letter references to "derivatives," or rates of change, to people with limited mathematical backgrounds, because of my ability to explain these products in clear, standard English." That would speak to your teaching ability, and be a plus.

Adding to excellent other points:
If you could explain succinctly, the challenges you faced as a broker and how you overcame them and give an insight into any kind of data retrieval, management and analysis you employed to overcome those challenges, these could be good points for a potential PhD position.

I'd think that having real world experience in finance should help you a bit in your application for PhD work in finance or economics.
The question is just how much should you emphasize this. For a PhD program, you want to reinforce that you have a solid foundation and know what you are getting into (this you have), that you are committed, and that you are truly interested in advanced study.
So, do make a strong case that you have a solid foundation.  But spend the rest of the time reinforcing your passion for the subject and your burning desire to learn more and contribute to pushing the boundaries.

Yes, it would help to have a brief but powerful mention of your past experience.  Break down the benefits of working as a broker and what skills you learnt, then compare these against the strengths and personal qualities you are going to need.  Showing that your experience is worth something helps paint a picture of your skills as an individual.  Experience is one of the least often mentioned things when applying for PHD's but it really shouldn't be as it shows that you have an idea of how to apply your knowledge in real-world situations.  You've not simply "ended up" doing a PHD as part of a series of next steps after school; you'd made the conscious decision to pursue a PHD and knowledge over a career in brokering.  This is a huge advantage for your application.
With every application it's important to put it into perspective:  Who will see your application?  Who is running this PHD?  Have you met them?  With their background, how will they view your past experience, and which aspects of that should you exemplify?  Having a meal with a potential mentor / supervisor, doing some real networking is a fantastic way to get to know who you feel you can get on with or work well enough with.  It also puts a face to your application; you're no longer "app number 245" you are "oh it's James!  He had some great views on my recent paper.".  Look at their results as that's the biggest truth you can find.  You get to choose your supervisor in most cases so network.
I should add here that as this is my first post on this site, that my experience comes from helping run a family business which focuses on training people to apply for positions in medicine, mostly medicinal and surgical applications for PHDs in the UK.  I also train people for interviews and take them through highly competitive, multi-stage processes.  Recently our business helped one of our clients achieve their lifetime goal of becoming the Lead Paediatric Surgeon at one of the UKs most well known children's hospitals.


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Should I accept a funded MS offer, and then wait for other offers, knowing that under the resolution I can submit a resignation of the funded offer?
I'm applying for a MS at 4 different schools.  I received a funded offer (TA position, tuition waiver) from one school who asked me to accept the offer by March 7.  I am thankful for the offer, however I have more interest in another school that I applied to. My other 3 schools are in various stages of reviewing/deciding, from what They've told me.  With today being March 2, should I accept the funded offer, and then wait to see what else is offered to me, knowing that under the Resolution I can submit a resignation of the funded offer?  Is this a common occurrence?

Possible duplicate: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/64022/accepting-a-graduate-offer-of-admission-and-then-turning-it-down/64023#comment153853_64023

You haven't said where you are applying to. While not a law, the offer you received would be in violation of the CGS resolution that offer should be until April 15th. Most universities in the US are signatories and follow this practice.
Regardless, there's no reason to tell them before March 7th considering that's the deadline they set.
Separately, depending on the sort of communication you've had with other schools, you could ask them if they will be able to tell you before March 7th to simplify your decision-making process.
The CGS resolution exists precisely so that people won't be stuck in this position (among first offers of funding).


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Are there open-access, free, non-topical academic data and research archives?
I am looking for an archive where anyone can deposit both data and research papers, which does not require creators or users to pay, does not require registration for users to access materials (hence not academia.edu), and which is not restricted to specific fields such as math or computer science (though the content could be limited to academic stuff as opposed to recipes). If that's not enough, the web site should provide "adequate amounts of space", which I know is field dependent, but let's start with 250 GB per user as a baseline. I presume that creators of content to be posted on such a site would have to register. As far as I can tell there is no such archive, but I may have missed something.

How important is the "archive" aspect for you?  If you are trying to ensure that your materials will be easily accessible in 300 years and could survive a data center disaster, that's enormously more restrictive than if you mainly care about public distribution in the near future (and would be happy to switch to another service in five to ten years).

Could Arxiv.org be what you're talking about?

In addition to the already mentioned figshare service, I would recommend you to take a close look at Zenodo service. While Zenodo also offers a set of features, similar to figshare, including an automatic DOI generation and assignment, there are at least three significant differences (and Zenodo's advantages, that is, for the appropriate cases) that ought to be considered, as follows:

Zenodo offers git and GitHub integration, so, if you plan to publish your research source code, I would go with Zenodo (and I actually did with my dissertation research source code - it's a bit tricky, but nothing that cannot be solved);
Zenodo is backed by world-famous CERN and its solid IT cloud infrastructure, so your data is IMHO more safe than with figshare in the long term.
Additionally, from an organizational perspective, a related argument is that Zenodo backed by a stable organization and European Union's multi-year projects (and, thus, funding), whereas figshare, while an independent organization, is backed by two not very well-known private (and, thus, not so stable) companies.

Figshare sounds like what you're looking for.
You can upload papers, data, figures, code, and/or other stuff. Another nice feature is that you can get a DOI for your uploaded stuff.
A free account (for content creators; consumers don't need an account) includes unlimited public storage.

Ask your institution's library whether you have an "institutional repository" available to you. 250 GB per user is a lot (the IR I ran had about 300 GB storage available, total!), but if your library can get over that hurdle, an IR should do just what you need.

Thanks, but in this case, we need to consider scientists without institutional support.

Oh, bummer. If even one person on the project is at a school with an IR, though, something might be done.

I believe Figshare may now do what you need - it will take papers as well as datasets (and other outputs).
Regarding space:

For now there is a file size limit of 250MB with our standard figshare accounts alongside 1GB private storage and unlimited public storage.

...so let's call that 'maybe', depending on your exact definitions.
A caveat - if you mean depositing already published material when you say "deposit research papers", you may have problems whatever service you use. This is primarily governed by your existing agreements with the original journals, which in most cases are quite restrictive. Caveat emptor.


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Do I have to do research at the college I am attending to get into a good grad school?
I am currently an incoming freshman, starting a physics/math double major at UMass Boston in the fall. Over the summer, I started an internship at the Harvard Laboratory for Particle Physics and Cosmology that I really love and intend to continue doing throughout the school year.
I'm actively contributing to the research being done and I want to continue working there as long as I can. I understand that doing some level of research during undergrad is basically required to get into grad school, but it is necessary that it be at the same school that I am attending?
Should I be focusing more on opportunities at UMass Boston? Or does it not matter where I do the research, as long as I do some sort of research for undergrad?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!

You want to have research experience, but I don't see why it would matter that you do it at UMB, Harvard, California, or Germany.

In short, the answer is no, it doesn't matter where your research experience is.
If anything, I would say that it is more beneficial to have experience outside your undergraduate institution than inside, as this gives you the opportunity to meet many more potential collaborators, exposes you to new ideas and different research cultures and will hopefully give you a wider knowledge of your subject and academia in general.
However, if you're intending to continue at your current institution as a postgraduate student, then it would be wise to try and do some kind of research project (your course may require a final year dissertation, thesis, project or similar) with a current member of staff. This means you get to know them and more importantly, they get to know you and will remember your name when your application for postgraduate studies lands on their desk.
If a professor already knows you as a hardworking, reliable undergraduate from that summer project you did with them, they're much more likely to take you on in the expectation you will also be a hardworking, reliable postgraduate (in comparison to the stranger's application next to yours on their desk). Even if you don't intend to apply at the same institution for postgraduate studies, having a supervisor who can write you a strong reference is always a bonus.
Make the most of any research opportunity you get, and good luck with your studies (cosmology is a good choice!).

Thanks so much for the detailed response!! This has been amazingly helpful to me.

The answer from @astronat tells you what you need to know. I can add a little, since I taught mathematics and computer science at UMB for many years before recently retiring. For cosmology you want to get to differential geometry and partial differential equations as soon as you're ready. For particle physics you'll need group theory, then Lie groups. I recommend Professor Zara as a math advisor. I don't know who would best advise you in physics - be sure to ask soon when you get to school next month.
You probably won't be doing your graduate work at UMB, so of course keep up the Harvard research group. But you may find research opportunities at UMass too.
Have a good time learning!