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Scooped and left alone by PhD advisors. What are my options?
I am a PhD student in the best-ranked university in my country (not America or the UK) and pursuing my research in a field that I am (was?) passionate about. All was fine for a couple of years - I loved my work, did fruitful experiments and presented a paper at the best conference in my field. I also successfully defended my PhD candidacy and got good comments from my panel which boosted up my morale significantly.
Things started going downhill from this point.
I had enough data to publish in a journal just three months after I had presented my conference paper. So, I prepared the manuscript and sent it to my advisors (I have two). Without even bothering to read the manuscript, they wanted me to aim for a journal with a higher impact factor rather than the one I was targeting and so, they asked me to pursue a few more experiments. After four more unsuccessful months, I get the news that a similar work to mine (same experimental design, same goals) was just published by a group from another university.
Now, my advisors turn into PANIC mode. They accused me of being too slow and not making enough effort. In fact, they didn't even remember that I had sent them the draft manuscript four months ago.
My relationship with my advisors turned sour after this. They did not respond to my emails calling for meetings, failed to go through important presentations and never responded positively to my ideas. In the midst of all this, I lost my grandmother and they didn't even offer a word of condolence (perhaps I'm expecting too much?).
Furthermore, I was working on another side project which also gave promising results and was accepted to a prestigious conference. My advisors did not have a look at the draft manuscript for this conference paper, hardly offered any comments or suggestions and did not respond to my email asking them to have a look at my presentation. I travelled alone to the conference (to another country) and presented my paper without any feedback from my advisors. After returning back, they did not even ask how my presentation went.
As a result of this and more, I have gone into a depressive state, lost my motivation for the field I once loved, become a social recluse and lost out on my mental health. It has led me to ask myself "Why did I join this place?" every single day. I have even sought professional help from a therapist but that seems to be of no help.
Apologies for the long post but any advice will be helpful. Criticism is welcome. Thanks for reading.

You need to ask a specific question(s) about your situation.

You could do what I do and bury your head in more research.  You will find new inspiration.  Try to publish independently next time, and not rely so much on the advice of others.  If you feel you have a finished product, send it off.  Research must be an obsession.  As I write this, I have not slept in 3 days working on a math paper.  This pattern is almost certainly detrimental to my health, but it is who I am, someone who does math research.  I really can't imagine it happening any other way.

I don't quite understand how you were scooped on the topic if you presented a conference paper on it first. When was their paper's submit date? A few months seems unlikely to have mattered.

If you've already successfully defended your PhD candidacy, switching programs/advisors would be an enormous setback.

Someone decided you are too good for being where you are. Don't let them play pinball with you. That's what is going to happen near future. Push you away from where you are and attract you elsewhere.

There is no solution to getting scooped on research, especially in any reasonably popular field. Research in parallel is very common. In this situation, long journal acceptance times makes the "scooping" problem worse. It certainly isn't due to the bad actions of any party, including yourself.

I understand all you're going through (I really do: just read my questions) but I recommend you revisit your post and improve focus on a specific question. It will give you better feedback, plus it will clear up your ideas as a reflexive exercise. I will add an answer when you do, good luck!

These "advisors" of yours are parasitising you, not helping you. Thus, they are not advisors.
Carefully digest this situation, and adjust accordingly. You were deeply affected by the shock of being left alone by the ones you expected help from. But clearly these people are not interested in you, or your career goals. They just want you to either add to their CVs, or else sod off.
As others said in this thread, this is unfortunately common in modern Academia. It is also my opinion that parasitic "bosses" are far more frequent in some institutions and cultures than others.
My main advice is that you focus on yourself, and judge how much freedom of action you actually have. From your description, your advisors are pretending you're invisible, probably expecting you to just disappear. If this is the case I believe this is an invaluable opportunity.
Take as much time as you can in investing in your skills and personal goals, and while trying your best to remain invisible. The most important aspect of your PhD is how you made use of your time, funds, equipment, resources, i.e. not the degree certificate. Your acquired skills, achievements, contacts, knowledge, will move you through your career. Work on those.
I have recently had a similar situation where some postdoc supervisors in China started completely ignoring me as I would not accept 50% payment nor handing off authorships & data for free. I was passive-aggressively left alone helpless in a room, and I can't deal with their language. What did I do? I started working, networking, studying like crazy. I was putting way more effort than any of them, and I acted as if they didn't exist. I have learnt R programming from scratch, and pushed many delayed projects. I have submitted papers of my own, and started exciting collaborations abroad. I have used local structure to do a number of pilot tests on hypotheses of my own, digitalised their most useful & rare references. The pseudo-supervisors surely expected me to freak out and leave. I felt like doing it, but I would just work harder, for myself. They did not stop me. I finished all official procedures with the minimum necessary.
I suggest you do likewise. Good luck!

@Mahkar Glad to have helped. You say you're wrapping up your thesis -- make that to the minimum necessary demands asap, and keep focusing on your personal priorities. If these guys just want to see you go, they won't even look at it to avoid paperwork. Ideally when they start noticing your accomplishments, you should be gone already. Work on yourself, hard. Good luck.

Non-responsive/bad advisors seem to be the rule rather than the exception in acadamia.
Switching programs will probably only result in switching to other bad advisors and cost you enormous amounts of time for little effect on the results. Dropping out because a handful of people aren't as helpful as they once were would be foolish as well.
Finish your PhD and move on.
Lastly: Keep working with mental health professionals. You said you're depressed and seeking treatment. I'm glad you're getting that medical condition checked out. Sometimes that treatment can take time to take effect and get some relief from it. You might also want to interview some other professionals to see if they might have a better diagnosis or treatment plan for you.

You probably missed this in the question: I have even sought professional help from a therapist but that seems to be of no help.

Thanks, I meant that mostly as an answer to others reading this later on, but I should adjust accordingly.

@GlenPierce "Non-responsive/bad advisors seem to be the rule rather than the exception in academia." As well as worthless graduate students. I guess a better idea would be to judge on a case-by-case basis with particular names and places, so I don't think that switching a program is completely out of question. Just look carefully before you jump.

Non-responsive/bad advisors seem to be the rule rather than the exception in acadamia. Perhaps they're the rule in questions on this site, since people with responsive, helpful advisors probably have less use for Academia SE.

Yes, all this sounds quite bad and depressing. And I would guess that your advisors might be genuinely let down by that rival publication. But are the things really this bad or is it your perception?
You mentioned a recent loss (my condolences!) and an onsetting depression. Could it be that you see things getting this bad? Slower response times happen in academia (for reasons completely unrelated), less comments may mean you gained on experience and do everything right, so no need for lengthy corrections, etc.
So, one thing of importance is your well-being, so please continue seeing a therapist.
The other crucial question you should ask yourself is: even if all this mishap is not merely a perceived one, how would it hinder you in getting a PhD? You seem to be able to produce research results. Please continue doing so, put them together in a thesis, and defend it. Even if your advisors really "don't like" you, what can they do, if you submit a correct, well-founded, solid thesis for your degree?

Thanks for the comments, Oleg. I'm only 18 months away from submitting my thesis. So, I'm trying to put together a well-rounded thesis and leave as soon as possible.

@Mahkar, That seems the wisest choice. It is time for you to leave the nest and fly on your own.


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What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing research without studying for a degree?
I want to do research by myself and with my friends, but I don't want to apply for a degree. What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing research without studying for a degree?

What do you mean by "a research"? And what are your goals, i.e. why do you want to do "a research"? For fun or to make a living?

Hey, @Daniel Mana, I've rewritten your question to make it easier to understand what I think you are asking. If this is not what you meant, please feel free to revert the edit.

One major disadvantage is that you might accidentally do something unethical without the proper oversight.

There is a big difference between doing independent research and doing research without studying for a degree - there may be many opportunities to do research without studying for a degree and yet under supervision (either for pay or as a volunteer), and these can be great ways to find out if you really want to commit yourself to a degree program.

Your question is a bit underspecified, but if I understand it correctly, perhaps the following will help.
Research is about learning what is true about some aspect of the world or the mind. Carrying out research is good mental training and gives you the basis both for future study and for a profession. So, it is worth doing, just for that, without regard to any results. Doing it in a group, as you suggest, is also good as you can help teach each other as you go.
On the other hand, carrying out research without professional guidance, as a beginner, can lead you to waste your time, both in understanding what is important to study and what is already known. One reason for beginning a research career as a student of a degree program is that your advisor can keep you from falling into such traps. The advisor can, most likely, point you to resources that would be difficult for you to find on your own. There are specific techniques used in research in specific fields that you may also not be aware of without access to an experienced guide.
It is also, arguably, easier to publish if you are associated with a known institution. This isn't a requirement, actually, but it has some effect.

The main advantage is that you will not be subject to publication pressures. Graduate students and other 'professional' researchers must "publish or perish". If you're doing research as a past-time, then you won't have these pressures. Of course, if you're the kind of person that is motivated by pressure, then this might be a disadvantage.
The main disadvantage is that you will not receive a degree. This may not be an issue for you personally, but not having a terminal degree (Ph.D.), will disqualify you from applying for certain kinds of government and/or foundation grants that can support your research.
My suggestion: If you are interested in research without becoming a graduate student, I strongly suggest that you take a research affiliation with a local university. Research affiliations cost the institution nothing, but will give you access to the large network of other people that are (hopefully) also interested in your research area.

Good point about the advantage of not having publication pressure, but I have to disagree with the "main disadvantage"... I think lack of access to supervision and training is a much bigger disadvantage!

Thanks for the feedback! I agree that the research community very important - hence the research affiliation suggestion. That is, one might be able to obtain research mentor-ship without formally doing the degree.

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Phd Thesis vs 5 years publications documentation
I am doing my PhD in data mining and I want to start writing my thesis. Is there any acceptable percentage of similarities between the final thesis and the used published research to create the final thesis?
For example, one of my research papers is published by IEEE as full research paper and at the same time I extended that paper and got published with a journal. Now, I plan to include them in my thesis and I almost ran out of phrases and words to describe the work without having duplication from the two works.

Does this answer your question? Self-Plagiarism in PhD thesis

You should check with your university. Some universities allow an "alternate thesis format", in which some or all chapters are just reprints of published papers.

The proper way to do this is to quote and cite your earlier work just as you would the work of someone else. This avoids the problem of self plagiarism. If you still hold copyright on the earlier work you can quote pretty extensively from it as long as you make it clear that the words come from a specific earlier publication. If you don't own copyright and yielded it to the journals, then you are bound by that as well.
And it isn't just the specific words you need to worry about. Even paraphrasing can be self plagiarism if not cited.

Check with your supervisor, but: Copy-and-paste should be fine, just make sure to mention that your thesis is based upon a list of published  papers/articles.

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What does it mean if a professor suggests to contact in future?
I am a final year Computer Science student from South Asia and expected to graduate by August 2017. I thought of starting to contact professors for masters program from now. Today I received a reply from the professor I mailed first. He said,

Thank you for your interest. I would suggest you to contact me once you have graduated.

What can I infer from this kind of reply? And another question: Is it too early to start to apply?

You can infer from this type of reply that you should contact him once you have graduated.
There are many reasons for this:

If you're genuinely interested, you'll follow up when the time comes.
The last year of a program can be hugely impactful in either good or bad ways on a student's preparation.
You may be outside the application window for his program, which puts talking to new students low on the priority list. Similarly, if its a competitive process for admitting people into his lab, he'll be wanting to compare you to other interested students.
Funding is a time-variable thing. Whether or not he has room for a student in his lab, can pay for them, etc. might be very different now and when you'd actually arrive.

Among others. It's not necessarily too early to start applying places, but sometimes you may get answers like that.

Actually I want to target Spring 2018 semester. What should be the ideal time for contacting him again then? Immediately after graduation or sometime later? Fall 2017 admission at the university will be in between  my graduation and Spring 2018.

I'd ask their administrators.

A lot can happen in the last year of a program. If I had to guess, this is professor lingo for "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched." Complete your current degree (or progress to the point where you are absolutely 100% sure you will be receiving your degree) before you start asking professors about Master's programs.
I don't necessarily agree with this line of thought, but then again, I'm not a professor.

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How should I react if my supervisor for my master thesis gives me low quality supporting information?
Currently, I am writing my master thesis at a German university. My work has a lot of to do with programming. However, there are some parts I need, but it is not part of my work. For this case, my supervisor told me if I need anything I can ask him and he will do this for me (as long as it is not part of my topic).
Unfortunately, the quality of work my supervisor delivers me is very bad. Basically, I would do it by myself, however the time scheduling is quite tight, which is why I am quite thankful that he tries to support me.
How can I handle this without making him angry or upset. I am quite thankful that he "helps" me, but when I look at the quality, I am thinking that I could have just done the work myself.
I still have to work with my adviser for about half a year more.

You'll need to be more clear about when you mean by 'quality'. Is it code you just don't like the look of (don't like the style, hard for you to understand, slow), or materials that are blatantly wrong and ultimately unusable and are a waste of everyone's time?

What is the predicament here? I don't see a situation to be solved. The question does not specify i) if he expects to see his work appear in yours, ii) if he asked for your feedback about his work, iii) why do you have to let him know your thought about the quality of his work, and iv) whether you are going to do the work yourself (the question just says "I could have.")

The best would be to clarify only what you can not do/learn by yourself in the meetings with the supervisor, and establish more often meetings with him(perhaps 2-3 per week).

Working with a supervisor is like working with a manager.
In both cases, they can only help you as well as you empower them to help you.
Ask yourself about previous 'help' moments you required from your supervisor:
what went well and not so well about it?
why was it not as helpful as you wished it would be?
how can you help your supervisor be more efficient and effective at helping you?
More often than not, things boil down to communication issues.
You need to provide all the information that you have and that your supervisor may need to help you. You also need to be able to convey to your supervisor what you expect from what they will help you with.

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Is it possible to continue a PhD program in a different university (PhD transfer)
I am a final year PhD student in a EU country (in bologna). I have already completed my MSc and Advanced studies diploma (MPhil eq.).
I am self-funding my project and I have been doing research since 2013. Some time ago, my supervisor was sincere with me and told that he is very overloaded with work that he will most likely take 2-3 years to read and correct my thesis. I am paying a LOT for my tuition fees, and I am not willing to lose another 2-3 years of my life. I am thinking of alternatives, such as going to Germany, where PhD programs do NOT have a tuition fee (If I read right) and just complete all the formalities, have a supervisor read my thesis, then present it. I would be working in the meanwhile (I can speak German)
Is this possible? Do universities accept transference of PhD programs while keeping the same topic? I know that a workplan examination may be needed, and this is not a problem. Please let me know.
Thanks,
KingBaboon

Really? 2-3 years to read and correct a thesis? Something else is going on in my opinion.

Because of severe crisis in my country, many university teachers are being dismissed, and new ones are not hired (or 1 is hired per each 15 that retire or are dismissed). The remaining ones have to do their own work and the work of the fired ones. Do you still think that anything is happening? If yes, do you have any clue? Thanks for your comment!

Egad - I had not realized it had become that dire. I am sorry. I do not think the professor is being fair here - yes, it takes time to finalize a thesis, but leaving a student in limbo is, to my mind, unethical. Skip something else, get the student out.

In the USA it is a fairly common practice though normally a student follows his adviser to another university rather than runs away from him. I'm not so sure about Europe (the rules of the game are somewhat different there) but in any case you should make a few inquiries: first, you should talk to the graduate program director (or someone equivalent) at the place you intend to transfer to about whether they currently accept transfer (or any) graduate students and on what terms (the answers may vary dramatically from one university to another) and second you should contact a potential adviser to make sure that it is fine with him/her (I guess you do not want to start it all over again because otherwise you may just as well wait 3 years where you are, and not everybody would be interested in reading and correcting a thesis on the topic given and supervised by somebody else). Normally, if these two key people give you the green light, the rest is fairly routine (again, in the States).


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What if the lecturer is not rigorous?
I study mathematics as my major subject and theoretical physics and statistics as my minor subjects. I found that, sometimes in physics or statistics lectures, the lecturer makes mistakes, like forgetting to prove that a series converges, or computing multi-dimensional integrals by using only one path. Once I spent three weeks to find a correct reasoning why one particular series converges. Should I say anything about these mistakes to the lecturer?

And then you hear "we see this series diverges to infinity. Let's sum it". And in some situations, this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, since you sum it in some sense that has physical interpretation.

"forgetting to prove" something mathematical is not a "mistake" in physics. The only "proof" I am interested in as a physicist is experimental validation.

Note that for every student who wonders about the convergence of the series, there is a student who is completely baffled by all the math, and struggling to cope. This student needs a high level, intuitive overview, which is what the unrigorous lecturer is likely trying to provide. He's only got two hours.

This is the main reason why I switched my major from engineering to pure mathematics - my math brain hated the hand-waving and inexactitude of the math done in science classes, and the rest of my brain doesn't love science enough to get over it. At least you can take it as a sign that the mathematical part of your thinking is on the right track.

"Once I spent three weeks to find a correct reasoning why one particular series converges." doesn't this answer it already? Are you studying convergence of series or physics?

These are not mistakes. Science lectures generally do less footwork on proving mathematical properties, for the sake of saving time and for the sake of actually focus on science. Most of this mathematics can be found in literature and has minor importance.

If physics professors had to prove every little mathematical assertion they used, when would they have time for teaching physics? And what would be left for the mathematicians to do?

"Mathematicians are apt to regard phycisists as a somewhat lower category of being, who deal with knowledge that's somewhat certain, or at least fairly probable." ~ Dr Greg Moore, University of Toronto

Is this really a "mistake"? Or would it be better categorized as an "omission"?

This seems to confounding the lecture content with the course. Lectures are introductions to topics, and cannot be expected to cover everything you should know in complete detail. That's what are the extra reading, and working through exercises is for. For every hour of contact time (lectures and tutorials) I'm expect my students to be doing 2-3 hours of independent study. University isn't high school.

I like this question, I used to double major in mathematics and mechanical engineering . The frustration is even more in engineering classes than in physics or stats classes

In physics we deliberately do not prove the series converges, because we are not interested in teaching concepts like convergence.  Physics courses are not intended to be mathematically rigorous.  It just is not one of the goals.

Interesting. Why do you call such things as series if you don't use them like mathematicians? Why don't you create some new structure that fulfills your needs in particular situations?

You may have misunderstood. We use series because they get the right result. And we do care that they converge, we just don't futz around with the issue during class. We learned about series convergence in math class, and the serious theorists worry about it when writing papers (experimenters like myself generally don't have to because someone else already did), but class time is far to precious to waste on the matter unless the bounds of convergence are going to be important in this class of problems.

Related on [physics.se]: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/27665/the-role-of-rigor

This is the standard answer and I upvoted it.  However I have always been profoundly frustrated by this and felt locked out of most of physics because of it.  Ever since high school, things were fully explained in my mathematics courses and very erratically explained in my science courses.  We care about convergence of series because divergent series may be absolutely meaningless.  How can understanding why the procedures one is performing are meaningful not be part of science education?

It is especially frustrating because it seems to be, as is hinted at in the comments, an issue of science pedagogy rather than science itself.  If really no one knows that a series converges, that's a huge problem: e.g. a problem of this kind got Feynman, Schwinger and Tomonaga their Nobel Prize.  All leading physicists I've met understand convergence of series just as well as I do; the difference is that this knowledge is kept mostly private in physics pedagogy.  I don't think physics places any less of a premium on "true understanding" than mathematics, so this is a weird state of affairs.

@PeteL.Clark in the context of physics, "true understanding" occurs when theory predicts experiment.  Whether the theory obeys some set of axioms is not very relevant.

(I didn't mention "axioms", and I think convergence of series has little to do with them.)  I think you're underplaying the use of math in physics: for hundreds of years, most or all physical theories have been written in the language of math, so if you don't understand the math then you don't really understand your theory.   Just because it correctly predicts experiment so far doesn't mean that you will correctly apply it to future predictions.  Isn't understanding the math indispensable for that?

If you're asking for complete rigor, how deep do you want to recurse? That could go all the way back to deriving the basic principles of math... At some point it becomes sufficient to say "we know this; it may or may not be trivially obvious; if you doubt it you're welcome to re-derive it on you own time but that's orthogonal to the point we're trying to teach now."

@Chris: Yes, students should learn about the theory of convergence of series in their math classes.  That's not what the OP is saying: he's saying that series are being used without checking that they are convergent, and that he spent three weeks making this check himself.   "Otherwise what good are all those math classes the physics majors are required to take?" I find the idea that a student who receives some undergraduate mathematical training should be completely self-sufficient in filling in mathematical details to be rather strange:...

@PeteL.Clark for understanding a particular part of physics it's sufficient to note "yes, this series converges and that integral is valid; the authors proved that but these details are out of scope for this class". If you're making a new statement, rigor is important; but the theory and practice on how to do that is supposed to be obtained during the math classes.

....I am a dozen years past a math PhD, and I'm not able to fill in all mathematical details unassisted.  I have particular trouble when it comes to physics, and it was why I stopped taking physics classes many years ago.  I think that one's mathematical training needs to be far in excess of what is used in order to be able to fill it in on the fly when studying physics.  For instance, after getting my PhD I taught multivariable calculus, and I was pleased to find out that I was at 27 able to fill in the mathematical details behind physical explanations.  I couldn't do this at age 17.

I didn't say this material should be covered during lecture time (and I think the OP's characterization of this as a "mistake" by his lecturer is inaccurate; by the standards of the respectable, intelligent community of physics educators, this is certainly not a mistake).  Probably it should not be, most of the time.  What frustrates me is that this material -- well known to many physicists -- is so thoroughly absent from physics textbooks.  The knowledge is there but it is not being conveyed.  This is a shame, and it turns off many mathematically minded people...I think unnecessarily.

@Peteris: " If you're making a new statement, rigor is important; but the theory and practice on how to do that is supposed to be obtained during the math classes." Infinite series are indeed taught in math classes.  There one learns that in order to sensibly use a series it must be shown convergent (or possibly one should use a summability method...).  Showing convergence need not be routine in any sense: the Riemann hypothesis can be stated in terms of series convergence.  The OP spent three weeks on this.  Since this isn't "new material", shouldn't there be resources available for him?

@PeteL.Clark I think it is not in the books because it is not in the normal way of thinking of a physicist. Since we are modelling reality, solutions usually exist, and are unique; convergence can be handwaved away noticing that the next term is orders of magnitude smaller... all the things that make a mathematician's teeth cringe of imprecission. There are cases where one has to be careful and check, but most of the time, we don't bother because the equations are well behaved enough (and of course, we get bitten when we assume what is false!).

@PeteL.Clark There is only limited time in the curriculum, a text book publisher will only be happy with so many pages, and a student will only endure so many hours of instruction. If series convergence and a bunch  of other mathematical principles go in, at the level of rigour a mathematics undergraduate would accept without sneering (I used to be one), there will be no time for anything interesting from physics. Your statement about "mathematically minded" students being put off cuts both ways; we don't want those without a taste for mathematical rigour put off from physics either.

@PeteL.Clark In my actual work as an experimental physicist, if I wanted to know whether a series converges, I would google it or ask Mathematica. I vaguely remember the underlying theory, but to be honest, it doesn't really matter to me.

@studying If we were interested in creating mathematical structures, we would be mathematicians.

@Calchas: Frankly I find this kind of argument very sad.  In particular the claim that justifying the mathematics that one is doing would take up a prohibitive amount of space in the textbooks: on the one hand I see little evidence for that, and evidence against is the number of mathematically minded physicists who know exactly how to explain things but generally choose not to; on the other hand: physical (!!) textbooks and curricula determined by textbook publishers is so last millennium.  There is plenty of space on the internet.

@PeteL.Clark Sorry to bring misery to your day. There is always a compulsory mathematics course covering the basics, the students generally prefer a concise and clear curriculum (and exam) rather than it being spread all over the internet, and the interested student is free to work through the mathematics in other topics if she likes and has the time. I don't see what it would add to the physical intuition to sit through dozens of proofs of convergence theorems. I would rather the students spent that time in the lab doing physics.

And the idea that making material available to population X could discourage population Y: come on, that's a terrible argument.  It's totally antithetical to the way academia works.  Finally, the argument that you are a professional X, that you don't personally use A in your work and therefore you discourage A from appearing in undergraduate instruction is also discouraging.  I think the cultural incompatibility between the contemporary math and physics communities is not inevitable but rather a big missed opportunity.

@Calchas: "I don't see what it would add to the physical intuition to sit through dozens of proofs of convergence theorems." I said that this material probably should not be covered in class most of the time.  Your comment about the internet doesn't make much sense to me: many people in the world learn material from the internet; those that are taking undergraduate courses and otherwise.  I've put over 2000 pages of material on the internet and I get correspondence from people all over the world about it.  But when it comes from the courses I teach, fully reading the notes is not required.

@PeteL.Clark Well in that case maybe we aren't disagreeing. :)

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

You guys forget that many of these theorems are true only with an "under physical conditions". E.g we can talk about a Taylor series and the general assumption that which elements will be dominant, based on our physical intuition, while it can be very hard to mathematically prove (or may not even true) the same thing for a any mathematical function.

I understand what you're saying, but there's a little nagging point here: "like forgetting to prove that a series converges, or computing multi-dimensional integrals by using only one path". From the wording, it sounds like the professor is simply skipping over these issues without mention. Shouldn't the professor at least mention what assumptions are being made and what shortcuts are being taken? This is important not just to math students, but also to science students. You must have an understanding of what you can and cannot use your tools for. Students that don't will misapply them.

@PeteL.Clark Could you tell me how much time it took you, until you realized that physics wasn't something for you ? I'm taking physics courses now,  although math is my major and I have similar mixed feelings and concerns that you expressed here.

It'd be an interesting pedagogical experiment to make a mathematical supplement to some of the standard physics textbooks.  Then a student who was bothered by these issues could have their questions answered easily in one place.

The issue in my oppinion is that the students learn that you don't need to check if the series is convergent, and that they should not care if it is... I see from time to time (which means way to often) physicist drawing the wrong conclusion because they think a series is convergent and it is not... What you are saying is that you guys are training the next generation this way, even if I am sure this is NOT your goal...

Let me add a thought following the other post, which asserts that this is not a mistake, pedagogically.  Take this as a given: you don't need to "call out" the professor for failing to teach "properly."  It is, however, still the case that you personally are wanting to dig into the mathematical foundations of these concepts more deeply, and find it important to your comprehension.
That's great!  You might learn something really interesting, and might set yourself on a path to become a person who makes scientific advances by attacking these sorts of questions.
Now, I would suggest approaching your professor from that perspective, instead of considering it a problem with their teaching.  Ask if there are books or other resources that the professor would suggest where you can learn more about the proofs behind these assertions.  If the professor doesn't have good suggestions for you, try looking in places like Physics.SE.  If you can't find a satisfactorily rigorous proof, it may well be that it does not exist (unlikely, but it happens), and that may be an interesting opportunity!

For lists of physics books geared toward mathematicians there is this question on Math.SE (advertisement: where one can even find an answer of mine :-) ).

Echoing parts of the other answers, and some of the comments: first, it is inaccurate to declare omissions such as "proof of convergence" a "mistake". There simply is no absolute obligation to verify that all parts of the mathematics work as a physicist expects for other reasons. Yes, you or I and others might want to see the proof, that is, mathematical causality, but this is simply not obligatory. (Conversely, we can prove things without direct physical manifestations or physical reasoning...)
In fact, "convergence" is merely a simple form of what one might want, and itself not obligatory (much less its proof). Indeed, I have read that Poincare discovered in the late 19th century that a series expansion of a solution to a differential equation used for many decades (successfully) in celestial mechanics did not converge. Not that its converge was difficult to prove, but that it definitely diverged. But/and people had been getting correct numerical outcomes. Well, it was an "asymptotic expansion", ... but/and such expansions are more delicate in some regards (e.g., term-wise differentiation) than convergent power series, and the mathematical details were not filled in for several decades.
Another example is P.G.M. Dirac's book on quantum mechanics, which used distributions and unbounded operators in manners that would not be justified for 20 years (in the work of L. Schwartz). I have read that J. von Neumann and others were considerably disturbed by the lack of "rigor", or even the pretense of it, which motivated them to try to provide such... Nevertheless, the predictive and explanatory power of Dirac's work was unquestionable, and it would have been ridiculous to have dismissed it because he couldn't provide proofs, or didn't care to.
As remarked above, it really does appear to be that hard-to-justify mathematics is fairly tolerable when it quasi-magically predicts physical details, or quasi-magically proves to be an accurate book-keeping or computational device for observable physical phenomena.
Yes, we should think very differently when/if we aim to "subvert" such mathematics to purely mathematical situations, where there may be no genuine physical phenomenon to observe and test. No, I do not have that physics-y intuition that suggests (to my perception) outrageous mathematical manipulations, so I myself definitely need either or both pithy examples and persuasive (!) proofs that assure me there's some "causality" beyond the literal tangible world. But, in fact, history suggests that much interesting mathematics has come from "outrageous" mathematical stunts by imaginative physicists, so such stuff is a good source!
And, yes, sometimes the purely mathematical justification for obviously-necessary mathematical tricks in physics is far more sophisticated than the immediate physical explanation/motivation/phenomenon. Sure, sometimes the mathematics is not hard, and simply omitted due to lack of interest. Sometimes the mathematics is profoundly difficult, or in fact impossible in a particular year with technical limitations of the time. That fact, that has appeared over and over, is philosophically and scientifically provocative in itself, in my opinion.
So, yes, I, too, have been disturbed by reading physics-y accounts that did (to my perception) crazy mathematical things. Long ago, I thought that this was a definite failing, and that rigor was required, and possible. By now I see that these situations are much more complicated than that, and that gauging any particular instance may be unexpectedly non-trivial!

paul: This is a thoughtful answer.  First of all, you're right that divergent series are much more useful in physics than they are in most branches of mathematics.  To my mind, this is an argument that physicists need to pay more attention to these issues than most mathematicians.  It is true that asymptotic expansions can be used successfully even when the mathematical formalism is not known.  It is also true that they can be used unsuccessfully, and there are examples of both...

...You're also right that sometimes the "rigorous" (not my favorite word...) mathematical justification of something which is being used by physicists is very sophisticated, that sometimes no one knows how to mathematically justify what is being physically used, and that this is not necessarily a bad thing: in fact quasi-magical physical predictions are one of the payoffs of cultural relations between mathematics and physics.  I would like to see more that, not less.  What I don't believe is that "it doesn't matter" whether physical theories have a solid mathematical grounding.

....Isn't that idea some kind of clubhouse handshake that older undergraduate physics students teach younger undergraduate physics students, a certain kind of machismo?  And now some people here are repeating this. But of course it matters: brilliant people, some called "mathematicians" and some called "physicists" have worked very hard to put physical theories on a firm mathematical grounding.  And yet there is little to no trace of these efforts in undergraduate physics.  That's what I object to: not everything is known, but some things are.  Those that are should be told.

@PeteL.Clark, yes, of course, incidentally, there is some exclusionary riff (human sociology) that confounds everything. E.g., rationalizing limitations or failings as virtue. :)  Undergrad and graduate-student perceptions of things (in my experience) tend to drift into caricature/over-simplification/machismo... if only because they're adolescent (nevermind the historical/evolutionary sense of adulthood at age 13, etc...) So, we have bowdlerization + clubhouse/insider-trading denial.

@PeteL.Clark This question of mine is somewhat off-topic, but I'm asking you now, because this question here is the perfect opportunity to do so and I always wanted ask a knowledge-able, more older (than me, that is) mathematician this: Have you heard of or do you know any people that also started out as mathematicians having the same frustrations/complaints with physics that you mentioned in different comments to answers to this question (I am a mathematician doing a PhD right now and have absolutely the same qualms you describe) but succeeded in overcoming their "need for rigor" and [...]

[...] now do significant work in physics (physics so theoretical that it's almost mathematics doesn't count!) ? And, if it's not to personal to ask (it it is, please ignore it), how did your choice not to study more physics feel long afterwards, later on: Were you happy to have quit something where you had the impression of being "locked out" or to you still feel (as I occasionally do, since I have already stopped some time ago, early in my career, studying physics) a slight frustration that this was one castle of knowledge that always forbade you entrance ?

@PeteL.Clark I second user10324 with his inquiry! It would be great if you could answer his questions, even only some of them. I'm also a math student that does not come to gripes with physics!

@PeteL.Clark Yes, please, please give us struggling mathematicians an answer (it is a blessing for my tormented soul to see that other mathematicians also have problems with physics). And please see also my comments on the other answer....

Without detracting from the merit of the more philosophical answers, here's a simpler practical suggestion:

Go see your professor after class or in reception hours.
Tell them that since you're a Mathematics minor, you find the mathematical reasoning important to follow.
Tell them that you sometimes cannot tell whether a step they makes is actually trivial, or might take a lot of time/effort to justify rigorously.
Ask them that, when they are making a 'mathematical leap' (the second kind above), they tell the class specifically that they are doing so. For example "this step requires a proof, but it is a purely mathematical one which we will not delve into."

You can of course also ask them for a textbook with more mathematical rigor.

In theoretical physics, for various reasons, standards of mathematical rigor tend to be looser than they are in math. Individual physicists' preferences vary widely, however. In my experience, which seems to be echoed by Pete L. Clark's, many physicists tend to default to a looser standard of rigor while teaching, so your lecturers may or may not think about their course material at a much tighter level of rigor than the one they present it at.
You're definitely not alone in being frustrated by leaps of mathematical faith in physics lectures, and spending a great deal of time trying to fill them in. Here are some things I'd recommend doing to help deal with this, based on my own experience.

Do try talking to your teacher outside of class about mathematical gaps that confused you. You may find that your teacher knows exactly how to fill them in, and simply omitted the details from their presentation in class.
Do seek out other mathematically-minded people at your university, especially more experienced people, and talk to them about the things that confused you. As Pete L. Clark notes, many mathematically-minded physicists (and physicsy-spirited mathematicians!) have a private stash of rigorous insight into the less rigorous parts of a typical physics class, built up over years of experiences like yours. At some universities, the math department can be a gold mine of knowledge like this.
As a corollary, do write down your own work when you fill in the gaps yourself! Someday, the three weeks you spent proving that series converges might save someone else three weeks of trouble.
Do remember that not everything in physics has been formulated rigorously, and some topics are notoriously resistant to mathematical formalization. When you're confused by reasoning used in a physics class or the physics literature, it can be hard to tell whether you've encountered a small crack that can be paved over with a few hours of thought, an big gap that can be bridged using sophisticated techniques hidden in some corner of the math literature, or a gaping chasm that people have tried and failed to cross for decades. This is another reason talking to more experienced people can be helpful.

On the other hand, here are some things I'd recommend not doing.

Don't think of gaps in mathematical reasoning as mistakes, especially when you're talking to other people about them. This doesn't match the way most physicists approach mathematical reasoning, and it can turn your conversations unpleasantly confrontational.
If you've tried bringing your confusions to your teacher after class, and they've been consistently unable to help you, don't keep asking, especially if they seem annoyed by your problems. Your teacher may just prefer a looser standard of rigor than you, and there's nothing you can do about that. Seek out other sources of help instead.
Don't ask about leaps of reasoning during class. If your teacher doesn't know how to fill them in, nothing is gained. If your teacher does know how to fill them in, that means they've made a conscious decision not to, so they might prefer to talk to you outside of class.
Don't feel responsible for filling the mathematical gaps in your physics classes. In the comments here, people have said that "students can (and should) check that the claims made by their physics profs do indeed hold," and that "it's common to learn these concepts and their proofs rigorously in the math class." In my experience, those things just aren't true. You'll hit problems that you don't have the tools to resolve, and you'll hit problems that nobody has found the tools to resolve. Your confusion is not your fault.
Don't feel like your teachers are responsible for filling the gaps either. They're just doing physics as physics is generally done, and sometimes as it has to be done.
Don't spend too much time and energy trying to fill the gaps. Pancaking yourself against the far wall of the canyon a few times is okay, but at some point it's best just to walk away. You may come back later and discover that you've gained the tools and knowledge you need to get over, or that there's a bridge just a few miles away, or that getting over isn't likely to happen any time this century.
But, with that said, don't stop looking for more rigorous and less confusing ways to understand physics. Efforts to shore up the mathematical foundations of physics have proven very worthwhile in the past, and I firmly believe that they'll keep proving worthwhile in the future. They may feel thankless, but they're not worthless, and I think they're great things to read about and think about when you have the time and energy to spare.

I hope at least some of this advice is helpful for you. If you ever bring your mathematical physics troubles to Math.SE, I hope I'll see your question, and I hope I'll have the time and the knowledge to help answer it.

This is a great answer.

I would like to answer based on my personal experience. During my undergraduate years, I used to double major in mechanical engineering and pure mathematics. I used to like my mechanical engineering classes until I first got exposed to real analysis and mathematical rigour. After that, I steadily became more frustrated and skeptical of the correctness of the methods used in my engineering classes that I stopped taking my engineering major seriously, skipping lots of classes, doing the bare minimum to get the grade  etc.... Looking back at my younger years, I think my reaction was immature. I also wasn't lucky enough to meet someone older than me who has experienced this dilemma, that partially explains my immature reaction. Now let me answer your question:

Should I say anything about these mistakes to the lecturer?

In 99% of the cases, its not worth it. (The 1% case is if it happens that your instructor is aware of the rigorous mathematical foundation of his/her subject). What I encourage you to do instead is to try your best to understand what your instructor and textbook are saying and then axiomatize it or rigorously justify any claims. This is similar to how Cauchy, Weierstrass did their best to understand calculus in its non-rigorous form and were able to turn it to real analysis.  This is a good mathematical exercise and might even help you understand your physics or stats classes better (However, make sure you have learnt enough mathematics like differential geometry and probability theory first so that you don't run into the problem of having to discover already known mathematics)

I will reply to one of the comments by Pete L. Clark here, as my reply will be a good addition to my answer.

"... Ever since high school, things were fully explained in my mathematics courses and very erratically explained in my science courses. We care about convergence of series because divergent series may be absolutely meaningless. How can understanding why the procedures one is performing are meaningful not be part of science education?"

One has to note that there is a difference between cultures of pure mathematics and say engineering/science. The criterion of what counts as "understanding" or what counts as "full explanation" is different in these cultures. For a mathematician, what counts as full explanation is rigor which basically means a sequence of lines of proof in a formal system whose rules are clear enough to be checked by a computer, so that in principle you can write a computer program that distinguishes good arguments from flawed arguments. For an engineer, "understanding" is being able to reliably make engineering designs that work when implemented. I guess for a physicist, "understanding" would be having a semi formal system whose predictions match experiments. If some mathematically dubious infinite sum manipulations actually succeed in predicting the outcome of an experiment consistently, then that's enough for a physicist to count as "understanding". A mathematician however, might make a big deal of proving the jordan brouwer separation theorem even in the non pathological case (say smooth or piece wise linear). This might seem a pointless intellectual activity to non-mathematicians, but remember that thinking about these seemingly pointless questions is what opened the way to the field of topology and its more complex ideas which later on found applications to physics and computer science.

@Pete L.Clark I replied to one of your comments here.

Generally, you better assess yourself well enough to call out a lecturer publicly, otherwise, there's plenty of opportunities to make corrections privately.  That is generally the more politically-correct path.  Beyond that, you should know that by choosing to address it publicly, you are  (consciously or not) engaging in a battle of power.  Such a battle can have positive or negative outcomes.
More specifically, I have questions for you:  why would a lecturer have to prove that a series converges?  Further, shouldn't multi-dimensional integrals always have the same answer regardless of the path?  Otherwise, there's a deeper problem in the formulation of the expression (like including terms from a domain that doesn't belong there).


text:
Isn't English the common academic language?
In a question about university ranking, many people mentioned that language is a privilege for better ranking of English speaking countries.
Isn't a decent fluency in English the requirement for senior academic positions (regardless of native languages)?
Most ranking factors are about research activities. If a professor in non-English speaking country is not fluent in English, how does he supervise graduate students? For supervising/conducting cutting-edge research, someone should be able to read technical literature. Research papers are published in English (and there is no translation normally).
Most non-English speaking countries with excellent higher education (such as Scandinavia, Netherlands, Switzerland) offer the graduate programs in English.
I understand it is easier for native English speakers to read and write in scientific literature, but we don't speak their language, we speak an international language, which is their native language too.
I understand that this requirement is neglected in many countries, but is it reasonable and justifiable to give a senior academic position to someone who cannot read 99% of recent research findings in his field?
Is it acceptable for a professor or even a PhD student to have no understanding of English language? To avoid confusion, consider STEM fields.

we speak an international language a.k.a. "Labglish", and it's awful (but practical).

Proficiency in English is not necessarily common in developing countries – however, in many cases that's the least of their problems. A working level of English is basically a non-negotiable requirement now in order to do "world class" research.

How does the content of the question relate to the (presumably) motivating first paragraph?

@fkraiem if English is ubiquitous in Academia, the argument that being in an English-speaking country is an advantage for universities ranking does not hold.

The argument is based on extremes: it is not black and white if someone speaks a language. Someone who is not a good, effective writer in English is not automatically someone, who "cannot read 99% of research findings". Exaggerations do not help the question.

@CapeCode I hope nobody seriously believes this... It is obviously an advantage when the "standard" language happens to be your native one, since you do not have to devote the time and energy necessary to learn a new one.

@CapeCode: I searched the internets for "Labglish", but only find "Label Whore" on Urban Dictionary. // Btw, I realise that even after 15 years of reading English specialist literature (for there is often no good German one), if I get the chance to read a well translated german variant, it becomes way easier to grasp some concepts. Some other concepts become harder, and some just sound straight awful in German. Argh.

A working level of English is basically a non-negotiable requirement now in order to do "world class" research. ...outside of Japan, anyway. This sums up my response to the exact same discussion whenever it erupts in the programming world as well. I'm not sure just how anomalous Japan is in this regard. I recall nearly everyone in Europe and Israel speaking in labs, writing comments, giving talks, etc. in English -- but its just not that way at all over here. It is difficult to imagine that Japan is the only place this holds. I imagine Russia may be similar, perhaps China?

@zxq9, Related: Are Chinese universities of lower quality? . Japan universities though, conduct a lot of research on the Japan society itself. Much of this is immediately applicable only to Japan, though they may be useful for the other countries to case-study. E.g. stuff like research on Japan's mizushoubai.

Not necessarily. While many academics in non-English speaking countries (e.g., China, Japan or Russia) can read and write in English. They cannot necessarily speak English fluently or confidently. Many prefer to take students who speak the local language rather than English so that they can communicate effectively. Most presentations are conducted in their own language.

In this answer, I will respond to some of the points raised in the question, however without any expectation of completeness.

Isn't a decent fluency in English the requirement for senior academic positions (regardless of native languages)?

To some extent, it is, although there are probably many different interpretations of what "decent fluency" means around.

If a professor in non-English speaking country is not fluent in English, how does he supervise graduate students?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding this, but ... simply in their non-English language? There is no general requirement that communication with graduate students (including foreign graduate students!) would have to happen in English.

For supervising/conducting cutting-edge research, someone should be able to read technical literature. Research papers are published in English (and there is no translation normally).

This is true, however I have noticed that there can be extremely wide gaps between the ability to read and understand complicated English texts and the ability to express complex ideas in English. Hence, a capable researcher can be perfectly able to understand technical literature written in English, and yet be unable to publish their own ideas in English.
Of course, this is not generally the case in all non-English-speaking places, but it probably depends on how English is trained or learned.

I understand it is easier for native English speakers to read and write in scientific literature, but we don't speak their language, we speak an international language, which is their native language too.

If it is their native language, too, then we do speak their language. Whether our motivation for learning or using English is to communicate with native speakers or with the international community doesn't matter; the result is that, as you say, "it is easier for native English speakers to read and write in scientific literature".

is it reasonable and justifiable to give a senior academic position to someone who cannot read 99% of recent research findings in his field?

As explained above, comprehension is not necessarily the same as expression. And even then, this statement possibly neglects that some fields might rely less on English than what I am used to from CS.

Is it acceptable for a professor or even a PhD student to have no understanding of English language?

No, rather not.
Coming back to your titular question:

Isn't English the common academic language?

Yes, in many fields, it is. But this mere fact has little influence on the effects you allude to. It neither means that English material is inaccessible to someone with low skills at writing in English, nor that ideas and surveys are always developed and conducted in English from the start.

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

Right now, the state of our civilization happens to be such that English is the dominant international language in science.  This is a recent phenomenon, however.  For example, less than a century ago, science was split fairly evenly between German, French, and English. Before that, up until the 19th century, Latin was the dominant language of science, and before that there was no global dominant language, but regionally dominant languages, e.g., Arabic, Hindustani, Chinese, Latin, Greek.
As a practical matter right now, world-class scholars need to be able to effectively interact with English, just as previously they would have needed to interact also in German and French or before that in Latin.  Not every act of scholarship needs to be playing on the world stage, however, and there are many regional communities.  In STEM fields, I have most often encountered this in Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and French (all having major recent independent scholastic histories).
Looking forward, will English remain the dominant language?

Network effects mean that once a standard becomes "locked in," it is very difficult to change.  See, for example, the QWERTY keyboard.  By default, then, we should expect English to remain dominant for a long time.
If there is a major shift of international order, however, such that a non-English language becomes the lingua franca in other areas, it could enable a transition similar to what happened in the past, when scholarship moved away from Latin into a poly-lingual state, and thence to English.
Finally, if automated translation improves sufficiently, then language may become less of a barrier to communication.  I doubt this will happen within the next decade, but it could easily happen within a century.

Bottom line: English is dominant, but that doesn't necessarily mean one has to use it now, nor that it will remain dominant in the future.

The dominant language of a research area depends entirely on the topic. Not all modern topics of international interest has English as the dominant language. For example, English publications on alternative input methods and unicode-related issues are notoriously weak. For social sciences, the quality of "research" the West does on the East and the South is not merely weak, but embarrasingly so. Even publications from Harvard, yes.

For those who are not acquainted with this phenomenon, a good rule of thumb is always to read the follow-up comments on all research done. This can easily be done when links to such research is published internationally via the internet by major news sites. E.g. take a read through the comments under news articles like https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries

Isn't a decent fluency in English the requirement for senior academic positions (regardless of native languages)?

For STEM fields, generally yes, but there are are other fields, especially in the humanities (e.g. literature, history, architecture), where the majority, if not all, of the publications are written in the local language. In addition, in these fields, books instead of journals are the typical publication venue, and these books are frequently written in the local language.
Think of a historian specializing in the local history of a tiny village located somewhere in nowhere: would their publication language be English or the Somewhere one?
Indeed, whatever the field (even in STEM fields), being able to, at least, read publications in several languages is always an advantage, and I generally suggest to learn at least a second language. Even in publications written in English, one can frequently find references to works in German or French, more rarely Russian and Spanish, for which translations are not available. I've found many fine technical books (maths, physics) written in languages other than English.

+1 for mentioning other fields than STEM. Once a research area is tightly related to its cultural context, it does not make much sense to have English as a requirement for senior academic positions.

Universities in English-speaking countries have an advantage in rankings precisely because English is the most common academic language. Native English speakers also have an advantage in most fields, but that advantage is quite negligible, when compared to the advantage the universities have.
The advantage comes from attracting talent from abroad. If you're a person moving to another country, you probably have much easier time settling in, if you already speak the language. Because far more academics speak English than (let's say) French or German, academics tend to choose job offers from the US or the UK over equally attractive offers from France or Germany. As the top universities in English-speaking countries have access to a wider talent pool than the top universities in the rest of the world, their research tends to be of higher quality.

That's interesting but does not directly answer this specific question. It would be better suited for the one linked.

It may or may not be an answer to the question, depending on what the original poster meant with the question. The first paragraph implies that the question is really about the supposed advantage the universities in English-speaking countries have because of the language. If this interpretation is correct, the rest of the question is based on poor understanding why the advantage exists and is therefore less relevant to the discussion.

While I agree that being able to understand and express your ideas in English is important for an academic career, much of the discussion supporting English so far has focussed on Europe and the question appears to come from that perspective. In fact, I would argue that there is much good STEM work now being done in China, and the Chinese journals are becoming much more important as Chinese based researchers are less likely to publish in English generally. This is similar to the Russian mathematics developments last century.

While I agree with your answer, I am not convinced I have indeed focussed on Europe in my answer.

Fair enough, I will revise

Isn't a decent fluency in English the requirement for senior academic positions (regardless of native languages)?

For all I know, I can imagine a very senior and experienced researcher teaching and doing research in his own language, and having his assistants/students translate and review the latest English-language articles in his field. Even more, he can publish articles in English, if he's the one to propose ideas and another person is the one to lay them out.

Isn't a decent fluency in English the requirement for senior academic positions (regardless of native languages)?

Let me answer your question plainly:
לא, יש אנשים שמתקבלים כחברי סגל אקדמי באוניברסיטאות ישראליות ואינם מסוגלים לנהל שיחה באנגלית. הדוקטורט שלהם לא נכתב בשפה האנגלית, הם לא השתלמו השתלמות בתר-דוקטורטית באנגלית, וכן הלאה.
You see?

 No, there are people who are faculty members at Israeli universities and are unable to converse in English. Their dissertation is not written in English, they do not do post-doctoral training in English, and so on.

Can you identify by name a full professor at an Israeli university who has not published in English?

@ff524: First, I will obviously not name names of any kind here. Second, I didn't say they were necessarily full professors, nor did I say they never published in English. You can publish in English and have dismal English at the same time...


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Why do reviewers summarize a promotion application?
In another question, it has been justified that reviewers summarize a manuscript to help busy editors who cannot read all manuscript. I do not agree with this even for manuscripts, as the Abstract should do this.
However, I have seen a similar behavior for reviewing job/promotion applications. For example, the report started with this paragraph "the applicant has graduated from ..., worked at X from 2010 to 2013, has published x papers ...". The judging committee already know these facts, these are in the application.
A job/promotion application is different from a research article. These are facts, which can be read in a brief CV (the committee can ask for 2-page CV). IMHO, the report should be straightforward, and clearly telling why the person is or is not recommended for the position. Summarizing the application is waste of time, like summarizing the CV in his cover letter.
I think it is vital responsibility of the promotion/search committee to carefully read the application.
Is it really necessary?

It seems to me that the answers to the linked question also apply to reviews for promotion application. Could you edit your question to indicate why you think they don't?

@StephanKolassa I added more explanations why a job application does not need to be summarized by reviewers, IMHO.

In a typical letter, the overlap with the CV is just a small portion of the letter, so I don't see why it's a problem.  (If it accounts for most of the letter, then something is wrong.)  You're right that it's not logically necessary in a world of people with perfect memory, but it helps remind people of the basic facts and puts the subjective comments in context.  Only a terrible letter would announce "Smith has published seven papers" and then never say anything more about the papers.  It's much more reasonable to lay out the facts and then go on to offer more detailed and evaluative commentary.
There are also issues that are specific to letters of recommendation.  For example, letters of recommendation are often updated over time.  Perhaps the first letter I write for a graduate student is part of a fellowship application.  When she graduates and applies for postdocs, I substantially edit the letter but don't necessarily rewrite it from scratch, and the same document may even last until her tenure case (of course it evolves dramatically over time - by the end four or five substantial changes have been made, and almost none of the original letter remains).  Now one purpose of reciting basic facts is to make it perfectly clear that my judgment really is based on her current accomplishments, and not just thoughtlessly recycled from a previous letter based on older information.  Of course this is far from the only way to show that, but it can't hurt and might sometimes help.

As with manuscripts, the author/applicant may inadvertently misrepresent themself, or badly represent themself, or be verbose, etc.
Also, addressing the comparison in the pre-amble, editors do not read manuscripts.
Also, as in the link provided by @StephenKolassa, "summaries are good", and "redundancy is good".
Also, I disagree with the notion that the essential points in a job or promotion application are (objective) "facts". Some are, yes, many aren't. And, further, the conclusion is rarely yes-or-no. Yes, the committee will carefully read the files that reach the short list, but there is no guarantee (in a job application process) that they'll read 300-500 files ultra-carefully. Rather, they'll be filtered on reasonable grounds, possibly by subcommittees or individual committee members, who make relatively brief annotations.


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Does university have any cultural mission?
I am asking this question, as my previous question was closed because of being opinion-based. This made me wonder if there is a conceptual mission for higher education or not?
In most European countries, public universities receive the majority of their budget from the government, as higher education is somehow a public service, and responsibility of the government.
Imagine that all universities in Germany or Sweden decide to abandon any social activities of students. Sell all big campuses and buy modern buildings and only run the educational classes. Then, do the government, parliament, tax payers accept this policy? Is it the university's decision to make or universities have social and cultural responsibility for the society.
It was an exaggerated example, but my point is that:
Are universities simply business entities (even not for profit) to provide a service (which is educational courses) against the money they receive (from tuition or aid).
OR
They have social responsibility to make better citizens beside the professional training.
NOTE: I understand that an urban university may only offer education for a specific range of audience (for example students busy with jobs), but is it acceptable from the fundamental concepts of higher education that a university totally eliminate social activities by assuming that the main responsibility of a university is just providing high quality education.

"Social activities" at my undergrad uni was almost exclusively binge drinking. I'm glad the university had no official involvement into that. That being said, the content of the courses can make students "better citizens", for example by teaching logic, analysis, etc. it doesn't have to be via "social activities". I'd say your question involves a false dichotomy.

only run the educational classes is standard for many universities in continental Europe.

Even if we decide education is their sole goal, they should still keep things like university sports and other social activities to encourage a healthy lifestyle (and thus better academic performance) while remaining compatible with the university schedule.

I'm not sure what to make of this question. If it's asking "Do universities consider that they have a cultural mission", it's a decision that's up to each university (or its overseeing government or other body). Some may consider that they do, others may not. So in that interpretation, there's no general answer. If the question is "Should they have such a mission?", it's a matter of opinion.

@NateEldredge With the exaggerated example I clarified my question. Is higher education is considered as a public service (even if private, I mean the government responsibility) like elementary education. OR higher education is a professional service designed for its customers.

@Davidmh There are some new universities (not many, but increasing), which started with a limited budget and have a limited space in big cities (where there are more potential students). They do not have space or budget for extra-curricula activities.

I think my issue still stands. Between "public service" and "professional service", each institution gets to set its own priorities. When you ask whether higher education "is considered" to be one or the other: higher education as a whole contains too many disparate elements to be clearly one or the other. The answer also will depend on who's doing the considering.

If you ask people with some sociological exposure, they'll tell you that "culture" is essentially all our activities interacting with each other as human beings. So, want it or not, universities are massively into the "culture" business.

Almost all universities have a larger mission than simply provision of educational courses.  For example, consider the mission statements of two very different publicly funded American institutions:

The University of Texas System, in addition to education, aims to develop ethics and morals, appreciation of arts and culture, and prepare "educated, productive citizens who can meet the rigorous challenges of an increasingly diverse society and an ever-changing global community"
Bunker Hill Community College is much closer to the "pure skills" model, but still also aims to provide community leadership and to ensure that "no eligible student shall be deprived of [education] because of an inability to pay tuition and fees."

In both cases, the university is explicitly aiming to promote social and cultural change towards a society in which most people would generally prefer to live (even though the particular goals of each are different).
Now, mission statements are one thing, reality is another.  Every university's leadership decides how it wants to interpret and/or modify its mission statement. Universities also generally have some sort of board overseeing it, which will attempt to guide and shape the university's actions.  This is where, especially with public universities, there is often a great deal of fighting about the university mission and policies around it.  For example, conservatives who are uncomfortable with the cultural broadening provided by universities often argue that a university should "just stick to teaching skills."  In general, however, the faculty and leadership of most universities tend to promote some sort of cultural mission, even if some are very different than most.

This question seems to relate to a really large and philosophical topic. However, if I may compress a comprehensive answer into something more manageable, it might be the following set of points.
In my opinion, all universities (and other educational institutions, for that matter) indeed have a major cultural mission (regardless of public, private, for-profit, non-profit, religious affiliation or lack of it, level of social activities or any other status / attribute). Simply because education's underlying goal is people's internal improvement and/or enrichment, which IMHO is what culture all about.
Education is clearly not about learning set of facts, and even not so about helping people to acquire some knowledge, but rather it is about developing people into better people, who can then continue improving themselves, others and the world around them through lifetime learning and enrichment.


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Lab Professor Prioritize Paper Publication over anything
A close friend of mine is facing a hard situation in his microbiology PhD. His professor badly wants publications. The professor tells his students that each student should publish at least 2 papers each year (review papers, research papers, or 1 review and 1 research paper). For this reason, he pressures them to write review papers during an ongoing project's experimental work. When a project starts, he wants his students to start writing the manuscript, even before getting even any appreciable results. He always tells them to start writing the Introductions and Material and Methods sections. The students do this but when they get results that do not match their Introduction, they struggle to adjust their writing.
The hardest thing is that, due to his love for publishing papers, he gets small and short-term projects from Hospitals (some are not even related to his Lab but he puts the burden on his students to find ways to fulfill the work, even if it takes getting help from students of other departments where such projects would best fit). His students always struggle to produce a quality paper for a good Impact Factor journal due to a small sample number or the manuscripts being similar to the already published papers. They are rejected from journal to journal, only ending up in poor journals/free-journals
They always ask their professor to change his approach. But, my friend has been called lazy by this professor because he could not fulfill the 2 papers last year. He has not published any papers this year as well, but he keeps on jumping from one short-time hospital project to another. This has kept him too busy to concentrate on manuscript writing. The professor says that this approach is a form of training, his style of training his students, and fellow professors are bound to listen to him rather than his students' concerns.
I am worried about my friend, his mental health, and his academic future. What would you suggest my friend do, given that his visa status entirely depends on his academic status in this lab?

This isn’t what you ask about (so this is not an answer) but at least generally there is nothing wrong with writing down early the research. This is an important technique to reflect on the actions taken, and whether they are sound and convincing. In fact, for experiments done with a proper hypothesis, this should not require major revisions once the results arrive, even if they contradict the hypothesis (whether research is driven by hypothesis or exploration is field dependent, of course).

"When a project starts, he wants his students to start writing the manuscript, even before getting even any appreciable results. He always tells them to start writing the Introductions and Material and Methods sections" ---- This is absolutely the correct way to do things. You need to think through these things anyway before starting into experimental work, so the most reasonable way is to just write it out.

My advisor always counseled his students to start the writing process as early as possible.  My brain doesn't work that way (I am a professional procrastinator) but that doesn't make his advice wrong.  (He was, however, graceful enough to put up with me and not berate me for it.)

This is an example of "publish-or-perish" gone berserk..I ask my students to write down what they are studying to make it easier at the end when they write their dissertation. However publishing is a different issue. In math the pace of publication is much slower, then papers are typically a lot longer than the results in lab sciences, and the authors are listed in alphabetical order. A student's first paper is typically a solo experience with only his/her name on it.
This pressure for publishing is not healthy. That is why the wave of news of distinguished researchers faking data to match the hypothesis.

It might be helpful to look at the advisor's motivation. If they are untenured, they might be responding to feedback that they will be fired unless they do exactly what they are doing. In fact, I've heard assistant professors (especially in medical schools) advised to do exactly what that professor is doing, or they might get fired. Additionally, students that graduate from such groups are lined up for better postdocs and faculty positions themselves. However, this breaks down when faculty can't manage projects and students well, or if students don't "fit" that very specific mould.
The first suggestion is for the student to seek guidance from senior students or alumni to see if there's anything to change with their own approach. If students are succeeding within this model, try to find out how and emulate successful strategies.
However, it's also possible (if not likely) there is a bad fit between advisor and student. In that case, switching groups is common and the best course of action if possible. However, in their field, switching groups might not fix things if the field's expectations are to publish at that rate.
"Publish or Perish" is the reality many professors are in, especially untenured faculty. Faculty are often pushed by their fields, funding, colleagues, and their mentorship network to emphasize quantity over quality to avoid the "perish." I, personally, believe some take it to far and result in rushed, data mining correlation, minimal impact papers - but the consensus is that faculty are always better off publishing more.

I think, broadly speaking, there are 4 main options.

Option 1: Continue to work with the current advisor, and learn to adapt to their expectations.

Option 2: Continue to work with the current advisor, and try to convince them to change their strategy.

Option 3: Continue doing a PhD, but change advisors, either at the same institution or by finding a new institution.

Option 4: Stop pursuing a PhD.

Option 1 is the clearest path to getting a PhD, but may not be tenable. I would say that a way to judge whether this option is worth considering is to look at how previous students in this lab have fared. Are there a lot who went on to achieve successful academic careers? Or did many fail to graduate or have difficulty finding jobs because of publishing low impact papers? If the lab has a track record of success, then I think whether to pursue Option 1 boils down to a personal decision about whether one can take the stress of suffering through poor working conditions for several years, with the hope that the career will get better once leaving this lab. I don't think a stranger on the internet is likely to be able to answer this; it will come down to a lot of reflection on what one's personal goals are and seeking out advice and maybe professional help. On the other hand, if the lab does not have a track record of success, then I think there's a clearer case not to pursue Option 1 because there's some evidence that the professor's practices may not set students up for a successful career.
Option 2 is probably not going to work, unfortunately. First, it sounds like it was already tried, and failed. Second, a PI's strategy for how to publish can be constrained my many factors not visible to a student, such as what funding is available. Third, because of the hierarchy between a PI and a student, there's not much a student can do to overrule a PI, if a PI chooses a path the student disagrees with. So it's worth having the conversation, but you don't want to damage your relationship with your advisor if you can avoid it because it is an important professional relationship, so if the PI is against changing paths then that is pretty much the end of the conversation.
Option 3 is something that happens relatively frequently. The main disadvantage is that you will lose the time spent developing expertise in the first lab, either pushing back your graduation date or meaning there's less time to finish your PhD, depending on the details. Also you may burn a bridge with your current advisor. It also may not be trivial to find an advisor; if you can't find one at your current institution, you may need to apply to more PhD programs, and then this will raise the awkward issue of whether to ask your advisor for a recommendation letter.
Option 4 is maybe the "nuclear option." Assuming your friend still wants a PhD, this would presumably only be an option if Options 1-3 failed. However, it is always worth considering that a PhD is a very challenging route even in the best circumstances and it's possible to have a happy and satisfying life without one. So, when making a major decision like this, it's worth revisiting the question of whether you want to spend the effort it takes to get one.

I can't think of any field in which the state of knowledge is progressing at such a rate to warrant yearly literature reviews. And your friends clearly doesn't, which is why they keep getting rejected at quality journals.
This is a consequence of how academic research functions. But it's not good science. Reviews should be few and far between unless it's a new and rapidly evolving field.

You're totally right about quality. This is something that happens at higher rates in medical schools and biological fields. Medical school fellows have only a year or two to produce, and biology is so competitive with an over supply of post docs.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but what is it that has convinced your friend that they have a better grasp of research process and how to conduct one than a professor with many students and years of experience? They have become a professor for a reason: they know what they are doing. So, either adjust or find someone else to work with.

Yes, their advisor is a bad manager. However, the advisor's sentiment is right. You should be productive, and a good measure is that you are able to publish one journal paper a year no matter what. Often that means submitting two or three papers a year. If they said publish two, my guess is they've seen too many students only work enough to meet the minimum, which means submitting one ok paper ever year and praying that it somehow goes through. If you follow their advice on writing a paper in anticipation of worthwhile results to come, you would actually find it easier to meet the goals, even when the results never match the first draft.
Finally, it seems like the people in your friends lab are not taking ownership of the work. My read is that's all the PI wants. Stop behaving like children who hate being told what to do, and start doing what needs to be done without waiting to be told. Yes, it looks like you're working hard for your PI, but the great thing in academia is that you're also working for you when you take charge of it.

Welcome! I think your answer has some good points, but I think people might be voting it down for the tone. We generally try to answer questions abstractly here (without judgement). So it's fair to point out the benefits of the professors' approach and encourage students to adjust their approach, but try to avoid belittling the students.

Thanks! Yeah, I hoped the harsher message gets through to a few readers. Would've helped me a long time ago! I suppose downvotes  makes it less likely to be read, so I'll have to do better next time.


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Is it common for a managing editor of a University Press to solicit book proposals from PhD students at a conference?
I am a PhD candidate in the very early process of writing my dissertation, and I'm presenting my first chapter at an international humanities conference soon. I received an email from the managing editor of a well known University Press that was impressed by my topic and wants to meet to discuss possibilities. How common is this?
Is it quite common for University Presses to solicit meetings with PhD students? Or is this a rare opportunity? His interest was so unexpected (because I always assumed you approached editors if you wanted to publish) that I'm not sure if this is a promising opportunity.
So how often do managing editors of University Presses solicit authors that are ABD?

Honestly, this sounds like a flaky publisher. Are you sure they don't just sound like a well known university press? (Cambridge Scholars Publishing is an example that readily comes to mind. I have the impression they scrape conference web sites and contact anyone that's listed.)

Baylor University Press is one of the top publishers in my field, but yeah... that's why I found it unexpected -- unless he is unaware that I don't have my PhD yet. Or is this an actual thing if publishers are very keen on a topic?

I imagine this depends wildly by field.  But publishing in the humanities definitely is different than in the sciences, and is often based on just a chapter or two of advance writing, so it's at least plausible that they see you as a good catch to snag early.

I'll note that the question was changed (not by the OP) to focus on books. I'll answer that first.
I think it is unlikely that publishers, often represented by senior (acquisitions) editors, to solicit books from students, but very common for them to talk to professors about book ideas. In some cases, the professors might send them to students who have some interesting work. Some of my books were solicited, but I'd established a reputation by then.
Book chapters are a bit different. Beware that some predatory publishers are on the prowl among the unsophisticated to get materials for less-than-reputable publications, but really good publishers will do this also.
In my opinion (note: opinion), the best such books have been suggested by some senior researcher who has some, but not enough, material for a book and has convinced a good publisher to help put it together, perhaps by going on the prowl for submissions. But here, the senior researcher, not just an editor has some control over the book, which should guarantee both success and quality. In such a book, the sponsoring professor or researcher will probably write the introduction and have one or more of the major contributions. The contributions may all be recent or the intent may be to bring an historical consolidation of some topic.
Other meetings of publishers and doctoral students are more likely to be just informational, with no commitments being made. The publisher is saying "We Exist - consider us for your next paper". The discussions will be informational in nature, mostly: This is what we want to print (or not). But you wouldn't' get any commitment to publish even a completed paper at a conference if the journal has any credibility. The paper will still need to be reviewed by subject matter experts with an eye to improvement.
That said, it is good to establish such relationships with journals, even if they are very tentative.

This does not sound like the humanities model at all. In the humanities your dissertation becomes a book and then you get tenure (sometimes you need an extra article or two and at top department a contract for a second book). This is not a solicitation for a textbook or an edited volume.

You've stated elsewhere you're a mathematician/computer scientist. I'm worried your experience in those fields might not be as applicable to the humanities.

@StrongBad, where can you go from "dissertation" to "tenure" in one step?

@Buffy it is not really one step. Most humanities dissertations need to be heavily revised to make them a book. It often takes them a couple of additional years to get it good enough. The key is the entire research output considered by the T&P committee is the book that was their dissertation.

@StrongBad, not one step and several years. Normally at least seven in the US. And I would wonder about the quality of a place that requires research, but only seven years old. I'm very surprised by your statements, but have no contrary evidence. But, also, I admit to being influenced by my own history. My daughter is a Philosophy prof with a degree from U Minn. I don't think that was her experience, though her dissertation was pretty significant.

@Buffy do these AU History tenure guidelines  make it clearer Junior faculty should consider the completion of a well-researched, book-length historical study to be their principal scholarly aim before tenure. The norm in the Department, before tenure is recommended, is publication of one book (a monograph or a synthetic work) with a well-respected publisher

In the humanities this happens all the time especially if you have a well known supervisor or are at a good program. While top presses try and entice senior academics to write a book for them, they want first crack at the book that comes out of a humanities thesis. They know you are motivated to write the dissertation whereas a tenure professor is likely going to be flakey and also want some money. Spending 15 minutes and a couple of emails networking with a student is totally worth the editors time.
Being approached doesn't mean much. It most definitely isn't a contract. It means your book is probably on topic for them. It means when you have a sample chapter written (or a book proposal), they will read it. At that point they might either blow you off, give you feedback of how to make it more appealing to them, or tell you to send them the book when it is done. Even if they eventually ask you to send them the book, that doesn't mean much and is not a contract.

I interned at a university press, and it was common to go through conference programs and identify interesting topics/papers written by PhD candidates/early-career scholars. It sounds like it's a little early in the process for you, but it is definitely worth taking the meeting.

Thanks Morais. Your experience is very insightful. Generally speaking, from your perspective, at what point in a PhD candidate's dissertation, do editors take ABD's seriously and invest interest?

@LaAirShoemaker they will invest an hour chatting you up if you have a conference paper, a couple hours if you have a sample chapter/book proposal, maybe a full day if you actually have the book. If you have something to show them, they will read it until they see they are not interested.

This isn't common. It's common knowledge in publishing that for books to sell well, the authority of the author is of huge importance, and as a PhD student you're not likely to be an authoritative author.
My guess is that the acquisition editor is either unaware that you don't have a PhD, or (rather less likely) is making contact with you so that when you become an authoritative author in the future, you'll keep them in mind.
Having said that, there's no drawback for you to go ahead and meet them. If they are indeed aware that you don't have a PhD, but are willing to collaborate with you anyway, so much the better for you.

University presses in the humanities figure they can sell enough copies if you will teach a class that includes the book. If you get a friend/colleague and your supervisor to teach it also, the press is golden.

@StrongBad yes, but given that he OP is a PhD student, he's not likely to be teaching a class for which he can set the course textbook (unless the situation is dramatically different in the humanities compared to the sciences).

The humanities are different. These are not textbooks. That book is going to be the entire dissertation and likely enough to get the OP tenure. By the time the book comes out the OP will have a teaching job. Most publishers almost break even on these types of books just through bundling contracts with libraries that sell a couple of hundred. Throw in 100 more from teaching sales and they will offer you a contract for your second book and even pay a little bit upfront.