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How to politely decline an interview for a PhD program?
I've applied to three US universities (A, B, C) for PhD programs. Universities A and B offered me interviews on two separate weekends, which I accepted. I then made travel arrangements with Universities A and B for interviews.
I was then offered an interview with University C on the same date as my University A interview. I asked C for an alternate date, which happened to be the same weekend as my interview with B. I informed C of this and gave them a list of dates that I was free to interview but was told that those were the only two dates possible at University C.
I asked A and B about changing my interview date but was told that I could not since travel arrangements had already been made (through the university/a university-sponsored travel agency).
Universities A and B are both higher on my list than University C, so I've decided to decline University C's interview.
How can I do this politely? I don't want to burn any bridges with University C.

Related question: What should be done about conflicting invitations for graduate school interviews?

Is everyone kidding? Ask them (university C) for a phone/Skype/Google Hangouts interview. You don't have to decline. University C will understand. Try do something without having to travel there for the interview. Surely people in China and India don't fly in to universities for all their interviews.

I don't get the point. How is asking this question even necessary?

An university is not your aunt Marge who's miffed because you didn't turn up for her 70th birthday.

You have asked for an alternative interview date, gave them a list of options where you're available, and made efforts to reschedule conflicting appointments. I don't think there's anything more that could be expected of you, so it should not be perceived as impolite if you just inform University C that unfortunately you can't come to any of the two offered interview dates due to conflicting appointments. If you want, you can explicitly mention interviews at other universities - that will make it clear that you're genuinely interested in doing a PhD, and it will be understandable to most academics that everybody has a ranking of opportunities in such situations.
You could offer to retract your application, or state that you expect that they won't consider your application any further, but I don't think any of these would be required.

Instead of retracting the application, I would see if they are willing to do a remote interview instead. That worked for me and I ended up attending that school.

In some cases, the interview is for the school to get additional information about candidates that are near the decision boundary (and market themselves to the students).  An application can sometimes proceed without that additional information and depending on e.g. the rest of the application and that year's admission pool/funding/etc., could still succeed.  That won't happen if the application's retracted/withdrawn.  +1 to your final point.

They seem to have all the facts already. Just tell them that you had already made travel arrangements to visit A and B on the dates that C wanted you to come out, and that you have to regretfully decline to come to C. They're not going to be mad at you.

This is a good answer, honesty is the best policy, and the fact that you have done your best to make alternate arrangements will reflect well on you, should you need to go back to C at some point.

I don't see any reason they would be upset by you telling the truth. In fact, trying to get too deep in explaining "why I am choosing to go to A and B instead of you" could potentially be more "offensive", if that's what you're worried about. Concerning politeness, I would call if possible; quickly, too. There's no reason to leave them waiting to hear back from you if the answer is 'no'!
Be short, sweet, and to the point.
"I am sorry to say that I won't be able to attend an interview on either of the dates provided. If a time comes up other than those provided, please let me know. I apologize for any inconvenience."
It's also possible to leave an opening for a possible interview with University C later that way.

I agree with jaska & Dave. After all we are professionals, such things should be dealt in professional manner, no hard feelings would be taken if you express the same to them.

Personally, I would recommend simplicity and honesty. Tell them what you have told us: I’m sure they will understand your problem. They are people too.


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How can I tell if an honor society is legitimate?
I recently received an acceptance letter from a honor society (I am leaving off the name for now but can include a link to the website).
The offer said I qualified because of my grades or a nomination. I read a little into it and it a lot more like a sales pitch. Offering discounts, exclusive scholarships, and career services in exchange for a biannual fee.
The website does look very professional. I am not sure if it is a scam, a profit driven real honor society, or what else. Aside from intuition is there any ways to tell what an invitation entails without all the hype?
Also, even if they are a profit driven business is it likely worth time to invest in a short term membership?

I am not at all an expert when it comes to honor societies, but an organization that contacts people out of nowhere to offer "discounts, exclusive scholarships, and career services in exchange for a biannual fee" sounds like scam to me.

Sounds like a  Who's Who scam.

Is it a big deal to give us the name of the website? There are many professionals on this site who most likely have extensive experience with honor societies, and may easily tell you if it's indeed a scam

Obligatory: http://xkcd.com/703/

@sleekvisage here is the website https://www.honorsociety.org/

To be a slight jerk. Did you google "honorsociety.org scam"?(Or 'review' or, well, just 'honorsociety.org')? There's a lot of information out there about this particular company some from very legitimate sources. That should be your first instinct upon such letters. You never want to agree to something you don't know the reputation of.

@Nahkki I did, and I found a ripoff report for them and a few yahoo questions asking the same thing... And some links supporting it (albeit from suspect sources). I can find the same sort of thing for Phi Beta Kappa.

This offer tripped my BS meter, what I really want to know is what avenues of research (assuming Google results are muddled and unreliable) do I have if it looked even more legitimate?

@kleineg If I get a letter from any place with an offer too good or off enough, I always go to google and search "name_of_company scam?"  this always yields tons of results, and helps me understand if it's really a scam site or not

Would you buy a car from CarCompany.org?

If they want money, just say no.

Although having a real name is not a very strong indicator of a real honor society, it's true that all real honor societies have real names.  Usually groups of Greek letters. "HonorSociety.org" is not even attempting to be a real name.  Furthermore, the very name is an indication that the organization is brand new.  Real honor societies (or most of them anyway) were founded long before the Internet.  And any that had so little pride in their name and history as to change their name to be Internet-centric would clearly not be worth joining either.

Related question: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10173/does-membership-of-academic-honour-societies-carry-any-professional-weight-rec

In all of my experience: no one within academia cares about honor societies whatsoever.  To expand on that: in academia we routinely (closer to constantly) evaluate people based on their academic qualifications, in a very serious way: i.e., the "winners" get offered substantial scholarships and/or jobs.  Not once have I ever heard anyone mention membership in an honor society in any of these decisions.  Not for faculty hiring, not for graduate admissions, not for picking TA's...never.
When I was an undergraduate I did join Phi Beta Kappa (junior year: whoop de frickin' doo) and Sigma Xi.  The way I recall it, I was moderately encouraged to do so by my undergraduate program.  And I must say that the amount of money that I gave to these people -- if any; maybe my school paid it themselves? -- was truly negligible: at most $40, or something like that.  Based on this money, for many years afterwards I got:

Regular newsletters from the organizations that made what looked like reasonable attempts at giving me some kind of scientific / academic contacts.  (Not that I read them...)
Semi-regular very strange calls offering to sell me gold-laminated books and other such frippery.  Often these were done with enough of a "hard-sell" solicitation to get me a little steamed: one caller spoke breathlessly about the gold-laminated books and at the end asked me how many additional copies I wanted to order at a discounted price.  I mentioned that she skipped an important step, and she asked what that was.  I revealed that at no point in the conversation had she asked me whether I was even the slightest bit interested in buying anything from her.  The rest of the conversation was brief but tense.

Based on these experiences, whenever any student asks me whether they should join an honor society -- the ones which are not supposed to be scams, like Phi Beta Kappa -- I say "I do not advise you to do it if you have to pay more than the most negligible amount of money."
However, I have occasionally talked to other faculty and university personnel about this issue, and their experiences are not always as negative as mine.  What I suspect may be true (but I have unfortunately never had the occasion to find out!) is that: academic honors societies may be useful for people who are leaving academia, by providing some kind of modest continuing contact with the academic world.  I mean, the idea that I need to open up a bi-annual newsletter and read about what other academics are doing makes no sense for me: I learn about what other academics are doing by going to work.  But for people who go off into industry -- or something else -- maybe it is valuable.  On the other hand, I have to imagine that, as with so many things, the internet makes this kind of thing largely obsolete: the amount of access that any citizen of the world with an internet connection has to current academic activity is greater now than what any professor had twenty years ago.
One final question: does anyone care if your CV says you are a Phi Beta Kappa (junior year!)?  I suspect not -- as someone else mentioned, these awards are given for your GPA, and you put your GPA on your CV anyway.  But I would, as ever, be interested to hear other perspectives.

I have done industry hiring, and it is exactly the same there. I would care where a new graduate went to school and what grades they got. For more experienced applicants, work experience was more important. I don't remember whether I ever saw an honor society mentioned on a resume, but if I did I must have ignored it.

A few notes: Phi Beta Kappa doesn't have annual dues. You pay once when inducted and that's it. That is considerably different from the ones that keep asking your for more money. I keep giving money to Sigma Xi for two reasons: one is that I happen to enjoy their magazine American Scientist, and two is that I feel good about support their GIAR program. I do keep both on my CV (along with my membership in the AMS and stuff like that) on the principle that while most people won't care, most people won't be offended either.

There are three metrics I use to see if a 'exclusive' society is a scam or not.

If they are imprecise when it comes to why I was invited. "Because of your grades or a nomination" is pretty weak honestly. Who nominated me? What was the grade cutoff? Are they associated with group in my university such that they could even have access to my grades? If your invitation comes from a nomination, a legitimate honors society should be willing to name the nomination.
Do they want me to pay money? It's true a lot of honor societies may have a entrance or membership fee. This should be minimal and obvious and you should have a direct idea of what this is going towards. A 'honor society' which is vague the criteria upon which you were invited and who wants to charge you money is pretty sketchy.
Have you heard of them before? Has anyone you respect heard of them before? When you google them - do they have conferences? Meetings? Journals? Are they cited anywhere? Or is there nothing but advertisements for them when you google the name?

It's not that any of the above criteria, alone, is enough to make a 'honor society' sketchy. And I'm sure there are, in some fields, societies that hit all three of the above and are totally legit. But, to be honest, a blind email to you that has a "You may have won!" feel to it is probably a scam on some level.

Ah yes, the always exciting "you are so awesome, here join my honor society!". My method is to simply google "name of honor soceity" scam. You would be amazed at how much info is out there already answering your questions for you.
To be honest, most "honor society's" are mostly just scams. Perhaps not as overtly as, say, a Nigerian prince being captured scam, but honestly, how many people sign up to be a member but never actually use any of their resources, even if they are legit? It's like a gym membership, only effective if you actually use it.
Anyhoo, I only joined ones that were directly related to my school/ had specific branches on my school and only joined two, a very well known one and the society for my direct major. And those were more to do with resume fillers than anything else.
Truth is, as far as I've ever seen, no one cares about the honor societies. If it's for an awesome gpa, well, your gpa on your resume covers that. If you do volunteer work, again, stating what you do is much better than just naming off an honor society.

Honor societies have more value as resume fillers if you serve as an officer.

People do care about honor societies.  That includes prospective employers, your peers, your teachers, your family and friends, as well as you.  I've seen an endless amount of these types of discussions on the internet as well as within groups of people I know in college.  And, there are always very similar responses from two distinct groups: people who are actually in them (both the legitimate ones and the less prestigious ones), and the other large contingent of people who are not invited and who just outright know next to nothing about the honor society being discussed.
There's always going to be noise from people who neither put in the work, nor have the successful mentality to appreciate the role of rewards when persevering through long stretches of almost unthinkable difficulty in school.  My advice is to ignore these people.  They will exist throughout your entire life and will never cease trying to convince you that your success is unnecessary, and that you should lower your standards to match theirs.  I promise you.  These people will exist in every nook and cranny of your life from now until you die.  It's best to shoo them away and bring in other success-minded people who lift you up.
There are indeed some hokey honor societies out there who don't have the history or structure to hold any weight.  Golden Key was the best example of this at my university.  I couldn't find a single person who could recommend joining.  Although their requirements are so-so (I believe it's upper 10% of your class), no-one thinks highly of this.  And, there's very little practical incentive to join like scholarships, discounts, etc.  Despite being invited, I did not join this group.
But, there are in fact many honor societies that will incite looks of approval from esteemed professors, directors, chairs of departments, and potential employers.  I know this because I have personally experienced it.  There are professors teaching your classes who were not invited to join honor societies.  Many partners at firms I've interviewed with are not members and were not invited.  Acknowledgement of my membership in these honor societies is a frequent point of discussion and I've never had anything but positive feedback about my involvement with them.
Aside from the hokey honor societies like Golden Key I am excluding, there are two major types of honor society you can join: major-specific like Beta Alpha Psi which is specific to accounting majors, and large, interdisciplinary honor societies like Phi Kappa Phi and Omicron Delta Kappa.  These two different types are similar, but serve different practical purposes.  I'm an accounting major, so I've been involved with Beta Alpha Psi for almost a year now. The requirements aren't that demanding: 3.0, involvement in a BAP committee, and 20 professional/service hours per semester.  But, the rewards of involvement are HUGE for a prospective CPA.  I've been heavily involved with all large and small firms (both local and big four), and I've been interviewed and offered jobs frequently.  (And on a side note, there is nothing more academically rewarding than being able to constantly turn down offers for both internships and FT jobs.)  I am good friends with many of the top notch students, and casually acquainted with most accounting firms.  This is an immense advantage and it's directly linked with my involvement with Beta Alpha Psi.
The other two I mentioned, Phi Kappa Phi and Omicron Delta Kappa, have a completely different criteria for joining and thus, serve a completely different purpose.  These are a traditional "honor society" that most people think of when these talks come up.  But, there are very specific reasons why I both wanted to join, and actively pursued fulfilling the requirements to join when I first started college.  First, they are exclusive and prestigious.  At my university, these two are the only two honor societies formally recognized when you graduate.  Second, they have high standards for joining. Phi Kappa Phi is based off how high your GPA is in relation to yours peers and only invites juniors and seniors.  Since I was invited as a Junior, I know I have a higher GPA than 92.5% of the people in my class.  Despite what people will attempt to convince you in discussion forums, this is something to be very proud of.  Omicron Delta Kappa has what I feel are even stricter requirements.  At my university, you have to maintain above a 3.3 gpa, but also demonstrate 3/5 leadership skills by active involvement in your university, community, etc.  This was the HS I was most proud to be invited to, and I happily joined.  Third, both of these HS' are over 100 years old, have many successful, very well recognized names among their ranks like past presidents, politicians, artists, scientists, etc., and are pretty much universally acknowledged as being an honor to join.  And finally fourth, you get to wear honor cords and/or stoles when you graduate.
So to sum up, try to avoid getting caught up in the net of bitter people who don't encourage you to enjoy your success and rewards for hard work.  Again, they will attempt to buzz around and distract you for the rest of your life.  Whatever people try to convince you, no-one is getting rich on some obscure concept of an honor society scam.  These organizations run on a shoestring budget consisting mainly of volunteers and charitable donations.  If it is a "scam," it's the worst scam in history created by some of the brightest individuals available.  It doesn't hurt to have these on your resume, but it's also very rewarding to be a part of something that rewards and encourages excellence.  Most of the people who matter will think highly of your membership as many of the people teaching you weren't invited or are not members.  Good luck!  I hope this sheds some much needed light on your decision.
p.s. As someone above me mentioned, being involved in a leadership role will always be more advantageous than just being a passive participant.  But, it just depends on the nature of the HS.  I'm running for an officer position at the end of this semester in Beta Alpha Psi, but I have virtually no involvement in the others.  I know this is a huge boost to my resume, but it's more of a practical decision that is slightly outside the topic of discussion here.

You do understand that the USA is not the whole world and nobody for example in Europe cares about honor societies, fraternities and similar staff?

That is not true, atleast here in the Netherlands fulfilling a board level position for a society is considered a major plus for students for your CV in most cases.

@Jakob Buls "Fulfilling a board level position" is considered a major plus for students. You mean undergraduate students? Because no one will prefer for a PHD student someone coming from "honor societies" over someone with solid publications or research experience.

Anytime these discussions come up, people start comparing apples to oranges.  Honor societies never hurt your resume.  And, all other things considered equal (i.e. phd w/ publications, etc.), someone with honor societies listed on their resume versus someone without does possibly give some indication of less tangible personal characteristics that you truly cannot ascertain from a cold, quantitative measurement like GPA.  Not to mention just the personal satisfaction of being selected and contributing to development of other students.

+1 for a testimonial. You describe how you've found them personally fulfilling, and how they've helped with your employment prospects. That said, I think that most academics, and many non-academics, indeed don't care about honor societies, and not because we're "bitter". Please let me recommend that you change your first sentence to "Many people do care about honor societies", since that is what you have successfully and persuasively argued.

Give me a break.  You insist I change my title to "many people" whilst stating my argument is sound, then immediately back pedal and say that "most" indeed don't care.  I will not change my wording as it accurately states what I intended to say.  As you guys are demonstrating, most people arguing against HS' have clearly no direct experience with them.  How on Earth do you can claim authority on something in which you have no direct experience is a mystery.

Also, people throw around the word "scam" when discussing this which is clearly not the case.  All three that I am a part of file under non-profit status which requires extensive external audits and accurate financial statement representation.  No-one is getting rich.  Quite the contrary, they are run and primarily financed by volunteers and charitable donations.  So again, this is what I referred to in my initial post:  A bunch of people who have no idea what they're talking about insisting they know with absolute certainty how something works, and what benefit something has.

@BradBradBradBrad I do agree that many honor societies are of use. I was a member of one of the prominent ones in my undergraduate career. What prompted the question was a specific honor society which purported to be influential and a boost to job searches and which required a subscription.

Thanks for the follow up, kleineg.  Would you share which specific one you're referring to?  I never had any approach me with a "required" annual/biannual fee.  There was an initial fee of $50-$80 which gave a lifetime membership and numerous benefits.  The funny thing is that the money they collect pays for very little.  They really only exist from contributions and people volunteering.  I hope you are doing well.  I will be in grad school in spring of 2016.  Cheers!

Your answer contains a mix of useful information and useless argumentation.  The opening really rankles: "People do care about honor societies. That includes prospective employers, your peers, your teachers, your family and friends, as well as you."  As I explained above, no, I do not care about honor societies.  This is not attributable to "bitterness" because I was in fact a member of them.  In general, on a forum like this when you want to directly disagree with someone else it can only be helpful to others if you provide support and qualifiying information.

For instance, you mention that membership in honor societies has been helpful to you in your (future?) career as a CPA.  That's great information.  This is an academic website, and my answer was written from the perspective of an academic.  I also found it helpful that you mentioned specific honor societies.  Not to mention interesting: I had never heard of them.  I checked, and do you know how many of the top ten American universities (in the current rankings) have Phi Kappa Phi chapters?  Zero.

This is evidence that honor society prestige is a bit orthogonal to academic prestige.  It also certainly puts a different spin on "There are professors teaching your classes who were not invited to join honor societies."  If membership to honor societies is gained by having a high GPA, then since GPA's are reported anyway, it is hard for me to understand where all the prestige could be coming from.  As a professor, I find the idea that you've found lots of people who do not recognize the importance and value of a high GPA curious.  We take it into account in all of our admissions decisions.

Pete L. Clark, you may find the original poster's question helpful in understanding my response.  As both my argument, and his direct response to me, indicate my information were helpful to him.  You're focusing on very specific criteria that was never mentioned by him, and thus irrelevant, and never specifically refuted in my argument.  It appears what you're personally concerned with is a discussion for a different topic.  Also, if you actually read my post you'd understand that a specific gpa requirement is not the only requirement for any of the honor societies I mentioned.

"Phi Kappa Phi is based off how high your GPA is in relation to yours peers and only invites juniors and seniors."  Phi Beta Kappa, the largest honor society, is based entirely off of GPA.  My answer directly addresses the OP's two questions, especially: "Also, even if they are a profit driven business is it likely worth time to invest in a short term membership?"  The answer is from the perspective of academia at the graduate level and beyond: that is the topic of this site.

Finally: some of the most aggressive sales calls I've ever received came from famous, nationally renowned honor societies that I had joined in college.  So I am sure that they are trying to make money by selling gold-leaf books, embossed plaques, and so forth.  There are also some less well established honor societies that are regarded by all as being scams.  So warning about the dangers of this should not be written off as "bitterness".  You need to respect that honor societies are not regarded as being important in many branches of academia.

Concerning the requirements for Phi Kappa Phi and its effect on graduate admissions, see also the accepted answer to http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18193.

I will be clear so you understand: First, I never mentioned Phi Beta Kappa.  Second, Phi Kappa Phi is based on your rank, not specifically gpa.  To further clarify, a gpa requirement would be "3.0 or above," whereas a rank requirement would be "greater than 92.5% of people in your class."  There is a significant difference between the two because one is a static number, which is wholly dependent on the academic integrity of your university and is suspect to gpa inflation.  The other is based on a comparison.  Again, I feel you haven't actually read the entirety of my post.

If the original poster both agrees with me, then what exactly are you disagreeing with?  And more importantly, why are you bothering to take the time to argue with me?  Yes, of course, for the love of God, not everyone is bitter.  Some people make a choice not to join because they simply do not want to.  But, I say again, and I'll continue to say again, I feel being a member of a legitimate honor society is never a bad thing on a resume.  It has potential to highlight your name, indicate you have some other difficult to measure characteristics, and are not afraid to get involved socially.

Oh, and also, I never said an honor society would help with admission into grad school.  Nor, did the original poster ask that.  Please, before you respond, please, would you read the original poster's actual question and read my response in it's entirety.  You simply continue to throw out strawman after strawman with little to no regard for the actual context of this discussion.

The class rank is of course based on the GPA, so the award is clearly for having a high GPA.  To be specific, I am disagreeing with (i) your insistence that I should care about honor societies; (ii) that those who don't are "bitter" and negative about academic success; and (iii) that faculty members regard membership in honor societies as being prestigious.  The reason I mention graduate admissions is because academia at the graduate level and above is the topic of this site.  The OP is a graduate student and asked whether membership was worthwhile, so I answered in that context.

I never "insisted" that you personally care about anything.  I am saying that people do in fact care about honor societies.  And, it should be fairly simple to understand that by "people" I don't mean every single person cares about it exactly the same way, in exactly the same context.  Second, I disagree about the bitterness.  I've personally experienced this as a result of academic success without even including the honor society discussion.  There is a segment of the general population, as well as the academic population, that turns a disdainful nose down at people who attempt to excel.

Third, again, there are faculty members, many in my experience, that both admire and encourage students to join honor societies.  Maybe this has not been your experience.  But, it has been mine.  And finally, the honor societies I am currently a member of, and will be a member of at the graduate level, are both undergraduate, and graduate level, honor societies.  So, again, this is relevant to both the topic of conversation, and the context of the site.

*Also, Beta Alpha Psi is for both upper level undergrad and grad students as well.  So, every single honor society I listed is for graduate level students.

What do you mean by "officer position"?

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Should you provide citation for an professional organization or learned society?
I am writing a paper in which I refer to a database maintained by a learned society. Something like:

We performed this analysis on 7,195 structures taken at random from the Poisonous Substances Database [1] maintained by the Democratic Chemical Society [2].

Ref. 1 will be the URL of the database, but I am wondering about the learned society: should I include its URL as a reference? Or should I simply not give any citation along with its name?

Should't the society be the "author" of the database?  For example: [1] Democratic Chemical Society.  Poisonous Substances Database.  http://www.willitblend.com/dontbreathethis.html.  Last retrieved April 1, 2013.

@JeffE good idea… in my case, the database has an official editor, but I suppose I can also mention the society in addition

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What to do with negative research outcomes (results) of PhD research experiment?
It is an expectation that the PhD would make an original contribution and/or advance knowledge  in a given field. I understand this is a universal assumption for this level of study across all universities.
One of my friend's research experiment has not produced a single positive result. This was a science experiment, so it is easy to quantify whether the result is positive or negative.
[It is a bit different in the social sciences, where the outcome (result) would be that either the null hypothesis is supported or rejected (with some analysis on the effect size to make the analysis meaningful in a given context). In other words, the data analysis either supports or does not support the proposition that is being investigated.]
My question is: What should a student do if none of the research outcomes or results are positive?
Simply writing that nothing new was found does not add or advance knowledge other than to just confirm the status quo (which I guess is a form of contribution, but there has to be more than this at this level of research!).

Related: Why don't people publish failures?

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/31/edison-lot-results/

I'm a PhD student myself and many of my experiments do not show an effect under certain conditions. This doesn't make the work less important (but certainly less "fancy"), as it shows that many people expect is simply not happening. My PhD is in biology, though, so it might be a bit different.

Your friend might not want to hear this, but there's nothing you can do except for start over - with a different experiment. Research fails - and should  ! If there isn't a risk of failure, you're not out on the cutting edge doing research.
But in most failures, there's a grain of something to build on ("from the ashes of disaster come the roses of success"). Maybe the student is too demoralized right now to see it, but almost always there's some clue in the failure that leads to a different research question worth asking.

I think it is very important to know what exactly failed. If, for example, the experiment failed due to methodological problems, then starting over at least partially might be needed. If everything worked fine, but no findings were discovered, then starting over might not be necessary. No findings using good science is still good science.

I think there is a case to be done to report negative results, since it gives at least a blueprint of what does not work.
However, as Suresh mentions, usually a PhD is measure on its contribution to expand knowledge. If your friend is already 5 years into his PhD however, I think there is some adviser's fault, since he should have had some kind of insight that this thing was not working and a different course might have been wiser.

More importantly, publishing negative results protects science from publication bias.

Publishing null results does expand the frontier of knowledge. It's not sexy, but it really is something that wasn't known before.

This ^, null results do expand knowledge. Academia really needs to change the positive results are the only results culture.

I think that there is a clarification needed from the question.  If the results are bad because of a user error, or finding nothing when fishing with large data then the results aren't very meaningful.  But if the experiments are well done, and there was a specific hypothesis, then I wholeheartedly agree, a negative result for that hypothesis is definitely valuable.

A defensible null result (that is being able to definitively say that something isn't there as opposed to not being able to say anything either way) is a result and does advance the frontier of knowledge.
This should be obvious.
If that kind of thing can't be published in your friend's discipline then there is something seriously wrong with the culture of that discipline.
To be sure, null results are generally not sexy and can't expect to get into a first rank journal unless there was a widespread expectation that this was a shoo-in, but it is still real science.

Technically, you have nothing to face failure except doing another experiment as @Suresh said, Consulting supervisor and other acknowledgeable people and carefully looking again to the problem formulation and to your solving method. Here the goal is to identify the error.
More importantly, at least to me, is the non-technical reaction for such failures. I reward myself by relaxing, playing more with the kids, sleeping early; playing some games or sometimes watching movie. I try my best to forget the problem for one or two days..

Two major thoughts:

A negative finding is still a finding. Publishing failures is a harder road to publication, but still a valuable contribution to science as a whole.
While this might be a little late for your friend, I always advise looking for "fail-safe" research questions for dissertations or other research projects where a student's success depends on a single finding. What I mean by fail-safe is that research questions should be chosen where "Yes" or "No" are both interesting and publishable answers.

I work in the field where publication of negative results is frowned upon, and basically impossible. The result is huge positive bias which severely impacts the ability of the field to properly judge its own advances and perspectives. This field is Artificial intelligence, and it already experienced two "winters" (check wikipedia for AI winter phenomenon). I personally think the third winter is due in two to three years, maybe sooner.
So publishing negative results is crucial to keep out the bias. In AI, every approach just works, if you read the papers (except for the approaches before the one published in the paper, those don't work well, that's why we really need to publish this one). Yes, I am being sarcastic.
On a more serious note, in engineering studies the point of obtaining PhD is inventing a new and better method for something. Of course, the theory goes, if you invent something useless (that it does not work), there is no point in publishing it. However, often people refrain from publishing methods that don't work, but they should, given the general ideas in the field. And that is wrong.
So the main difference is not humanities vs. hard sciences, the main difference is usually engineering (basically hellbent on inventing something new and reporting about it) vs other sciences. For example, the mere fact that some substance does not affect cancerous cells (is therefore useless for curing cancer) can be very important in medicine research, so other people will not waste time examining it further.

This is similar to another question on the topic.
There is nothing wrong with publishing null results.
The goal of research is not to have positive results, the goal of research in an academic setting is to be published, read and cited. Having null results is only a minor inhibition on that. You can still get published and have a successful dissertation if:

The methodology was sound.
The argument that one could have expected your approach to work was clear and agreeable to your audience.
The paper was well written and clearly outlays the conclusions and implications for the field that practitioners care about.

Having an interesting and successful thesis helps, no doubt, but it is not the sole issue here. The demands of 1,2,3 are very high.


text:
Should researchers disclose their political interests in publications?
Scenario: A researcher, who is also a member of the political party A, investigated the impact (e.g. on public health) of specific actions or policies (e.g. strikes or health expenditure cuts) belonging to the rival party B.
Assuming that the research motivation is scientifically justified, the methodology is sound, the results are "unbiased" and reproducible, and support was only received from an independent body (e.g. a research council), should the researcher disclose his/her political motivation in the publication?

One thing to clarify - when you say "member" of a party, is this in the UK model (you sign up, pay dues, might well campaign, etc; only a few hundred thousand people are party members) or the US model (a looser affiliation, but held by a majority of voters). One is more of an issue than the other!

Could be both. The point is having a political motivation, not merely being a member.

The correct answer is probably to look at the journal's website. It sounds like the manuscript would be submitted to journals of political science, where possible biases or conflicts of interest of this type could be expected to occur frequently. So I'd expect editorial boards to have thought about this and to have formulated guidelines about what kind of bias needs to be disclosed, and in what way.
Anecdotally, neither the American Journal of Political Science nor the Journal of Politics (both of which I pulled out of a random Google search) seem to have any guidance on conflicts of interest at all. So it may make sense to contact the editor and ask explicitly.

That said, here is my answer (as opposed to what I think is the correct one, see above): I don't think it makes sense to require disclosure of political bias based on party membership. Why? Because if party membership was a criterion, all you'd need to do is to renounce your membership. Which would likely not change your biases, only whether or not you'd need to disclose them. Doesn't make sense to me.
Unless the criterion for disclosure is "was a party member during the last year, or two, or five years", which also seems to border on the absurd. Suppose you left a party not to avoid having to disclose a conflict of interest, but because you changed your views so that now you are less biased than when you were a member. There are just so many ways such requirements might have unforeseen consequences.
So what about some other criterion to disclose political views? I don't see anything that can be operationalized meaningfully. Nor does it sound realistic to me that people can really step back and assess their own biases dispassionately.
Bottom line: it looks to me like requiring disclosure of political leanings will likely not result in useful information. Instead, it makes more sense to rely on reviewers to catch methodological weaknesses due to such biases, and on readers to understand that political biases may well play a bigger role in political science than, say, in molecular biology.

The researcher should probably disclose any bias she knows she has, though outside of potential biases due to funding of the research (think drug companies funding studies for their products), I don't think this is done much. Prominent public intellectuals usually wear their biases on their sleeves, so reviewers are often pretty aware of them. I'm not sure matters as much for less well known academics unless there's a worry that they were cooking the data.

Totally not an answer, more like a "what about an option three."
I personally think it's not necessary. Because it's creating a false label that indicates a certain piece of work is likely tainted with or free of political biases. But in fact, a party member's work can be critical and objective towards his/her party; and a seemingly neutral person could have been paid by a party using paths with variable traceability to produce biased reports.
To bring the argument up one more level, it's unrealistic to expect everyone to operate in a truly objective manner. We're all shaped by experience, beliefs, feed backs, etc. in both conscious and subconscious manners. Just like another answer says: the affiliation in question is not operationalizable. If political interest needs to be reported... what else should also be reported? A researcher who was molested as a child may advocate for stronger punishment against sex offenders, another researcher who lost her child to medical malpractice may study the benefits of alternative medicines... etc. There is no end to it.
Whoever thinks that if they pick up an article written by a seemingly "clean" author will definitely learn something objective is going to have a really bad time. While I do embrace the idea of reporting conflict of interest, I don't think it's viable to report conflicts of belief. Instead, we educators should encourage students and audience to engage in critical thinking, to ask questions, and to consider and evaluate multiple points of view.

Hm. Your second and third paragraphs could be applied to any disclosure of conflicts of interest, couldn't they? It seems like the academic community as a whole draws the line where money is involved, whether received during a study or likely to change hands later (e.g., if an author owns stock that is likely to be impacted by his study's results). This may be the only halfway reasonable operationalization possible.


text:
When is a supervisor unable to request paper retraction if a paper gets published without her consent?
If a ex-PhD student publishes a paper from his thesis without his ex-supervisor's consent, the paper gets retracted upon his ex-adviser's request to the editor.
My question is: Could there be any exceptions from this rule?

When a supervisor formally withdraw the supervision, does he looses the so called "his data rights"?

Please elaborate further: What is the intellectual contribution of the supervisor to the paper? In what temporal order did the writing of the paper, the withdrawal from supervision, the paper submission(s) and the paper retraction request happen? Did the supervisor ever agree to publishing the paper? What are you referring to by “data rights”? Why did the supervisor withdraw from supervision? (There are far more details which could help to evaluate the situation, but this should give you an idea about what information is missing.)

I've just created a new, somewhat related question, http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/22005/co-author-blocking-publication. I think the answers may help shed some light on your problem, although I'm sure your circumstances will be somewhat different to the ones I describe.

I can see three main reasons why a PhD student would require permission from the supervisor to publish a paper:

Because the supervisor contributed to the paper enough to deserve authorship.
Because the supervisor is listed as a co-author.
Because university regulation stipulate that students require permission before publishing.
The supervisor is responsible for ensuring that external obligations are met (e.g. ethical handling of medical data; confidentiality agreements with third parties; etc etc.)

Now the third reason does not really affect the journal, but only the internal relationship between student and university. If the student lists the university as affiliation, they may demand to change this, but would not really be in a position to demand a retraction.
If the second case applies but not the first, again a correction of the misleading metainformation needs to be done, but this would probably not be grounds for a retraction.
The first case does merit demanding a retraction, but for this it is irrelevant that the objecting co-author is the former PhD supervisor of the publishing co-author. In particular, it would not really matter how exactly the collaboration of the two broke down.
In the fourth case, the missing permission by the supervisor itself would again be irrelevant for the journal. If the objection however is due to say lacking ethics approval for experiments required those, then the latter circumstance would be cause for retraction. Here, too, the details of the relationship between advisee and advisor are irrelevant, only the potential ethics infractions should impact the journal's decision.

There's also: 4. The supervisor is responsible for ensuring that external obligations are met (e.g. ethical handling of medical data; confidentiality agreements with third parties; etc etc.) Depending on circumstances, this might not necessarily fall under (1).

@avid Thanks, this is a good point. I've added it.

"1. Because the supervisor contributed to the paper enough to deserve authorship."
Just curious, could one imagine any situation in which a student can disprove a claim like 1. above?

@user16117 An obvious example would be the student publishing work wholly unconnected to their supervisor (perhaps something from their masters research at another university, or in an entirely different field that they happen to have knowledge of).

The same apply to conferences? For an ex-student to go to a conference presenting from his thesis, must ask the ex-advisor for permission?


text:
File formats in the peer review process (if some do not use office/libreoffice editors)
I was wondering if there are any journals that do not use 'doc' or any other similar file formats in the review process
In my experience I have used 'track changes' in some document editor to communicate with reviewers
I remember finding it strange at first that the academics/alchemists in their 'high tower' used such file formats. Had some snobby feeling that they should be above it. In the distance academics were graybeards that spoke Latin and used latex for everything. Now up close, as always, they are just regular people (the distance makes mountains blue and people great is a saying somewhere).
Jokes aside, I would like to know if there are any journals that refuse to use the 'doc/odt...' file formats. Some have latex as an alternative but then convert everything to 'doc' when the review process begins. Is there anywhere discussions or articles where this has been addressed (if there is any issue, not sure if there is)?
Mostly interested in the biological fields
Edit:
My question is:
What journals do not use 'track changes' in the review process? It seems like in the end they all ditch the response letter and want 'track changes'. It would be nice for once to stick to the original Latex file but if it is not possible then so be it. Just thinking out loud (sorry, but seemed like a legitimate question, I'll delete if this is just some impulsive brew).

Applied Physics Letters accepts Microsoft Word or LaTeX (but does say has to be .docx on Mac). Says nothing about open office products. Physical Review Letters says "Text files should be formatted in REVTeX (preferred) or LaTeX." but goes on to say "Submissions in MSWord, PostScript and PDF are also acceptable; although their use is extremely limited in either the peer review or production process." I would strongly suggest that neither journal would convert a LaTeX document to a doc format.

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

Journals tend to use the formats predominantly used by people in the field. In biological (and indeed many other) fields, I believe that would mean MS Word. A journal refusing to use a standard format is just committing self-sabotage as most would submit elsewhere instead. (With many journals there are enough hoops to jump through as it is...) For an individual author it may be easier to go along with the flow than to use formats that are nominally supported, but in practice rarely used.

Jokes aside, I would like to know if there are any journals that refuse to use the 'doc/odt...' file

In mathematical fields there are journals that only accept LaTeX submissions. For the reason given above that seems much less likely to be a thing in biological fields, however.

What journals do not use 'track changes' in the review process? It seems like in the end they all ditch the response letter and want 'track changes'.

That is pretty far from my experience in physics. Typically, one submits a .tex file, from which the journal generates a PDF that is sent to reviewers. Revised manuscripts are submitted the same way. Changes may be highlighted in a PDF, and summarized in a response letter. Whether the response letter is typed up in LaTeX or in some WYSIWYG editor is entirely up to the author(s), as long as it is eventually sent in some format supported by the journal.

Good "bad" answer, the truth hurts but going with the flow makes it all easier. Thanks

I have to feeling you are asking on two different levels. Submittig the file in one format is one thing, the journal sending out the file to reviewers a completely separate thing.
Most journals I have reviewed for so far (electronics/material science/textiles field) actually send a PDF to review. I am sure that they did either receive a LaTeX or word file as submission, though.
I have never received a word file to review. In a double blind review process, a word document can be hard to anonymize: we get our MS Office Suite from the institute as a personalized version, and cannot change the user, so all comments and changes would have my name on it.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Does quick review means likely rejection?
I recently submitted a paper to an Elsevier journal in the management area, where I can track the review status. After submitting the paper, I found that one of the reviewers completed the review just three days after accepting the invitation to review the paper. I am confused about how someone can complete the review so quickly, and I wonder if this means it is more likely to be a rejection from the reviewer.
Your inputs are appreciated based on your experience.

Possible duplicate of Is it possible to make a decision upon a manuscript just within a month?. Also see: Can I predict the fate of my manuscript (from information other than a decision letter)?

@Wrzlprmft Or Can the process of review be so fast?

It is based on new results.

For some papers, the decision (accept, reject) is clear.  There is no reason to take a long time on them.  The remaining papers, where decision is not clear, require more time.

"I am confused about how someone can complete the review so quickly, and I wonder if this means it is more likely to be a rejection from the reviewer." What are customary review timelines in your domain? What I am used to is that a review can be done in a few hours; what takes time is just finding a time slot to actually do it, but that is not related to the review itself.

It means exactly nothing. The reviewer probably had a little downtime when the request came in and immediately wrote the review. Could be good, could be bad. You will know when you get the review.
Word of advice: don't look at the status of your paper. It says nothing, and even if it would say something, there is nothing you can do with that hypothetical information. So any second you spent on looking at the status is a second wasted. Just forget that paper exist until you get the reviews back.

In general I agree, but if review is not returned in much longer than the expected time, it's worth to check on the status. Editors occasionally tend to forget a paper, and a friendly email can remind them to continue or processing or to chase or replace a tardy reviewer.

@frederik sure, but the question is about a "too quick" review, so we are not there yet....

If I get a review request and I have the time, I do it quickly. Otherwise, I might forget and then end up remainder emails shortly before the deadline. The reality of being faculty at a university is just that I cannot afford to spend days on a review. I will usually read some of the cited work with which I am not familiar with. I will also usually wait for a night's sleep before I send off the review, since a second, fresh reading might make me see something different or make me reconsider the tone of my remarks.
Thus, as a reviewer, it might take only two days after receiving a review request, or it might take much longer. If I get a bunch of review request, I prioritize by ease of review. Clear rejections are the easiest.
This is my way of proceeding and others do it differently. I just added this as an answer because you want to get general feed-back.
By the way: The advice by Maarten Buis is spot-on.

Quick reviews are generally not rushed reviews.  As a reviewer, I make a point to review papers as soon as I accept them, and I don't accept them unless I have time to really do a good job.    Generally, reviewers are busy people, and I've found that put anything off until right before the deadline tend to do a worse job at it.

Don't stress yourself out. I've personally experienced or caused all of the following:

Quick review: "huh, this is wrong. That's outdated. This bit is nice. Major revision from me, editor, but I wouldn't be surprised if other refs reject."
Quick review: "nice one! Good graphs. Hey, now that's one paper I don't have to write. Minor revise on this, this, this paragraph."
Slow review: "wow. This bit is interesting. Does that technique work? two days later ... yeah, it does. They need to explain it a bit better. Minor revise."
Slow review: "... oh no, how do I write this review constructively?"

In summary, whether the review is quick or slow is not highly correlated with whether it will be a desk reject, approve without revisions, or anything in between.
As an extremely specific conjecture: this answer was written mid-July-2024. A good reviewer will probably have put in extra time to get it done now just before classes start, which could explain the very quick review turnaround. (You'll probably never know.)


text:
If I define acronyms in the abstract, should I define them again in the rest of the paper?
I've noticed in some papers (CS) that even if the authors define acronyms in the abstract, they restate them once again in the rest of the paper. It is like "what happens in the abstract stays in the abstract"!
So, I was wondering if there is a rule regarding the above?

Possible duplicate: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16360/abbreviations-abbrv-in-journal-jrn-articles-artcs

Abstracts are read separately from the paper itself. They aren't an introduction, but more of a condensed version.
So if the paper defines an acronym, it shouldn't rely on the abstract for it. On the other hand, the abstract is supposed to be fairly short, so there isn't usually much of a case for defining acronyms there.
It depends on the paper, of course, but consider spelling out the whole term in the abstract if it is referenced only once there.

I was wondering if there is a rule regarding the above?

There is a simple rule: always do what is most helpful for your reader.  Often your reader will not read the abstract of the paper at the same time as the body, so it would not be unusual for a reader to start reading the paper without first reading the abstract (perhaps having read it at some previous time).  If they read from the start of the body, and are presented with acronyms that are not defined, that might lead them to a situation where they don't understand some part of your paper.  I would therefore recommend erring on the side of caution and defining your acronyms in the body of the paper.

I would repeat it.  Some people read abstracts only (e.g. Chem Abstracts is a pulication of abstracts).  Those who are reading the paper may not read the abstract.
Really, each should be self-supporting.  Otherwise, you start to morph the abstract from an abstract to an introduction.

Usually its convenient, if possible, to include a small glossary in the beginning of the paper. In this way it´s possible to consult every time you came up with an acronym in the text.
Also, re-defining them in the text is better. Sometimes readers don´t assume abstract and paper as part of a whole.

This answer partially repeats what I said here

Abstract are tricky. For example, APA 5 style used to say that abstracts had to be self contained. That meant you had to introduce acronyms in the abstract and then again in the body. In APA 6, this has been dropped (cf. this blog post). I still go with introduce the acronym on first use in the abstract and then again on first use in the body. I also introduce acronyms on first use in figure captions (not sure that is APA style or Strongbad style).


text:
Copyright issue regarding creating an image by using other images taken from a website
I need to use images related to "cricket umpire signals" in my paper. I want to create a new image by putting some of these small images together along with graphs and comments next to them. But my concern is the copyright issue when I take those small images from websites.
I found the images on many websites such as BBC or WordPress blogs.
But BBC says that they don't own all of the images on their website, and they don't reply back fast. On other websites, there is nothing specifically said regarding the copyright license.
Also, I asked someone who has used such images in his paper about the issue, and he replied back "they are in the public domain and a permission is not required" along with the following link.
http://123coolpictures.com/cricket+umpires+signals.
But I'm not sure how acceptable/reliable is his answer regarding this issue.
I'm writing the paper for an ECML/PKDD workshop (computer science) in Europe and I live in Germany.

Please add your country to the question, copyright laws have huge differences about what is fair use / citation / ...

@allo: I live in Germany, and the workshop is related to ECML/PKDD conference.

Any image is copyrighted unless the author releases it into public domain or some special circumstance apply (author dead long ago, image below threshold of originality, etc.). You can't reuse the image or make a derivative work from it without consent of copyright options.
As far as I can see you have three options:

Ask the copyright holders to give you permission to use the images. First you would need to identify who are the copyright owners.
Look for an equivalent image already released under a free license - free enough for your intended use - and abide to the license (that may include acknowledge author, release under similar license or refrain from commercial use). Wikipedia Commons may be a good place to search for such image.
Create your own version of those images. Images are not free but information is. You can adopt the positions depicted in the images and ask a friend to photograph you. This way you (and your friend) will be the copyright holders and you can do whatever you want with the image.

In some academic settings, you could use an image and cite it, but I'm not sure about something different than citing (and reproducing) and image from an academic journal in another academic journal.
And of course, I must admit people very often copy images in the Internet without abiding to copyright and nothing happens, but I wouldn't do it in a paper. In fact, I doubt any editor would let you to do so.
In summary, taking in account how easy would be to create equivalent images (by drawing or by photograph) I would create new images unless I could find free equivalent ones.

Why would this use case not fall under fair use? ... It's not like its a highly creative work, either?

Creativity is unrelated to fair use. Creativity is related with threshold of originality, and for me it's clear that this images are over that threshold. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality

And fair use is a tricky figure in US copyright law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use Even if those images qualified to fair use in the US (which would be a risky assumption), there is no fair use in Germany. Some European copyright laws have a related right of citation, but it's more restricted than fair use.

OK. I just created my own drawings! :)

I asked someone who has used such images in his paper about the issue, and he replied back "they are in the public domain and a permission is not required" along with the following link. http://123coolpictures.com/cricket+umpires+signals.  But i'm not sure how acceptable is his answer.

Assuming that 123coolpictures owns the rights to those images, the only information of copyright I can find in the page is "© 2018 123coolpictures.com Inc. All rights reserved." Therefore, it points that the images copyrighted instead of free or public domain.

@Malandy There is no "fair use" in german law. There is are laws about citing images, but they are more complicated and restrictive.


text:
Does one need a bachelor's in Math, if not a master's, before taking a PhD in Math in the US?
This is actually just a revision of this question in relation to this answer.
I ask "Does one need a master's in math before taking a PhD in pure math?" (And then applied to the US for this question)
Chris C's answer suggests that in the US, I may just go straight from a bachelor's in mathematics to a PhD in mathematics, but I don't quite have a bachelor's in mathematics. My bachelor's is in mathematical finance.
Edit: Sorry. I forgot to emphasize something. My bachelor's didn't have a thesis. I had a thesis in master's, but it was in mathematical finance. Will this be a problem? I was thinking math PhD programs in the US think students have some background in mathematical research.

A variety of areas throughout mathematics. And that answer of mine that you link was written for an audience completely unfamiliar with mathematical research - someone ready to pursue a PhD should already know what it says. –  Nate Eldredge Apr 2 at 13:33

If your classes provided the background knowledge needed in a math Ph.D. program, then the fact that your degree is in mathematical finance shouldn't matter much.  In fact, in some universities, mathematical finance is considered a subfield within mathematics rather than a separate subject.  (By the way, my only degrees are a bachelor's degree in physics and a Ph.D. in math.)

@AndreasBlass thanks, but I seem to have left out details on thesis. how about now? sorry for the confusion.

Let me clarify the comment of mine which you quoted.  I am not claiming that US universities expect all their incoming PhD students to have previous experience actually doing mathematics research (many will, but not all).  I am saying that they expect them to at least have a good sense of what it is and what it involves - otherwise why are they seeking a PhD at all?

@NateEldredge Well that settles that. Thanks :)

About the thesis issue: I don't think any sort of thesis is usually expected when students are applying to the  Ph.D. program.  (Again, my own history: The only thesis I ever wrote was my Ph.D. thesis.)

It's very important to have a bachelor's degree, as typically there are bureaucratic rules that make it very hard to admit a student without one.  The words it says after "Bachelor of" don't matter very much, as long you have some strong evidence that you can be successful in grad school, from your grades, test scores letters, etc.  With mathematical finance vs. math, there's a decent chance the committee wouldn't even notice the distinction.

Thanks Ben Webster, but I seem to have left out details on thesis. how about now? sorry for the confusion.

Never mind Nate commented. Hehe.

I am a mathematician. One of my academic siblings has an undergrad degree in mathematical finance. As Andreas Blass comments, grad school admissions committees are most concerned with sufficient background, as opposed to the particular credential.

Thanks Zach H, but I seem to have left out details on thesis. how about now? sorry for the confusion.

Never mind Nate commented. Hehe.


text:
Talking about career plans given short supply of academic jobs?
Context: I am asked for my career plans and aims for development after graduation if I were accepted into a PhD program in pure mathematics under government funding from Country A.
Dumb question: I want to go into academia after, but given that apparently academic jobs are in short supply especially in theoretical fields or something, how should I talk about my plans after the would-be PhD program?

I have 2 ideas with my anticipated pros and cons:
Idea 1:
Say only that I want to go into academia after.

Con: Might be seen as immature like I don't have any backup plans, and I'm not aware of academic job shortages.
Pro: Hopefully seen as committed to doing a PhD

Idea 2:
Say that I want to go into academia after but also [insert backup plan here which is based on my current career ever since I graduated master's in applied mathematics last year].

Con: Might be seen as not that committed to doing a PhD or even not that sure of what I want to do after assuming the former isn't an issue
Pro: Might be seen as mature like I'm aware of academic job shortages.
Another pro: How I would state the backup plan might help convince Country A government that I am very interested to pursue PhD studies in Country A (well, besides, being a local applicant)

How much space in the application can you devote to this? In mine, I wrote 1 sentence near the end of my research statement saying that my long term goal is to stay in academia.

@astronat we are given 2000 characters for this part. One university allows 1000. Context: There are well-defined parts of the statement of purpose/research statement/application letter for this scheme and they all have a certain number for maximum characters allowed. It's not like there are guide questions and then we submit some unified 'statement of purpose' or anything. We type our answers in notepad and then copy it to provided text boxes for each part

Saying that you want to go into academia doesn't imply that you're not aware of academic job shortages. Instead, saying I'll go would have that and many more implications.

I don't understand the point of writing "Country A," providing a link, and then once you click the link you find that the country is still not identified.  Do you really think that providing the name of a country that you are applying to compromises your anonymity?  Please weigh that against the added value you would get from being specific: academia in different countries works differently.  If you decide not to disclose the country...then what is the value of writing "Country A" over and over again?

Your Country A sounds familiar... does it have a strong banking sector? If you already have a prospective advisor, they can coach you how to "target" your application appropriately. When I was applying, my advisor directed me to underline the potential applications of my project in the medical & financial sectors since that is what people like there. (Vs for Japan you would always underline earthquake detection etc.) But I'm not sure if this question would be the right place for it.

@nengel Thanks for sentences 1, 2 and 3. Thanks also for sentences 4, 5 and 6, but what's the relevance for this particular question?

@MassimoOrtolano Thanks! Edited to include immaturity. Same response still?

@JackBauer: I was thinking maybe they are looking for a somewhat more general "what you want to do with your life" rather than "what job do you want to apply to after graduation". E.g. in my case it's "make FPGAs accessible as a general computing platform" which I could do both in academia and in the private sector. And high frequency traders are all over that right now so it would be easy to slide that in there. But if you already have it in a different section it might be overdoing it.

@nengel PURE BRILLIANCE, or am I just a typical beginner in writing applications? I forgot: if banking = finance, then yes.

I guess you mean you are applying for a government fellowship to fund your graduate studies, and the government agency asks about your career plans on the application form.  My experience in the US is that many students don't really know what they want to do before entering a PhD program.  My impression from some countries where you are required to have a master's first is that most people at the master's level don't know what they want to do coming in (or at least their advisors don't know), but that people who start PhD programs at least think they want to do research.  The point is that unless someone shows real mathematical maturity in their application, I wouldn't put too much weight on what they say their career goals are when applying to a US-type combined master's + PhD program (and I guess you are talking about the US), as these goals often change anyway.
Anyway, I think you should state your plans as clearly and as honestly as you can, so if there are a couple of things you're interested in, you can mention them both, but you probably don't need to go into back-up scenarios if things don't work out with your current goals.  I expect they mean to ask: "what do you want to do?" rather than "give a strategy for your career that is achievable with a 95% chance of success."  Moreover, I don't think the job market is really that bleak in pure math in academia, as long as you are not set on anything too specific (see, e.g., https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/44187/19607), so I don't think something like "staying in academia" is that unrealistic as "getting an endowed chair at MIT" would be.
In addition, since it seems like you're not too sure what the program is looking for, I suggest you read through the selection criteria, which are mostly likely available somewhere in the application guide.

Helpful, reassuring and insightful! Can't believe I didn't think of looking through selection criteria for this part. Thank you Kimball!


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Peer-correction / evaluation of homework
Many MOOCs have a system where enrolled students get points for submitting homework, and for grading a fixed number of their peers' homework (On a MOOC i took earlier, each student had to evaluate at least three other randomly selected submissions).
I'm wondering if anyone has used this approach in a physical classroom with handwritten homework submissions. Apparently this is legal in the US, but I'd like to know if anyone has first hand experience with managing the logistics.
I'd keep a dedicated 'tutorial' hour for this where I could solve and discuss the homework problems on the board, and students would grade problems. Perhaps the most selfish benefit is that I am spared the drudgery of grading an scoring a stack of homework.

This idea is being promoted by education experts at the moment. One reason is precisely to spare the drudgery (and time) of marking a big pile of work. The second argument is that doing so helps students learn to evaluate their own work, not just wait for your judgement.

Something I have seen a teacher do (successfully) is to grade the homework based on completion. It saved time; the teacher simply walked around the room with a clipboard asking students to show him both sides of the paper (and you can be as through as you want). There was also a spot on the board for students to write the numbers of problems they struggled with, and other students could then work those out on the board to show the process (and gain extra credit).

Peer evaluation (offline) is common in many universities and schools.
It is beneficial for students to see what their peers have written and to learn from their own and their peer's mistakes and strengths.
However, a well-formulated evaluation matrix would be necessary for objective evaluation.
In my University, short papers are almost always evaluated by students themselves. There is blinding and we even attempted three independent, blinded evaluations and awarded the maximum marks obtained if and only if all the three evaluations were within 15% difference range.
Hope this helps.

Blinded evaluation can be easily managed by having students write ID number instead of name, for example. How did you manage the three independent evaluations? Do all students sit in one room to do their evaluations? How complicated is the evaluation matrix?

So, what do you do if three evaluations are way off 15% difference range?

@kabZX We use Canvas LMS which automates peer reviews/assessments.

@dmitry-savostyanov : A fourth review/assessment by a teacher decides the final mark.

(In my field, mathematics, mostly graduate-level, in the U.S., at R1 university) although this may be marginally legal, and does have some constructive features, it also has many failings. An even more entrenched situation is that slightly-more-advanced grad students (or, worse, those whose command of English is too poor to be in a classroom as Teaching Assistant!) are assigned as "graders" for homework and exams for graduate-level courses... indeed, to "spare" the instructor (whose raises and status are based on "research", not "teaching") the burden.
After some decades of wanting to believe that this system could work, I have eventually come to see that it does not. Thus, if nothing else to show that I put my effort where my rants are, I do give frequent feed-back, comment-on and return promptly homework, ditto exams. Yes, I do also discuss (an anonymized form of) foibles I see in homework and exams. In particular, this system (while much more effort) is nearly-infinitely more informative about the actual state of the grad students' minds than if I merely had numbers reported to me. (And surely vastly more useful to students than much-belated or cryptic grading schemes.)
Also, again based on some decades of observation, the critiques that students could/do give each others' work (even with the best of intentions) is ... duh... quite naive. At best, literal "logical correctness" (already perhaps challenging) is not usually the same as "conceptual optimality", which is really the high-end goal for people who want to be professional mathematicians. That is, it is possible to be "correct" but, nevertheless, so suboptimal as to be "wrong" by any utilitarian criterion.
So, yes, it is good to rhetorically ask students to appraise things their peers have written, but with me (e.g.) as intermediary, not only "blinding" the consideration, but also guiding the appraisal in a way that not only accomplishes the immediate task, but is robust and re-usable, and perhaps not completely-obviously-so to the novice.
A related issue is that "prelim problem solutions" are often put on-line by grad students with good intentions, but in many cases (and not easy to distinguish by beginners) these solutions are very awkward and unconvincing... but, ironically, intelligible to other beginners. Meanwhile, often, what we (=faculty) want people to learn is how to do a more sophisticated thing, as opposed to muddling-by with a crappy technique.
(And, another irony, often the most assiduous people are the ones who accidentally believe that they can or should resolve all issues with their bare hands, rather than benefitting from a few centuries of experience of many quite able people. And can often-enough muddle through, and feel exhausted, thus reasoning that this must have been a virtuous action.)

This is not illegal in the UK, but is not a usual practice. Students are paying their fees in assumption that they will be provided with high-quality feedback that helps them learn and improve their work. If the students end up solving problems provided by some MOOC (which they can access outside of the University) and mark each others' work (which can be arranged without a University), then the role of the University reduces to merely stamping their exit awards, and the value of the students' degrees would be compromised.

Just to clarify; I'm NOT handing out problems asked or solved on a MOOC. My question was about using peer grading (often used by MOOCs) to a physical classroom.

I don't think it's valid to say that this is not a usual practice. It is very common and expected in certain disciplines (creative writing, studio art, etc.) to have peer evaluation and feedback. There are many common classroom activities that inherently involve peer evaluation (project presentations).

A single lecturer or teaching assistant would not provide higher-quality feedback if he/she is overwhelmed with hundreds of submissions. In such a case, students might do a better work at this.

Avoiding a stack of scoring is a completely valid reason to do this.
I have about 80 students this semester. If I spend 10 minutes evaluating each student in a week then that's 13.3 hours per week. If you consider that I'm physically in class for 9 hours per week and reviewing and preparing for those classes is another 9 hours per week, then I'm already at 31 hours before you start thinking about other obligations.
And then you sit back and realize that a 10 minute evaluation isn't time for anything more than marking problems right or wrong and scribbling a few pointers for next time.

I wasn't aware that my job as a professor was handing out assignments and giving back scores. Somewhere I got the crazy idea that there was more to it that that.

For those who have down voted the above comment, I urge you to read about 'Assessment Fatigue' which is a very human and real performance issue. It has been shown that the assessment quality of teachers (even the good ones) shows a gradual but definite loss of objectivity from their first student paper to the last. By the middle of a 80 paper stack, the performance is already degraded.
We want teachers to do their thing, but we have to factor for their humanness too.


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Sources of academic salary information?
What are some useful sources for investigating common salary ranges for academics? This would be especially useful if it can be broken down by region, school type, position, and/ or institution.
This information is invaluable for going into an interview or negotiation process being (at least somewhat) informed.
I know some websites across the internet that attempt to generally provide this information, but many do not cover academic jobs effectively (or typically at all).

See here for a discussion of this topic for UK schools.
And here or here are two of many SE questions discussing How to handle salary negotiations.

I'm particularly interested in American academic salaries, but I welcome any information/sources others are aware of!

Union contracts for institutions that have them, public records requests for public institutions.  AIP has some survey data for physics only.

The broadest survey that I'm aware of across many disciplines in the US is the CUPA-HR (College and University Professional Association for Human Resources) survey.  Some summary data is available for free from their web site.  However, you'd have to pay for access to the full survey results.  Colleges frequently make use of this survey in setting salary targets.
The Chronicle of Higher Education also hosts a database that has salary data for faculty at many individual institutions in the US- I'm not sure of the sources of this data.
Many individual disciplines have salary surveys that are done by professional societies.  For example, in mathematics, the American Mathematical Society has an annual survey of salaries of mathematics faculty in the US with extensive results that is freely available on the web.  The survey breaks down positions by type of institution (bachelor's granting, master's granting, and three classes of PhD granting institutions.)  It also has data for new assistant professors, all assistant professors, associate professors, and full professors.
At many public institutions in the US the salaries of faculty are a matter of public record and can be obtained by doing a simple web search.  In negotiating an offer you might find this data useful.  However, it's quite common under these circumstances that the institution simply won't negotiate much with respect to salary to avoid upsetting the faculty that already work in a department- they're generally aware of what their coworkers make.
At private universities in the US, the salaries of individual faculty are generally kept secret, except in cases where faculty members are among the most highly paid employees of the institution whose salaries must be reported as part of the annual report to the IRS (typically the five highest salaries go to football and basketball coaches and top administrators, but you sometime find medical school profs listed in these reports.)

Great answer. Thanks! It's the private schools that have given me trouble in the past. Though The chronicle of higher Ed and Glassdoor both seem to provide some information for private schools (even small, unranked schools)!

This topic seems to be already popularly discussed a little more broadly in another question:
In which countries are academic salaries published?.
That discussion seems to focus less on online resources, but nevertheless provides a few good examples:

Annual report on faculty salaries produced by the AAUP (through The Chronicle of Higher Education)
@Christian Clason mentions a promising database linking Public University Salaries.

An additional good online resource that I've found = GlassDoor.com
Know any others??

I think the best source of information are current department chairs. They need to know the market in order to make reasonable offers. They will know salary and startup information about the last few offers they have made as well as the "best" counter offer those candidates have had. They will likely have talked to the Dean and other department chairs within their university and possibly other universities.

Though you're right, asking the person your generally negotiating with for a suggestion of how much you should negotiate for is typically a less than ideal approach to long-term financial satisfaction :p.

@theforestecologist in academics you typically do not negotiate with your current chair since you need to change jobs to get a raise. Further, in the searches I have seen, generally, your are negotiating with the Dean through the chair.


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Do books need a URL when cited?
I'm writing my thesis with Latex and I use Mendeley for the citation.
When I add a book and specify some attributes, like title, author and ISBN, Mendeley automatically adds some missing attributes.
One of those attributes is the URL of a book. Usually, this is a URL from amazon.com or books.google.com.
After generating the document with Latex, the URL also appears in my bibliography. It could look like:
Peter Smith. A Long Book Title. Pearson Education, 2008, p. 530.
isbn: 0-123-54431-2. doi: 10 . 1336 / 976 - 3 - 434 - 03844 - 5. arXiv:
arXiv : 1011 . 1889v3. url: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/012345678?ie=UTF8&tag=petersmith-20&linkCode=as2&camp=4321&creative=4567&creativeASIN=087239586.

So the URL is very long and, in my opinion, useless. This is not the "real" URL of the book (not the URL of the author or the publisher) and I don't think, it adds any value to the bibliography.
In Mendeley, when I click on Tools->Options->Document Details, I can specify which attributes I want to appear. Sadly, I can't uncheck URL in the document type Book. So I assume, this is important?
Can I just manually remove the URLs of all by books?

Yes you can remove the URL as you have the ISBN number for each book; which is a unique identifier, universally given and searchable.
Note On The Generated URLs by E-Commerce Websites: Also make sure the on the URL you are using. The URL you posted is a generated one from Amazon that has number of variables for marketing purposes.

Agree with the basic principle. That said, the URLs mentioned are pretty useless - the Amazon one even contains an affiliate referrer ID code! - but it might be worth quickly checking before deleting them all, in case some are legitimately useful URLs (eg a book which is fully available online as well as in print).

@Andrew Good point on Amazon's links, will add it to the answer, thanks. Is there any book without an ISBN number? As long as there is an ISBN number I don't think URL is that much important as the author uniquely identifies the book. Am I wrong on this?

For unique identification & tracking a print copy, you're right that an ISBN is usually all that's needed. But the other links may have content value as opposed to simply identification value - eg if I was citing something like http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9781316161012 I'd want to always include the DOI as well as the ISBN, simply because it makes it much more accessible.

Too bad there isn't a ISBN resolver like dx.doi.org...

@FedericoPoloni There is WorldCat which is enough in many cases.

A trivial web search with the author name and the book header should usually return Amazon and similar sites where the book could be purchased, as well as probably some alternative sites, and the authors website as well. Same about ISBN number.
Hence, I think, URLs are redundant. Also, it is not uncommon for them to "rot" (disappear or change over time).

authors: محمدحسین ساعی


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How to prepare a good response to referee reports when I have a weak reject and two accepts?
I received a weak reject, an accept and a strong accept from a top-tier conference in CS. So, I need to prepare a careful rebuttal response!
The problem is that the weak-reject reviewer did not ask any serious questions, and only stated that the novelty and contributions are limited and paper needs further polishing. But he stated a full confidence in his decision!
I already pointed out 3 main novel contributions in the paper. Should I just repeat (and rephrase) them in the response?
Personally, my feeling is that he did not try to go into the details of the work and responded based on some intuitions/feelings. I guess that based on his provided summary of the paper which is not exactly what i did.
It is also possible to send an additional confidential feedback to the conference program chair about the reviews' qualities or etc. but I'm not sure if that can be useful in this case?

Whi is PC ? Surely you are communicating with the editor?

@SolarMike: I mean the conference program chair assigned to my paper.


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How did US Dartmouth get named after the British officer school?
I always thought that Dartmouth was the British version of Westpoint. The British officer training school, but now in my googling it seems Google assumes I'm searching for the US university. I was wondering what the relationship with the two Dartmouths were?

I realised after posting Dartmouth UK is more like Anapolis than Westpoint

Dartmouth UK is just a small town on the mouth of the river Dart. Dartmouth UK is like any small town at the end of a river.

I don't agree or appreciate the closing of this question without an explanation of why it has been closed. How am I or any future reader supposed to know what is wrong with it?

There is no relationship. Dartmouth College (founded 1769) is named after William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, not after the Britannia Royal Navy College in Dartmouth (founded 1863).

Although it appears the title 'Earl of Dartmouth' refers to the same Dartmouth, Devon where the BRNC is located.

Lots of places in America are named after places in the UK. See the York that made the New York new. As I understand it was common for groups of colonists to name places in the 'New World' after places they came from.
Pretty much every place name in Britain seems to appear in the US somewhere. Dartmouth is a region of Devon, where I happen to live. Literally 'The mouth of the river Dart' which runs from Dartmoor through Paignton. With Devon having quite large ports nearby (Plymouth) and also being on that side of the country, it was a convenient place to launch colonial ships.
There are also Dartmouths in Australia and Canada. https://geotargit.com/called.php?qcity=Dartmouth

There is also a New Plymouth in New Zealand.

Hartford, Litchfield, New London, ... , the list goes on in Connecticut.

Yeah and there are 10 Exeters in the US. It's not an uncommon thing for US places to be named after UK ones. Not sure what the evidence is for it being named after the Earl of Dartmouth rather than the actual place called Dartmouth though.

On the evidence: This is explained in the Wikipedia articles I linked to in my answer. If you don't trust Wikipedia, see here, for example: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dartmouth-College

Of course the Encyclopedia Brittanica would point to a Englishman…


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background check before interviews
Is it normal to have a background check before having an on-site interview for a tenure-track assistant professor position in US?

What sort of background check?

normal ones, criminal, stealing etc

If the university is paying for a candidate's travel, I can see why they might want to be sure there are no future roadblocks first.

usually university pays it without a background check

If the institution wants to conduct a criminal background check, I would expect it to occur around the time an offer is made, not before an on-site interview.

this is what i used to believe. is there a research university in US doing sth different?

If you are not American, and depending on the state and University laws of wherever you are applying, you may be subject to extra background checks. This is the case especially for individuals from China, Iran, Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, Syria, etc....
These background checks can take extra time and are run by a third party contractor. To expedite hiring processes, a lot of places are running these checks in parallel to the interview process. Basically, anyone slated to come on campus gets the background checks started. While this is tedious and costly because it means you pay for 3+ background checks even for hiring one person, it does mean you can move quickly to make an official offer once a candidate is moved forward. Additionally, if the first choice candidate declines, the second choice is already background checked and an immediate offer can be made.

It might be cheaper then performing an interview for 3 people and finding out that 2 of them didn't pass a background check.... Interviews cost the time of expensive people.

that makes sense

I have been on over a dozen hiring committees in the past three years alone... the background check is just a formality to satisfy legalities. Especially for foreign candidates, they have been vetted by USCIS anyways. Similarly, for US Nationals and permanent residents, they have likely undergone a recent background check for their current postdoc (or current faculty position) anyway. Hence why Universities just run this in parallel so they can get it out of the way and get to an offer as soon as possible. Of course if they do find something they won't make an offer... but that's very rare.


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How to write a statement of research interest for postdoc positions that already have a defineed research direction
I'm currently applying for a postdoc position in a particular lab. The lab has several postdoc positions available at this time, those postdocs will work on different aspects of a larger research project.The application need to include statement of research interest, CV, references and recommendation letters in one document, and also clearly state which position (which aspect of the research) I apply for.
I feel I'm a good fit for two of the positions. However, I don't know how to write a statement of research interest that is suitable for both positions, although those two aspects of the research are connected. From all the examples I saw for research statement, future research is a big part of it. With the research direction and aspects are clearly defined for the positions, what should I write in the section of future research?

Welcome to academia.SE. The question would be more readable with a paragraph break or two. You can edit it to add them.

One way is to write an SOP that is a bit more general then you would do otherwise, but not so general as to seem unserious. If you do it carefully, it can be an advantage. I think that an SOP too tailored to a particular position might not be taken seriously -- too good to be true. But don't go to the other extreme of suggesting that your interests are so broad that you don't/can't specialize as needed.
I wouldn't recommend this for positions that were widely different, but it might be good here, as you say they are related.
But, as you say, the direction of the lab is set and a post-doc isn't likely to change that. If your research interests are aligned, your "future research" ideas will probably fit as long as you don't overemphasize the specifics more than needed.
This is a Three Bears sort of problem. Too general. Too specific. No, just right.

The last line is the true answer...

I agree. Don't be too detailed and specific with your research interests. Just focus on the skills and the specific issues relevant to the position. You can write two different SOPs even though it is with the same lab. One position may be more aligned with  your future interest and you can elaborate on specific future plans, etc. For the less aligned postdoc, just focus on the generic skills and aspects of the post doc and how that fit into your overall skills development?