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Are PhD students allowed to extend their graduate studies to have a better chance at an academic job?
How long is this allowed for even after the student has completed graduation requirements?

I think this is very country dependent. No way it would fly in the UK, while within reason it would be fine at many universities in the US. No idea about other countries.

You may find the following question useful: Should Ph.D. students interested with research remain as research assistant until they find a research position or just find any job?

In the United States, there is a lot of opportunity for flexibility in scheduling graduation, assuming the faculty member has sufficient funding and motivation to keep the student around.
In most cases, however, the student would likely be served better not by delaying their graduation but instead by arranging for a transitional period as a postdoc with their same advisor.  In many cases, the cost of a postdoc is often not terribly different than a graduate student (higher salary is offset by lack of tuition), and there is typically little difficulty converting grant money from one to the other.
As a postdoc, however, there is no longer a question of graduation and thesis hanging over the former student's head, and they can be more free to focus instead on publication, networking, giving talks, and other things that will help to better position them for applying for academic positions.

In general, what you are asking about is not possible, at least not in the manner in which you have written it.
At most schools in the US, once you have completed your graduate degree requirements, which include the defense, you are considered to have "graduated," at least as far as your "employment" with the university is concerned. Your contract typically terminates on the day you are said to have finished the graduation requirements. Therefore, postponing your graduation means delaying your defense.
What may instead be possible is to transition from a graduate student position into a temporary postdoctoral position within the group. It is often understood that this is simply a direct extension for the purposes of maintaining employment, rather than as a "new" position.
In Europe, the situation is quite different, as the model for "hiring" graduate students is typically contract-based. The willingness of your advisor to continue to employ you is then dependent on the availability of resources sufficient to extend the contract.
The advisability of such a move, as jakebeal indicates in his answer, is questionable, as it is becoming increasingly difficult to secure an academic position without experience beyond the graduate student level. That said, you're probably better off looking for a postdoctoral position and excelling there, rather than trying to just continue on your PhD work for an extended period of time.

In my experience in the US, after you defend you still need to submit your thesis to the library. This would allow a fair amount of flexibility without delaying the defense.

@StrongBad: At least at the schools I attended, stipend payments were cut off as of the day of the defense.

I was paid my stipend at MIT (which I think you attended) for 2 months after my defense while I waited for my post doc to start.

The question is difficult, as it is likely to depend on your institution; however, rule of thumb (I have found) is that academic departments typically have a cap on the maximum number of years (~7yrs) you can be registered as a "graduate student," so if in principle, so long as you are below this max. years rule, you are allowed to extend your graduate education.
That being said, if you have already been studying for 5+ years, it is likely that if the department feels you've been successful they may begin to pressure your adviser to "get you out the door."
As for if it would provide better chances for an academic job, likely no. There are exceptions, one being on pursuing one of the NIH's new early-investigator awards. These awards are granted only to new graduates, and are designed to allow the recipient to "Skip" the post-doc phase of their career, and help set you up to apply to RO1 grants at an earlier age.
Another good reason to stick around is if you feel your work could be expanded on, and you don't see any post-doctoral advisers willing to allow you to do this. Some (though not all) post-doc advisers will treat you as laboratory equipment, and will stifle your independence (although slightly unethical, at least according to the journal Science, this does indeed happen) by prohibiting you  from exploring your own research interests. This carries the risk; however, of looking like you are not independent from your current adviser.
The best advice I've ever received concerning a similar situation is to discuss staying on as a post-doc for a short time at your current institution and apply for grant-funding of your own with your current adviser as a co-PI. If you are successful, you maybe able to leverage the department to list you as research faculty which would help you stick out from the crowd (including myself) of post-docs.

Here is the situation in mathematics in the states (at least for top 50 schools). The typical graduation time is 5 years. A student who is having a hard time, and doesn't have enough material to graduate (or get a post-doc) can stay for a sixth year, but this sometimes comes at a cost of having to teach more on the sixth year. Another way to proceed (for strong students) is to apply for post-doc in their fourth year, and then graduate in four years if the application is sucessful, or stay for the fifth year if the application is not sucessful.
It is very rare to stay beyond the sixth year. Typically at this point, the student is allowed to stay affiliated with the university, but has found a job somewhere else, and is just hanging around to finish his thesis (but at this point it is clear that the student will not be applying for post-docs and just wants to have a thesis at the end of the phd journey).


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What are the differences (if any) of the tenure-track job hunt if you're a professor compared to a PhD student
I'm asking mainly for the field of computer science.
It is expected and often encouraged for PhD students to market and advertise themselves during several months it takes to apply and interview for academic positions. However, it seems that when non-tenured/tenured faculty switch institutions, it's normally done silently and even the faculty's own students might now know about the search until it is a fait accompli.
I'm wondering how the process of switching universities might be (or is) different for someone who is already a professor. What is the procedure for professors planning to switch universities?

It depends a lot on what the professor's current job title is, what kind of institution the professor is at, and why he/she is interesting in switching. A soft money research assistant professor applying to tenure track positions is one story, a tenured associate professor trying to move to a more prestigious institution is another story, for example. (Not to mention a professor who's denied tenure looking for a new job... ) Can you be more specific?

Your title says "tenure track job hunt", but tenured faculty do not generally hunt for tenure-track jobs.

The difference is that when you are a PhD student, everybody knows you won't be around for long, and everything is (or should be) planned accordingly. You are assigned duties knowing that you will move on relatively soon.
Someone with a more permanent position is assumed to be around for much longer. They can take on longer time duties, and other people may start depending on them actually sticking around.
So, if a faculty moves to another place, some people are likely to get upset. Now, people upset with you across the country is not a big deal; but if you advertise it and fail to get the new position, you will have upset people in your own corridor.
Another factor is that, as soon as faculty announce they are likely to move away, people are going to start dividing up their loot: I'll take half of your lab, because you are leaving anyway; I'll teach your favourite course, because you are leaving anyway; we won't buy you the new equipment because you are leaving anyway... Again, if the deal is off and you have to stay, you have lost part of your lab, teaching, and opportunities for equipment or funding. Note that the second factor is also true for positions on soft money, that understandably, no one should count on them sticking around.
And lastly, the good old pride: "so, you think they are better than us?"

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Restoring self confidence - possible?
I am having a personal crisis and I thought maybe I should ask for some guidance in this forum.
I have been in grad school in 4 years, failed qualifiers once passed at second attempt. I am dedicated to my math-intensive research area, queueing theory, yet I still feel I am far away of being an expert in it. I have only almost finished a paper, that requires feedback from my advisor but I feel I am a big failure. My advisor thinks that I am ready to propose my thesis (thus make an early presentation to committee) next month and possibly graduate next summer. The trouble is, although I respect his opinion, even if I do get my PhD I think I will feel like I don't deserve it. It is as if I hit the magic 4 year landmark and being allowed to graduate.
Now, publication record may not be the only indicator as in my department people don't publish as much as in other fields. When I look at some good thesis's I feel that mine can be considered as masters (personal not confirmed opinion). In retrospect, all the proofs I stuggled seem so easy to me. Although I never considered acedemia as a career path and only consider industry, I more and more feel that I am a failure and will have achieved so little in the last years. I have been always aware of the challenges of grad school but I feel I messed up somewhere considering I work 10 hours each day, at most a day off weekends and having no time left to cultivate my interests, develop new friendships or develop other useful skills.
Maybe I should also mention that I am doing my studies in a top 20 US university, people mostly have the impression that I am smart, and I am aware that I have learnt so much during the last 4 years. I have read many books on productivity, learnt about Feynman's method, watched TED videos. I started going to gym to manage my stress and I think that smartness is a matter of knowledge and I have the capacity to be smart. I don't regret going for a PhD but on the other hand I can't stop feeling like I wasted my years in going grad school and maybe should have just gone to a mundane job where I'd have time to read about architecture, finance or philosopy and be a much more interesting person.
Does anyone share or shared the same feelings? Any advice to people in my situation? Any help appreciated

Check out the answers to this question on the Imposter Syndrome.

You may also want to talk to the school's mental health folks since this sounds like you could also be dealing with some clinical depression. Exercise is a good start toward developing coping skills for that; there are others, and sometimes chemical assistance is worth considering.

"In retrospect, all the proofs I stuggled seem so easy to me" all questions are easy once you know the answer.

I had some similar experiences in the recent past.

I still feel I am far away of being an expert in it

No one can be an expert in a whole domain. Being expert/perfect is an ideal situation in my personal opinion. So in case you are not an expert, there is nothing bad in it. You admit that you are not an expert so this is a positive point, it means you are able and willing to improve yourself and your knowledge. It means that even if you get a PhD degree, you'll still try to get more knowledge.

even if I do get my PhD I think I will feel like I don't deserve it

You seem to be a perfectionist. But remember no one is actually perfect. Each one of us has some strengths as well as weaknesses. How can you measure perfection? This is not absolute in my personal opinion. Have you ever thought why relative grading system is mostly used for evaluation instead of absolute grading? Because we cannot live in isolation. We are living in a society,interacting with our fellow human beings. So we need to be evaluated relative to our fellows. If you don't deserve a PhD, what about your fellows? When your supervisor is sure that you have possess certain knowledge level at which you can present your work, it means it is relatively better than many others. If those others can get a PhD, you can also deserve it. (Even if you ACTUALLY don't deserve a PhD after some time when you'll get out of this phase of life, you'll start thinking this way).

In retrospect, all the proofs I stuggled seem so easy to me

Why don't you try to think yourself as an intelligent or genius person? The same proofs may be too difficult for someone else who is not actually interested in this domain. You may disagree but in my personal opinion, apart from the industry-academia discussion, you are interested in your research domain because without interest one can't achieve this level. However, you have been working too much on the same things for a long time that you have got bored from the same lifestyle and you need a break and a change.

Although I never considered acedemia as a career path and only consider industry

I consider industry-academia debate to be separate from the research-development debate. And i think you are getting confused between the two. Industry is incomplete without academia and vice versa. Similarly research and development support each other. Most of us consider one of them to be more important that the other and hence get confused. We can characterize them in two ways... 1. what we get, 2. what we give
 Try to think seriously about choosing industry, academia or a combination of both and evaluate the pros-cons of each choice in terms of your time, energy, monetary benefits, work-life balance many other job motivational/demotivational factors. However, according to my personal experience and understanding, you are sick and tired of your routine in academia and you have been overloaded with work in the recent past which has disturbed your work-life balance. Considering industry as an alternative would only worsen the situation because job in industry can be more time and energy consuming.

I work 10 hours each day, at most a day off weekends and having no time left to cultivate my interests, develop new friendships or develop other useful skills.

Take out some time for yourself. If you are able to afford, take some leave from your current job (atleast a month or so) and spend some time at home with your family and friends. Make sure that you are completely disconnected with the official/research work/supervisor and any relevant person who can give you relevant news. After spending around 15 days of your holiday, start working part time with some other faculty member of almost the same domain but with relatively different research interests as your supervisor. You'll probably automatically start comparing that faculty member with your supervisor and will most probably start missing your supervisor. You'll realize that you were taking him/her for-granted. Its just that you have been working with your supervisor for some time now and you know much about him/her technically so you don't find something new in this experience. As a result, you start thinking that their is nothing special in what you are doing. Hopefully at the end of your holidays,you'll be back fully energetic and enthusiastic to pursue your work.

+1 RoarkAr, I hope you manage to take a little time off, and talk to the school's mental health folks. But in any case, it sounds like you are not the best judge of your accomplishments right now. I suggest you rely on your advisor's judgement for now. Also, talk to your advisor about how you are feeling.

@arj I can't thank you enough. I am in a much better mood now and I think you are absolutely right. Whenever I feel same way again I'll look at your message and remind myself all these. Also, your point about research-development vs industry-academy makes a lot of sense to me according to my own experiences. Finally I'll try to take some time-off and relax as you suggested. Again I truly appreciate your insightful answer..

@mhwombat thanks a lot. Your suggestions seem to make a lot of sense too..

@RoarkAr you are always welcome.

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What effects (if any) do audited undergraduate courses have on graduate admissions?
I'm an engineering undergraduate, and my university doesn't require me to take any math courses past the standard calculus sequence and differential equations. The field I am interested in entering in grad school is slightly math-intensive, to the point that it requires more math than what I have taken. At this time, I have two years left to graduate, and I'll be taking about 17-18 hours each semester until then, so it would be very difficult me to tack on an extra math course. I was considering simply officially auditing one, so that it appears on my transcript and so that I at least have some exposure to the subject.
My question is: will this have any positive benefits while I'm applying to graduate school? Or would the admissions committee assume that I didn't learn as much as someone who actually took the course, and take it with a grain of salt that I know the material?
On a related note: what about if the course I audited was on directly in my major? Would that be beneficial (if it were, say, a graduate-level course)?

My question is: will this have any positive benefits while I'm applying to graduate school?

I think you are asking whether it will make your application more competitive.  Answer: not much.  At many/most universities, anyone can audit any course at any time, and it doesn't certify anything more than that they showed up for class -- in some cases not even that.  I had an auditor in a course this semester who showed up
for the first half of the lectures and not for the second half.  My response: ok.  It shows up in my records -- so presumably also hers -- that she audited the course.  I am not asked to assign a grade of any kind.

Or would the admissions committee assume that I didn't learn as much as someone who actually took the course, and take it with a grain of salt that I know the material?

They would probably not assume anything at all.  They would certainly not regard this as being evidence that you learned the material: getting a poor grade in a course certainly does not demonstrate learning of the material, and auditing shows less than that.
Of course you can learn things by auditing a course.  But you can also learn by outside reading and in other ways.  However most students at this level learn more by actually taking a course, and of course if you do well in the course then that knowledge gets certified (to an extent) and can be used advantageously in your graduate application.
Story check: you say that you have two years left of undergraduate study and can't find time to officially take one course that you think will be beneficial to your intended graduate study.  This professor who read graduate applications for several years finds that hard to believe.  In two years you should be able to work in the time to take one extra course, e.g. by (i) taking courses over the summer or (ii) getting excused from one course in a sequence, say by taking an exam which shows your competence.  This is something to talk to your undergraduate advisor about.

Good answer in general, but I don't find the asker's claim so hard to believe. Some undergraduate programs do have very little flexibility.

@Nate: Engineering programs are notorious for being overloaded, yes. So  I believe that it could be some trouble and take some planning to get an extra course.  But if the OP is applying to graduate school, "Sorry, I was too busy with my major in something else" is not going to be so convincing.


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What can a student do regarding conflicting meeting times for desired courses?
As it currently stands, my department offers two necessary courses at the same time every spring. One of them I must take before I am a senior, and another I must take before I graduate (I will soon be starting my third year). So I must take the former next spring, and I will have to wait until the spring of my senior year to take the latter. The problem is that the latter is a course that is very relevant to what I wish to study in graduate school. I'd hate to apply to graduate schools before having taken such a necessary course in my desired field (I feel it would weaken my application), and at the same time, it bars me from taking more advanced courses in the field before I graduate.
Of course, these courses are always taught at the same time by established professors, so I'd hate to ask the department to change all of that for one student. Is there any course of action I can take? Or would this be regarded negatively?
I hope that this is not off topic (merely because I am an undergraduate), as perhaps the desired rescheduling of course times is something that would be relevant to graduate students as well.

One of them I must take before I am a senior, and another I must take before I graduate (I will soon be starting my third year). — You may want to consider explaining your case to the department and see if this particular rule can be bent for you rather than requiring your department to reschedule courses.

Are you required to attend both courses? Could you learn for one course without attending, only using the course material provided (and by grouping up with other students that attend the lecture)?

This is an issue that can also impact graduate students, so I do think it's appropriate for this group.
Unfortunately, once a class hour schedule has been published for the next semester, and particularly after students have started to register for classes, it is usually not easy for a department to change class times.  Thus it's important to deal with such a scheduling conflict as soon as possible and preferably before students start registering for the semester in question.
I would suggest that you send a polite email to the person in the department responsible for course scheduling (perhaps there is an undergraduate coordinator who does this, or perhaps the department chair supervises the scheduling) and explain your situation and desire to not have these two courses scheduled at conflicting times.  This is a reasonable request to make, but don't be surprised if your request doesn't result in a schedule change- in many departments courses are scheduled to satisfy the desires of the faculty rather than the needs of students.

Agreed and +1, except that I think it's fine to simply e-mail the professors of these courses. (I'm guessing you don't know who is responsible for course scheduling?) If you are enthusiastic and a strong student, which it sounds like you are, I think there is at least some possibility the department will try to accommodate you. But, a variety of practical considerations could prevent this (as Brian explains). Good luck!

Having dealt with this as a department chair, I'll say that I did try to resolve such conflicts when they became apparent before students had started registering for classes.  However, once registration had begun it was effectively impossible to do anything because moving classes would create even more conflicts for students who had already registered.

I faced a similar problem at one point when I was an undergraduate, and chose to resolve it myself in a rather foolhardy manner: I simply went to the lectures for the class I was more interested in, and learned the other one through recitations, texts, problem sets, and friends.  If your classes are small, you may not be able to manage this, but in a large lecture class the professor has no idea who is in the hall.
I would generally recommend against this practice, but in some cases it may be the best way to proceed---and in fact, despite how bad an idea it was, in my own particular circumstance it actually turned out to have been the right decision.

Be aware that your universities student information system might have safeguards in place to prevent students from registering for two classes at the same time.  On our campus the system will prevent such registrations unless a special override is approved.

@BrianBorchers Good point... my university had no such safeguards in place in 1998, but a lot has changed since then...

You should speak with each professor and understand their level of flexibility.  When I was wrapping up my undergrad, I was already working full time in the auto industry.  I had two instances where I was able to work directly with the professor (not the administration) to find working solutions.  In both cases, I visited the professor before the semester started and explained my situation. I made sure the professor clearly understood the motivation and circumstances of my situation and as a result, I feel they were more accommodating then they would otherwise have been if I just showed up on test day.


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Wildly Varying Scores on GMAT and GRE - Should I Send Both?
I am applying now to PhD programs in various management related fields (quantitative marketing and finance) and took both the GMAT and GRE back in October.
My score, specifically in the quantitative section, wildly varied between the GRE and GMAT. Basically, this was the breakdown of my scores:
GRE:
Verbal
159 (81%)
Quant
160 (78%)
Analytical
4.5 (80%)
And on the other side...
GMAT:
Verbal
40 (91%)
Quant
41 (49%)
Total
660 (80%)
Analytical
5.5 (81%)
Integrated Reasoning
8 (92%) [Perfect Score]
None of the schools I'm applying to exclusively accept the GMAT, but many do state that they prefer it. I'm wondering if I should just simply hide my GMAT or if my GRE in combination with my GMAT make the quantitative section there look like a random fluke.

Can you point to a reason you didn't do well on the GRE Math? I remember that I ended up being in the top third in the GRE Verbal. Because the proctor confused me about not turning the page, and I discovered too late that there were two pages of questions I should have done. Had she been clearer about her instructions, I would have been in the top 5%. If your performance was due to a one-off incident, you might consider retaking the exam. In terms of content and difficulty, both the GRE Math and the GMAT Math are comparable. I don't think much of either but then, I am an engineer.

I'm sure that my GMAT Quant score was a fluke, but I couldn't explain why. Fixing it would require going back and restudying the material, which at this point isn't much of an option because my applications are due in about 15 days. I know they're pretty similar in terms of difficulty, which is partially why I can't explain the 30 percentile point difference.

Since the fields you mentioned (quantitative marketing and finance) are both heavily based on mathematics, I would think that the quantitative score is by far the most important. If you can possibly avoid it, you don't want to be in a position of having to explain away a weakness, especially where the weakness is at a very important criterion.
Thus, I recommend that you submit only the GRE score and make no mention of the GMAT. Although your verbal score in GMAT was quite good, it isn't quite as important for those fields you are applying for, and the mediocre quantitative results would probably outweigh anything positive you might otherwise have.
That said, you could simply call the schools you want to apply to and ask them directly; since each school might have different preferences for GMAT and GRE and their respective scores, one blanket answer might not be suitable for all the schools you are applying to.
Specifically, you could try to talk to the department chair or to the graduate program director (just call the department office and ask to be transferred to the right person). You don't have to identify yourself; just say that you want to anonymously ask a question related to admissions.
I know that that last suggestion might sound wild, but believe it or not, it often works surprisingly well--I recently used that kind of strategy to receive anonymous answers from a research ethics office concerning a grey research ethics question I was faced with, and I quickly got the exact clarity that I needed for my situation. Never underestimate the power of picking up the phone and calling.

I can't speak for PHD programs, but I know that business school really only care about your highest score, so it is not a big deal if you send multiple scores, they will only look at the highest.  This might be different for PHD programs and with scores from multiple tests, so you should check like someone else mentioned.  But since your verbal score on the GMAT is higher I wouldn't immediately give up on sending that score.


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Getting to assist in the course of your choice during TAship
I am an incoming Graduate Student on a TAship.
I have completed the course in my undergraduation and am currently working on a project in the same area.
I wish to know what else can be done to improving my chances of securing TAship in the preferred course.
Is it advisable to express one's enthusiasm in the subject with the professor?

It's certainly reasonable to politely express an interest in TA'ing for a particular course or with a particular professor.  You should express that interest as soon as possible to both the professor teaching the course (or the course supervisor in the case of a multi-section course) as well as to whoever has overall responsibility for assigning teaching assistants (typically this is coordinated by some faculty member or an administrative assistant.)
Realize that the needs of the department and the preferences of the faculty will be prioritized over the desires of graduate students in making these assignments and that you may well be competing with other graduate students for a desirable assignment.  Don't count on anything...

is there a short template which I can follow? Do I have to send a resume to her? Because, in the official portal, I have been asked to upload my CV and answer if I have some specific skills(probably for TAing courses I do not know). Also, should I explain the project I am working on?

If you've been asked to upload your CV, then you should put all of this information into either the CV or a cover note.


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Re-initiating the discussion with a seemingly busy Professor
A couple of weeks back, I reached out to a Professor stating my interest in a project he had put up on his website. The professor was impressed with my resume and gave a brief description of his project.
He had also asked me a few questions about my skills/familiarity with languages and platforms. He also remarked that he is preparing to give a short test to decide where I stand in the project.
Unfortunately, the Professor has not got back to my reply. I had informed him that I was quite familiar with tools/skills needed for the project. It has been two weeks since he has replied(although I hear it is the exam session which may be keeping him busy).
Should I consider that the offer is null and void as he has stopped replying to mails for the last fortnight?
If I am to mail him now, shall I explain the literature survey undertaken during this period and what skills have been learnt?
Please advise.

First of all, professors are busy. They need to do research and teach. They need to write and then publish papers and handle all matters related to teaching (prepare for course materials, exams, grading exams,... etc). So, two weeks not relying the e-mail sounds normal to me.
As in you case,

He also remarked that he is preparing to give a short test to decide where I stand in the project.

and

I had informed him that I was quite familiar with tools/skills needed for the project.

sound like you are ready for the test to convince him that you are qualified to join his project.
I would suggest you to send him an e-mail to tell him that you are ready for the test and asking what is the most convenient time for him to conduct it.
Surely, you can tell him the literature survey undertaken during this period. I am not sure about mentioning skills have been learnt during the two weeks period. To me, any skill that can be learnt in two weeks is not worth mentioning.
Good Luck !

,It iis basically going to be a summer project and he had asked me about my plans of leaving the job. As I am going to resign, should I ask him if pre-poning my resignation would help in the project?

@envy_intelligence The current question is about re-initiating the discussion with a seemingly busy Professor. Your comment sounds like another question. Do you expect this summer job would become a permanent one eventually? If so, you probably want to ask another question.

Take this step by step.  Set up the test.  See how things go.  Don't talk about pre-poning your resignation.  Also, don't burn your bridges in your current job.  Wait until you have some kind of commitment from this guy before you get to that level of detail.


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Advice for writing Lab Manuals for undergraduate students
I was wondering how lab manuals for freshmen or junior year engineering students are created. I am currently working on documenting a lab manual for a project. Although, I am fairly well-versed with the subject matter and have written the code for the project myself during my undergraduation, I am required to write it from the point-of-view of a student.
It would be helpful if I can divide the project into session-based labs and provide step-by-step remote mentoring of students.
The manual should emphasize creative learning but also not encourage spoon feeding. I need some templates/examples to get started with.

Having written up a few such sets of course lab notes, the best advice I can give is to offer an "idiot-proof" introduction so that anyone can get the first lab started. From there, I tend to curve the difficulty of the tasks, such that the first task should be trivial, yet the last task of the session is more challenging. I then tend to suggest a couple of improvements or suggestions for the curious to consider or try out.
For subsequent labs, I presume knowledge from previous sessions is retained, and consider it a prerequisite. I give progressively less guidance on using tools or techniques for repetitive tasks through the different sessions.
To give an example, if it was a programming exercise, the first set of notes will be thorough and tested on an unfamiliar colleague, to ensure they can run the software needed, and get a "hello world" to run. This includes showing which buttons to press, and how to save and load work. While experienced students may skip this part, that's their choice... I find it worthwhile to write this, even if just to give the TA something to point students towards if they have problems.
As a student works through a given session in the notes, I make the tasks gradually reduce the direction given. So the first exercise could be to ask the user for their name and echo it back - I'd tell them to use the input command, then the print command. By the end of that session, the recap exercise night be to write a program to ask for 2 numbers and multiple them, returning the result. There wouldn't be any more guidance than that. For "optional extra ideas", I might suggest to keep asking for input until the user provides none, or something similar as a little teaser requiring some reading ahead and independent research.
The next session would not go into the same detail on getting set up, and would begin from a higher difficulty level (wouldn't step the student through which function to use, in the case of my trivial example above).
By the final session, there would be limited guidance and much more explanation of concepts or suggestion of references to look at. I favour leading people to good sources and suggesting they read it, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, but this might not work in all cases.
In particular, physical laboratory activities with chemicals or equipment may not work with this model, as you may have obligations to detail all procedures for health and safety purposes. In that case, I would leave the analysis and explanation to the students, giving progressively less help in finding the right places to read about the expected results etc.
Ultimately this depends on the discipline and the expectations of the principal academic teaching the class. I do find students like the rising difficulty, as there's both sufficient help to get started, bus also a good sense of accomplishment to finish the exercises and have worked it all out.


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How to ask other researchers to share their datasets?
For my Computer Science Master Thesis Research I need some large pre-processed datasets.
I know the names of researchers who have those sets (or at least can point me to the source).
My question is: do you have tips on how to approach those researchers to increase the chance of success to share data? What to do absolutely not?
Thanks

Perhaps a broad question is useful, but you may want to say a little more about the kinds of data to which you are seeking access and what is your relationship with the researchers. For example, have the researchers already published articles using the data? Are they datasets that have a standardised access protocol as is the case with some large longitudinal studies? Do they have any obligations to share the data with you (grant rules; journal rules)? Do they have any existing research relationships with you, your university, or your supervisor?

From my experience in the same field, a polite/friendly e-mail will do. If a researcher is generally unable/unwilling to share his data, e.g. because of confidentiality agreements, your e-mail likely won't change his/her mind. In contrast, being rude might lead to you being denied access to the data, even if the researcher in general would be open to such requests. In short: Use basic common sense, no magic involved here! (Not posting as an answer since it seems a bit vague to me...)

I would ask your supervisor to establish contact - somebody that these "other" researchers know or have at least already heard of has a much higher chance of getting somewhere than a master student, who will very likely be an unknown quantity.

Email, unless they happen to be at your university.
Just introduce yourself, and the possibility that their data might be useful for advancing your project. Leave open flexibility about the possibility of acknowledgement/authorship (depending on the effort you're asking them to go to), IRB approvals, data sharing agreements, etc.
Be prepared for rejection, but I've had something like a 60% success rate with this approach, and birthed several really productive collaborations.


text:
How to avoid plagiarism when including definitions and proofs from textbook?
I need to include some basic definitions, and simple proofs from a standard text book to my thesis. Those definitions and proofs are very basic, e.g. probability, entropy etc. Everybody knows they should be in some text books.
Consider, for example, this proof from wiki. My questions are:

Is this plagiarism if I bring this whole proof word by word into my thesis?
If this is plagiarism, what is the method to "paraphrase" a proof? Since the derivation is straightforward, and it is very difficult to write it in a different way?

Thank you.

If your thesis is about information theory or statistics, the proof you show can be omitted. I would recommend simply citing some "bible of your field" which contains all these basic stuff. That's the way most people do it. Or they don't cite anything at all.

@yo' my thesis is in Software Security, and many great researchers I met forgot those definitions long long time ago.

Cannot just cite formally or informally the source?

It is very common for theses in the mathematical sciences to spend a significant amount of time and space repeating known or even standard definitions and results.  (In fact, up through the master's level, at least in many places one can write a perfectly acceptable thesis that only does this.)  In fact this is generally viewed as a positive feature of the thesis: the candidate has taken the time and effort to synthesize a presentation which is complete and self-contained up to a certain point.  It is also generally very helpful to do so in terms of readability: a math paper that repeated nothing that was already known would be well-nigh impenetrable except (perhaps) by a select coterie of insiders.
Also the virtue of rewording is not as strong in this area.  If you are going to give the definition of, say, entropy, in a thesis, then I would say the best thing to do is to close all your textbooks and write down what you think is a good wording of the definition.  Once you've done that you check back with the sources to see that you've actually gotten the definition right, i.e., that it is mathematically equivalent to the one from the textbooks.  But if your language is similar or identical to what you found in the textbooks: okay, fine.  You don't need to change it for that purpose.   There are a lot of ways to list the axioms for a group, and if you wanted to you could pull out fifty textbooks and make sure that your wording is different from all fifty of them.  But this would be a big waste of time: it is not necessary to do so, and what do you bet that these fifty wordings capture most of those that are best in terms of efficiency, readability, and so forth?
When it comes to copying entire proofs word for word, I would pay close attention to how often you are doing this.  If you are simply copying multiple pages of proofs verbatim out of a single standard source, then you should start wondering about the value added in doing so (and, after a certain point, issues of copyright do emerge).  There is a key word that I used in the first paragraph: synthesis.  When you revisit old results, ideally you are synthesizing them: i.e., no one source has everything that you want, so you are combining multiple sources in a novel way.  Too much copying and too little synthesizing does not necessarily put you at risk for plagiarism and copyright violation -- it would have to be quite extreme for that to be an issue -- but it does not sound like the path to a strong thesis.
I hope that everyone who is writing an academic thesis has a thesis advisor.  You should talk to her about this issue.  To a certain degree, the right answer is what she thinks is best.

And don't forget to cite and say you are copying verbatim! Otherwise it is most certainly plagiarism!

@jakebeal: Indeed.

In questions of potential plagiarism, you can think about whether a reader will get the impression some work is yours.  If they will, and it's not, you've got a problem.
To apply this: I found I could "follow" the approach in a major text, abbreviating some sections of a derivation and expanding on others (mainly due to where in the text concepts were introduced).  Partly as I was using a numeric citation style, a simple citation wasn't enough.  If you put the derivation/proof in its own subsection and say "following the approach given by Smith in reference 42 it is clear that..." or something like that.  A verbatim copy will often be unhelpful to the reader anyway - imagine reading "using the result given on page 393" in a 3-page paper (absurd, but you need to integrate the cross-referenced material, not just paste it in).
(This was going to be a comment as I can't add much to Pete L. Clark's answer, but I did want to make a couple of points that wouldn't fit.)


text:
Thesis: does the first page of Chapter 1 need to be in odd page?
After reading some PhD theses, I realize that the first pages of Chapter 1 are always in odd pages. I wonder if this is just a coincident or it is an unwritten rule? Thanks.

This isn't just PhD theses: many books are formatted so that all chapters start on a right-hand page. Conventionally, all right-hand pages have odd numbers, and left-hand pages have even numbers. However, theses are often formatted single-sided, for the convenience of examiners, and so there would be no right/left distinction in that instance.
Another possibility is that page numbering sometimes uses Roman numerals for the "front matter" (all pages before the start of the first chapter), and then begins again with Arabic numerals for the "main matter". In this case, the first chapter will start with page 1, which is an odd number.
Your observation will not be the case for all theses, but it may hold when the institution's rules, or the software tools being used, follow these standard formatting principles.


text:
What should I put in the "about me" section of an academic job talk?
The question says it all... I know I shouldn't put personal details, I'm thinking something like:

How I got into my field
My interesting career path
Hobbies
Half of my work is collaborative and half independent

How much is about me as myself versus about me the professional?

If you have such a section at all, its real meaning is "why you should take my presentation seriously." Relevant, recognized, and uncommon expertise /experience.

Could you say a bit about why you think there should be such a section in your job talk?  (I have never seen this in a job talk.)  E.g. do other candidates in your field do this?  What is your field?

I'm in ecology, and it's been so long since I've seen a job talk I don't recall if this is common. I was thinking the talk is the only time many people get to "meet" me, so it would be nice to just say how I got into the field to give a personal touch.

The job talks I'm familiar with don't generally have an "about me" section, so you may be thinking of a different sort of talk from what I have in mind.  (I'm envisioning a research talk at a U.S. university.)  But in my experience, you shouldn't include anything in a job talk unless it illuminates your work in some way.
Hobbies are completely out, except in rare cases when they seriously influence your research.  Your career path could be relevant for conveying your background and interests.  For example, if you worked in an industrial research lab or have substantial background in another field, that could be worth highlighting.  However, there's no point in giving an oral recital of your CV.  Same thing with how you got into your field: you should mention this only if it somehow shapes how people should think about your expertise (and this will rarely be the case).  On the other hand, pointing out that your work is half collaborative and half independent sounds reasonable to me.
More generally, you want to put the specific topic you'll be discussing in the context of your broader research program.  How does it relate to other work you have done or to ongoing interests?  What's noteworthy about your overall activities?

How much is about me as myself versus about me the professional?

It should all be about you as a professional.  You don't want to give the impression that the best argument you can make for hiring you involves your hobbies.

Right.  Short and sweet.  If you say something off topic, make that part VERY short, put it at the end, make sure it's intriguing for the audience, and hopefully written in an amusing way.  If that sounds daunting -- just leave it out.

I am thinking of US-style talks.  So what about professionally-relevant summaries of myself like my balance between theoretical and empirical work, collaborative vs. individual work, etc.

Yup, a brief discussion of your balance between theoretical and empirical work would be useful and appropriate (and you could also include some comments on collaborative vs. individual work).

FYI, the "about me" part is mentioned in this answer .


text:
NSF Guidelines on Postdoc Salary for Grants Hosted by an Institution/PI
I'm looking for guidelines the NSF may have on minimum salary paid to a postdoc under grants to an institution/PI. These are grants that, for example, I would write which then get awarded to me/my host institution, not the family of NSF-funded postdoc grants. I have not been successful in finding these guidelines, if they exist, but lack of evidence is not evidence of lacking.
What I did find is that NIH and NSF issued a joint statement to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 2016. NIH says that PDs should be paid a minimum of $50,004 in 2019 (https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-19-036.html). But this is not the same as NSF saying the same.
In case you're wondering, no, I'm not trying to see how little I can pay my postdocs. Rather, I want to use NSF as a benchmark so I can march to my HR department and get my postdocs paid what they're worth. (As an institution grants we get are from NSF or similar sources, much less so than NIH, which they could more easily dismiss as "Oh, of course it's high. That's for biomed".)

Just a guess, but it sounds like a general guideline that would apply across agencies.

Various NSF documents say different things. I've found things ranging from 'the institution sets the salary' (in a FAQ about the FLSA in 2016) to a 2017 Biology Program document saying the stipend is $4500/month ($54k/yr) directly to the fellow for 24 to 36 months.

NSF funds two different kinds of postdocs. One type are paid directly by NSF; the postdocs submit their own research proposals directly, and the call for submissions lists the stipend.  (I had such a postdoc, from the math directorate.) The other are paid from research grants awarded to faculty PIs; here the stipend is typically specified in the proposal budget by the PI/institution.

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


text:
Submitting future research plan when intending to leave
I am a junior faculty member at a European university. Recently, I was requested to submit a research plan for the next few years, as is typically done with junior faculty members at this university, and I will be meeting with my department chair to discuss it.
However, I am planning to resign soon, to pursue a non-academic career. I have had a few job interviews in the last 2 weeks, and have more in the next couple of weeks. While some of the jobs that I interviewed for seem promising, I haven't received an official offer yet.
At this point, I wonder

if I should be upfront with my department chair about my intention to leave,
or if I should keep quiet, submit my research plan and discuss it with my chair, and put in my notice only when I receive an offer

My concern with Option 2 is that there is a 3 month notice period in my contract, and if I were to resign at a later time -- e.g., in the summer, the department might not have enough time to make backup plans for the next school year (e.g., finding someone to teach my classes)

If you tell them you plan to leave, do you think they would be unhappy? Will they make your life miserable, or wish you the best of luck?

To be honest, I don't know. But I imagine some people wouldn't be happy, especially those involved in course planning.

Think about the worst case that can happen if you do/do not tell them. If you do tell them and none of your interviews results in a job offer, you're seen as someone who won't be around for long, in whom it is a waste of time and money to invest, etc. It's going to be detrimental to your continued career if you tell them that you're thinking of leaving unless you are certain that you will. On the other hand, if you don't tell them now and leave later, you're certainly going to annoy people in your current department and you may burn bridges, but by then these will be your former colleagues who will not be able to influence your career any more at that point.
So, if I were in your position, I would wait.

I am 100% certain that I will leave -- it's only a matter of time. But thank you very much for your advice!


text:
Do the reviewers ask the authors to send their programming codes for the paper?
I am writing a paper for a Elsevier journal in optimization field. I was curious to ask, Do the reviewers ask the authors to send their Matlab or,.. codes of paper to proof their validness or honesty?
And If yes under what conditions this decision is usually made?

Never in engineering CFD papers in my experience.

well, my field is electrical engineering. I've published a IEEE transactions already and they didn't want me the code. Now I am writing a paper for Elsevier and I think it is better to exaggerate on results if reviewers don't ask for actual code. I know it is not good, but I am just asking. @BillBarth

...."I think it is better to exaggerate on results". What? Are you going to lie on your paper?

@Jamaisavenir Exaggeration is never a good idea if you want to keep your good reputation.

I don't want to lie. I just want to exaggerate the performance of the method if they doth want me the code. The results are better than my pervious method with was published in IEEE journal. My prof says they need to be better if you want it to be published in Elsevier journal. So, I was thinking to exaggerate a bit on the run time and results of my new method. But this question is general. I want to know do they check my code and how often ? @Alexandros

please see my comment above @jakebeal

"I just want to exaggerate the performance of the method". This is still lying. Does your advisor know your intentions, or you lied to him as well, about the "improvements" of your "new" method?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it asks about unethical behavior.

My advisor doesn't know yet. I didn't decide to exaggerate the result for sure yet. But please back to my question, do they want the code and when? Imagine I claim the run time is 1 min with a computer with configuration of W, So, I can say the run time is 30 sec with a better computer. It is not lie, it can be true. @Alexandros

it seems to me this student is confused and need help. He hasn't decide yet as he mentioned. I think we should back to his question directly. To answer ur question: I am not not sure, maybe they want. But it never happened to me with IEEE transaction,Elsevier and Taylor& fransicais. I think if the mathematical concepts of your method is proofed to be  better than your previous approach, they believe you without your codes. @Jamaisavenir

@Alexandros The question in itself has nothing unethical.

@FedericoPoloni  We have a student who will write a a paper about some "minor" improvements and wants to present it as a major breakthrough (good enough to publish in a good journal) and he has not even informed his advisor that he is going to cook up his results. It is bad enough that he is thinking of such unethical (to borderline stupid) behavior on the beginning of his research career, but he will also drag his advisor into this. Sorry, but giving an answer like "They will not ask you for the code, so you can say whatever you want" is not what this SE forum is all about.

I do not encourage this student to make up results. But we are not in charge for his decision. I gave him my experience and I hope he doesn't disparage his future career by a bad decision. again I am saying to the student that the reviewers usually (99%) study the math of ur paper and if they convinced your method is better they accept it. @Alexandros

@Alexandros If the answer is "no one checks", silencing those who ask the question won't solve the problem. You are promoting security through obscurity. We have to explain the student that if the performance seems too good people will try the method and check their results, with or without their code; that you can fool two referees sometimes, but you cannot fool a whole community; that they will get caught, and that faking results is a major stain in an academic career, even at the phd level. Answering "Sssh, don't tell anyone" is a horrible approach.


text:
Tough Editor, How to handle?
I have got the first revision of my paper from a journal in Elsiver. Despite, all 3 reviewers' comment are very positive and accepted the paper the editor is so tough. He is questioning the originality of the proposed method and also saying the paper is not very much in the scope of journal.
If so, why did you hand it to reviewers?!!!
Any idea to answer him/her?

When a paper is rejected, then submit it to another journal.  Do not argue with the editor.

The editor may also have some expertise in the field and may have formed his own opinion of the paper. Also, evaluating whether the paper is within the scope of the journal is up to the editor, not the reviewers.

They didn't pronounced the verdict yet. But all reviewers have accepted I guess. R1: The originality is very much sufficient. , The results are dramatically reliable. R2: Accept, R3: Paper is very well written, also he gave some grammar and spelling suggestions. Editor: The relevance to xxx journal should be enhanced with the considerations of scope and readership of the Journal."The originality of the paper needs to be further clarified. The present form does not have sufficient results to justify the novelty of a high quality journal paper. @Roland

I guess I will do that @GEdgar

Editor didn't asked about the method. I am not sure he is expert in the area. We had expert editor and reviewers in other journals that asked alot about the method. He is not like that. Editor's Comments: The relevance to xxx journal should be enhanced with the considerations of scope and readership of the Journal.The originality of the paper needs to be further clarified. The present form does not have sufficient results to justify the novelty of a high quality journal paper @Bitwise

Can you be VERY clear about the Editor's decision?  Was the paper rejected, or was a revision invited?

a revision has been invited. @ScottSeidman

Then the editor is NOT being tough.

well it would be so awkward if the editor was rejecting our paper with these nice comments. If he/she didn't like us our paper, why did he passed it to reviewers then. @ScottSeidman

The editor NEVER said he/she didn't like your paper.  He said there's stuff you need to do to bring it up to editorial standards.  If the editor did not think publication was possible, the paper would have been rejected.  The editor's decision was likely informed by the comments of the reviewers.  Most non-math specialty journals pass every serious submission along for scientific review.  Some wide-readership newsy journals like Science and Nature have an additional prereview for suitability prior to scientific review.

If the editor doesn't think that the paper has sufficient originality, then you need to clearly state in the revised paper where the originality lies, and more importantly provide evidence of originality by pointing out the most similar papers and show how yours differs.  The scope is a little more tricky, I would leave that to the covering letter and use quotes from the stated scope of the journal to show how it fits, if this can't be done convincingly, it may be he has a point, and has given you the benefit of the doubt by sending it out for review.

I received very very valuable comments here, Thank you so much.

I really think that you are looking at things the wrong way.  The key fact -- your paper has not been rejected! -- was left unsaid in the question itself but got pulled out of you in the comments.  What makes an editor "tough" or not has virtually nothing to do with the words he uses to describe your paper.  A truly tough editor will reject your paper based on flaws that you disagree with or feel are very minor.  A moderately tough editor will require drastic revisions (perhaps in multiple rounds) that take up your time and delay the acceptance and/or publication of your paper.  That's about it.
You don't sound very well informed about the process.  What you received were not "revisions" but "reports" or "reviews".  Moreover it is not for a referee/reviewer to accept or reject a paper.  That is up to the editorial board.  Rather, a referee/reviewer should recommend acceptance or rejection -- I have just learned that in some journals and fields this recommendation is made confidentially to the editor; that is certainly not the case in mathematics, and I think it is a poor idea to keep this information from the author, but let me not digress -- and then the majority of the report / review should contain support for that recommendation.  (So if a report is thorough and well written, the author should be able guess immediately and accurately what the recommendation will be.  Thus hiding the recommendation seems pointless.)  A report which just says "Accept" is worthless, and many editors would just discard it.

He is questioning the originality of the proposed method and also saying the paper is not very much in the scope of journal. If so, why did you hand it to reviewers?!!!

The alternative would be to reject the paper immediately.  Obviously the editor's reservations about the paper did not rise to that level.  It doesn't make much sense that you are complaining about that.

Any idea to answer him/her?

Yes.  Your answer should come in the form of a revised paper that at least addresses all of his suggestions (which, by the way, can probably be addressed with relatively superficial changes, mostly to the introduction and the conclusion, if present).  If you don't understand a suggestion, you can write for clarification, but I would be careful about that since the editor's impression of your willingness and ability to make the changes is part of his assessment of the paper.  If you are really new at this (it sounds like you are, honestly) then I highly recommend that you consult at least one advisor, mentor or senior colleague about how to perform these revisions.
The one worrisome part of what the editor said is

The present form does not have sufficient results to justify the novelty of a high quality journal paper.

If the editor (or the editorial board) really feels that the results are not strong enough to merit publication in that journal, they can and probably will reject your paper, no matter what any number of referees says.  I have seen this happen as a referee: I wrote a quite positive report, but the editor (a former mentor of mine) called me up on the phone to tell me that the paper was not going to be accepted.  However, it is a bit strange to say that while still asking for a revision.  Reading between the lines, the implication is that he finds the work of the paper a bit borderline, so he really wants the presentation to be otherwise impeccable.
Of course you always have the option of not revising the paper, and starting fresh with a different journal.  But I don't recommend that: when you are asked to revise, revise.  The vast majority of time, that means "accepted with some penance".

Pretty funny.  I just found out that other disciplines don't discourage comments re: acceptance to authors.  Discussion made me go to my files to figure out that I must have done at least 150 reviews, not even counting re-reviews, and I haven't heard of that.

This is the first I've heard that other disciplines do discourage referees from revealing their recommendation in their reports!

In many reviews in a variety of fields, including the Elsevier life science journals for which I've reviewed (maybe a half dozen to a dozen), the authors are not made privy to the the recommendations of the reviewers.  Reviewers are specifically asked to refrain from including any direct recommendations for acceptance or rejection in their author comments.
In an environment where there's just so many pages that can be printed, the bar can be pretty high, and only the top of the top might make it to print in very competitive journals.  There are often reviewer assigned scores that you never see, like "novelty", and "importance"
Another possibility is that the editor feels that while the paper might be received well by people in your field, but not to the broader audience of a widely read journal.  Often reviewers must answer a question about their opinions on the appropriateness of a paper for that particular journal.  It sounds like this may well be the case here, and your reviewers might have given you mediocre scores along these lines, even though their written comments on your work were encouraging.
Also, many  reviewers will try to put as positive a tone as possible on a review, particularly for young investigators.  The risk is that a young investigator might not have developed the skill to read between the lines.

"In most reviews, and at least for the Elsevier Journals for which I've reviewed (maybe a half dozen to a dozen), the authors are not made privy to the the recommendations of the reviewers. Reviewers are specifically asked to refrain from including any direct recommendations for acceptance or rejection in their author comments." I have been told by many that the most important piece of a referee report is the explicit recommendation to accept or reject.  This appears for instance in the "automathography" of Paul Halmos, who spent a lifetime involved with academic publishing....

I have included this recommendation in all my referee reports (around 50).  I've never heard a word against this from an editor, and nowadays I can sometimes login to a website and see my referee reports...intact.  No one has ever asked me not to do this, including at an Elsevier journal.  Most referee reports I receive contain such a recommendation.  Moreover they contain a justification for the recommendation to accept or reject, which is the most important part of the report.  Of course it is understood that this is a recommendation and the editorial board makes the final decision.

@PeteL.Clark -- perhaps this is field-specific.  I can't pull up direct instructions right now, because I don't have any active reviews going, but a quick search brought up  "Cell Death and Disease", a Nature publication, http://www.nature.com/cddis/about/for_referees.html, where the instructions are "This author report should not include a recommendation regarding publication, which is regarded as confidential information since the final decision regarding acceptance, revision or rejection rests with the editor."   It's the same for every journal  in the neurosci area I've reviewed for.

Same with bioinformatics: https://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/bioinformatics/reviewerguidelines.pdf,
"Editorial Decision
Referees should not include a recommendation regarding publication in their comments to the Authors. This decision rests solely with the Editor. However, Referees may use Section 3 of the Referee report to make confidential comments to the Editor regarding the suitability of the manuscript for publication."  I don't think I've ever seen instructions to the contrary, or seen such recommendations in reviews of my papers.

in fact, one of them directly said "Accept".  Lets summarize the comments: R1: The originality is very much sufficient. , The results are dramatically reliable. R2: Accept, R3: Paper is very well written, also he gave some grammar and spelling suggestions. Editor: The relevance to xxx journal should be enhanced with the considerations of scope and readership of the Journal."The originality of the paper needs to be further clarified. The present form does not have sufficient results to justify the novelty of a high quality journal paper @ScottSeidman

@Jamaisavenir -- " R3: Paper is very well written, also he gave some grammar and spelling suggestions."  doesn't mean that he didn't write the comments the editor passed along to you in a "confidential to editor" box.  R3 doesn't read like a particularly strong review to me.

Possible, But I am wonder why R3 said, the paper is very well written. also the editorial suggestions was not big, some typo, few grammar points and changing the color of some figures. Also, Editor asked us to hire a native speaker. We did. but the native speaker just made the paper less academic as she made it easier to read lol. @ScottSeidman

@ScottSeidman: If what you mean is "Most journals in the following field[s]..." it would be very useful to say so.  It seems likely to me that this is the difference between a false statement and a true one.

@PeteL.Clark I thought "at least for the Elsevier Journals for which I've reviewed " was enough of a disclaimer.    In any case, I've made the edit


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Can I send my accepted research paper to IEEE conferences?
My paper in IEEE Transactions journal got accepted one month ago. I wonder if I can modify it a little bit (changing the test case and remove one contribution of the paper out of 3)?
If yes, How much does it worth for applying for a phd?
Note: I have 2 papers in Elsevier journal and 1 in IEEE trans. I was thinking to publish something in a conference to show my interest of being amongst others in my field.

I think 3 published papers in reputable journals (though you do not
say which precisely) should more than enough to get you in a PhD
program. Dome people are happy to get as much with their PhD work.
But that may depend on the field.
However, publishing twice the same result, even with some cosmetic
changes, is a good way not to get accepted for a PhD program, or for
an academic position.
People publish far too much, and waste each other's time. We have to
strive for quality, not quantity.
Now, you did not specify you field, and thing may somewhat differ
according to scientific field.
In some fields, conferences are considered publications, sometimes
harder on selection than (some) journals. In other fields, it is more
acceptable to republish in conferences as conference papers play a
minor role and are more intended as topics for meeting with
colleagues, and giving introduction to your work.
The former will have more importance for your publication list, but is more demanding on originality.
The right thing to do, that will avoid any problem, bcause they will
be dealt with by the program committee of the conference, is to be
extremely clear as to what is already published, to make it visible
and to have in the references your previous relevant publications (as
well as those of other people), whether already accepted or only
submitted. Then the program committee will let you know whether your
submission is appropriate or not.
But do not abuse relying on the program committee, they have considerable work to do.
And always be very careful when using twice the same research results.


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deferral of a Ph.D. position in Europe
I had an interview at a European university. After half an hour in the interview, they told me, we are positive to give you this position. The position starts in February however, the earliest time I can be there is in March.
I would like to ask, is it possible to defer a Ph.D. position for a month or two in Europe?
In the description of this position, the start, and the end of the position along with monthly salary is clearly stated and the fund comes from a national energy utility.

It might be worth asking them, PhD's are significantly are a little more flexible, compared to undergrads where a strict timetables are followed.

You have to ask them - none of us can tell you. They may need you at the beginning of Feb or not, so ask.

Something which may be useful to you is the advice that Europe is really diverse. So it would make sense to more specify your location.

Whether it is possible or not can depend on all sorts of things. The only people that can answer that truly are the people that offered you the position. You should ask them.
This is not an unreasonable thing to ask, and I can't imagine starting a month or so later would be much of a problem for a PhD (but again the only people that can tell you that are...). Negotiation of the starting date is a normal part of the hiring process.

It happens often enough so it's really not that big of a deal, in general. If you are the best candidate, then they are likely to wait for a month or two.
That being said, there are circumstances where this may be an issue. If the project is on a tight schedule with clear cut deadlines and deliverables, then they might not want to delay things. The only way to know is to contact and ask them.
Another interesting aspect of it is the reason why you can't be there at the project start. If it is out of your hands, for example due to visa or otherwise official paperwork, thats one thing. On the other end of the scale, if you don't want to move due to a concert coming up or you forgot to cancel your apartment lease in time or something, they may not be as understanding.
I am mostly surprised that you got an offer, before you and them agreed on a possible starting date. Was this not mentioned during the interview at all?

Thanks for the answer. It was mentioned. However, I expected to finish the paper works early. But it is impossible now as I start the administrative process and learn that it takes a lot of time. @posdef

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What counts as undergraduate research?
I've been asking around my department recently for opportunities assisting with research (I'm in electrical engineering). Some of my professors work in labs, but others do largely computer-based work. The computer-based work interests me more.
I understand research experience is very important when applying to grad school. What do graduate admissions committees really consider "research", though? Is it working in a lab? Is it "contributing to some certain extent to a research project?" Is it simply helping out a professor with his research? Is more independent-study type work considered research? Or is it necessary to be actively helping a professor with their research program?
As an undergraduate sophomore, I'm really not in a position to do groundbreaking research. What's considered a good research experience for me?

If you name ends up on a peer reviewed publication there won't be any questions...

Pretty much all of the things that you list count as research.  The best possible thing would be to end up as the first author of a publication, but that is rare.  In general, anything that gives you some experience with the process of research and demonstrates that you are able to contribute to it is a good thing.
More to the point: anything that will cause your professor to feel they can honestly write about what excellent potential you have to become a researcher is good.

Is more independent-study type work considered research? Or is it necessary to be actively helping a professor with their research program?

In my experience, it's best to be actively interacting with a professor. But in most cases it's unlikely you'll be actively assisting with their research programs (they have usually have graduate students/postdocs for that).
You could be given either a small project related to their funded work or possibly some crazy idea they're unwilling to let a grad student spend time on. Or anything in between.

What do graduate admissions committees really consider "research", though?

If you can do any work that results in something published in a journal or conference, or even a poster, will be very valuable for graduate school admissions. It doesn't matter if that work is lab or computer-based. (Better yet if you can prove (with a publication/poster) that you can do both "wet" and "dry" lab work.)

As an undergraduate sophomore, I'm really not in a position to do groundbreaking research. What's considered a good research experience for me?

When I was a junior I emailed every professor in the department. Two responded and I ended up doing "independent research credits" with one of them. It worked out really well.

In my university the faculties of medicine, pharmaceutics and physiotherapy have a 'position' you can acquire called student-researcher. This is classified as a course and you get credits for it. The purpose is to spend and work at least 20 days in a research lab during the summer holidays (and eventually during the school year). All you have to do is pass your classes and contact a professor who conducts research in your field of interest. Usually for the day-to-day you will be supervised by one of his PhD students. There are not many students that participate, even though it is highly regarded at our university (although it's popularity is increasing). In some cases student-researchers will end up being co-author to a publication and very rarely even first author. There is also an abstract competition and seminar organised for participants.
Here is the link to the site. Even though it is in Dutch, if you would want more information you could run it through a translator or ask me in a comment.


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How important is relevant research for an undergrad?
I'm a student in electrical engineering, and my interests lie primarily in areas with a large overlap between physics and electrical engineering. I'm currently doing research with a professor of computer engineering, doing computer engineering research, which doesn't exactly line up with my interests, but it is research experience.
Now, when I'm applying for graduate schools, I believe I'll have to write a statement of purpose. How does it affect my chances of getting into graduate schools if I write about how I want to do research in [certain area of EE], but the school sees that all of my actual research experience is in an entirely different branch of electrical engineering?
Or in other words--do graduate admissions committees care about what field I do my undergrad research in, or do they only care that I do research in general?

I would argue that my question differs in that the aforementioned question is asking about research experience in an entirely different field (economics vs statistics) whereas mine focuses on what are considered two subsets of one field.

All of the answers there describe a continuum, from two very closely related fields (like your situation) to two less closely related fields (the OP's situation there) to two unrelated fields ("If you were majoring in philosophy and wanted to pursue a Ph.D. in chemistry"). As far as I can tell, the answers there apply equally to this question.


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Are the Master Program & Certificates I am about to embark on relevant to my career & academic plan?
I have a bachelor degree in Civil Engineering, I'm 27 and I currently work for a leading world organization. However my heart is somewhere else. I aspire to be a scientist, so a masters and a PhD are the plan. I can't seem to narrow down my future research interests, but it's likely to fall somewhere between Mathematical Modeling-Computational Math/Physics-Theoretical Physics-Pure Mathematics.
For that purpose, and until I do apply to a PhD program, I intend to take on a Masters in Computational Mathematics (received acceptance), a certificate in Data Science (3 months long - I was advised to do so by a scientist I know) and a certificate in Theoretical Physics (2 weeks long - equivalent to the last semester of an undergrad physics program).
Do these programs fall well with my interests and plan ? Your advice is appreciated.

..."but it's likely to fall somewhere between Mathematical Modeling-Computational Math/Physics-Theoretical Physics-Pure Mathematics". You really should focus more. Theoretical Physics is probably the most disconnected subject, so you could leave that out.

Did the scientist know that you were thinking about doing a PhD or did he or she think you were staying in industry?
The certificates may be good ways to see if you're interested in the field, but I think they'll be almost worthless in PhD admissions. The exception might be if the certificate is given by a well-known, reputable university and the program itself has an excellent reputation. In addition, it might need to be known by one or more faculty members at the universities that you're applying to.
Do some searching here for related questions like this one: PhD in pure mathematics for a student in computer science
And a more general question: Undergraduate research field different from PhD field


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Should an instructor tell his/her students before the exam that there are multiple versions of the exam?
When I was an undergrad, I had instructors who did not tell students that there was more than one version of the exam until afterwards. I also had instructors who told students that there was more than one version, before the exam started. The question is: should an instructor tell his/her students before the exam that there are multiple versions of the exam.

The question is: should an instructor tell his/her students before the exam that there are multiple versions of the exam. — Well, that depends on the instructor's motivation for handing out multiple versions of the exam, doesn't it?

Why would knowing in advance matter to anyone except cheaters?  This information will not help honest students prepare for the exam or change how they approach it, so for them announcing it afterwards seems just as good as in advance.  One argument for announcing it in advance is that some potential cheaters might decide not to try to cheat (and spend more time studying or become a little more honest), but the counterargument is that it might just encourage them to find more effective methods of cheating.  I don't consider either of these arguments especially compelling, and I'm not convinced it really matters much whether the announcement is before or after the exam.  This issue tends to come up in large courses, which are often pretty standardized.  I'd bet the students who care whether there are multiple versions of the exam can easily find out what this professor has done in other large classes, so there usually won't be much of an element of surprise.

I think a more important effect is that announcing multiple versions reduces the perception that other students are cheating.

@JeffE: Hmm, that's a good point, which I wasn't taking into account.  On the other hand, I could also imagine the opposite effect: spending too much time talking about countermeasures against cheating could create the impression of a cheating epidemic and make borderline-honest students worry that they will fall behind if they act too honest.

Usually when I make up multiple (for me, 2) versions of an exam for a single class, I make them in different colors and require students to have different color exams from their neighbors (just left-right, not back-front), so the students know when the exam starts there are 2 versions.  In addition to the intended purpose, this makes differentiating exams afterward easy.

@AnonymousMathematician I think in case the announcement is not made before the exam it would leave some students feeling depressed at the exam when they find out cheating would not be an option this time!

"Why would knowing in advance matter to anyone except cheaters?" Because it reduces the incentive to cheat, by increasing the costs of cheating including possibly increased risk of being caught.

What if a student wanted to complain of having been given the far more difficult version of the exam while some others had a far easier version?

I think the answer is "Yes". This causes that low number of students considering cheating on the exam to forget it and put their time towards studying for the exam.
And for other students it would make no difference whether there is only 1 or multiple versions of questions as long as the difficulty of the versions is fairly kept the same.
Update: Following comment of the author about keeping the same level of difficulty among different versions, I still believe that the students have the right to know that there are multiple versions of questions and as an added option you can even tell them that the only difference is on the order of question. That does not make any problem in my opinion.

I keep the level of difficulty constant by using the same questions on all three (in my case) versions, but randomizing the order of the questions.  No one can complain that one version was harder or easier, but observing another's answers becomes much more difficult.

What I do is to make the versions of the exam different colors, but not say anything about it (as Kimball describes in a comment above.)
Here are the main alternatives, as I see them:

Hide the fact that there are multiple versions of the exam.
Mention in advance that there will be multiple versions of the exam.

Disadvantages of option 1 are: (1) it's hard to distinguish the different versions when handing them out and when grading them, (2) students might still try to copy from their neighbors' exams, which is distracting (although I suppose this is actually an advantage if you want to maximize the total number of students you catch cheating.)
Disadvantages of option 2 are: (1) it is an unpleasant reminder of the possibility of cheating (as Anonymous Mathematician mentions in a comment,) and (2) students who were planning to cheat may adapt to some other method.


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What is an "L.Mgt" qualification?
I'm a software engineer in the process of building an information system for a UK university, and one of the staff members' (whose details I have to house in the system) highest qualification level is listed as "L.Mgt".
I've Googled the hell out of the internet and for the life of me I can't figure out what this qualification is. Can someone tell me what this is exactly?

This question is one example, among many, that clearly shows that people should avoid using abbreviations that are not universally recognized, without first defining them.

My own work is on the STEM / hard science side of Academia, so I don't have first-hand knowledge about this qualification, but I would read it as a Licenciate degree in Management.
A cursory search turns up a few institutions that offer such a degree:

University of
Tampere
Lund University
Universidad de Navarra
Pontifical University of Comillas
Universidade Lusófona

I'm going to track down the staff member in question this week, and confirm then whether this is what he has in mind.

Spot on - the fella in question is Portuguese, and this sort of qualification is apparently equivalent to a UK Bachelor of Science with Honours. Excellent work sir.


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After getting a PhD at a low-ranked university, would it be harder to get a job at a high-ranked university?
In more detail, let's say I get a PhD degree at a university which is ranked 51-100, according to QS ranking system. Is it possible for me to get a job at higher ranked university, like 1-50 ?
Let's say without extraordinary publication record, which I believe the answer would be possible..

No matter where your Phd is from, without an extraordinary publication record you will not get a tenure track job at a high ranked university.

Moving from a Ph.D. at a mid-ranked institution to a postdoc at a high-ranked institutions happens very frequently.  The easiest path for this is to have solid publications (extraordinary is not necessary) and a good relationship with both your Ph.D. advisor and the supervisor you do the postdoc with.
One of the important factors enabling this is that a strict ranking of Ph.D. programs does not make much sense once you get above a certain base level of quality.  Beyond that point, every program is extremely heterogeneous based on the particular professor.  Absolutely world class professors are often at "mid-ranked" universities, and people in their particular subfield will know it, and consider that university "elite" in their particular subfield.  It's just that you can't obtain this information from US News or other "generic" rankings.
An example: US News currently gives the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, a rank of #60 in the US as an Engineering grad school and #76 overall, but they have an extremely strong artificial intelligence group that practically dominates in some subfields.


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Amusing remarks in papers
I have had to read so many papers, and papers on writing papers, that I noticed how engaging and more pleasant to read a publication is when the author inserts the occasional funny remark.
I'm also writing so many project papers lately (mathematics bachelor) that I am actually developing an enjoyment for writing and attempting to come up with my own style. It's something I'd like to improve and I'd love to write more in the future and as I further my studies.
And so I wondered. How appropriate is it for a student to sometimes be funny in his or her reports? I have stumbled on so many half-assedly written assignments that it makes me think that many students simply don't care about nice writing at all, so I don't have any example to base an opinion on. Thoughts?

Also related How much of humor in a formal academic writing is considered as disrespect?

Voting to leave this open as it is about student reports and not about publications.

A great example of subtle, yet hilarious, humor in academic writing: consider Concrete Mathematics by Graham, Knuth, Patashnik (the stuff in the actual text, not the marginal comments).

Whatever you decide, humor in academic writing is always better understated rather than overstated. See here:

Irrelevant and understated footnotes have a long history in learned publications. I heartily endorse their use. :)

Understated, but surprisingly dark.

Yes, I agree. A little goes a long way :)

I don't understand this answer. Was the footnote intended to be funny? I'm pretty sure I've seen completely serious yet similar remarks in other papers before...

@Mehrdad See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski

@jakebeal: OH... it's THAT guy! I didn't recognize the name lol. :( Boy that's funny all right...

The goal of a publication is to communicate a scientific idea, not to be funny.  That said, there's nothing wrong with using a little bit of humor if it doesn't detract from the presentation.  The problem is that most humor does exactly that, either being a joke "aside" that disrupts the flow of text or (worse) effectively attempting to substitute humor for a solid argument (which is how humor is often used in normal conversation).
For the most part, then, plan not to use humor in scientific writing, but as you develop your writing voice you may find there are ways that humor will eventually find ways to acceptably creep in (see the scenarios in many security papers, for example).

Yeah I was talking about the really occasional phrase. Maybe one in 10 pages, or so. Which seem to be very present in many publications (books/theses/papers). Thanks for your input!

Great answer. This is my favourite. Another good example of using humour appropriately is the Python documentation, which uses things like spam, eggs, lumberjack, and ni as arbitrary variables.

@Snowflake Even one joke in 10 pages can sink your paper if its the wrong joke; conversely, you might have subtle humor in many places if it is the right type. The problem is knowing the difference, which is why I recommend acting conservatively.

My usual rule is that it should be explainable as not a joke. You want the people who get it to be laughing their heads off while 90% of people will not even notice the comment.

My favorite funny paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1311997/?page=1

@Calchas: That seems incredibly hard to pull off. Do you have a couple examples?

@Mehrdad Not off the top of my head! I would say, the vast majority of my humour (written and aloud) is based on split interpretation of the same expression. English is a great language and many expressions in it can mean multiple distinct things.

@Calchas: Yeah I mean the problem I have isn't coming up with humor, but with making it so that a small fraction will laugh their heads off without the rest even noticing it. The best I can imagine ever doing is like 50/50 and even then I'm sure some non-negligible fraction of each group would second-guess whether there really was a joke or not.

I think the most important thing is comedy is know your audience.  Either that, or be funny.  I don't know, I don't really know comedy.
The point is, you need to know your audience for your report to know how much humor, and of what kind, is acceptable.  If it is a paper/report to be submitted to a serious venue, or just something to submit to a crochety old professor, then the answer is you should be quite reserved.  If you're submitting this report to a professor who jokes around a lot and puts in a lot of humor in his notes, or just putting it on your webpage for fun, you can be more free.
Caveat: many academic jokes undergrads think are funny are less so to experts.  (It goes without saying that all professors' jokes are funny to everyone.)  Once again, know your audience.

I think the general rule is that humor should not distract from the message of the paper, and that turns out to be a surprisingly high bar.
That said, there is a place in every paper where you can find humor on a quite regular basis: The acknowledgments. I've thanked jetlag for unexpected nocturnal clarity there, and a friend has thanked his favorite brand of beer. There are probably many other occurrences. If you find it difficult to find appropriate places for humor in your papers, this is it!

There is something to be said for appropriateness both of time and place but also reputation.
I can't speak for your field but as an instructor for computer programming, I always appreciate when students inject humor into their code assignments.
Recently I have spent a lot of time reading academic works in the field of psychology.  Authors from Wertheimer to Baddeley to Paivio have all injected small bits of wry humor into their writing.  I appreciate this as a reader but am not sure I would try to pull this off as an author.

Well if its not a conference or journal paper but rather a report or even a thesis then go for it. Your teachers (despite what students think!) are people too, so if you can at a fun tone then why not. I've done it when I considered it appropriate and confident it would be acknowledged.

I must disagree with many of the answers here. I think well put humor deserves a place anywhere. Communication, whether via speech, writing or any other medium requires the active engagement of at least two parties. Humor, when used properly, is a method to increase audience engagement. Look at Wilde or Orwell - their writing is packed with quips and humorous devices. How about Franklin or even a figure such as Ulysses Grant in his memoir? Humor is a very effective tool to increase audience engagement and thus making your point all the more resonant and enjoyable.
Response to comment (since I can't add comment due to closed status):
That is a good point - however have you read Orwell's essay on the English language and his resistance to much of it's trending slang? That would be considered academic, yet is still completely Orwellian

Note that Wilde, Orwell, Franklin and Grant are not particularly noted as successful academic writers.


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How to prepare for questions about the part of the paper that you didn't write?
I'm going to present a paper, in which we propose several algorithms to solve a problem. One of the algorithms is actually developed by co-authors at a different university, who will not attend the conference.
I only understand this algorithm at a very high level, and I have no idea how it is implemented, which parameters was chosen etc. It uses some techniques that I have very little background. It would take me months to understand all the techniques and the implementation. And to be honest, I'm not really interested in this algorithm since we have other alternatives that perform equally well if not much better.
However, if I am asked about this algorithm at the conference, how I should reply. I couldn't say somebody else did it, and I don't know.

You should, in principle, know the paper in better-than-high level. You know that probably, in a conference, you won't be asked some really deep question. In the unlikely case you are indeed asked a technical question about these algorithms, and you do not know how to answer it, probably it would be better to be honest. Or to make it clear during the presentation that this part was developed by such-and-such co-author who does not attend the conference.

couldn't say somebody else did it, and I don't know.

Yes, that is more or less what you should say.
It is completely normal for collaborative works that different co-authors are knowledgeable about different parts of the work.
In particular, works that span several otherwise separate areas, it is not unusual for experts to contribute their respective techniques to create an integrated solution together.
In such a case, the various co-authors basically see the components contributed by others as some kind of a blackbox. They should know what those components do, but they do not necessarily know how they do it.
In such a case, it is reasonable to answer:

The ... algorithm is a work by my co-author ... who unfortunately cannot be here today. I recommend to direct specific questions on the algorithm to them.

You should be ready to provide some way of contacting the co-author (e.g. e-mail address on the slides).

I support this answer, but have something to add.  You can ask one of the co-authors to brief you in preparation for the conference: "What questions do you think are most likely to be posed about your algorithm?  What minimalist answers would you suggest?"  In other words, your co-author can prep you minimally about his or her part of the paper.