text:
Employment history: job title
I am currently filling out an application for a lecturer position in the UK, which includes a section on employment history.
Previously I was employed at a Russian university where my official job title was an engineer. However, the work that I did correspond more to a research assistant. The problem is that in Russia you need to be a PhD and go through an official selection procedure (that means for an organisation to open position, to select a pool of candidates, etc.) to get a research assistant position. So usually if your professor gets a grant, he/she usually tries to hire you on a less "complex" position from a bureaucratic point of view (especially if you are not a PhD).
Obviously, I don't want to describe all this country-specific stuff in my application. How do you think, is it OK to put a job title "research assistant" in the application? Are the universities likely to verify this information?

Do not lie.
You never know who is going to read your application. What if the committee includes a Russian person who is familiar with the Russian system and spots the inconsistency right away?
I would write the actual job title and then describe the tasks you had there, emphasizing that they were research tasks.


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After starting a PhD in Mathematics, I realized I am more interested in Statistics - can I transfer to a Statistics PhD?
I'm a first-year mathematics PhD student at an American university.
When I applied to graduate school I thought I would be doing math like I did for the past few years in college. However, after the whole senior year doing a priori estimation for 2-d NS equation(basically frequency analysis stuff in harmonic analysis), I got nothing but fully exhausted and want to try something else where I found the machine learning course on Coursera was really interesting and decided to explore more about that in graduate school.
I passed all qualifying exams before the first year started. I took a graduate statistics course and a computer science course in the first quarter to get a better understanding for machine learning, and found I was thrilled at high-dimensional statistics. Unfortunately there's no one in the department working in that field, so I started working with professors in the statistics department on several different projects which I really, for the first time in my life, found more interesting than I thought mathematics was in college. Now I don't feel like I will ever wish to work in any primary mathematics field, and I'm kind of alienated in the department which makes me feel sick and sometimes lonely (and often enough pure mathematicians tend to degrade statistics or applied math).
I know very clearly from the past year-long research experience with Statisticians that I am now much much more enthusiastic about high-dimensional statistics.
Should I be open to the idea of moving to a Statistics program? The only problem is that I may not be able to get a Master's degree due to departmental coursework requirement. Is it possible to transfer to another graduate program (either within University X or other university) without a master's degree from my current university? (I am pretty sure I can get quite good reference from my research professors, as well as several decent publications.)

Why are you not asking this at your university? The department head perhaps or even the department head where the stat guys are. Very simply put; if you are not happy now and would be much more happy doing stat that switch. Otherwise you will have a few miserable years and might even drop out... you should do what makes you happy

@Mythio I am trying to work 'within' the framework. But it turns out that the more I wish to do in that way the more I feel apart from the dept. Another important reason is that I overlooked the coursework requirement for master so it turns out that the original plan of just ending the program with a master becomes literally impossible.

i think that if you make this known to the right people at the department(s) it will always be possible to find a solution. Perhaps start from fresh in the stat department.

@Mythio Thanks very much for advice. That makes feel much better. I will find sometime to talk with stat guys to see how things can be worked out. The only thing I am concerned about is if transferring(reapplying) without appropriate degree hurts my chance of getting admitted...

Oh, just apply. You'll be fine.

If you've been working with profs in the stats department, you should definitely talk to them and make your intentions known. They can help you in many ways.

@usercat unless they have some hard requirements, knowing you from having worked with them (and if they are happy) will weight more than any degree.

If you're not happy in math, and you think you would be happier in stat, then switch. stat is a more viable choice than math in many way. I once switched from the math dept to the stat dept within the same university, winding up with a Stat PhD. It wasn't easy, but it worked. I'd recommend not being in a hurry, but it you have taken a year, than seems like enough time.

I think you should switch, even if you think you will loose years. Doing a research that you hate is a very bad idea fro PhD, professionally, personally.  Doing two research well parallel is unsustainable. If for whatever reason your Math prof is not content without work (sometimes even if he is content), Stat will be blamed and your transition will be just get more painful. Try to make the switch early, when your Math Prof is still happy and will not feel that X years you spent there was waste of his time.

Talk to your tutor or professor, they are there to help you and I always found mine very supportive. It sounds like you have thought about this. Find out what your options are they won't bite your head off for changing your mind. I changed direction twice before even getting to my Ph.D. then left that after 9 months when I realised it was not right for me.
Don't spend years of your life doing something you don't care for, you will be far happier and productive doing something you truly love. There is a good chance your profs and tutors will have zig-zagged through their careers as well.

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I attended a top institute in India, but got very poor grades. Is there any path forward toward a PhD in Europe?
I messed up in my university even in courses related to my field of interest. The main problem was lack of discipline: I would alternate between high-intensity periods where I only stopped to sleep and low-intensity periods where I would work on random subjects unrelated to my coursework, or not work at all. My combined GPA for B.Sc. + M.Sc. is only 6.3 out of 10 (which is something like a 2.1 GPA in the US) -- slightly lower for undergrad and slightly higher for the master's.
I can't go back to change my grades, but is there anything I can do to significantly improve my chances of getting into a PhD in Europe? I did attend one of the top institutes in India, after clearing the national level entrance exam. Also, I co-authored a publication with a professor from my institute. My MA thesis received a good evaluation and I have a very positive letter of recommendation to show.

related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38237/how-are-ph-d-applications-evaluated-in-the-us-particularly-for-weak-or-borderl

In which percentile of your class are you? top 10%? top 50% top 99%?

@EarlGrey All of the students of my college were within the top 1% in India in terms of final year school grades. Then they also qualified the national level entrance exam (IIT JEE Advanced), in which again only about top 1% were chosen. But within the college, I was only top 60% in Masters, and top 80% in Bachelors. If I had chosen easier college, there wouldn't be so much competition within the class, and I could have get better grades as well.

I asked, but I do not really care, it is a matter of personal assesment (and personal marketing). Actually no one really cares about the numbers, apart from the guardians of the bureaucratic doors (which is a -claimed to be- meritocratic and efficent way to skim candidates), no one knows exactly how the rating of another country works. For example in Physics in France it is very difficult to have an average grade higher than 15 (on a scale of 20, where 20 is the maximum).  Focus on yourself, re-start the contact with your thesis advisor, don't mention your grades until asked.

As usual, it is helpful to look at this from the other side of the desk. Imagine that you are a professor in Europe, and you want to hire a student. You get ~100 applications, the majority of which are from students in other countries. Many of these people have great grades, good letters of recommendation, and even a published paper or two. One or two of your peers might even call you to say that they have an excellent student about to graduate, and that student would be a good fit.
Your first step is going to be to make three categories: the awesome candidates that you definitely want to talk to, the unqualified candidates that get a curt "no thanks" e-mail (if that), and the ones in the middle that you'll look at later. Which category do you think you are in? What would it take to change your opinion of yourself?
There is perhaps no singular right answer. You could retake some courses to improve your grades. You could get some nice publications and letters of recommendation. You could get some industry experience. I realize that these paths are themselves difficult, but they should be exponentially easier than trying to get admission to grad school in Europe right now.

I understand things from their point of view, and they are right within the constraints upon which they have to make the judgement. I also don't know any better system. I just need to produce more evidence to prove my competence. I cannot retake courses as I'm already graduated. What I'm thinking of doing is independent research for one year, write review papers, and texts on relevant topics. Maybe try making videos on topics of new research, or to teach a coursework on YouTube. That way I will have more evidence to show my motivation and commitment, which may compensate my grades.

@Spacetime Why do you think the people with better grades are not motivated or committed? "independent research for one year, write review papers, and texts on relevant topics" sounds like it will make you appear more like a crank than a qualified applicant.

@BryanKrause I didn't say or think that people with better grades are not motivated or committed, neither I'm saying I'm better than them. All I'm asking is what should I do now if I want to do a PhD? The things I mentioned is something that I can do since I can't go back in time to improve my grades. So if you have better idea, please share.

@Spacetime The point is that if admissions are competitive, you can't make up for very bad grades by merely being motivated or committed, because the people with far better grades than you are also motivated or committed, and further they've shown their motivation and commitment through achieving better grades. Being motivated or committed isn't special. When admissions are competitive, it isn't a matter of just showing you are capable of something, you have to be capable and also one of the top N applicants, where N is the number accepted.

Sorry if it seems like Bryan and I are being hard on you; we just hate to see people waste effort and time when the university job market is as brutal as it is. There's nothing wrong with Youtube videos or independent research, but they are unlikely to much move the needle on your admissions odds. I think the "better ideas" are those in my last paragraph: finding a research position with a professor, or a second master's (which may require switching countries) -- though I realize these may be financially prohibitive (i.e., it'll be hard to find a paid research assistantship).

@BryanKrause I understand that and also that motivation and commitment are not sufficient. The point of "independent research, review papers, and texts on relevant topics" is to not only show motivation and commitment but also the subject knowledge in relevant fields I want to do reseach, and ability to do the independent research. Isn't that's important characteristics they look for? I don't understand why it would look 'crank'. What else should I do to improve my chances? Or you mean there is nothing I can do now?

@Spacetime A PhD is a supervised program to learn how to do research. It's not supervised for the amusement of professors or to make them feel good, it's supervised because doing good early-stage research requires help. Most people who think they can do independent research, without learning how first, can't actually do it, and produce junk, crank material. Like cag51, I think your only hope is to have some other supervised position - as an employee or masters student working under a professor who becomes so impressed they think you are an outstanding candidate for a PhD position.

It doesn't sound like you've been able to show that ability yet, though, so while I don't want to tell you it's impossible, I want you to understand that you could do everything right from now on and still not do a PhD, and that's perfectly fine. It's important to form some backup plans for your livelihood so you don't get totally stuck.

@BryanKrause I only have one paper published in a reputable journal, and one MS thesis both on different topics. I can also make a paper out of my MS thesis. So far I only have these. And also 14 Coursera certificates, if they mean anything for PhD admission. One more aspect of my grades is that I was within top 1% in India in terms of final year school grades, and then within the top 1% on the national level entrance exam (IIT JEE). However, in my master's I was top 60% and in bachelor's only top 80%. Going to a less competitive place would also have improved my grades.

Two professors (one in Germany and one in Portugal) also agreed to take me for PhD but asked me to arrange external funding. That's why I started applying to only advertised funded positions, and but never heard back anything from any funded PhD options. I suppose because a lot of great applicants.

Thanks for the input. Now I'll focus on working with a professor rather than doing independent research. As a backup plan, I'm also learning Data Science and AI.

just skip right to the AI and save yourself 10 years

Your profile is probably not remarkable, so your application will not stand out because of that.
However, having already one publication published (in a reputable journal) would help put some weight in your application.
So you are facing two hurdles:

getting the interest of a professor;
getting the funded position from that professor.

Help your way, help your potential supervisor: try to get your own fundings.
It is not easy, it is not a very rewarding job, but it is a needed step.
There are different sources for it, regarding Europe you may check the CERN page, or even the German academic exchange office DAAD ( https://www.daad.in/en/ ).
Regarding your attitude

My prof gave me the 37/40, and also wrote a very good review about me,
even though we had a lot of scientific fights

That's the best you could have in science: you had someone taking your contributions seriously enough to challenge them, discussing hard with you, instead of ignoring them, and finally this someone gave you credits and a good review.

During my research period, I was almost all the time working, except
when I was sleeping.

That is not hard working. That is overstraining yourself, to the point you got so tired that you felt you were lazy and unproductive, but it was a clear sign of beginning burn-out.

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I accepted two law school admission offers with two different start dates. Do I have to tell the latter that I've already taken classes at the former?
I applied simultaneously to several law schools with start dates in January 2022 and September 2022. I received and accepted multiple offers and paid for all the seats I accepted.
I've now finished my first semester at the school with the January start. I did mediocre on my first semester finals. I am not on academic probation or academically dismissed. But I don't want a 2.3 GPA, and this school is expensive (I lost my scholarship due to my GPA). After finding the structural issues in my test taking, I am hoping I will do better if I could get a fresh start. So, I am planning to leave my current program and start from the beginning at one of the schools with the September 2022 start date.
My new program will not know that I started and left a program somewhere else. Do I have to tell them? I do not want to transfer the grades, so from my side, there is no need to mention it. I did not lie on my application. I have researched this and cannot find any discussion about this scenario, only about transfer applications. Can I just go for it?

Interesting question, but you should be aware that we have very few users who are familiar with law school in the US (and I seriously doubt we have any who are law school administration and thus could tell you authoritatively how this sort of thing would be handled if you were found out).

At US R1 math program. Aware that Law Schools (as at my univ) are often entities-unto-themselves, playing by their own rules. But, if you had asked our (math) dept for a year's deferral, and if it were granted (which might or might not be), then we'd not ask for a complete reapplication... A reapplication would require complete info about everything, and if you lied or omitted things we'd consider it fraud (of some degree of severity). So it's conceivable that you have arranged, or could arrange, just restarting, rather than transferring... but don't lie. :)

I'm still trying to get my head around this timeline. Did you apply to both schools in ~September and accept both offers in ~December? It's hard to imagine there is a ~10 month gap between reserving your spot and starting (unless you arranged for a deferral, which you do not mention). Or did you submit your application for September on ~December 1st and accept the offer for January on ~December 2nd?

Can you clarify why you perceive that you have anything to hide? You were accepted into the program, paid the tuition and have a secured spot. In what way do you imagine that them knowing about you transferring in from another program could negatively affect your status in the program?

If you are going to engage in the practice of law, your conduct should be exemplary. In fact, there is often a morality clause to admission to the bar.
Put yourself in the position of the second school. Will they possibly feel deceived by you not telling? For example, did they ask in the admissions process about previous studies? If yes, you definitely should tell your new school.
Assume an alternative scenario, where you leave your current school after the semester (disgusted with your performance), work in another job for a couple of years, and then go to the new law school. Would that have made any difference?
With other words, your decision should focus on whether you have an explicit or implicit duty to advise your new school. If you were to breach a duty, your future career might be in jeopardy.

While your behavior doesn't seem especially honorable, I'd guess that you don't have to tell the other school what you have been doing, as long as you don't lie when asked questions.
Your admittance to that program, I assume, wasn't contingent on what you might do or not do in the interim. You could have been vacationing in the south of France, or anything. They probably didn't anticipate that your situation could arise and so didn't try to prevent it.
It would be different, though, if they did require you to keep them informed of what you were doing, especially academic programs, in the time before starting. In such a case, you need to tell them and likely provide transcripts. To fail in this would be an ethical lapse.
It does all seem a bit "slippery" though, and feeds into the general distrust of lawyers.
Accepting more than one offer was problematic if you thereby denied a slot to another potential student. Law school admissions tend to be a bit limited, I'd suppose.

Don't know about law schools, but my Ph.D. application asked for all transcripts, with a note that it was "a continuing obligation."  They did want to know what I was doing in the interim, at least with respect to education.

@BobBrown, my experience was different, but honesty is required whatever the constraints.

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Is my paper doomed if even the top journal in the field cannot find reviewers?
In February last year, I submitted a manuscript to a well-known Q1 BMC Journal in my (very narrow and small) field. The editor asked for some direct revisions after one week. We resubmitted the manuscript in March 2022. Since the, the status has remained "reviewers assigned" for the entire period. I contacted the journal times and they invited me to send them a list with potential reviewers. I did that 3 times. Still, they seem unable to secure potential reviewers.
I have read about comparable situations here:
The editor cannot find a referee to my paper after one year
What happens if the editor cannot find reviewers?
However, my case is slightly different. The journal under discussion is the number 1 journal in the field. I published comparable manuscripts there 3 times (always accepted after major revisions). Based on the previous comments, I should try another journal but is it likely that others will find suitable reviewers if the best journal in the field fails?
Thank you very much in advance for your input.
Edit: Nobody has every published on that niche topic before. It is very novel and what we try to publish here has - to the best of our knowledge - never examined. The field is medicine.

It happened to me: After holding my paper for 9 months, a top-10 journal in math returned the paper saying that they could not find a referee. I submitted to another top-15 journal that managed to find a referee and the paper was published.

Are there more specialist journals that would fit your paper than the one you submitted to? Sometimes very focused journals are better at finding reviewers, even though they will normally not have a very high impact factor.

I'm going to digress a bit because you write "Nobody has every published on that niche topic before".
First, let's dissect why editors might fail to find reviewers. When editors invite reviewers, the four most common results are:

No response from reviewer
Reviewer responds saying no time
Reviewer responds saying the paper is out of their expertise
Reviewer agrees to review.

Given that you're dealing with the top journal of your field, the probability of #1 happening decreases somewhat. After all, everyone wants to be able to say they have reviewed for the top journal before. However, it still will happen (e.g. if the invitation is marked as spam, if the reviewer is on long leave and not checking emails, etc.) If this is the root cause of the editor not finding reviewers, from the editor's perspective, the solution is straightforward - work harder.
#2 cannot be helped; some percentage of reviewers simply will not be available (tenure review coming up, funding deadline approaching, heavy teaching load ...). However, like #1, working harder solves this problem. As long as one is identifying the right reviewers, someone will eventually be available.
Finally, #3 will also happen some of the time. The probability decreases the more meticulous the editor is, but it will still happen, especially when dealing with a paper that is out of the editor's expertise. For example, suppose there's a paper that uses method X to investigate the effect on material Y due to electrons produced by natural process Z. Do you invite a reviewer with expertise in X, Y, or Z? Ideally the reviewer knows all three, of course, but if you can't find any reviewers with expertise in all three (you probably can't; if you could then the paper would be non-novel), then it's very hard to tell which is more important. Unlike the other two, working harder does not solve this problem. If Y is most important and you keep inviting reviewers who know X, you'll just end up with a pile of "decline to review" emails and get nowhere.
Since you have said "Nobody has every published on that niche topic before", I would guess that your editor is encountering #3.
Given enough time (and enough reviewers who decline), they should eventually figure out what kind of reviewer they should look for, but until then perhaps you can help. Instead of sending them a list of potential reviewers, send them a list of what expertise is required to review your paper. Describe what you did in non-technical language, maybe indicate which fields are likely to be most impacted by your results or are most likely to be most interested, etc. (Something similar to this should already be in your Introduction.) If the editor knows what kind of reviewer they're looking for, all that's left is to put in the time to invite them.

For #2, as well as continuing to try new people, after a while (say a couple of months) I think it is reasonable to retry people who've previously declined and ask if they are still too busy.

I think this might be overly optimistic. Friends I know who are editors at this sort of journal (well respected in the field, but not high impact beyond the field) are telling me that 75%-80% of the review requests they send out are being turned down for reason #2.

@IanSudbery sounds significantly higher than normal. One of the studies cited in https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/193135/how-often-do-editors-reach-reviewers-whose-expertise-dont-match-the-paper indicate that among reviewers who decline only half say they have no time. Some percentage of reviewers do not answer the invitation, as well.

@Allure Obviously I'm just talking about anecdotal evidence here, and people's subjective impressions (and second-hand at that). But I will note that that study cited in the answer you refer to was published in 2020 with data from 2015-2017, and people are talking about the current difficultly in recruiting reviewers being a specifically pandemic/post-pandemic thing.

I would recommend:

Requesting that the journal try again.
Then resubmitting to another journal.

Failure to find reviewers can occur:

By chance
When the editor is bad at their job (which is mostly finding reviewers)
If the journal has such a bad reputation people will not review for it

I did that exactly this. Now the reviewer status changed from "Reviewers assigned" (which was there for 1 year) to "Editor assigned". I received no reply from the journal.


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Is it safe to show my old advisor my new paper?
I've already graduated.  I wrote a paper related to my Master's thesis.  I am planning on sending it to my adviser to ask if I should ethically include his name as an author.  He seems to be ethical as far as I can tell, but in general is something like this dangerous to do?
Edit: I am wondering if showing your paper to other people before it is published is dangerous, I am worried about things like theft, even though he seems to be reputable, now that I am no longer connected to him academically.

What are you afraid he might do with it?

Did he contribute enough to the development of the paper that would warrant co-authorship?

I recommend checking the answers on this related question.

As for worrying about sending unpublished work, my advice would be: take a leap of faith. You'll just have to trust your instinct and share with people you feel right. Note that there are probably more ethical and professional professors out there than the bad eggs. If very concerned, ask the professor kindly not to forward to anyone because it's not yet published. More subtly, you can add watermark to the document saying "DRAFT, DO NOT CITE." or "DRAFT, CONFIDENTIAL." He/she should get the hints.

If you distrust your advisor enough to ask this question, why on earth did you agree to let him be your advisor in the first place?

@JeffE - I state that he seems ethical in my question.  My question (obviously, I think) asks if it is a good idea in general to trust others with unpublished works.

If that's your real question, you should edit your advisor out of the text (and the title). As written, it's sort of about people in general, but really about your advisor. ("He seems like a nice guy, but can I trust him, I mean people?")

If you work in the US or Europe, intend to complete the paper and submit it for review somewhere soon, and have records that show the development work that you've done on the paper, there's little harm in showing it to people that you trust. If you don't trust your former supervisor, then I'd wait until you've submitted it or even have an acceptance in hand.
That being said, I'm wondering why you don't already know whether they should be a co-author and haven't already discussed the fact that you're writing a paper on which they might need to contribute. You should at least discuss this with them if there's any contribution of theirs in what you're writing up.

I'm not sure what you mean by a paper on which somebody "needs to contribute". Isn't contribution always voluntary?

I don't mean that the potential co-author had an obligation to contribute. What I was trying to convey was that perhaps they should have been allowed to have contributed already and now they need to or the paper should be killed or their contribution removed. It's not that hard to find yourself in such a situation.

Good point -- the co-author question comes into play because the work on which this paper is derived was co-authored by him.  I took it in a new direction.

@horsehair That is not sufficient for a co-authorship on your paper.  Just be sure to cite his earlier work.  You may still want to send him your paper because he may have be able to improve your work.  In this case you can put him as a co-author and publish a stronger paper.

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text:
Master thesis grade
I am not happy with my master thesis grade. I wrote down my master thesis in a company. I had three supervisors in this 6 month period, two of them from university and one of them from the company. I worked three days of the week in the company (my task is implementing of an app) and other days I focused on my report. I made all the corrections in the report that  my supervisors offered and went to the meetings regularly. I feel really disappointed to grade (2.7); I expected to get 2.0.
How should I explain my ideas to the assistants and what should be the first step? On the other hand, I am really angry and I could not even thinking about the subject in a healthy way. I need to some professional ideas or someone who had the same experience before.
Edit: The company found this chair to me and they have still contact and they are making projects in cooperation. I saw my grade in online system, I have not yet got my diploma.
Edit: The sign of the good work (I presented my work also in the company after making the presentation in university and they liked the results.) Also some of the colloquies of the company think as same as me that I deserve better than 2.7.

I don't understand: have you already graduated? If so, why do you still need to explain your ideas to assistants? In addition, which country are you?

Was the cooperation between the company and the university for your thesis proposed by the university or did you organize it? From personal experience I can say that some universities don't like their students doing work for companies when they could as well work for them exclusively. That could manifest in a bad grade, which certainly is unfair. How does your grade compare to other students'?

The question is a bit unclear (well, what are your ideas? Did you get any signs that your work was good, better than just good or mediocre? Why did you expect a 2.0?) but here are some thoughts: Relax and don't hurry. Hard work does not necessarily lead to good grades. Neither does doing everything that you are told to do. Don't look back but focus on the future. Unless there did something outrageous happen, it is usually next to impossible to change a grade. Ask for explanation as for why you got this grade, listen carefully and try to learn.

I don't think "assistants" s the word you are looking for. Possibly Advisors, Supervisiors,  Or Assessors, Examiners?

Was your thesis done in English, or another language?

I am not sure I understand  2.0 is better than 2.7. Would you explain a little bit how the thesis is supposed to be graded?

@scaaahu I think this is German grading

For a start, you should ask your two university supervisors whether you can have some feedback on your work. I do not mean a bare grade, but an extended discussion of good aspects and bad aspects that formed the basis for the grade. Most Bachelor/Master thesis supervisors I encountered routinely offer that to their students, anyway.
If you really disagree with their assessment, you can take it to the respective professor (unless he or she was already included in the aforementioned "supervisors"), but the professor might know quite a bit less about how you worked than your direct supervisors.
These are usually your primary ways to go to - but I would also like to discuss some statements you made about your impression of your work:

I made all the corrections in the report that my supervisors offered and went to the meeting regularly.

This is not a guarantee for a good mark. For a start, I have had many students tell me they "made all the corrections", with very varying results. Furthermore, you making all suggested corrections may mean a solid result, but it is still not as good as if you had found some of the opportunities for corrections on your own. Coming back to the first point, it is very possible your supervisors were only explicit about corrections to make your work acceptable, which is a long way from making it excellent.

Also some of the colloquies of the company think as same as me that I deserve better than 2.7.

People in the industry (even if they went to uni themselves) often have a surprisingly bad grasp of what a university might expect from a graduation thesis. This might be reflected in (your summary of) your task "my task is implementing of an app", which appears to feature no conceptual/research aspect (or maybe you just did not realize?), and also by your statement that you wrote your report at the university and implemented at the company at the stated ratio. Therefore, your company colleagues may well have found you a capable coder, but that doesn't mean that the entirety of the thesis fully lived up to the expectations of the university.

I think most universities will have formal procedures for lodging a complaint and requesting a reassessment. I would think this would probably be a tiered process. First you ask for a written assessment of your work, so you can decide wether or not you agree with the examiner. If not, you can request the examiner to reassess. If still not happy, you can probably request a new assessment by a new examiner. However, you might end up with the same or a worse result.


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Reviving a Rejected Proposal -- Question on Ethical Considerations
A friend of mine wrote a research proposal a few years ago. When he had 80% of it done, he pitched the idea to a colleague who joined and wrote the extra 20%. The proposal got rejected. A few years later the friend is trying to write a different proposal that has some aspects (but not content) in common with the old proposal. However, the colleague who co-wrote the old proposal will not respond to multiple emails requesting him to join the new proposal -- they probably lost interest but for some reason won't come out to say so.
Lets assume the proposal goes ahead to submission  without involving the earlier collaborator. If the proposal were to get funded, isn't there a risk, that the earlier collaborator could turn around and claim they somehow influenced the direction of the new  proposal yet is not credited on the proposal? How in general do people move on after a joint proposal gets rejected; and some members won't be interested in joining offshoots of the old proposal. Of course in this case there is the added challenge of the earlier collaborator refusing to come out and make it clear that he is uninterested. How does one avoid the potential accusations of being unethical?

In the background that you have presented, I see only one half of the question being asked: "Will you join on this proposal?"
The clear next step is to query again with the other half, in order to make disinterest explicit, writing something along the lines of:

Since you have not responded to my emails asking whether you would like to join this proposal, my understanding is that you are not interested.  I am intending to go ahead with this proposal, so unless I hear otherwise from you, I will assume you have no objection.

This places the question squarely with the other person.  If they respond one way or another, it resolves the question.  If they do not respond, you are free to assume that they are accepting that you submit without them.
Do, however, make certain to do due diligence to determine that the other person hasn't changed institution or email, such that your communications are not being received.  You may also want to try a phone call before giving up on contact.

Yes, I think your second half is a nice way to get him to respond or technically forfeit any possible claims to intellectual property. If he still refuses to respond, there is no way he would turn around and say he still had an interest in the proposal

authors: محمد علي عبدالله العسيلي


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How do I get out of my overly vain 'trophy' mindset when it comes to universities?
I have friends who went to pretty good universities (world top 10), and I would love to apply too after my Masters although I am not sure how realistic this is, as I also had some personal problems during my undergraduate degree affecting my grades. However, I feel bad every time I think about it and realise that my university right now is not Oxbridge / Ivy League -although I too ultimately am interested in a career in academia.
One of my friends got into Oxbridge and I don't think he's more intelligent than me or particularly gifted at all to be honest, -but I just don't understand? - And: yes, I should know that it doesn't matter that much, and that I should not compare myself and not let this take over my thought processes. But I cannot seem to help it, it's on my mind a lot. And it's even keeping me from studying. - any advice?

why is this being downvoted? I find it unfair to downvote without any explanation. I am genuinely struggling with this and am seeking advice and this is a side of academia too.

It can happen that modest talent but exceptional focus are more productive (and have documentation to prove it). Or, perhaps, it is some kind of gift to not get distracted... by personal problems or world problems or anything else.

One central principle of success is: ignore others' achievements and focus on what you want to achieve. Surprisingly many successful people I know do this and do not care much about the others, whether better or worse. Sure enough, occasional checking where others are and what they achieve is good to get context, but only here and there. You live your life, not somebody else's.

Thousands of people antagonize over top universities, believing that once you get there you will automatically get the uber-professor position. Although it certainly helps, there are many examples of excellent professors / researchers attending good but not top-100 schools in their PhD. Also, "I don't think he's more intelligent" is the wrong mentality to have. People are usually judged by their outcome and not their subjective potential. And if your "personal problems" affected your grades while he excelled with his, then he has produced  better results and you have to live with it.

Have you applied to Oxbridge / MIT / Harvard and been rejected? I believe the first step is for you to pursue your dreams of attending a top university, and if you are denied, attend the 'best' university you can with your given resources.

I have not downvoted the question, but I find it completely legitimate to downvote without exposing oneself as the one who downvoted.

Also, academia is not an intelligence contest. It doesn't matter at all whether someone is intelligent or dumb. What matters is, for better or worse, whether you can deliver good research results.

It would be nice to have an answer from someone who has served on a graduate admissions committee, to say whether they think of admission to a graduate program as a "trophy".  (I think I can guess what the answer will be...)

A small correction - it's false premise that Oxbridge / Ivy League unis are the top places for all fields. In fact, for my field, they are not in top 5, maybe even not in top 10.

You may want to look at this article about envy in academia; it has lots of interesting click-throughs too: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1453-on-academic-envy

Since nobody seems to answer this somewhat vague question, I will:
1) Your question is not related to Academia directly, it is simply a question about fighting negative emotions (perhaps, jealousy?) that stem from failure in some sort of a competition. You say your negative emotions interfere with your everyday functionality, so the standard advice is to go to personal psychological counseling.
2) The one bit that is related to academia is:
"One of my friends got into Oxbridge and I don't think he's more intelligent than me or particularly gifted at all to be honest, -but I just don't understand?"
The answer to this is that academia is not an intelligence contest. It doesn't matter at all whether someone is intelligent or dumb. What matters is, for better or worse, whether you can deliver good research results.

Thank you for your answer. I do think it relates quite directly to academia though, the whole prestige thing seems to be a big part of it for many people - although it should not be. I also know that I should not think this way, that's why I asked this question and hoped other people would be able to relate to this more, but nobody is - apparently! My friend getting into Oxbridge was intended to serve as a example, - this is not my problem per se, I was just wondering how people deal with the whole prestige issue in academia - "who have you worked with?" "who was your supervisor?" etc.

So maybe it is more of a personal problem after all. Well! Thank you for your answer!

I agree with Dilworth's answer.  Prestige is a big issue in academia, but only because status is a strong motivator in all human activity.  Academics are apes; we do apey things.

I agree that it is a a strong motivator in all human activity. But this makes it in no way less relevant to academia. It's still worth discussing.

Actually, when I think of this, I'm not that certain that prestige is even that a big deal in academia. Many active and successful researchers (who have tenure/permanent jobs) don't really care that much about prestige. They are just happy and interested in their area/research, and pay much less attention to social prestige. Honestly, there's not much prestige in science anyways. And these days people are just grateful they even found a permanent position.

My Two cents... I have to agree with Dilworth...This is not an academia issue but a personal one that you should pay attention to. I would suggest seeing a therapist who can help you with the recurring "rumination" regarding your worth as it relates to top universities. I think it is important to question, with the end goal of understanding, why this is such a big deal for you. The reality is that this kind of dilemma generally has it's roots in ones childhood and feelings of not measuring up to someone's (usually a parents) expectations. Even if you did make it into Oxbridge, you are likely to find something or someone else to compare yourself to and find that you come up short. You suggest that prestige is a big part for many people in academia... and it is... but so too in sports, the work environment, who you marry, the kind of car you drive, where you live, etc. You are more than all of those things!


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Well my PI screwed me over. Need advice and help with career decision. (MS Life Sciences looking for PhD)
I had written about this earlier too. Current qualifications: MS Life Sciences.
I completed my dissertation this year in May. I completed all my dissertation work required by my program (Int. BS MS) and after my defence, submitted and got the NOC to leave the institute. My dissertation work also has a paper on which I was working on simultaneously. During my thesis submission I got little time to work on it but it was subimtted to a journal already and some minor suggestions were recommended by the reviewers before the final submissiona and publication.
But my supervisor wanted me to continue PhD under him at the institute and promised many incentives during my PhD including completion within 3 years, some papers in high impact factor journals etc. I was reluctant as I had already spent 5 years at the institute (which is no way bad, just new).
I did apply for the PhD interview at the same institute but I also got selected for interviews in IITs (which I wanted to go to). Naturally, he was not happy with MY decision and snapped. I had not completed the paper reviews before the PhD interviews so I informed that I would complete all those after the interviews were over in other institutes. So he abused me verbally that I have been helped too much by him and I not recipocating the same and even threatnened to remove my name from the paper (which he did I think) and even did not provide any recommendation letters.
I am now confused what to do. I have some alternate arrangements for recommendation letters and I will definitely apply for PhD in the January cycle of 2025. Should I continue in academia or should I shift careers?
This may seem like a one sided rant but I am open to all questions. Help me kind people.

Sounds like you and your advisor have an unhealthy relationship. Good luck moving past this and in  creating your career!

We had a healthy relationship and he was commending me at all times until I told him I was appearing for other PhD interviews. There won't be any problem in the future?

You thought you had a healthy relationship. You learned differently when your supervisor reacted negatively to you making your own decisions.

Yep. Was that my fault somehow? I am curious..

No, it was not your fault. Maybe slightly by choosing this person as a MS advisor but it's unlikely you had the information available to make a different decision at that time.

What's an NOC, IIT? Is this possibly in India?

@DanielR.Collins Yep this is in India. A No Objection Certificate required by educational institutions. It signifies that the issuing institution has no objection to the student leaving, typically indicating that the student has fulfilled all obligations and settled any dues. And IITs in India are the best institutions for studying technology and engineering.

@BryanKrause Possibly.

"[NOC] It signifies that the issuing institution has no objection to the student leaving"... Egads, I really feel bad for you folks that have to live with these restrictions.

@DanielR.Collins Same -_-

Let me begin by saying I'm very sorry for your situation. It can be very disorienting and painful to have been treated like this by someone you looked up to. Unfortunately, the power gradient in academia between a PhD advisor and grad student is very high, and gets abused constantly by advisors all over the world. This is not to trivialize your experience, but an attempt to show that sadly this happens a lot and a lot of people overcome this, so you can too.
Now more specific to your situation, the letters of recommendation (LOR) always carry more weight from your immediate manager (in this case advisor). But if your alternate sources also have that capacity, that should still be of comparable weight. And institutes rarely ask why you could not furnish a LOR from your advisor, so that should not be of much concern. Furthermore PhD applications are graded on a variety of factors with LOR being just one of those. If you have a well-rounded application with demonstrable research experience (which seems to be the case), the odds of you getting selected to a good program are higher.
Even if someone asks why you were unable to provide LOR from your advisor, I would refrain from going in to the specifics since it might come across as unprofessional.
Finally, I do not believe that this alone should determine if you should continue in academia or not. Yes, this situation has made things more challenging but not impossible. So if being in academia and getting a PhD is what you want, you should absolutely pursue it to your best abilities. Good luck!

That's really helpful. Thanks!


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How can some researchers publish so much in so little time?
I've been wondering how some researchers publish so much in so little time. Like, one famous scholar from MIT published one study per week during the pandemic. For me, it is difficult to believe he's outputting 30-page papers weekly. Were people simply putting his name on their manuscripts?

Welcome to Academia.SE. This is an interesting question, but one that's been discussed a few times already -- see the links above.

I can think of at least two ways to achieve high productivity.
The first is to have lots of projects going on simultaneously, with project books for each of them. Then, if you get stuck on one project, work on another one. An adjunct to this is to carry a notebook or a bunch of note cards with you always, so that if you get a thought on a project you capture it immediately. Even a ride in an elevator can be productive.
The second way is to do lots of collaboration with lots of people. This might also imply lots of projects, of course. But the sharing of ideas can make things happen faster and more solidly. The coffee room at a university department is a powerful productivity tool if people share ideas there.
Publishing one study per week for a while doesn't imply that the projects only took a week from inception to completion.

The third, of course, is fraud.

@BryanKrause, that would only be "apparent productivity". I only considered the real thing.


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Marie Curie postdoc fellowship - civil servant
Is it possible to undertake a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship while being a civil servant (taking unpaid leave)? Are there any relevant restrictions from the MSCA funding scheme? Thank you!

The legal status of civil servants depends greatly on the country. I don't think it will be possible to give a comprehensive answer to the question as asked.

@TimRias I think a specification of the country in an edit resolves that, however.

The specifics of your question almost certainly depend on the country you're in, but in general: If you are granted unpaid leave, you can do pretty much whatever you want during that time -- travel the world, sit on the beach, or take another job (like a postdoc fellowship). Generally speaking, also, if you take another job during that time, your employer will not care that you have another job that you are on leave from because you, at that time, do not in fact have another job -- nobody pays you to do anything besides the job you have taken during your leave. As a consequence, I don't think that the organization that hands out the Marie Curie fellowships cares one way or the other.
The relevant question for you -- though that's not what you explicitly ask -- is: Will your employer be willing to give you a couple of years of unpaid leave so that you can do a meaningful postdoc? Why would they let you go on leave and keep the job available to you if your goal is to take a postdoc that in all likelihood will qualify you for jobs that are better than you currently have? Why would you go back to your current job? What benefit would your current employer have from keeping the job open for you for all of that time?


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Should I change advisors because mine doesn't object to publishing at MDPI?
I am a CS PhD student who recently published a review paper in an MDPI journal, following my supervisor’s recommendation. After publishing, I learned from peers that MDPI is considered predatory. I researched online and found similar concerns.
Before publishing, I verified that the journal was Q1 and indexed, and I trusted my supervisor’s advice, unaware of MDPI’s reputation. Now, I am uncertain about my decision, as my supervisor often (not exclusively) publishes in MDPI, while other supervisors at my university avoid it. This has made me question my work and progress, which I was initially proud of.
I am now doubting whether my methods and ideas are good enough for reputable journals, and I worry that my supervisor’s name might not help in future publications. Additionally, I am concerned about my future opportunities, as I plan to pursue a post-PhD career and fear being turned down.
My question is, what should I do now? Should I look for another advisor or co-advisor? Should I continue and hope that my next publication will be accepted in reputable journals, considering my scholarship has time constraints? What should I do ?
Edit: As I mentioned in my initial questions, I am not debating whether MDPI is good or bad. Instead, I am aware that it has a questionable reputation. However, my supervisor doesn’t seem to share this view. Consequently, I am uncertain about whether I should continue working with him.

as this question is now, I think it is clearly not a duplicate. It is not asking about the reputation of MDPI, it is asking whethre a disagreement over that reputation is good cause to change supervisor. Voting against closure.

MDPI is a bit of a grey area. I personally would never publish there or review for them, but there are researchers I very much respect who do. I wouldn't put much trust in the peer-review at MDPI, but that doesn't mean that everything published there is rubbish. Based on what I've heard from other people, my impression is that views like mine are common.
For you, this means that you shouldn't worry about your paper being counted against you. The choice of journal of early-stage PhD students reflects much more on their supervisor than them. That your supervisor publishes quite a bit in MDPI journals might be a yellow flag regarding their overall reputation, but it is not a red flag.
You should definitely try and get some publications in other venues, but other than that I don't think you need to worry too much.

The question here seems to be "should I change advisors because they don't have problems with MDPI". Lets start by pointing our that MDPI is  not your typical "predactory publisher", in fact, as others (and answers in the linked question also say) have stated, there are quite a few very respected people that publish there, and in some fields, the MDPI journals are acutally quite high quality and offer a much faster possibility to be published due to their streamlined process compared to many other journals. So this is not black and white, but rather grey area territory. I would not be so quick to judge people incompetent just because the publish in MDPI journals. Almost everyone I know in my field has published there, mainly because in some interdisciplinary fields, it is not super easy to get published in more thematically rigid "more respectable" journals.
And just a short anecdote to add:
My advisor (who is a respected scholar in his field, head of a research instution, professor at a quality uni etc.) has in the past forwarded me invitations to publish of a much more shady nature than any MDPI journals. Have I found this questionable? Yes. But would I change an otherwise excellent advisor just because of such a minor faux-pas? Probably not.

MDPI is controversial. Some see it as problematic, while others see it as a respectable publisher. This probably varies by field; my experience and opinion is that the company has some poor practices, but that specific journals that they publish are well thought of in their fields.
(Note that I'm avoiding the word "predatory": MDPI is a real publisher that is not setting out to scam people; it just has some objectionable behaviours.)
I would not view a disagreement over the status of MDPI as a major obstable in a professional relationship. Changing advisors seems like an over-reaction.

There are excellent top-level researchers which have published good work in MDPI journals. There are massive differences in the quality of these journals, and some of them are definitively consistently capturing good work, even if their peer-review process is being viewed critically.
Some (very strong) authors I am aware of have become very critical of peer-review itself and welcome the existence of outlets which provide a sanity check rather than a gatekeeping role. Peer-review itself is now undergoing massive scrutiny (talking about "cult" around "peer-review as the only way", many retractions in top journals, an increasing litany of multiply rejected masterworks, the waste of time by having to accommodate unreasonable reviewer demands, only half-competent reviews, despite ostensibly for a top journal).
In short: nothing is absolute, everything needs to be judged by merit.
One thing you could do to reassure yourself is to see if that particular journal has other good authors or papers in its history, especially its recent one.
Furthermore, if your supervisor otherwise has publications in  established good journals, then this is not a reason to worry.
As a young researcher, just make sure you also get publications in other outlets that are high quality by consensus. It is generally a good idea to spread your publication portfolio, anyway, not only to avoid pigeonholing yourself, but also to make your work visible to other communities.

I have never heard peer-review described as being related to a cult.  A reference perhaps?

@TerryLoring It was a polemic contraction of several different discussions I had. To be sure, I kind of understand why people want peer review, even if I am critical of it. But sometimes one gets these people that uncritically consider it the only way to publish appropriately, and this feels almost like an unreflected religious belief. After all, it used to be optional in the past (Einstein almost never had any of his papers peer reviewed, and surely he was not the only one with this privilege; community probably switched to peer review due to US-centric view of how publications should run)

First, relax. You've drawn inferences well beyond what can be drawn. Furthermore, one paper does not make or break your academic career or PhD.
Next, because you are encountering predatory publishing for the first time, you probably don't understand the topic well enough to make informed conclusions. Some food for thought:

Isn't predatory publishing supposed to produce red flags during peer review? Did you see any red flags? If yes, how is it that you didn't realize it was predatory until after your paper was published? If no, how can you be sure it's predatory?
Let's take the worst-case scenario which seems to be implied in your question: your supervisor is an imposter who got to where they are only because they published a bunch of fake papers at a predatory publisher. Does this imply that your department/university are also unaware that MDPI is predatory? How probable is it that all of the professors at your department/university are unaware?
Furthermore, if they really are all unaware, does that imply that you'll have no special difficulty getting a post-PhD academic job because other departments/universities are probably also unaware that MDPI is predatory?

Hopefully the above shows that it's likely that your supervisor is aware of the issues with MDPI, and they chose to publish there anyway. That suggests that there's something important you don't know. (See this question for more information about the complexity surrounding MDPI.)
The last step is to talk to your supervisor about why they chose to publish with MDPI anyway. It's possible they're unaware of the issues with MDPI, but don't assume it. Tell them instead that you're concerned about MDPI's reputation, and that publishing the paper there might've damaged your standing. See what he says. He'll probably give you a set of reasons why he thinks your concerns are misplaced.
After taking those into consideration, if you still believe your concerns are correct, you can refuse to publish in MDPI journals in the future. Because all authors must agree to publish with a journal before the journal can publish it, if you stand your ground, you can force the paper to not be published. Of course, this will damage your relationship with your supervisor - but cross the bridge when you get there.

Are you still employed at MDPI? If so, the first sentence in this answer must be a disclosure of this obvious conflict of interest. Please edit your answer to disclose this current or past conflict.

I'm not going to force an edit, but I think answerers have an ethical obligation to disclose conflicts of interest that include current and past employment, and it seems legitimate to point out with a comment when such disclosure is known to be absent.

It seems easiest to me to proactively write "disclosure: I used to work for MDPI". We don't need details of when or explanations of why you don't work there now. It doesn't mean the answer needs to necessarily be either pro- or anti-MDPI, it's just to provide readers with context. And I don't think it's necessary when discussing publishing procedures more generally.

No, you should not change advisors because of this.  Aside from any controversy about the journal in question, unless your advisor is forcing you to publish in journals that you have a major problem with, changing your advisor because of this seems like a major overreaction to me, like killing a mosquito with a shotgun.

I don’t believe changing advisors over this issue is necessary. I suggest discussing your concerns with them, so you can both evaluate the pros and cons of publishing in MDPI. Most likely, the impact of the journal on their career is relatively small compared to the potential impact on yours, so advisors are usually flexible in such matters.


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Would citations in blogs, public materials, arXiv and magazines increase citation count for the author?
It is known that references from peer reviewed articles and public domain technical reports can increase the citation counts in Scopus and Google scholar. But does this apply to the works cited in the following?

blogs
publicly available online materials
arXiv
magazines

For instance, if an author X has a peer-reviewed article A and has A cited in each of the above mentioned items, how will his Scopus and Google scholar citation count be affected?

From my experience: Blogs and magazines no, but arxiv yes.

Scopus counts only peer-reviewed articles.
What Google scholar counts is less clearly defined. Intuitively, if something looks like an academic source, then its citations are counted. This means that arXiv is definitely in. I've seen slides for talks hosted on academic webpages being counted, but not in a very consistent manner. I would suspect that most blogs don't count. Mathoverflow does not count.


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How can I move from chemical engineering into drug discovery?
My situation is as follows:
I have already obtained a master in chemical engineering and my thesis is about drug delivery. I would like to continue my graduate study for a PhD, but as time goes by, I find myself begin interested in the field of drug discovery especially drug design. Since my high school I am actually more interested in chemistry and I think I should do something to try to engage in drug design in my PhD before it is too late. I have thought of some options:

Try to approach some research groups to see if they allow me to work as a research assistant first, then after a year or so with some drug design experiences, apply PhD about drug design.
Purse another master program for drug design, work crazily hard to get good grades and apply PhD about drug design. (But some of them is quite expensive, this may be a financial issue but just want to make sure it is worth)
Directly apply some PhD about drug design. I am not sure anybody will accept someone with no background.

Something more about me:

My grade average in UG is really bad. Quite rebellious in my UG.
I do have some publications and patents but they are totally not related to drug design.
I actually did not take any course in my UG and PG related to drug, or pharmaceutical science.
My current professional connection is limited to my master supervisor. Here I mean really close communication and will support me.

I am sure I have the determination to start my research in drug design. It is not an impulse. Is there any advice on my situation? Any comment is welcome particular harsh comments.

As far as I can tell, "drug design" is a PhD topic, not a degree that you can get. You'd need to apply to the graduate department that offers the drug design topics.

Yes my aim is to seek a PhD position about drug design, but what I interest in is only available in department like pharmaceutical science or chemical biology, not chemical engineering, which I know the approach is very different with chemical engineering. I also briefly searched for related MSc program, and there is something like MSc in drug discovery/design.

Do you have a specific, answerable question? Is there any advice on my situation? is not really the kind of question that fits on SE sites.

A possible intermediary step might be to try and become involved in translational chemistry. As far as I understand it, this is the interface field between medicinal chemistry and chemical engineering, where you are trying to scale up from lab (grams or less) to small scale testing (kilograms). PhDs which have large components of translational chemistry would probably be more likely to be big pharma funded/driven schemes.

@ff524: I think the correct question is: "How do I handle changing research directions when it involves a change in department as well?"

@Sam: It is interesting to know about translational chemistry, the first time I heard of it. I will probably look about some research papers about it and see if I get interested. Thank you!

As I mentioned above, drug design is not really a "major" field, in the sense that it's rare to be able to get a diploma which lists "drug design" as the field of study. It's a dissertation topic or a focus area.
The relative advantage of this is that very few people come in with experience in the field, because it's so specialized. That means it's harder to be "picky" in selecting students—if everybody has to have lots of experience, you may not end up with enough qualified candidates.
Given your past experience with drug delivery, you probably have a fairly good idea of some of what is involved in drug design, so it's not as if you're coming from a completely unrelated discipline.
So, I don't think you have much to lose by applying to PhD positions while you look for alternate opportunities to work in the field. (Sometimes you need to apply more than once before you get accepted!)

Thank you very much for the answer. However what I really interested in about drug design is not related to drug delivery. I would like to engage in the design process of a new drug, from a structural point of view, like computational screening, chemical structure modification, receptor affinity etc.


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Citation in thesis
My question is about giving references in my thesis.
When I give a literature of my study, I mostly used a type of reference which is given below:
In [1], abc et al, studied xxx. it was a bla bla bla study. They underlined that bla bla bla(a paragraph)
In [2], def et al, studided yyy. they claimed that bla bla bla (another paragraph)
I also paraphrased whatever I write, but my question is about plagiarism. Did I need to give another reference to end of each paragraph because I paraphrased them, and I didn't add my ideas etc?
In next two days, my thesis will be published, but I couldn't find a proper answer. I have already pressed my thesis but it hasn't been signed yet. So, it is ok to leave it as it is? Please help me :(
Looking forward to your answer.

Sorry, it isn't clear what you think the problem might be. I don't understand the part "end of each paragraph"

OK. I think the answer of user student covers it pretty well.

In general, in papers, it is commonly done this way: you refer to an author and then describe in your own words. Bust such description is usually no more than 1-2 sentences. Here, you have a full paragraph of description. To be on the safe side, you can add at the middle and at the end of the paragraph to add  something like "Johnson and colleagues add [1], that ...", "Johnson and colleagues conclude [1], that ...". So everyone will see once again that it was a description.

You can also use "the paper" and such, rather than the author names.

I think it should not be a problem. But maybe better ask your supervisor? He/she should know the university regulations and any potential pitfalls.

I think you are fine and you should not worry. Good Luck!


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Bachelor thesis: cite my own paper?
I am currently writing my bachelor thesis and since my results were really good, my advisors encouraged me to write a paper about it. The paper was accepted at an international conference and will get published and in the corresponding journal.
I've really invested much time in the paper and the results, thus my thesis fell a bit short. Additionally the topics are identical, because I wrote about the results that I achieved during my work for my thesis. Therefore it is really hard to write a "completely different" text in the thesis compared to the paper.
Moreover the deadline of my thesis ends in 3 weeks...thus, my second advisor suggested to mostly copy+paste stuff of my paper, because it is good and was reviewed several times.
However, my second advisor is always relaxed and calm. I haven't talked to my first advisor about this so far...but I suspect that he would not be too happy if I copy & paste large parts.
What is the "standard" in academia for comparable situations?
Would you feel OK with copying certain parts of your paper?
Any advice would be great and really appreciated.

Can you simply submit the Conference paper, as is as your Bachelor Thesis? My institution changed a rule to allow that recently. Not Copy paste sections, but the whole thing, with the statement "This work, as is, will appear in X, in 2016"

Could you indicate some more context such as your approximate field, please? I'm asking because the "standard" you are referring to might vary considerably; for instance the solution suggested by @Oxinabox is pretty much unthinkable in the part of academia I'm most familiar with, as conference papers are usually limited to some 8 to 10 pages there, whereas Bachelor theses typically cover at the very least 60 pages.

I'm writing my bachelor thesis in a specialized STEM-field at a department with quite some reputation at a big university in Europe. Students here are encouraged to write research-based theses rather than writing "something that gets you the graduation". While I do not have a specific page limit (neither minimum nor maximum) most bachelor theses here are in a range of 40 to 120 pages.

When it comes to copy and paste, I'd certainly have a bad feeling. Paraphrasing/rewriting is the least you can do. In general, citing own publications is common practice. Citing your own publication in your bachelor thesis is therefore, in my opinion, completely okay.
Since the research published in your paper is actually part of your thesis, everything should be fine. But in your thesis you should be able to give even more detail than in a conference paper. That way you can reference your paper, showing that you published successfully, and then show your findings to a bigger extent.
Good luck with your thesis!
Edit: Almost forgot about your first advisor: Talk to him/her! There is no reason to feel bad for asking. Ask your second advisor for advice on how to talk to your first advisor.

If it's the same person describing the same work, and it's all their own work, I don't see a problem with copy/paste (with adaptations as necessary). Why waste one's time rewriting perfectly good prose? There are certainly paragraphs of my PhD thesis that are identical to paragraphs of the corresponding papers, and everybody involved was fine with that. But obviously this depends on the regulations of the institution in question.

@Flyto It does come down on regulations and personal taste. Personally, I would just not feel good copy/pasting passages from my publications. However, in some instutions this might be perfectly normal. One should definitely look around how colleagues did it in the past.

Where I come from it is common for chapters of a PhD thesis to have a lot in common with published papers by the same author - maybe even with copy/pasted sections. The declaration for the thesis is "it's all my own work, and it hasn't previously been submitted for a degree"; there's no requirement that it hasn't been published in a journal.
It's not common for undergraduate dissertations, but that may simply be because it isn't common for undergraduates to publish in the academic literature. In my view the fact that you have done work that is good enough to be published should be a positive thing, not an additional problem for you.
However, whether this is allowed will very much depend on the policies of your universtiy - so definitely talk to your primary advisor about it. Assuming it's allowed then you should note clearly, perhaps in the introduction, that the same work has been / is going to be published in $journal, with a citation. This looks good for you, and also provides an explanation if the thesis gets a red flag from automated plagarism detection software.

If your earlier work has been published, then cite it as you would any other work. However, if it has not been published, even by your university, then the rules don't need to be as strict. You could possibly just consider your undergraduate thesis as a "draft" of the publication, in which case there is no need to cite. However, it might be better to cite it, and you should mention somewhere that the work is "derived from" your thesis.
Doctoral theses, on the other hand are regularly published by universities through Proquest, which used to be University Microfilms. I don't know if all dissertations wind up there, but in some fields, they do.
If a prior publication exists, cite it. You can quote or paraphrase as you would any other work, but give a proper citation.


text:
Help - drowning in non-thesis related work from supervisors during PhD
I’m not quite sure how to handle this situation and hoping you may be able to help!
I am over a year into my PhD and have supervisors who, although we don’t have a bad relationship from their point of view (they would likely say it is good), in my opinion I have a very formal, structured and slightly cold relationship (comparing to previous managers in other jobs).
At the beginning of my PhD they were keen to get me involved in projects they have going on in their department that would help them analyse data and produce papers, I was told this was my way of saying thank you to the team (I assumed saying thank you for supervising me) and this would not gain me a name on their paper. Admit-ably at the start I was very keen to impress them and additionally thought getting stuck into some work for them could also help me get in the flow of what I might do for my own thesis. Over a year later and these projects continue and are only getting bigger each meeting we have. The tasks (and timeframe expected) mean I would need to spend on average 10-15 hours a week on these projects to get them anywhere near completion. I have noted to them in my last meeting this is a lot of work and I think I am unable to meet their desired deadline but this is not really taken on board. As our relationship is extremely formal I feel like I can’t really explain how overwhelmed I feel or how unfair I feel like this is. Its never been an option as to whether I want to or can take these projects on, they are expected to be done ASAP and I feel like I am being treated how you may a member of staff whose sole role it is to complete this additional work.
Having talked to friends and other PhD students they would call this unfair, toxic and flat out refuse to do it. However I am really mindful I want to keep in good faith with my supervisors, they are experts in the field I want to work in and there is no option of another supervisor to switch to without completely hindering my thesis and remainder of my PhD. I’d be better off quitting.
My idea would be to give it my best shot with finishing the majority of the project (even if it will be tough to do) , ensuring I am keeping minutes from our meetings which highlight that this is their project. Hoping that in future, if I've done a good chunk for them, they will let me away with not finishing acknowledging I have bigger priorities (my thesis). If this doesn’t work I would consider getting my university involved however I’d really rather not resort to this.
I know I’m being a wuss with this approach but I want to be diplomatic.
Any advice? Do you think it is normal for (some, I am aware not all) supervisors to do this?
p.s I don't care too much about not being mentioned in authorship for their papers, I'd much rather get on with my own project and have my thesis run smoothly. I just want to try and finish and be unscathed!

I think it is important to note the length of your PhD program and what the milestones typically are. For instance, is this a 5-year program where most students start on their own research during year 2? Or a program where everyone does co-authoring until year 3? Are you hoping to go into academia?

Thankyou, its a 3-4 year program (3yrs funded) with no particular milestones other than the PhD is intended to be complete by yr3, yr4 at absolute max. My funding is external, scholarship with no expectation in my contract to help with other work. Contract states I can do a max of 6 hours work outside of my PhD project. I am currently about to be involved in a separate clinical trial (which makes up my thesis) with part of my department and we will all be helping with various aspects of the trial & co-authoring on papers. I'm unsure about academia but want to keep it on the cards just incase

Related (espeically answer 1): https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/67741/thesis-supervisors-project-or-my-project?rq=1

I would also want to know how you are funded (by supervisor, by department, by outside grant, etc.). I was funded such that it was expected to do 20 hours per week for my professor’s unrelated projects. This would be considered perfectly normal in my department

This is an unpleasent, but not uncommon situation. You say you "feel like I am being treated how you may a member of staff", and in fact many supervisors, particularly in the bio-medical world do treat their students exactly this way. For many students are the only mechanism to get any hands to do research. It is a bad thing, but it is common.
Firstly, no one should ever ask you to do work that won't get you an authorship, unless its group maintenance sort of work (organising the seminar rota, or making sure there is always milk in the fridge etc, monitoring everyones disk space usage). I know you say you don't care about this, but you should. Authorship is the currency of academia. It is how we are paid for our work.
Secondly SOME amount of off-topic work helping others is part of the payment you make to them for training you. When the time comes, you might need help from someone else to achieve something your project requires, but you are not capable of. However, you need to be careful of this becoming too much. In the run of things, your 10-15 hours a week is probably on the edge of what might be considered too much. If you are work 50 hours a week, then thats 20%-30% of your time. Not nothing, but not leaving no time for your own work, probably just starting to interfere.
Finally, expecting someone to do something immediately, when they are doing it as a favour is plain bad manners.
You have two approaches. First, if your supervisors are being cold and formal, then be formal back: arrange a set of expectations that both sides are expected to uphold. This doesn't have to be confrontational, it can be approached from a neutral stand point.
You time scales make it sound like you are in the UK. In which case, you should have an adviser - an academic in the department that is not scientifically related to your project. They are there for exactly this reason. The way this usually works here is that we have meetings with our advisees and if they report this sort of worry we go to their supervisor and say "I ask student X about their day-to-day and the answer made us worry that they are spending insufficient time on their primary project" - makes it sound like the advisor worked it out rather than you complained.

Best advice I can give is to use a positive attitude. Rather than wait for meetings where (I'm assuming) you speak nothing or little about your thesis and other people's work gets tossed around, start talking more about your work! Show your advisor what you've been doing and ask his opinion, maybe show the entire team and ask for feedback or help.
People get their mindset stuck in their own problems very easily and start ignoring other's need for their space and attention. But if you start telling them about your work and if you are able to seize their interest, they'll start understanding that you have you work to do. Maybe suggest someone else helps you with your experiments. As long as someone has stakes on your project (either because they want their opinion to be followed or just curiosity about what results you'll get) the treatment you can expect is much better than that of secretly kept activities.
Take care of at least once every two months having a discussion about the full schedule of you PhD program, milestones and current progress.
Regarding names on publications, you can straight out talk to the advisor and ask him to explain to you what is the common practice around him for people having their names on publications. I do understand that each place may have its policies, but I've heard of labs where almost everyone would have their names on almost every publication. In the worst case, when asked to do menial tasks for someone else's publication, try to come up with suggestions, deliver more than what was asked from you (and not the bare minimum). I can hardly image your name being left out if you do so.


text:
When choosing the institute as a Phd candidate, what aspects should be considered? (In Germany)
I have finished M.Sc. in Stuttgart, Germany (computational structural mechanics field) and planning to do Phd. Afterward, I would go to industry after Phd.
So, I would like to have your opinions about what aspects should be considered when choosing the field (or institute). I know the top priority is my academical interest. But if there are two topics (or two fields) I equally am interested in, what speculation should be taken account? For example, in Germany, is the power of supervising professor in academia, so could the professor be one of the resources when I am looking for the job in the relevant field?

I really recommend reading the article "A Survival Guide to a PhD" by Andrej Karpathy: http://karpathy.github.io/2016/09/07/phd/ . He talks about general stuff, about picking the adviser and research topics as well as the work of a PhD student itself.

Of course, as you said, your academic interests are important. And your advisor is also important: there is (in all places I know) no academic training "how to supervise" whatsoever - there are extremly bad advisors and very good ones. If you know something about the prospective advisors, take this into account.
Of course, some advisors are good for some students and bad for others. As you want to go to industry, it could be nice not to have one of the "industry is evil"-type of advisors (if they are common or not is field-dependent).
Having a good advisors is really important, especially in Germany the situation is really hierarchical and if your advisor is mean to you, you cannot efficiently complain about them.
Otherwise, pick a place where you can imagine to live in. And, it goes without saying, if you have a partner (and/or kids, or family you have to take care of) take their opinions absolutely into account! Having a good PhD position but a bad private life happens unfortunately very often to academics.

Thank you. Then my further question is how to recognize if the professor is „industry-evil type“ or „industry-friendly type“. What do you think of this?

Hard to say. If they are from your institution or an institution you know, ask people you know. However, sometimes you see hints on the professor's homepage (if they have one) - professors with industry collaborations are unlikely to be "industry-evil" (and such collaborations would help you with your industry future, too!) Try to find out what their previous students do now.

"computational structural mechanics field" has industry-evil type professor? highly unlikely.


text:
Reply to a professor's response to my email or not?
So I sent a thank you email to a professor who wrote me a reference letter. I updated her on the results of my applications. She replied back in a really nice email congratulating me and giving me some suggestions for my future career. I feel kind of rude ending our conversation this way, but at the same time, I also think it might be annoying for her to see another thank you email from me. If I do reply, I will most likely just say thank you again, this time for your kind words, and so on, which sound a bit repetitive. What would be an appropriate thing to do in this situation?

As an instructor, when I write a nice personal note to a student, it means I spent some time thinking about them and how I could help them.  I appreciate when someone says thank you.  Here's how to do it without inviting another round.

Thank you.  I really appreciate your help and advice.
Turtle

I would e-mail the professor back thanking her again for her kind words and telling her how you would use her career advice because it is a bit rude to get a reference letter and then cut off the conversation.
While it may be a bit repetitive, remember that you can always add how well the suggestions that she gave you worked out. Also, a thank-you letter does not always have to be long.

Your analysis seems correct. If she didn't ask you any questions or imply the desire for more information, I think you can and should leave it at that, for now. Once a "sufficient" back and forth chain of thank you notes has occurred there is no reason to extend it.
However, if the need arises in future to communicate with her you can open with thanks for past help and encouragement. You could also, then, let her know of any success generated by yer suggestions.
As you note, some emails are just noise. Some are nice, but not essential. Some are essential. This sounds like it would be just noise and she is likely busy encouraging the next person.
However, if you do take her suggestions and things work out well for you as a consequence, you can then write with the appropriate thanks and update.
I seldom reply to emails such as the one you describe unless I have something to say that will benefit the receiver in some way. There are exceptions, of course.

I can't remember ever getting a thank you from a student and thinking it was just noise.

My reading of it was just that a back and forth chain of thank-you notes had already occurred and needn't be extended. Nothing more than that. Otherwise, I agree with your answer, actually.

@NicoleHamilton see the above comment and my edit for clarification. Sorry for the confusion.