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How to avoid gender bias when writing letters of recommendation?
Finding letter writing guidelines that simply say something like "avoid gender bias" is rather easy.  Finding letter writing guidelines that explain what this means in more detail is extremely challenging.
What do men and women tend to do differently when writing letters?  What do letter writers tend to do when writing about men or women candidates?  How can these biases be recognized and mitigated?
This study by Bell, Cole, and Floge shows that male letter writers write differently than female letter writers and that both write differently when recommending men for a position than when recommending women.  But that's one study, published in 1992, and it is relatively hard to extract concrete advice on avoiding gender bias when writing recommendation letters from this paper.  Is there other work in this area?  Can it be distilled into something that's more directly applicable to letter writing?
(Note that there is a somewhat related question about avoiding gender bias when evaluating prospective applicants for an academic position.)

Have you seen Unconscious bias toward recommendation letters written by men?

Are you asking as a letter writer who wants to learn to eliminate gender bias as much as possible from the recommendation letters you write?

@ff524 No, I haven't seen that question, and it's certainly related.

@aparente001 Yes, I am more interested in practical guidance for letter writers seeking to eliminate gender bias than I am in research on how unconscious bias is manifested in the application process.  (Though I am personally interested in both, this question is seeking the former.)

You seem to have two very different questions: about male vs female letter writers and about writing for male vs female candidates.  Maybe it would to pick one and ask the other as a separate question?

@Kimball I'm not sure the two are all that different.  Both are forms of gender bias you would want to avoid in letter writing.  I'm not totally opposed to separating this into two questions, but it seems like they would be rather closely related.  I'll certainly reconsider this if all the answers focus on one but not the other.

First, here is an answer to "What do letter writers tend to do when writing about men or women candidates?"
One difference I have seen mentioned in the literature but have not seen mentioned in the other answers: use of standout adjectives, words like "superb," "outstanding," and "excellent."
Specifically, in letters for 62 female and 222 male applicants to a
medical faculty at a large American medical school in the mid-1990s:

We developed a list of ‘standout adjectives’, namely ‘excellent’, ‘superb’, ‘outstanding’, ‘unique’, ‘exceptional’, and ‘unparalleled’.
  In tabulating the percentages of letters for female applicants and male
  applicants that included these terms, we found them to be similar (63% for
  women and 58% for men). And yet the letters for men read differently. Our gut reaction after reading many of these letters was that the men had been praised more highly with these terms than had the women. Thus we were led to consider frequency. That is, instead of coding mere occurrence of at least one of these terms in a letter, we coded for multiple occurrences. Here we found that the letters for women that had at least one of these terms had an average of 1.5 terms, whereas the letters for men that included at least one had an average of 2.0 such terms. That is, there was repetition of standout adjectives within men’s letters to a greater extent.

Trix, F., & Psenka, C. (2003). Exploring the color of glass: Letters of recommendation for female and male medical faculty. Discourse & Society, 14(2), 191-220.
And in letters written for 235 male and 42 female applicants for either a chemistry or biochemistry faculty position at a large U.S. research university:

In line with Hypothesis 5, results revealed a significant gender difference in how many standout adjectives (e.g. outstanding, unique,
  and exceptional) the recommender used to describe the candidate, F(1, 278)=3.95, p=.05. Consistent with the notion that implicit biases can influence how letter writers describe female candidates, recommenders described male candidates (M=.70) with significantly more standout
  adjectives compared to female candidates (M=.60). To address the possibility that this difference could be accounted for by differences in the qualifications of male and female candidates, we conducted an ANCOVA that included number of publications, presentations, fellowships, postdoctoral positions, and number letters of recommendation as covariates. Even after removing variance in standout language due to any and all of these variables, the gender difference remained significant, p=.04. There were no differences between departments in how many standout
  adjectives candidates' letters included.

The "standout words" from the latter study were: excellen*, superb, outstanding, unique, exceptional, unparalleled, *est, most, wonderful, terrific*, fabulous, magnificent, remarkable, extraordinar*, amazing, supreme*, unmatched
Schmader, T., Whitehead, J., & Wysocki, V. H. (2007). A linguistic comparison of letters of recommendation for male and female chemistry and biochemistry job applicants. Sex Roles, 57(7-8), 509-514.
The latter study also found, however, that "results revealed more similarities than differences in letters written for male and female candidates."
A third study did not find a significant difference in use of standout adjectives by gender of the applicant. In a review of 763 letters for applicants to an otolaryngology/head and neck surgery (OHNS) residency program at Stanford University:

The length of the letters was similar, as were the mean number of "standout" terms.

However, this study did address your other question, "What do men and women tend to do differently when writing letters?":

All 763 letters "recommended" the applicant for OHNS residency. Ninety-one percent of letters were written by men, 68.4% by male otolaryngologists (OTOs), 4.2% by female OTOs, and 33% by OHNS department chairs or division chiefs (100% men). A comparison of female and male letter writers revealed five categories with significant differences: female letter writers were more likely to call an applicant a “team player” (P = .000), “compassionate,” (P = .001) and use strings of adjectives (P = .024). In contrast, they were less likely when compared with male letter writers, to mention an applicant's personal life (P = .003), or write “letters of minimal assurance” (P = .035).

In more detail:

Male letter writers were more likely (28% of letters compared with 10% of letters by female letter writers) to comment on the candidate's personal life, sometimes discussing the candidate's family history (e.g., immigration from another country), major accomplishments (e.g., biking across the United States), or hobbies (e.g., fly fishing). Female letter writers tended to discuss the applicant in terms of his or her professional accomplishments only. They were also more likely to mention that the applicant was a “team player” and “compassionate.” Women were more likely to use a string of adjectives to describe the applicant. Some researchers assert that the use of stringing terms is used to substitute for more substantive language about academic characteristics of the candidate. This did not seem to be the case in this group of letters where, when correlated with the USMLE scores, “stringing of adjectives” was close to positively correlated with higher scores (P = .068). Female letter writers were less likely to write a letter of “minimal assurance.”

Messner, A. H., & Shimahara, E. (2008). Letters of recommendation to an otolaryngology/head and neck surgery residency program: their function and the role of gender. The Laryngoscope, 118(8), 1335-1344.
A more subtle difference that may occur in letters of recommendation involves "sorting" students based on gender stereotypes - for example, speaking more favorably of female students' ability at family medicine:

To gain some insight into this, we performed detailed text analysis of approximately 300 medical student performance evaluations (MSPEs) written for students applying to a competitive diagnostic radiology residency. Results showed subtle differences in the text of MSPEs related to the gender of the author and student suggesting that gender stereotypes and their accompanying expectations and assumptions contribute to the gendered socialization of medical students toward different specialties. For example, factor analysis of word categories in MSPEs found that family medicine, a communal specialty, was positively associated with standout adjectives (eg, excellent, exceptional) only in MSPEs written about female students by female authors. By comparison, male authors rarely mentioned family medicine in writing about male students. In text from female authors writing about male students, family medicine negatively correlated with words indicating ability and insight. These results suggest that, however unintentionally, stereotype-based assumptions that women are communal and men are agentic may lead evaluators to see women as a better fit for communal specialties such as family medicine. Close examination of the text supports this as indicated by the surprise when a male student excelled in family medicine noted by this female author: “[He] really surprised us! [He] is an exceptional student [in family medicine].” The text from another female author appears to express relief that a male student who excelled in the communal setting of family medicine also performed well in the agentic setting of surgery: “Although [he] received highest honors on [his] family medicine rotation, surely [his] finest performance was on surgery… [where he] was outstanding — spoke with families, got consent forms signed, was extremely aggressive…” It is possible that the absence of “family medicine” in text from male authors writing about male students also results from gender alignment (ie, no mention of this communal specialty in letters from agentic authors for agentic students).

Quote from Carnes, M., Bartels, C. M., Kaatz, A., & Kolehmainen, C. (2015). Why is John More Likely to Become Department Chair Than Jennifer?. Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association, 126, 197.
But the study it's from is: Isaac, C., Chertoff, J., Lee, B., & Carnes, M. (2011). Do students’ and authors’ genders affect evaluations? a linguistic analysis of Medical Student Performance Evaluations. Academic Medicine, 86(1), 59.

I'm accepting this answer both because I found it quite helpful and it is the closest to my original question.  Having said that, to anyone who is interested, I really, really like several of the other answers posted to this question.

When I write my letters, I try to consciously avoid the biases that have been reported in the literature. Namely, I try to avoid stressing the effort/emotion/affect of female candidates. For both genders,  I try focus on research capability and competence.
You may find these helpful:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2572075/
http://www.academic.umn.edu/wfc/rec%20letter%20study%202009.pdf
The graph below can be found in this paper: https://www.ncwit.org/sites/default/files/resources/avoidingunintendedgenderbiaslettersrecommendation.pdf
the original source is: Exploring the Color of Glass: Letters of Recommendation for Female and Male Medical Faculty doi: 10.1177/0957926503014002277 where the caption reads "Semantic realms following possessives. Rank-ordered within gender sets from equal numbers of letters ‘her training’; ‘his research’."

For the convenience of the reader can you say what the numbers in the graph mean on the left?  They don't total to 100 for male or female data.  And maybe a bit of an explanation of the categories, e.g., what does the "application" category mean?  While I sometimes refer to parts of an applicant's application in a letter ("as you can see in the CV, JenBob has been very active in ..."), it's not something I ever focus on.

I think in this context "application" is the bias that Alice does very nice applied work while Bob is more theoretical/basic research.

I am no expert on gender bias, but I want to make comments on this part of the question (which I still think should be split up):

What do men and women tend to do differently when writing letters?

In the study mentioned in the question (which is noted has a small sample size and may be biased), the main observations in relation to this question are:

men and women were equally likely to discuss teaching, research and collegiality (all positively)
however, women were less likely to provide support for a positive assessment of research for female candidates
men wrote about intellect more often

From my personal experience of reading letters for research mathematicians, I'm skeptical of the second point being valid in my field at present because all the non-teaching letters are almost entirely about research, though it's possible men write more about research than women in general.  I haven't payed enough attention to the third point to have an opinion.
Then the question asked is

How can these biases be recognized and mitigated?

This maybe is more important for male vs female candidates than male vs female writers.  Not that it's not still interesting, but everyone writes in their own way and there is a lot of variation, both among males and also among females.  What's a more important question I think is

How do I write an effective letter for a candidate?

See for instance: this study, which cites the Bell, Cole and Floge paper and finds the biggest difference is in letters for successful candidates versus unsuccessful ones rather than looking at gender differences.
Note: there seems to be a lot more research on the other side of the question about differences between letters for male versus female candidates.  You can Google Scholar the study you mentioned and look at citing papers and related papers.  See also RoboKaren's answer.  However, in my cursory search, I didn't notice any other research addressing male versus female writers.

At http://www.csw.arizona.edu/LORbias you can see a nice one-page poster entitled "Avoiding Gender Bias in Reference Writing".  Its suggestions generally echo points already mentioned in other answers, but it's a convenient and concise source.
One common theme is to focus on the person's achievements rather than their effort, potential, or emotional or personal traits.

Nice. According to that poster, the suggestions in it are drawn from: (1) Trix, F & Psenka, C. Exploring the color
of glass: Letters of recommendation for female and
male medical faculty. Discourse & Society, 2003; and (2)
Madera, JM, Hebl, MR, & Martin, RC. Gender and
letters of Recommendation for Academia: Agentic
and Communal Differences. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 2009.

If you are looking to reduce gender bias in the letters of recommendation you write, perhaps you could try an experiment: pretend that several students that you know well, some male, some female, ask you for a reference.  Write a letter for each one.  Then black out the name and the pronouns and show them to a friend or colleague and see if the gender can be correctly guessed.

While your proposed experiment may be useful to check whether your letters contain gender bias or not (how to best pick a good-enough sample of friends or colleagues is an open question), how does one "close the loop" in this case? That is, how do you take a negative experiment outcome of "yes, I can tell you wrote this letter for a male" and convert this to better letter writing practices from a gender bias point of view?

@MadJack - I am assuming you can learn from your mistakes.  For example, you ask the friend who could correctly guess the gender to point out the subtle or not so subtle things that gave it away, and you learn from this.  You save some of the strong expressions of admiration you wrote in the man's letter, and make a point of adapting some of those next time you're writing a woman's letter.

@MadJack: that's worthy of a question in its own right: "What are some practical ways you can identify and remove gender bias from letters of recommendation you write?"

@smci It could be, but I wonder if that question would be closed as a duplicate of this one, since it seems that answers to this question could very well cover that angle (or, even, this particular answer could take a crack at that, as I was hoping would be the case).


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When submitting a research paper as an independent researcher, is it advisable to have a professor look at it first?
Is it advisable to have a professor from a university look at your paper before you submit it to a journal, since they might want partial credit? and would it take the journal a longer time to referee your research paper if you have no affiliation?

I am reluctant to put this one on hold as duplicate per Damien's comment. The other one is about participating a research project while this one is about submitting a paper.

I'll try to answer you two specific questions:

“Is it advisable to have a professor from a university look at your paper before you submit it?” — Yes, if you have no previous experience of publishing papers (as a principal author). Academic publication is a game with a set of written rules and some non-written expectations. You can find the rules indicated on the publisher's webpage (guidelines to authors, editorial policy, etc.). If you have read a good number of papers, including many papers from the specific journal (or conference, or …) you are submitting to, then you may have inferred some of the non-written expectations. But otherwise, having someone to help you with the more formal part of academic writing will enhance your paper's chances.
“Is it advisable to have a professor from a university look at your paper before you submit it?” — Yes again, if you do not have a very good understanding of the field, its advances and its directions. To be somewhat brutally honest (and in line with paul’s comment): from experience, newcomers to research, or to a specific field, have a natural tendency to reïnvent the wheel or overestimate the impact and novelty of their work. It's okay, judging these correctly involves a very good grasp of the overall field, both in-breadth and in-depth.
“Would it take the journal a longer time to referee your research paper if you have no affiliation?” — No. For two articles of the same quality, with an unknown author, I don't think the presence of an affiliation would impact review time.

Edit to answer question in comment: “Would a professor who reviews the paper want credit?” — It depends on the amount of work required and the ethics of the person you ask. If reviewing the paper requires significant amount of time, especially because there are many faults with the paper that need to be fixed, you could see that there must be incentive for the professor to invest in it. In all cases, discuss this issue upfront!

Thanks F'x for answering my two questions. I just have one final question to ask, and it is the question that I asked Mr. Garrett at the end: If hypothetically, your paper relates to a major result, would the professor(s) who review your paper still not want credit?

The question is a bit vague since you have not provided your own level of education or within what framework you do research.
Since it is generally possible for anyone to publish a paper, you will not need to go through an academic. It may, however, be a very good step to take since essentially no-one can write a fault-free paper and if you do not have the experience or research eucation, you will find it almost necessary to stand a chance with a journal. Such a "review" will most certanly weed out any major problems with your paper. A problem here may of course be that your inexperience may make the task to improve the paper very time consuming (again, not knowing your own background makes it difficult to assess what help you may need) and hence make persons less likely to take on the job.
The journal will as I can see ot spend more or less time your manuscript than they would any other of similar quality. If the journal accepts it for review (general quality check) it will be sent out to reviewers for more careful scrutiny (scientific quality check) after which the paper is recommended for either revisions or is rejected. none of this would be different in your case unless one taes into consideration that you may not be as fluent in scientific writing (which means rejection is more liekly than otherwse).
So a good plan is to try to contact persons at an academic institution, present your work and see if they would consider helping you. It is not certain you will be helped because your manscript will be extra work done in addition to everything else. If you cannot get help then you can hopefully try to submit the manuscript anyway, but I strongly recommend you to spend time looking at how papers in the field are written and also pick up a good reference book on scientific writing to make sure you avoid basic mistakes.

Thank you very much for answering my question. I guess to be a bit more specific, I am in the process of writing a mathematical research paper which is of Graduate level. You recommend that I get a review from an academic before submitting my work, but what happens if they want partial credit for the paper?

Faculty at a serious university will not want "part credit" for a novice-level paper, believe me. Rather, more likely they will tell you that what you wrote has been known for a long time, or is just an exercise, and would not be publishable. And/or, if your paper is long, they'll not want to read it. And/or, if it is massively computational without concepts, they'll not want to read it. Or they'll just not want to spend the time looking at it in any case. And so on. I think the "sharing credit" problem is the least of your worries.

If hypothetically, your paper relates to a major result, would they still not want credit?

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Why is data falsification reported to be more usual in some fields than others?
This big info-graphic (at the end of the question) explains that biomedicine and psychology have greater rate of data fabrication/falsification/mishandling than other fields. A similar effect was reported a PLOS ONE paper:

Once these factors were controlled for, surveys conducted among clinical, medical and pharmacological researchers appeared to yield higher rates of misconduct than surveys in other fields or in mixed samples.

and

it suggests that misconduct in clinical, pharmacological and medical research is more widespread than in other fields. This would support growing fears that the large financial interests that often drive medical research are severely biasing it.

However, the paper does not offer any further discussion of the field dependence of data manipulation. So, have there been explanations proposed about why these fields are "special"?

I am down voting because I want to see an actual peer reviewed study that shows that some fields are worse than others and not just a "pretty flier"

This is perhaps more suitable for Skeptics.SE rather than Academia.SE; infographics is rarely a reliable source and it's not different in this particular case, note how most of the infographics' references are to news outlets instead of researches. The infographics is itself an example of bad science; if you follow its references, you can see that it is misrepresenting many of its own sources.

@DanielE.Shub pretty flier has references, some of them peer reviewed. It can be pretty and seriously done, you know

@DanielE.Shub question edited to include a meta-analysis paper

As you can see from my answer, I don't think the data from the meta analysis support your question nor the flyer.

Data falsification is more common in life sciences than in fundamental maths. The reason is that fundamental mathematics do not rely on data :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll3uipTO-4A

Your quotes from the Plos One meta analysis highlight problems in clinical, medical and pharmacological, but your question is about biomedicine and psychology. The meta analysis paper found no evidence for increased rates of reporting misconduct in either biomedicine or the social sciences suggesting that those fields are not "special". The authors then present a reasonable conjecture about why the reports of misconduct in medicine might be higher

However, as all survey-based data, this finding is open to the
  alternative interpretation that respondents in the medical profession
  are simply more aware of the problem and more willing to report it.
  This could indeed be the case, because medical research is a preferred
  target of research and training programs in scientific integrity, and
  because the severe social and legal consequences of misconduct in
  medical research might motivate respondents to report it.

I think base on the meta analysis I would argue that data falsification is NOT more usual in some fields than others, but simply that reports and sensitivity to it is more usual when a field specifically trains individuals to recognize it.

I haven't read the paper you mention, but I can definitely see why falsification could be more common in these fields.
I think the factor that affects data falsification the most is not ethical differences between fields, but rather simply how difficult it is to identify the falsification.
In fields where experiments are simple to replicate, false results will be discovered easily. In clinical/pharmacological research, for example when testing an effect of a medical treatment, studies on human subjects are extremely costly to perform, so they are difficult to replicate. Even if they are replicated, there is such intrinsic large variance in the results that it would be difficult to conclude that results from a previous study were purposefully falsified even if they are different.

There are also some more 'subjective' criteria involved in judging the effect of say an antidepressant compared to measuring the speed of a particle. If there is more subjectivity, it is easier to 'adjust' the results just a little to make them more favourable.

I'd be careful with the assertion that some fields are more prone to scientific misconduct than others. To make that claim I would like to see a study comparing different fields, while keeping, e.g., the stage of the researchers (PhD student, PostDoc, Professor) comparable. And let's hope that this study about data falsification does not contain data falsification.
Then there's the stage of the discussion about scientific misconduct. Psychology and other disciplines had a couple of highly visible cases of scientific misconduct (e.g., Stapel). They put the discipline, or at least the subdiscipline (social psychology) in question. So now there are people actively looking for ways to detect misconduct, e.g., by looking for statistical inconsistencies that happen when people fake data. So it might just be that a field is more sensitive to the issue and thus more prone to detect cases. The current "house-cleaning" might expose the misconduct that still lies hidden in other domains.
But there also might be differences between fields because it might be easier to get away with these forms of misconduct in some compared to others. Looking at the fraud triangle (see posting here, my blog), you need a motive/pressure, a rationalization and the opportunity to commit fraud.

Motive: I know no scientific field that isn't dominated by publish or perish, so there's a motive. In some fields you can make a lot of money or the alternatives to an academic career look especially bleak (after all, it's impossible for all PhDs/PostDocs to stay in Academia, even if all were excellent researchers). And while all research is risky (no-one can guarantee that your experiments work), some domains may have a higher failure rate. So motive might differ.
Rationalization: The rationalization might be higher in more fuzzy/soft domains, where it might be easier to convince yourself that the theory is sound, but the data is skewed (so many possibly confounding variables). There might also be "personal experience" as a bias, e.g., when it comes to evaluating therapies ("But I know that it works, I have seen it.").
Opportunity: Also the opportunity might be higher in some fields where you alone have access to the data and it's virtually impossible to reproduce exactly the same results (again, confounding variables). Not to mention that replications are rare, esp. with more "interesting but not so relevant" topics.

So while it's an interesting question, it's also a highly complex issue. And there might even be the desire to point to other disciplines to avoid addressing the issue oneself ("misconduct never happens in science ... in our domain ... in our sub-domain ... at our institute ... in our workgroup ..."). Instead, science needs better controls for scientific misconduct, no matter the discipline.
Edit: P.S.: As for the flyer highlighting misconduct in (clinical) psychology -- well, consider the source. ;-)

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Should I include web links in my statement of purpose?
In my statement of purpose, I want to include a web link to give details on research projects that I've worked on. I was wondering if it's a good idea.
JeffE recommended the practice, although I'm not sure if his recommendation is limited to the CS area. I also worry that this may be seen as a way to circumvent the length restrictions on the SOP.

Relevant: Should I link my research in my SOP?

My feeling is that whether including a link is a good idea or a bad idea depends on how you are using it.  A statement of purpose should be a generally self-contained document.  Thus:

If your statement of purpose is difficult to fully comprehend without following the link, it would be in a problem (whether in computer science or elsewhere)
If the statement of purpose is complete without the link, however, and the link is essentially an faster alternative to googling for more information, then I would find it a useful courtesy to the reader.

Most of the time your statement of purpose is likely being just skimmed or ignored altogether because the search committee doesn't want to spend the time reading more than they have to. As a result, I can't imagine too many of them wanting to go the extra step to view a webpage too.
Regardless, your statement of purpose will likely reflect briefly on anything significant from your previous work that is relevant to the position your applying to. If you cannot succinctly include it in the statement, then leave this job up to your CV.

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Will a professor get annoyed with frequent requests for recommendation letters?
Just last month I asked three professors to write me recommendation letters for my graduate school application. They all agreed. Then today I found an internship that also requires recommendation letters.
I am interested in applying to the internship, but I worry whether I would be asking for letters from my professors too frequently, especially since they might need to rewrite the letters to accommodate the nature of an internship.
A related post here, although in that case the two requests are one year apart and the letters are for the same purpose.

Make it easy for your professors.  Here is what I tell my students: http://bbrown.kennesaw.edu/recommendations/

Asking twice is not "frequent requests"--you're fretting over this unnecessarily. If your professors are diligent/experienced they will probably keep copies of their letters for you and they can generate a new one relatively efficiently.

Yes and no, as it depends on circumstances.

Did you get a good grade in their classes?
Did you ask politely?
Did you provide them with everything they need?

That last point is especially important. When I was a student, it was understood that when requesting a recommendation letter, you provided all the necessary documentation already filled out as much as possible, in an addressed, stamped envelope. As I got to a point where I was the one being asked for recommendations and dealing with students asking for them, it astonished me how this basic courtesy seemed to have faded.
That said, some things like med school applications have been moving online, but that's not the rule everywhere by any kind of margin as far as I know. Be polite, but make their jobs as easy as possible. I would also give them a copy of your CV and possibly a short 1 page personal statement to give them something to build a letter around.
But for goodness sake, please don't make the personal statement begin with the words "every since I was a child, I wanted to..." Or "when my grandmother got sick..." Because your professors have had it up to here reading those, believe me.

Yes. Writing letters of recommendation is annoying, because (i) they're difficult to write and much thought needs to go into them, (ii) requests for letters of recommendation almost always come with a short deadline.
So yes, I find it annoying to get requests (and I write a lot of such letters). But at the same time, it's part of my job, and so I'm professional about it and do as asked, rather than complain or take it out on the student. I suspect that that is true for most of my colleagues.
In other words, if you need a letter, then you need to go ahead and ask.


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Is it usual for instructors to adapt their accent to seem more "professional"?
I’ve noticed that my American-born mathematics professor seems to adopt a different accent when giving lectures: one that sounds more “standard American” or “neutral” compared to how they speak in casual conversation or office hours. I’m curious if this phenomenon is common in academia, particularly in math departments (or STEM fields generally). Is it considered normal or even encouraged for professors to change their accent in order to project a more “professional” image in class?
Additionally, I wonder how students and colleagues generally react to this. Does it provide any tangible benefit — e.g., clearer enunciation for non-native English speakers, or greater perceived authority — or might it create an unintended barrier between the professor and students? Are there cultural or institutional norms around modifying one’s accent in academic settings?
I’d be especially interested in hearing from those who have either tried to neutralize their accent themselves or observed colleagues doing so. Is this mostly a personal choice, or are there departments or institutions that actively promote a certain “standard” accent for clarity? If so, do such expectations raise ethical or inclusivity concerns?
If anyone is curious, here is a scene from the movie “The Fugitive” which illustrates what I mean.

Please avoid writing answers in the comments. The answer box is mere inches away. Comments are for requesting clarification or suggesting improvements to the question, not for information that partially (or fully) answers the question.

Is there a reason you associate an affected accent with ‘more professional’?

Maybe you mean the instructor adopts more formal diction and articulation than what you’d hear at the weekly department coffee?

Do you mean "accent" or "dialect"? From a European standpoint I am used to people being rather flexible about their dialect but very rigid about their accent.

From a linguistic perspective, people shift accents all the time based on who they are talking to. This is a kind of code-switching, which we all do, all the time, mostly unconsciously (I don't text my friends like I write here).
For an American-born individual, very few American accents are considered "superior" or "standard" in the way Received Pronunciation is. Southern accents "sound dumb," and Boston accents are widely derided. Southern California dialects are ridiculed as "Valley Girl."
Thus, speaking with a regional American accent tends to have negative connotations, not positive ones. So it is pretty possible that someone who thinks they have an accent may, intentionally or unintentionally, shift toward something that's considered more "professional."
For the more academic questions,

Does it provide any tangible benefit? Yes, General American English is likely more intelligible to non-native speakers, and for the reasons described above, likely feels more professional.

Are there cultural or institutional norms around modifying one’s accent in academic settings? I don't know the answer to this. Universities tend tend to comprise people from all over, and I think it's unlikely universities in the South expect new arrivals to pick up the local accent.

For more discussion on non-native accents, see this question, although I disagree with the accepted answer (and its formatting).

+1, but I don't think "positive" and "negative" connotations necessarily have much to do with this. The motivation may simply be to sound more neutral. There is no need to postulate the the speaker has negative feelings towards their accent (or is afraid that other people do). In other words, you say that it is a shift toward something that is less negatively marked, but it can equally well just be a shift toward something that is less marked, period.

@AdamPřenosil The thing is, "neutral" is a value judgment as well. Accents that sound "neutral" are only so because that's how society treats them, they are not a natural kind.

I think there's room to say the prof doesn't feel negatively about her accent, and maybe I'll edit a tad, but "more professional," "more understandable," and "less regional" are all comparisons to her own accent.

Sure. I was just making the point that your answer makes it sounds like the speaker is worried about negative stereotypes associated with their accent, but that's just one of the possible/plausible motivations.

I still remember a friend in college who was from Missouri. When he talked to us, he sounded pretty "normal". But when he was on the phone with his family back home, the full southern drawl came out.

I think it's worth considering that "code switching" isn't necessarily intentional; humans seem to do it more or less automatically, at least to an extent. So, it's not necessarily the case that someone doing this has a particular benefit or norm in mind, they might not have really thought about it at all or even noticed they were doing it.

+1 more intelligible ... Sometimes I wish that more foreign mathematicians would get help on making their English more intelligible.

To reinforce the already solid answers which have previously been given, here's my personal experience:
I am an American-born professor of mathematics at a small liberal arts college in the US.  I have a noticeable (but not particularly strong) regional accent, and I teach in the region where I grew up.  I also naturally have a tendency to talk very quickly.
Our institution has a significant population of students whose primary language is not English, so I try to be cautious about how fast I speak and what terminology I use in the classroom.  That said, I don't intentionally change the pronunciation of any words.  To be honest, I have probably invested more thought into how I write than how I speak.
When a student visits office hours, I do find myself doing a bit of the "code-switching" described in a previous answer.  I can talk very fast and causally with students from my region, but I am much more deliberate in how I talk with our university's ESL students (we have some students who are conditionally accepted and must complete additional courses in English language before becoming "usual" full-time students, and math is often one of the first courses they take while finishing their English requirements).

My best guess, and only that, is that this is an individual thing. It might not even be recognized by the professor. I don't recall any such change in language or accent in my own teaching, but it is possible that it was there.
Many of us have had mentors in our own education and we try to emulate them. Perhaps this is a case of sounding like one's favorite professor in the past.
It is also possible that one might try to use more formal language when discussing more formal topics. The jargon of most fields might sound pompous to those not familiar with it, including students at the beginning of their studies.
But, this seems innocuous to me and you might consider asking the professor about it. If it is intentional, they may be willing to say why. If you called me out on it, assuming I did such a thing, I would probably laugh - Wow, I never realized that.
But for a direct answer, I doubt that many professors do such a thing with intention. Some, perhaps.
I do know that one student on RateMyProfessors described me as "arrogant". It puzzled me no end and it didn't seem to be the general view.

Echoing this... I've had students (native U.S. English speakers) in basic math courses complain in teaching evaluations that I "used big words, to try to impress them". :)

@paulgarrett, yes "mathematics" is a pretty big word. Also a "pretty" word.

I am not a native speaker and I can't help but try to sound more "standard American" when giving presentations, which makes little sense since I live in Europe. I think it's something almost everybody, in Academia or not, is conditioned to at this point.

Regarding the second paragraph, I did it without even realizing it in a presentation. By the way, I'm a student.

In my case (BFH Burgdorf in Switzerland), a so called "Standard language" (Standardsprache) was to be used by requirement of the school, by both Professors and Students, instead of the local dialect.
This lead to sometimes funny situations, where some "false friends" and hard to pronounce words were used. Sometimes pronounciations were inter-mixed. No one was doing this to appear more professional (the vast majority was fluent in the local dialect anyway), but this might have been the intent of the school.
For example, the ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in Zurich, has a directive on language use in lectures.

Interestingly, that ETH document made me do a double-take already in the first sentence, because the Swiss Standard German word Naturwissenschafter doesn't exist in my native Standard German, where it would be Naturwissenschaftler. So, it seems when they write "German", they mean specifically "Swiss Standard German", but it doesn't seem to be spelled out in the document. I wonder what would happen if someone held a lecture in Bairisch or Berndüütsch :-D

Well, Zurich is in Switzerland. I'll bet they price things in francs instead of euros too.

Echoing others' comments and answers: it may or not be conscious, but people will "change their tone" (care in diction) when talking about the actual material at hand, as opposed to kidding around or joking. Yes, "code switching". I certainly do, but/and, by this time, without conscious effort. Yes, it is easy to intersperse facetious remarks with serious, and tone-of-voice is often the only distinguishing indicator. But, I think, the vast majority of students do enjoy it, and I've been told that this approach lightens up their day, as well as helping to keep them alert.
The downside is that non-native English speakers, and some neuro-divergent people, cannot easily hear the code-switch. I myself am not going to take that as a reason to eliminate the minor entertainment of a vast majority, but I do also take some care to not make it be a bottleneck for anyone at all.

Especially when dealing with (potential) non-native speakers it makes sense to use an accent and terminology that's more standard.  For me, in the UK, that approaches received pronunciation.  That's true whether presenting in a conference, lecturing, or working in small groups if clarity is important.  I grew up quite exposed to such an accent in school in London, especially from teachers, so perhaps it's natural for me to slip into it in a similar context.
My London accent is detectable at times in a work (academic) context, often in a lighter context and accompanied by greater use of non-obvious idioms.  That could be just chatting (with native speakers  who will follow, or non-native speakers who will ask for clarification and are interested in English).  In a lecture or seminar you might hear this less formal accent and language for an illustrative anecdote; there's an accompanying visual difference in how and where I stand.
This isn't uncommon; even if someone's lecturing voice still carries a strong accent of where they came from it's still more like standard British English than their conversational voice.
This is physics, but similar things are common in the corporate world in engineering as well (still in the UK).

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I ran many tests for my thesis, should I report tables and graphs for all of them?
I'm writing my PhD thesis. I used a number of statistical tests to test my hypothesis. Only one test was able to answer my question while the rest (3 tests) couldn't.
If I report the results of the tests which failed to answer my research question, it becomes a large number of tables and graphs. My query is whether I should report all the tables and graphs of those statistical tests which could not answer my research question or should I report only the ones which could answer my research question.

Your question seems to be specific to your advisor. Why not ask them? Also, you seem to be cherry picking results, which can be dangerous and is bad form.

As @RichardErickson says, cherry-picking statistical results is not only poor form, but easily/often results in false conclusions. I recall a student who said that it took a long time to statistically verify his result, because the first 20 or so statistical tests indicated no correlation. But he finally found a test which did... Ok, so he actually proved the opposite of what he thought... but did not realize it.

It's worrying that someone is in the writing stage and doesn't understand the answer to this question.

Hmmm. Do you mean that only one of the tests gave you the answer that you wanted to get? If that is the case, then your thinking is on dangerous ground.

You need to discuss all the tests in the body of the thesis. You may be able to put some of the tables and graphs in an appendix to avoid breaking the flow of the thesis, but unless you have a good reason you can explain to do otherwise you should treat the tests the same.

@paulgarrett Relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/882/

@nick012000 You beat me to the punch!

The comments are correct when they say that it is absolutely wrong to try statistical tests until you find one that you like and then report just that one.
That said, there's a little ambiguity in your phrasing

Only one test was able to answer my question while the rest (3 tests)
  couldn't.

If they couldn't answer for some reason you can explain that's not simply "I didn't like the result" then you could discuss those  tests, explain why they were unsatisfactory, and perhaps provide the tables and graphs in some kind of supplement.
Whatever you do, you cannot just ignore them. You tried them and you must say so.
For all of this - talk to your advisor.

If I understand the situation, there are a few options I would suggest:

Inconclusive tests/results should be briefly mentioned, but maybe not shown. If they provide no information, then they're basically clutter text. Here I'm including info that provides no insight on the result you want to show, that is, they neither support nor refute your claim. They are just useless info that someone might wonder whether you did try to obtain, hence why the brief mention.
Controversial test/results are a different matter. Here I'm considering info that disputes, refutes or weakens your thesis. Those are better shown and explained. They provide concessions to your claim that you'll rather make yourself than to let anyone else point out and jump to the conclusion that your whole thesis is wrong.
Redundant test/results would be those that support your claim, but if you've already found other means to prove your point and pass the message through, those can be placed in an appendix if they provide marginally new info, but mostly adding redundant information implies just writing redundant text, it is unnecessary and should likely be avoided.

Also remember the value of conciseness, most people who might read your thesis, which include researchers that could cite your work or the committee for your defense, will likely check the number of pages before reading it, and often complain if they find a big number. If necessary to write an extensive work, then so be it, but if possible, prefer to be more concise, avoiding cluttering and redundancy.

Thanks everybody for the enlightenment

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How to balance familiarity against prestige when choosing academic references for Phd applications?
I'm busy submitting Phd applications to STEM programs in Europe and am trying to decide on the best combination of references to use. I'm based at a good but not globally renowned university, outside of Europe. I have some professors here who I've been working with for a while and who would agree to act as references.
However I've also had the chance to do some work with an elite university in Europe - at the level of or even higher than the places I'm applying to. I would be able to get some references from the professors there, but the content would be quite generic.
I know it's often said that what matters most in a recommendation is detail and familiarity, but do you think that even a generic stamp of approval from a highly prestigious school could help someone like me coming from the outside? If you had to choose 2 references in my situation, which combination would you go for?

See a similar question here: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/96786/reference-letter-personal-vs-prestigious

@ambiguditi Thank you but I don't think that really deals with my situation or the elements I highlighted in the question.

@Mike why not? To me it looks like the same question.

@DavidWhite Because I'm not just looking at 2 colleagues where 1 happens to be more cited, I'm looking at people from totally different universities in different continents (specifically, I'm from a developing country) with the knowledge that 1 of those universities is in the inner circle of the kind of places I'm applying to and the other isn't at all. I also have multiple options from each side and am trying to find the best combination, rather than just 1v1. Maybe doubling down on familiarity is still preferable, but I don't think that question/answer is convincing for my situation.

I also think the situation in this question is different. Familiarity being more important when all your options are from one university doesn't necessarily mean familiarity is more important if your options are a university in a developing country and a much more prestigious university in the country you're applying to.


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Possible pitfalls of taking a year off to travel following a PhD instead of immediately starting with a post-doc position?
If a student, soon to complete a PhD, is not ready to enter academia is a year of travel a good option?  Assuming that academic route is still interesting after the year will post-doc positions (leading to tenure-track) still be a viable option?

Why not travel and study? As in do a post doc in another part of the world.

Looks to be a duplicate of this which has already been closed for being too broad. This is, too.

I disagree that this question is too broad to be beyond salvage. The "A-vs-B" formulation is not optimal, I admit, but it's very valid and relevant question to those who are close to the dissertation. I will try to reformulate for the sake of saving the question

Start submitting to conferences in foreign countries.

I took a decade between high school and college to travel the world with a backpack. While I don't necessarily condone that long of a break, I am a big fan of taking a breather between academic steps. For me, the traveling shaped my character and allowed me to see what I truly was passionate about. And today I am still pursuing that passion.

Although I envy a PhD graduate who has the funds left after obtaining a doctorate to pursue a year of travel, I don't think this is a good idea (unless your degree is in anthropology, in which case it's probably a great idea!) Some thoughts:

You are at a tenuous position in your career -- you've reached a peak (not necessarily the top-most peak), and you are very prepared for academia (although possibly not mentally, as you allude). Your degree has a half-life of sorts -- others will continue to do research in your field while you jet-set the world, and your own work will start to get stale. Now is the best chance you're going to have to convince people who may want to hire you that you're a candidate at the tip of the spear, so to speak.
While a year is not too long, your letter-writers aren't going to have as fresh a picture of you from which to paint their glowing recommendations. You can mitigate this by asking for letters now, but you'll want them to review the letters a year from now (and change the date!) when they do submit them for applications.
Academia can be a fierce environment, as you've probably learned during your candidate years, and possibly why you don't feel you're ready. But, removing yourself from the process for a year doesn't help your case in academia, except to possibly calm your spirits in order to be reinvigorated in a year. Although not universal, the people working the hardest get the best jobs.

All of that said: do what you feel is best for you. If you're not ready for academia, by all means remove yourself from the process for as much time as you need. Better to have a harder time getting a post-doc in a year than to spend a year burning out on something you're not prepared to do.

Good balanced answer, but I have one addition; in some cases money for postdoc funding is limited to PhD degrees not older than e.g. 3 or 4 years, so by taking a year off you decrease your application period for those by one year.

Many "clocks/counters" will not stop just because you're "taking a break". In effect, one would be giving all one's competitors a year's head start, etc.

Maybe this is a difference between fields (my experience is math in the US) but this sounds like a totally insane thing to do.  Having a year with no job or affiliation your resume looks terrible, and it doesn't matter if you tell people that traveling unemployed was your choice, no one will believe you.  Actually, it's probably better if they don't because if they do believe you, it will just make you look like more of a flake.
It sounds like an especially bad plan, since there's an obviously superior option, which is wait another year to get your degree; I'm not sure I recommend this either (it depends a lot on whether it will annoy your advisor), but in general taking a year off before graduating is much better than taking a year off afterwards.  When you complete your degree is your timestamp; it will stick with you for the rest of your career.

Absolutely. It's not as though one can "do a time-out".

What about a one year baby break? Does that also look insane on a (maths) CV geared towards tenure track?

@MattN. That's easier to justify; I admit I've never seen such a thing before, so I can't say how people react to it.  This is going sound horrible (I want to emphasize that this is strategic advice, not a statement about how the world should be), but I think if you're a man, you can probably get away with it.  That said, I think it would be much better if you remain officially in your Ph.D. program another year.  Often you can do things like not registering for classes (this assumes you're OK not getting paid for a year, but I assume that was built into your assumption from the start).

I'm not even sure an entire year is really necessary, I have no experience in having children. So you reckon a woman can't "get away with it"? Thanks for the advice with remaining in my PhD program. I'm not sure though whether it would look worse: isn't a really short PhD time a sign of a good student? Adding a year would make me look less clever.

@MattN. Lots of studies suggest that mens' careers are boosted by having children, and womens' are harmed.  I think there's a lot of (mostly unconscious) discrimination against mothers, and I think taking a year off would just draw attention to the issue (in a way that I don't necessarily think taking some kind of parental leave but still being officially employed would).  Having a year missing on your CV will stick out like a sore thumb and people will pay disproportionate attention to whatever you were doing then.

@BenWebster Interesting, I had no idea about any of this. Thank you for sharing this information!

Maybe it should be noted that the superior option assumes that the OP is in the US or a similar system. In Denmark, for example, taking an extra year for your PhD is not an option.

@TobiasKildetoft Is it really not an option, or just not an option to be paid while doing so?

I am not completely sure since here a Ph.d student is an employee rather than a student, so I think there are at least some barriers to funding the extension yourself.

I am doing math, and I took a gap year last year. From a purely scientific viewpoint (I do not know about career/hiring committees/politics) I think sabbatical holidays are possible, and even advisable in some cases, if you have a solid and "marketable" research project,  and if you can work alone.
In math, most of your value is derived from the theorems that you proved, not from the places you spent your time.
Do you think that Perelman would have solved the Poincare conjecture if he took a postdoc (or some other position in academia)? Postdocs would have been harmful for him: teaching loads, seminars, academic responsabilities, annoying colleagues...
I obtained my best papers during my gap year (almost solved an open problem). My productivity is skyrocketing, and this is why I will take a second gap year this year (I turned off "good" postdoc offers, with good money, but in quite boring countries, which I would have had to leave after 1-2 years anyway, no opportunity to settle, waste of time). No teaching, no seminars, no interferences. Supervisors can sometimes give bad advice, try to disturb you, and I have a good research project, I prefer to work on my own (but I come back every 3-6 months to my advisors at home to show him my new theorems, and I am going to spend 1 month at a university in the US, to get recommendation letters, and meet people).
If you cannot get a post-doc at Princeton, NJ (which is probably a boring place anyway), I think the second best working conditions are probably in Pattaya, Thailand (or some other place of your dreams), you will find inspiration and a stimulating environment (notice that math conferences are always organized in touristic places, for this reason). You will be happy, and therefore, inspired and scientifically ambitious.
There are universities almost anywhere in the world, with smart and educated people, so if you can give some lectures at the local university, they will be happy to meet a foreigner, a fellow scientist, and even sometimes, give you unexpected job opportunities (not competitive for the 'global academic market', but still decent for local life, and probably still better than being a high school teacher in your home country). Local scientists are probably as useful as colleagues of your postdoc: it is like doing a "non-paid" postdoc.
So besides traveling to countries I like, discover cultures and people that I like, develop myself as a person, in countries where life is amazingly cheap, meet some people happy (and others not so happy) with less than $200/month, I think I can also develop my research projects, and even broaden my job opportunities.
Mentally speaking, 1 year of holidays, doing nothing, is too much anyway (I cannot take more than 2-3 months of holidays in a row), so you will need some kind of intellectual activity, do something of your day (if no distraction is around), and you will naturally get back to your scientific pursuits.
Postdocs are short-term contracts anyway (it is not as crazy as dumping a permanent position), they are used as disposable commodities by senior mentors for their own scientific interests.
Postdoc traps are denounced by everyone, so I prefer to fall in my own 'holiday' trap. There will certainly be gaps in my CV (filled with great papers anyway), some hiring committees will not appreciate (probably out of jealousy), but it puts even more pressure to do good work (to justify my "holidays", to my consicence at least). Hiring committees are very random anyway, so they are not worth sacrificing my happiness: it is now or never.

"Do you think that Perelman would have solved the Poincare conjecture if he took a postdoc (or some other position in academia)?"  Yes.  This is not a counterfactual question: Perelman did take a postdoc at Courant, and he was employed at the Steklov Institute for many years.  I believe this employment covers most or all of his work on the Poincare Conjecture.

By the way, as the years roll by, it would be helpful for people trying to evaluate the worth of this nontraditional advice if you identified yourself.

Does it need to be a whole year?
Maybe a certain creativity and a good grasp of when there is a chance to take a longer break helps:

After graduation (Diplom/master) I went abroad to work for half a year, and then took off 2 more months for traveling before returning to my old institute. My professor made me sign the contract for afterwards before I left for those 8 months.
Maybe you could apply for a postdoc, but put the possible start of the affiliation some months later.
Later, I managed to get one free month when changing positions. Took quite hard negotiations (the new institute actually wanted me to start 4 months earlier, i.e. 3 months before the end of the old contract).
One other time, I negotiated for a similar break, but it didn't work out that way.
A postdoc colleague of mine managed to get 3 free months between two projects.

Obviously this depends very much on how strong your position in the negotiations actually is.
What about putting a bunch of visits to other groups into the travel schedule? Enough, so that you also get a bunch of research stays and a whole lot of networking out of that year. In my field, few people object to visitors who come on their own money and sincerely try to start collaborations.

I can answer your question because I was at the similar situation.

It all depends on the type of your field, and how well you did during your PhD. For example, you did your PhD in electronics, and your supervisor is a well known researcher in this field. In this case I would say do not take one year off and look for a job/postdoc.
However, if you did your PhD in a okish manner, your supervisor is kind of well known, and you didn't publish high rank papers and journals, DO NOT do a postdoc right away. This is because most definitely you will not get a good postdoc position from a high rank supervisor and you will waste your time running around trying to please your postdoc boss (saw many cases like this). In this case you MUST take a year off, and think about your life in general. Doing a postdoc is not the solution for a person with a weak background in his/her field. It is much better to do a 9 to 5 job in industry than to do a postdoc with uncertain future.

Be honest with yourself and choose between these two!
Good luck


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How to deal with a procrastinating (student) collaborator?
I am just beginning a research project with a fellow student. She is always 10-20 minutes late to scheduled meetings and has a very hard time making any sort of deadline. She freely admits that she is a procrastinator, and acknowledges that chronically being late is a problem which she has never effectively dealt with.
We are going to be working together for several months, perhaps longer, and I know that her chronic lateness will eventually become irritating. (I am always at least 10 minutes early, and consistently complete tasks before the deadline.) I enjoy working with her in a more casual setting, but I am concerned that her procrastination may become an issue in an academic collaboration. How should I approach her about this? Are there any ways to work around it? The collaboration was her initiative, so I am hesitant to confront if there are more diplomatic options.
How should I deal with her procrastination and lateness?

Perhaps you should schedule a meeting or two for half an hour earlier than you intend to arrive? Sounds a little vindictive, but it might help her to understand how genuinely frustrating it is to have your time wasted!

Does she contribute something of value into the project? If so, I would say nothing and try to put up with her in the simplest possible way: you know that she'll be 10 minutes late, so come 9 minutes late yourself. If not, just opt out of collaboration. Dealing with an irritating but smart and valuable collaborator is a normal part of life if you want to collaborate at all, but there is no need to tolerate someone totally useless to the project.

My answer would heavily depend on your standing (e.g., are you her supervisor, a PI, a postdoc or a fellow student) and whether you can you back out of the collaboration.

@DanielE.Shub The post starts with "fellow student", which strongly suggests they are both students, unless I'm missing something.

@DanielE.Shub, We are both students, although I feel (perhaps mistakenly) that she has slightly senior standing because the collaboration was her idea, with my enthusiastic agreement. I don't want to back out of the collaboration; I just need to be able to deal with the procrastination and lateness.

Have all meetings in your office/cube/area. That way, you can continue to do other things while waiting for her to show up :)

@J. Zimmerman Every factor is important, I agree,  If the most significant factor - which is - her tangible contribution to the project is good, I feel you should value that aspect of hers, the most.  And another aspect about both her and you, is that both agree the good and bad about oneself - I feel finding such a work partner is actually rare.  Hence, when you weigh everything, do attach the correct weightages.  Wishing you both the best,

As you are both students and she approached you, then the answer is simple: Walk away nicely. Explain to her that your working styles do not mesh and therefore the collaboration is becoming too burdensome. Then you need to work with her to setup an exit strategy where you clearly agree on what it is you will do. You also will probably want to (re-)discuss authorship of any possible publications.
As a fellow student it is not your place to try and change her behaviour or working style. As you were not asked to collaborate with her by your supervisor, you are only letting her down and realistically it is her who let you down.

First an optimistic scenario, maybe it turns out to be a non-issue in the end. You can find something else to do while waiting for her to turn up. Who knows, maybe not everybody has to be organized. It is up to you to decide. But it seems that pessimistic scenario is much more likely to happen. There is nothing more disturbing in your work than a collaborator you cannot rely upon. In short. The quicker you seriously talk about your worries the better. And certainly being late yourself when the other person is late is not a solution.


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How to convince labmate to graduate? Graduating, in a 2 person research group?
I work in a small research group, there are 2 graduate students.
My advisor is fairly new, and I'm not sure when his tenure date is actually set for. Not necessary info, but pertinent.)
The other graduate student got here a year before me and worked with our professor a lot to set up the lab and has contributed to all of my works. He started in the group with 2 M.S. degrees from different universities.
I'll have the necessary attributes in order to graduate 2 years from now, my 5th year, but I'm not sure how I can leave a group at the same time if my other labmate will be also leaving that year...
I can't imagine staying for a 6th year for no reason. Only because my boss doesn't have enough funding/ likes keeping the group small.
Yes a lot can change in 2 years, but if my labmate isn't apply for jobs for next Fall/Spring, then how am I supposed to apply for jobs next year...There's no way we could leave at the same time and leave my advisor with only 1 graduate student (if he were to hire a new one NY then).
How do I push my labmate to apply for jobs? He's already got some great publications. He's totally ready to go.
I'm part worried that he's not ready to push his way out. I'm not sure how to get out without this turning into a difficult situation.

That somebody else who came before you will graduate later is none of your concern. Just work on finishing your thesis.

There's no way we could leave at the same time and leave my advisor with only 1 graduate student. — This is your advisor's problem, not yours.

If there's that much work still to be done after you graduate - and you want to stick around to help with it - postdoc opportunity, perhaps?

@JeffE it might look like my problem but he signs the paperwork at the end of the day.  How am I supposed to leave if he doesn't want me too.

How many graduate students your adviser attracts at any given time to his or her lab isn't your responsibility. Your responsibility is to yourself and your career. If you think it is time to graduate and if you think you have sufficient material to defend your thesis, then it is time to graduate.
Leave the details of how to run the lab after your departure to your adviser. It might make sense to discuss your hopes and plans to graduate at a particular time with your adviser well in advance (it's always a good idea to communicate!) so that she can plan accordingly. But, this planning is her job, not yours, and it shouldn't be a factor in your considerations.

Being on the job market at the same time as someone else from your lab is generally not a good thing.

But shouldn't I be leaving on good terms with my advisor? I'm also positive he doesn't want me to leave that soon.  He's looking for 6 years out of me,  despite what I've turned out.

@Sean it sounds like your problem is convincing your advisor that you're ready to graduate, not convincing your lab mate that he needs to graduate.

@Sean -- you need to have a conversation with your adviser about your career plans, your timeline, and all of that. Having a relationship where both sides understand each other's needs and desires is as important in an academic setting as it is in any other kind of marriage. I see you make all sorts of guesses and inferences about what your adviser may or may not want you or your labmate to do, but it's all speculation. Talk it out.


text:
Do US universities still use imperial units in teaching?
How much of the teaching content at universities in the US is delivered in imperial units instead of SI?
I imagine that industry (e.g. Engineering) is still stuck using imperial units, but research and physics are much better suited to SI units, so I am interested to know how this is dealt with.

I think a good part of Europe is still stuck with CGS, too.

In some universities in the UK they still use imperial units in some subjects, specially in first year Physics. CGS depends more on the fields, like extragalactic astophysics or quantum field theory.

Very interesting... in Australia anything other than SI units is practically unheard of

Let me paraphrase real life: if you're a mechanical engineer in the U.S. and have no idea what ft-lb, kips or ksi are, you're in for a world of hurt.

It would be malpractice for any university not to teach students to perform dimensional analysis on the inputs to any kind of problem before proceeding.

it's interesting to note that American units aren't actually imperial units, they are similar but different eg pints and gallons are not the imperial ones.

When I was an (engineering, US) undergrad, the textbook in one engineering mechanics class included problems using SI units and problems using imperial units. The problem sets for homework and exams came from the book, and could be in either SI or imperial units.
(You can see these examples in a sample chapter).
Every other class I've taken as a physics and engineering student used SI units exclusively.

I had the same experience, except that I recall some textbooks also included a few problems in cgs just to keep us on our toes. But probably 99% of it was SI.

This was my experience, modulo thermodynamics and heat transfer instead of engineering mechanics.

In civil engineering, imperial units are used exclusively.  Sometimes instructors will mention SI units, but you will never use them on homework or exams.

Really?!? Can you point to examples?  I find it hard to believe that this is still being done, since pretty much every other discipline uses SI...

@jakebeal: This would make sense as the engineering codes that govern building in the US are still largely written in "traditional" units.

@aeismail Sometimes, I despair of my country.

@jakebeal: I grew up there, too. But I can be tolerant of this since this is a "grandfathering" situation: the codes existed long before the switch to metric began, and few people are going to take the time to rewrite everything. (And don't forget that the parts are still manufactured to the old standards. It would be a huge effort to change over.)

@aeismail I'm sure that it was a huge effort for the UK and Australia and Canada to change over as well, back in the 70s and 80s, but ends up a lot better than the current polyglot system of partial metric.

@jakebeal: Of those, Australia is the only one that's really truly metric. Canada and UK still mix metric and standard units. (Also, Australia had a population of ~10MM at the time.)

In the UK, the road system (and therefore road speeds) is still in miles, because of the cost of converting; and beer and cider on tap (as opposed to in bottles and cans) may be sold only in pints and half-pints. Everything else is metric in commerce and engineering (apart from some weirdo corner cases someone is surely bound to recall, here). Neither of these is likely to change soon (a half-litre feels 70ml too little, dammit). That said, most people (including young people) will probably quote their height or weight in feet and stones/pounds. So still a hybrid system, but only just.

US lumber is still  its own weird case where length is real inches and thickness is in nominal inches...

First, a remark which I think important (apologies, I'm donning my metrologist's hat). Nowadays, the units of the Imperial system or those of the CGS are all defined in terms of the SI units. For instance, 1 inch equals 2.54 centimetre by definition, and the centimetre in that definition is really the SI centimetre. This means that even in fields where non-SI units are traditionally employed, a basic knowledge of the SI is at least needed if one has to discuss units-related stuff.

I imagine that industry (e.g. Engineering) is still stuck using imperial units

Yes, you can still find pressures measured in pound-force per square inch (psi) or inch of mercury (inHg), areas measured in circular mil, heat measured in British thermal unit (BTU), wrench sizes measured in fractions of inch, etc. Product data sheets sometimes list parameters both in Imperial and SI units, sometimes no.

but research and physics are much better suited to SI units

Yes, Imperial units are definitely ill-suited for science. As for the dichotomy SI/CGS that has been brought up in the comments... uh, well, opinions might differ across disciplines, and if you skim through publications (journals, books) of different disciplines you will find different level of adherence to the SI (e.g. there are recent physics books which use the SI when discussing mechanics and the CGS when discussing electromagnetism).

How much of the teaching content at universities in the US is delivered in imperial units instead of SI?

I cannot answer this question directly because my contacts with the US are within my discipline and mainly outside of academia. However, I can try to answer it in an indirect way from the (limited) perspective of a compulsive book-buyer (that's me), assuming that the teaching content of lectures is roughly the same of books.
If I look at the books in my library, all the engineering books on electronics and electromagnetics written by US authors, even those from the 1960s, employ the SI. I could find only one exception, a book on lens design from the 1970s which employs Imperial units. None of the physics books employ Imperial units. Instead, the few mechanical engineering books that I have employ Imperial units, but they are very old.
Therefore, my impression, as reader of technical and scientific books from the other side of the ocean, is that nowadays most of the teaching content in the US is delivered in SI units, and that Imperial units are really limited to a few fields.


text:
How to tell my advisor I am leaving the PhD program, when he is the reason I'm leaving?
I want to give up my current PhD program, which I started 5 months ago, because I really do not like my current advisor's personality and working style. He lives a relaxed life and has no enthusiasm for science after getting tenure.  He does not  have funding and never releases decent papers because he does not work hard.
But I like my current direction. So I want to give up my PhD and switch to the master's program - as I have nearly finished all the coursework, and I do not want a gap in my CV - and then apply to a new school, as there is no other professor in my school doing work in my direction.
My question is: how can I tell him that I want to leave the PhD program? I do not want to tell him the true reason, because I want him to write a recommendation for me, and I think he likes me.

Tell him you want to find another school with better matching of your research interest.

@adipro Why not? "My advisor has no drive to do excellent research and does not publish high-impact papers" seems like an entirely legit reason to leave.

@xLeitix If the asker's own research is going well ("I like my current direction"), the issue seems to be just not having much respect for the advisor. I'm not sure it's worth the disruption of starting a new programme for that.

Is there anyone else you could work with at your school or within the department? I have friends who have had similar issues (and I think a good relationship with one's advisor is actually quite important), and they have either found someone else as a main advisor, or kept on with their original, but worked with others as well. Not all programs are structured like this though so leaving may be the only way. But why do you have to stay through your masters? You could just switch schools and graduate a bit earlier than others. But as others have noted, it may depend on what year you are in now.

@DavidRicherby I think I respect my advisor. But I am not  happy with his working style. Cause he may think the students' achievements can not bring him any promotion cause he already got tenure. Also he does not need to pay for us (he does not have funding), cause we work as TA. In this case, he just enjoy the rest of his life.

I think I respect my advisor. — No, I don't think you do.  If you respected your advisor, you wouldn't even consider lying to him.  You may like him, but that's not the same thing.

Just link him this in your goodbye email after getting his recommendation: http://data.whicdn.com/images/41739810/large.jpg

Tell him why you're even more excited about the places to which you're applying.

At University X, Dr. Y is doing groundbreaking work in Z, and has published three papers in Prestigious Journal With A Latin Title in the last two years alone. Her students are also proving amazing results and speaking all over the world about them, and one of them just got a job at Top-Class University W. Every week they have a seminar where they discuss blah-blah-blah... [etc., etc.]
I'm grateful for all the opportunities you've afforded me here, and I think that X,Y, and Z would be an even better fit for me.

Sounds like "You/This place is not good enough for me".

Which makes it all the more of a perfect answer to the question. Not lying, just masking the truth with flowers.

It seems that you have been wondering whether you had chosen the right advisor, ever since you started your PhD 5 months ago. You didn't even like your subject then.
Earlier I commented that I was not sure if what you described would be a valid reason to leave your PhD program. Given that you have struggled with this decision for the last 5 months and you have not seen any improvements except that now you like your subject, it could well be the right decision to leave. I must quickly add, though, that many PhD students have had minimum guidance from their advisor, yet they persisted. This is something you need to decide yourself, and it seems that you are determined to leave, and that is fine.
What you must not do, as others have commented, is to lie to your advisor. Do not think about getting a recommendation from him. First, I don't think it is necessary, and second, it will help you be more objective in conveying to him your reason for leaving.

Thanks for your kind suggestion. Now I do not expect him to write  a recommendation. Also I do not want to offend him.

@user9983, I do not have the experience of leaving a PhD program, so I am not the right person to advise you on what to tell your advisor. But maybe you could say that you thrive on closer guidance. It is also important, I think, to say that you have been thinking a lot about this and you are afraid of offending him.

If you want a good reference the only thing you can really try is to tell him the subject does not suit you at all and fit your new found plan to become an x, y or z. Your supervisor may wonder why you are asking for a reference to go do some similar course if you do that after telling him you hate the subject, though...Your supervisor may try to persuade you to stay, in which case you could negotiate he stop doing whatever is annoying you or just keep firm with your decision.
What you must not do is fake family death or personal illness. You will in all likelihood, need to prove those have happened, especially if you want a reference.
Personally, I think not liking your supervisor is a terrible reason to quit your PhD. You will always have to suffer fools in life, that is just part of being an adult.

But it doesn't seem like the issue is 'liking' as much as feeling like the advisor is not going to be effective in terms of the poster's academic development. If the advisor has no interest in his own work, let alone that of his student's, I think it's a problem. But I may have been reading into the post. If it really is just a personality issue, then maybe that's not a reason to leave.

@Magpie Thanks for your suggestions. Actually I think my advisor is kind and nice. But he rarely focuses on research, for example he never works during the summer break (3 months) which I think is the golden time to do research cause he does not need to teach. And in the group meeting, he always focus on the slides instead of the technical problems like the experimental design.

@user9983: Please forgive me if I'm way off-base, but: I find myself being skeptical of the way you are writing off your advisor as having "no enthusiasm for science" after only knowing him for five months.  That wouldn't be enough time to evaluate the work ethic of a student, and as a student it's much harder to evaluate whether a mature academic is working hard or doing a good job.

You write "he never works during the summer break (3 months) which I think is the golden time to do research cause he does not need to teach".  First of all, that's a little judge-y: he gets to figure out what's his golden time to do research.  Second: if you started working with him five months ago, you have not seen him through even one entire summer break, so how can you know that he "never works during the summer".  Or did he say to you flat-out, "I never work during the summer since I got tenure?"

the only thing you can really try is to tell him the subject does not suit you — NO.  DO NOT LIE.

@PeteL.Clark Thanks for your reply. 5 months may be not enough for a student to know the advisor better. And it is a pity that I do not have many 5 months. And when I did rotation in his group ,nearly every  senior students in his group complained him to me, I did not believe.  So I  decided to join his group, and I am extremely interested in my current direction. All of them need to use 6-7 years to get a doctor degree, even in this case they still can not release a decent paper.  I think my interest might be the only drive, but I feel lost and can not see my future.

@user9983: Somehow your story is not quite adding up to me.  (i) If you got the opportunity to see your advisor's group in advance and you got almost entirely negative feedback from the students, why did you join?  (Why did they join?)  (ii) If your advisor and is research group is underperforming to the extent that you -- a master's student -- don't feel like it's worthy of your time, why would the research community view your adviser more favorably?  And if your advisor does not have any stature in the research community, why is his recommendation important or valuable to you?

@JeffE it would be a lie to say what you suggest though, the OP does like the subject not the supervisor... The OP has to lie or they will undoubtably offend their supervisor.


text:
Official reference doesn't include author
I want to cite an IEEE norm in a document. They provide several way to cite it on their website and in particular bibTeX. This is perfect because I use LaTeX.
However, the citation does not contain any author field. This raise a warning.
Should I keep this warning or modify the entry to avoid it? And in this case, what should I enter as author?
Link to the norm page. In abstract, go to download citation.
For example bibTeX citation only:
 @ARTICLE{4610935,
journal={IEEE Std 754-2008},
title={IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic},
year={2008},
pages={1-70},
keywords={IEEE standards;floating point arithmetic;programming;IEEE standard;arithmetic formats;computer programming;decimal floating-point arithmetic;754-2008;NaN;arithmetic;binary;computer;decimal;exponent;floating-point;format;interchange;number;rounding;significand;subnormal},
doi={10.1109/IEEESTD.2008.4610935},
month={Aug},}

If the citation provided by the publisher doesn't include an entry for author, then it's likely there isn't meant to be one. What does your preferred citation style say about documents with no author?

@Andrew I use the IEEE bibliographic. Nothing about missing auteur. When I made my document I just have nothing printed as author nor a comma before the Title of the paper

@StephanKolassa the link where to download the document in the bibliography? Yes I can

I assume that the venue you want to publish in follows the IEEE editorial style guide. On page 38, the guide shows how to reference standards:

Basic Format:
[1] Title of Standard, Standard number, date.
Examples:
[1] IEEE Criteria for Class IE Electric Systems, IEEE
  Standard 308, 1969.
[2] Letter Symbols for Quantities, ANSI Standard
  Y10.5-1968.

So this is what the end result should look like. If this is your end result, you can disregard warnings.
However, I'd assume that BibTeX issues warnings about missing authors because it expects authors in the particular entry type you are using. You may need to recode your BibTeX file entry from, say, @Article to @Techreport. If you run into problems with (Bib)TeX, tex.SE may be helpful.

I've no problem with BibTeX nor TeX. It's more about the style than the warning and if I should had an author or not. As your answer pointed out, I may just disregard this warning. Thank you :-)

In my experience, the bibtex entries provided by many publishers are often quite bad, and IEEE is one of the worst offenders here. So it is quite common that one has to edit them before they become usable.
For this specific entry, the type "article" is clearly wrong, and the root of the problem.

As an example to support the claim, you could list this paper, for which IEEE simply skips one of the authors in its metadata and the exported bibliography entries.


text:
Contact reviewers/authors after the end of the review cycle for follow up
I recently submitted a paper to a conference and was just blown away by the quality of the reviews (double-blind). Not only were they very detailed, but they were also very informative and insightful. They really helped me move the work forward. I wanted to thank the reviewers (which I got a chance to do in the rebuttal stage) but also to perhaps even contact them for a follow up on their comments. I thought that I could perhaps add them as co-authors or even offer collaborations.
I was wondering if people thought whether or not it would be appropriate for journal editors or program committees to allow reviewers to connect with the author following the end of the review cycle should it be requested by either side. What would the down-side of such a follow-up system be?

The reviewer effectively already has this ability; when the conference proceedings are published, she can find your paper and learn who you are.  If she's interested in further work with you, she can contact you then.  She might not (and probably should not) tell you that she was the reviewer, so it might be more a matter of "I was very interested by your paper..."

@NateEldredge that is true if the paper gets accepted. But what happens if the paper gets rejected?

You could contact the chair of the conference PC, who will contact the reviewers to see whether they are interested in your proposal.

As has been stated in the comments to your question, contact between author and reviewer once the review process is complete is no issue. In a double-blind system this hinges on establishing the contact and in that case, as stated by Nate Eldridge, it will have to be a contact from the reviewer. In other cases where authors are known to the reviewers it depends on the willingness of reviewers to reveal their name.
The editors obviously sits on the information that could connect the two under any circumstance and you can of course always ask an editor to forward a request to an anonymous reviewer. As an editor myself, I am not sure I would be altogether happy with such a development since it would mean a lot of communication back and forth concerning matters with which I have nothing to do. I will add that many if not most editors do this on their spare time or time they take from their own research and are not salaried to do the work. This is why I would think twice about making the request and make sure the reason is very good and of such interest that an editor will see benefits to science to make the effort. As you probably realize, doing this once is no big deal but if it becomes routine it will occupy much time for an editor. I would then clearly opt for changing the review system to not be anonymous and try to convince the community that such changes has benefits worth considering. Another option is to keep the review process double blind but then provide all information to both parties once a decision (accept or reject) has been reached.

it would mean a lot of communication back and forth — Really?  All you have to do is ask the referees "The authors have asked to contact you; may I send them your contact information?"  If they say yes, you send an introductory email and get out of the way.  If they say no, send your regrets to the author and you're done.

provide all information to both parties once a decision...has been reached — This is a really really bad idea.  Reviews should be anonymous by default, especially if the reviewer is less senior than the author.

@PeterJansson I think the conference/journal website that handles the review process could provide an automated method for the authors/reviewers to request contact details. No need for the program chair to get involved.

@JeffE "it would mean a lot of communication back and forth — Really? All you have to do" - I find "all you have to do" comments a bit short-sighted. Every time someone adds to our duties, they say "All you have to do is...". The problem is not the one-off. The problem is that once done, you have to do it, every time, for ever. We have enough duties as there are, and I am very wary of the cost of any addition to procedure. In addition, a review process is not match-making. Once the rule is diluted, reviewer refusing to partake and might find themselves pressured. Not a good idea.


text:
Should I switch from an M.A. to an M.S. program if my department allows me to choose?
I work in industry and am also attending a major U.S. university to get another master's degree, this one in Applied Math.
When I entered the program, the department offered a Master of Arts (M.A.) degree for Applied Math. This year, the department made a change to Master of Science (M.S.); any new students coming in Fall 2014 will be M.S. students, and any current students will be given the option of switching their degree from M.A. to M.S.
Should I make the switch from M.A. to M.S.? I already have a M.S. degree in engineering. In my opinion, all other things equal, M.S. is considered more rigorous from an employer's perspective.

In general, I believe your assessment is correct—for scientific disciplines where both an MA and MS are possible, the MS degree is usually regarded as more rigorous than the corresponding MA degree.
That said, whether you should switch is a matter that requires some thought. Does the change require you to complete more courses? Will there be any impact on your expected graduation date, and the cost of getting the degree? If not, then I would definitely switch. (Moreover, since you already have an MS in engineering, there's no point in getting an MA afterwards. If you didn't have a master's, you'd need to figure out the relative advantage of finishing faster versus the more rigorous degree.)

Thanks for your feedback. There is no additional work to switch from MA to MS; I just need to file a petition.


text:
Are hobbies in the CV detrimental?
I have a serious, artistic hobby and I write an application for a scientific job. The hobby is music. I studied music for three years, but didn't conclude, because I decided to pursue a scientific career. I kept playing horn1, however; since lately I play in a (non-student, serious) orchestra.
I've seen that professors add information of this kind to their, say, online CV's. But first, they probably do not apply for grants using that version of their CV. Secondly, they are already somehow "respected".
That hobby was an important part of my life, thus I'd feel somehow dishonest to exclude it from the CV. It also explains why I'm about two years older than an average PhD student is where I studied.
Is including an artistic hobby in my CV detrimental for my application?
[1] This is not really the instrument but just an example.

Possibly, you should add a country tag (of the country that you intend to send your CV to). I have seen conflicting opinions around here and on [workplace.se] that may have been based on different cultural backgrounds on whether hobbies and interests are appropriate or not in a CV.

Yes. A hobby like fox hunting may be detrimental. Music less so, but possibly for a Blue Meany.

@O.R.Mapper I intend to send the CV to a couple of countries, otherwise I'd tag one.

@c.p.: But expectations and reactions to CVs differ between cultures. See e.g. the recent question on photos in applications/the CV).

It is part of your experience, so should go in. It also shows, to a degree, that there's more to your life than just science, making you appear more rounded. It also explains the age discrepancy.
However, should the place you're applying for require a nerd, who would appear totally immersed in the task in hand,  it may be considered that you have a somewhat butterfly approach - trying out something, but not following it through.
Some thought will be needed considering the c.v., and be more mindful of the recipients of it. Thus tailor it to the exact post applied for: tell them what they need to know. Or what you think they need to know...

I should add that in situations/organizations/countries that value culture, playing an instrument competently is going to work in your favour; a one/two-liner about your achievements is enough, don't concentrate on it. Let yourself be guided by how much you are interested in the position of interest if they really would dislike you playing an instrument.


text:
How beneficial is IEEE student membership for a mathematics student?
I am a Ph.D. mathematics student. I have no idea regarding IEEE student membership. IEEE has advertised many benefits and opportunities of it in their web pages.
Can you kindly explain how beneficial it may be for me? How may I use it for my academic and research works?

I'm not convinced IEEE membership is beneficial to anyone; unless your university does not have a subscription to the journals, and you need to buy them yourself.

The only benefit I have seen from being an IEEE member is the reduced registration cost for attending IEEE conferences.