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University is allowing PhD students in campus again - any advice for a first year? (UK based)
I went to this uni for my undergrad so the staff/layout of buildings isn't a problem - I've had my introductions.
The problem is I've been made to work from home, so I've never had on-campus experience before.
I'm more concerned about what to expect when on campus - how does supervision/ socialising work now that I'll be in a shared office of about 5-10 other PhD students? I'm a bit socially awkward and I'm feeling a bit daunted about not being able to have some alone time.
As much as I complained about working from home, I'm somewhat nervous about making a return to campus. I guess my main question is: how does on-campus life differ from working from home and what can I expect?

Very much depends on how your supervisor runs his/her group.  My students work 'alone', whilst my colleagues set up group meetings so that students compete against each other, and he/she also uses these meetings to berate weak students; never mind the fact that these students have N top journal articles.    In some offices, students are night owls, so you may prefer to work normal hours.

It's not uncommon in the UK at the moment for scheduled meetings to take place online still, and for academics to be mainly in meetings .  Your supervisor may well work from home and supervise remotely except when they come in for teaching duties. (A comment on but VitaminE's comment and Brian Tompsett's answer)

In my experience, PhD students are usually free to come and go as they please, but it probably does depend on the subject and supervisor. If you are doing some kind of "wet" science or "metal-bashing" engineering then you might need to be physically present in a laboratory to perform experiments or manufacture experiments, but for many subjects you are provided with a desk in a work area (which gets called an "office").
Many PhD students do not find their allocated desk the best place to work, and some mainly work at home. Some work in the library, some work in the park. As long as your supervisor sees your work at regular intervals and approves of how you are doing there is generally not an issue.
Just make sure that university staff, particularly your supervisor always know how to get hold of you, either through your phone, email or other messaging system (like teams).


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May I email a former lecturer?
I recently had my delayed graduation ceremony and met up with an old lecturer who supervised my dissertation. It was nice to see them but we sadly didn't get the chance to catch up.
I was considering maybe sending them an email. Do you think this is a good idea? I'm sure they'd love to keep in touch since they taught me for 3 years.
Similarly, there was another lecturer who sadly left and they helped me to apply for my post-grad degree and served as head of department for the duration of my degree.
The bottom line is: Do lecturers appreciate hearing from former students? I'm in the UK by the way.

To the good answers pointing out the benefits, I can add: it can do no harm. The worse that could happen is that the lecturer is so busy they miss your message, but I am unable to see a reason why they could be bothered.

Actually, if you thank an old instructor it is one of the most wonderful things you can do. They will appreciate it tremendously. Even just catching up is fine. But don't neglect to add a thanks for their help.
I once had the opportunity to visit with and thank a mentor from my doctoral study days. He said that it was rare to be thanked so many years after he helped me advance. He was very touched.
Do it.

We old folks don't remember all of our students, of course, but we sometimes wonder how some specific person turned out in their career. Just yesterday, I thought of someone I taught in the 1970s, but have no way to find them.

Just yesterday, I thought of someone I taught in the 1970s, but have no way to find them. No results with Google?

ORCID or an other researcher ID tag, a research specific database like Web of Science/Scopus/ResearchGate (i.e., via publications), directories of members of professional organizations (sometimes accessible to the members only [e.g., IEEE]), alumni group of the school could complement the search for Mr/Mrs/Ms Smith.

@Buttonwood and others. The person worked in government and not research. Confidentiality rules apply. They are in some databases that require subscription but not otherwise visible on the net.

To that last paragraph, even students who I absolutely would remember I still need a reminder. I'm happier when someone adds something explicit like: "I had you for class X in Smith hall, then ... ". I don't even mind the cliche "you probably don't remember me".

@Buffy Last year my family reconnected with an old friend whom we hadn't seen for decades by searching for their name + city on Facebook. They have a very common name too (searching for the name alone yields 60 million results on Google). I think it's worth trying. If name + city doesn't yield good search results, you could try name + university.

Yes!
This is what we live for as supervisors. Students are a terribly inefficient source of papers/CV entries/departmental brownie points, almost anything they do can be done by the supervisor in less than half the time. The main reason to supervise students is in developing them as researchers and as people. When we hear from students after they have left us, it is a complete validation of all the time and effort we spent on them. We LOVE it.

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What to do when a reviewer questions the writing style of your scientific research paper?
This year, I submitted a research paper (case study) of a technology implementation to a peer reviewed journal. I waited approx. 2 months and the decision of the reviewer was to decline, because she considered it not to have the correct writing style for the journal.
What can be done, when is not the science and analysis being questioned, but rather the author's writing style ?

Did you consider changing the writing style? Maybe the reviewer has a point?

Was this submitted in English? I don't want to sound rude, but your English isn't quite native-like. So I would strongly encourage you to have a more fluent speaker (or editing service) take a look.

By style, did they refer to your actual writing style or rather the citation format etc.?

What does 'style' mean exactly? Some publishers require submitted papers to have a certain 'style' (single column, double spacing) before they send papers out for review.

@VitaminE But in that case one probably wouldn't hear back from "the reviewer". Of course, given that OP mentions "the reviewer's decision", maybe there's some confusion of reviewer and editor in the question.

You should really quote what they have said to you. As another said, it is even possible that style was there to paraphrase "the article is not suitable for this journal" . Unless unreadable at all, not formatting nor a bad English shall result in rejection. Or at least if so, I would expect some suggestions from the editors, like to involve a colleague etc.

@AzorAhai-him- I'm Portuguese. I don't hide that fact from reviewers. And this should not be an eliminating factor for publishing science. Good Science will always be good regardless of English origins

@henning, they refer to the actual writing style. in regards to the case study presented with all mathematical & computer science explanations  no remarks

@VitaminE, the actual writing text style. Not the formatting of the document

You know, I can simply process the final research paper document, on a python script for a word polishing in a way it fits the editor most recent accepted papers writing styles. And is quite easy to do it, it really is. … of course there's the obvious quality reduction in word diversity throughout the text in said document.  But in the end will comply with such an odd requirement ....

@MiguelSilva-TechGuy Is this your first paper?  academic writing is quite different to essays.   You may use incorrect/bombastic words.  As a reviewer, I am wary of authors who do not know the correct vocabulary, especially technical terms.

@MiguelSilva-TechGuy "I can simply process the final research paper document, on a python script for a word polishing in a way it fits the editor most recent accepted papers writing styles" You have no idea what you're talking about, sorry.

@MiguelSilva-TechGuy You posted a question saying your English style was criticized ...

Does it say the english is bad or the writing is bad? Some people are just not very good at writing up things (until they learn).

not a bad English, no. It was a reference about writing style

Likely you need to yield. I suspect that either the style is too informal or too pedantic. Readers of scientific paper have some expectations that you need to respect when possible.
The editor, of course, has the final say, and may agree or disagree with the reviewer. But the reviewer is probably familiar with the "expected" style of that journal. Ask the editor how much the style needs to be changed.
And, of course, examine some papers from that journal to get a sense of what the prefer to publish. Pioneers often get shot.

@Roland, that is what i really don't tolerate on scientific reviewers: being vague on a work area where is expected to be exact and factual.  Nowadays Is also detrimental to both sides

@Roland, i understand what you say. And Germans are known to be direct. The exact opposite of Portuguese. And in  that sense I'm more up north too.

Team up with an experienced researcher. Many researchers are involved in the training of PhD students and, consequently, are used to working with people who lack experience in the writing of academic publications. For some, getting sub-optimal writing into shape might even come quite natural, and can lead to a win-win situation where both you and the researcher derive a benefit from a joint publication.
Your best bet are researchers with a background in the specific research area in which your paper is situated.

Grammatical revisions wouldn't merit authorship in my fields

@AzorAhai-him- True, I assume that the editing would go significantly beyond grammar revisions. In my field, the main roadblock for inexperienced writers is that they don't know to "shape the story" of a paper.

I guess that would still be borderline whether that's still worth authorship to me. Then again, it costs very little and if the field is better for getting this paper out there then it's probably fine

@lighthousekeeper Everyone Likes this answer, but as everyone knows, in academia, teaming up with an experienced researcher is not easy and it has a really high cost (in time). So your solution to me sounds much like demagogy / scientific politics at best.

@MiguelSilva-TechGuy Yes, if you want to have an outcome that meets the requirements, you will need to invest some time. My point is that you will probably waste even more time, on top of the time you've already wasted, if you keep doing this on your own, without input from someone more experienced.

That sounds at least borderline unethical, promising coauthorship for (even significant) rewriting.

@user151413 Provided that the coauthor indeed helps with "shaping the story" (which I assume is likely here), they can meet all four criteria for authorship laid out in the Vancouver protocol

I understand all those more political answers , towards the establishment. But I'm a scientist and I deal with real facts not great photos on LinkedIn. That said,  at the end it is fine by me, I just publish elsewhere. More so as Impact Factor dies away into the past, replaced with more metrics and a statement about a Autor's contribution.

@MiguelTomás-TheScientist You don't want to support the establishment? Great idea! Team up with a young but uprising researcher who doesn't have tenure yet and would actually benefit from the publication.

C'mon !!!! I'm way past that! What I'm inferring is something more urgent, for us here in Europe if we want to keep up in the lead ....

@MiguelTomás-TheScientist There are excellent young researchers in Europe that can write in the style expected by top journals.

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How to write a sincere reply to a very positive reply from a professor?
My roomie has recently been applying for PhD programmes. He's particularly interested in the one led by prof X, so the other day he sent an email presenting his research experiences and showing his interest in prof X's research. He got a very positive reply from prof X today:

Hi XXX, Yes I am planning to accept PhD students this year. I strongly encourage you to apply... please indicate theory as your interest and/or mention my name as faculty of interest in your application.

This sounds like great news. So my roomie decides to reply and tell X he's really enthusiastic about applying to this programme. But neither of us has any idea what would be an appropriate way to do this. Would simply writing like "thanks for your help prof X I will definitely apply!" be too short and not show enough enthusiasm? Could anybody give some advice?

Why is your roomie is not asking this question here directly?

@Coder he's not got an account on this site.

Just send an email saying that they are grateful for the response and they will submit an application.

Thank you for your reply, Professor X. I am happy to hear that you're interested in taking on a PhD student for next year, I will definitely be putting in an application for the position. I look forward to hearing more about the project in the future. Regards, me.

You don't need to throw them a parade, but take a little more time to email them something other than just,

Thanks a bunch!

I tend to agree with Eppicurt. Keep it professional.
I suppose there's a fine line between being confident and being flatter. Only you can decide where that is.
Assuming you have heard this person lecture, read their work, and inquired with others as to what it's like to work with Prof X, you could simply write back:
"Thank you for the instruction to submit my application. I am enthusiastic about an opportunity to work with you because...., and I trust you will find my application competitive with the other applicants."
I imagine that Prof X will have the final say on who she or he selects and a professional and courteous email is always welcome.
Best of luck with your application!

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What to do about fellow student that hogs lecture time with many questions
I am in a master's program, and one of my peers in the program is in two classes with me. He is a nice person, but he tends to ask a lot of questions in lectures; both of which are very large, and often ends up derailing the lecture for 25-30 minutes.
It has (long since) gotten to the point where many people are bothered by it. He will ask a question if he is hazy on any details, and often doesn't allow us to cover all of the material in a lecture because of it. In addition, the professor is typically forced to just repeat him/herself, so we don't even learn anything new from his questions. Of course, we are still responsible for that material regardless of whether it is covered lecture. The professors appear to be bothered by his behavior, though I wouldn't presume to know for sure.
Can and should I say something to this person? I don't want to discourage him from asking questions or feel disliked by his peers in the program, but it seems unreasonable to allow him to negatively affect my and other students' learning experience (and to a rather severe degree).
Note that I am aware of this post detailing how to handle disruptive questions, but I think my question is different because it concerns how to handle it from the perspective of a fellow student rather than a professor.

How about a polite email to the professor pointing out that you and other students are bothered by this?

When I was a student, after the umpteenth question, some other student would have yelled at him: "Aaargh! Shut up, you're annoying everybody!" (with added swearing); the class would have applauded, and the student would have probably stopped asking questions for a long while. But, alas, nowadays, things goes smoother... (and in any case the professor would have cut him out at the third question...)

To me this suggests that the professors aren't very good at judging how derailing a question is going to be. In my opinion the professors should listen to the student's question and if they think the answer is going to be long they should ask any interested students to stay behind after the lecture to hear the answer.

Office hours should be used to ask those questions...

@Bakuriu Precisely.  The professor should say, "Well, I've covered that earlier.  Does anyone else want to go over it again?"  When no hands are raised, the professor should say, "OK, Mr. Smith; please see me during office hours and we can go into more detail."

I would suggest a polite email to the professor to the effect that a sizeable body of students feels that allowing too many questions that are too lengthy is eating into valuable lecture time. Suggest (nothing more forceful than that) that Q&A be held either at the end of the lecture or at predetermined intervals, and that all time be limited. Also suggest that different people be allowed concise questions and that no one student should be allowed to monopolise Q&A. Remember, don't personalise the issue and don't "name names", it's of little benefit to you and may just make you look bad.

Unless this student is a close friend of yours, I think you should bring it up with the course instructors, not directly with him.  The person who is in charge of making sure the course is operating smoothly and well is the instructor.  In a class with more than a few students, spending 25-30 minutes responding solely to one student sounds like a clear mistake to me.  (The fact that this is happening in multiple classes and none of the instructors have done anything about it is curious to me, but I don't really know what to make of it.)
I would make an appointment to speak to each instructor in question about it.  I would come to that appointment with specific information about other students who feel the same way.  If we are talking about a few students, then probably you should come to the office together.  I am a university professor, and if several students came jointly to my office to express concern about the way my class was run, I would have to take that very seriously.
If the number of students who are concerned about this is more than could comfortably fit in your instructor's office, then I think you should make a list of such students in some way, e.g. by writing up a brief, politely worded statement describing your feelings on the situation and getting other students to sign it.  Or perhaps even in the second situation it might be better to start with a few students who come visit your instructor's office.  Things to worry about in the second situation are (i) you don't want to attribute a complaint to a classmate unless you have specifically talked to them about it and gotten their approval and (ii) if you don't handle things with enough discretion it could get back to your inquisitive peer in a way that you don't want.
Perhaps others will disagree, but I really do feel that if the behavior is acceptable to the course instructors then it has to be grudgingly acceptable to you: I would not try to persuade your peer to change his ways.  If the additional time spent on your inquisitive peer has consequences in terms of the learning experience, you should bring those consequences to the attention of the instructor, specifically and repeatedly if need be.  For instance, if the lectures do not cover all the material that the syllabus says they should, you could ask the instructor what to do about that and whether the exams will be adjusted accordingly.  (This is a pointed, but fair, question.)  If at the end of the course it turns out that indeed the learning experience was compromised in this way, then you should give appropriate feedback about it.
The only case I can think of in which I would confront your peer directly is if you have as much discussion with the instructor(s) as you can, they agree that the questions are derailing the lectures but are themselves unwilling to do anything in response.  They are then really not doing their job, and I think at that point you would be justified in trying to intervene: it seems like the least evil.

+1 for "specific information about other students who feel the same way." It really annoys me when all students with complaints insist that they know all other students have the same complaint (without any specific evidence) when the previous student in my office has the exact opposite complaint, and also is sure that all other students agree with him.

@ff524 good to know. In this case I know of a handful of people who happen to agree that this is a problem. Another factor that I didn't mention is that this student happens to be from an international school where his classes were much smaller and more intimate. It's possible that he's just not used to a larger classroom where the etiquette is different.

@110100101110101 That's a possibility.  Some people are also natural "questioners", and do no have much inhibition about asking. In my experience, many students are unwilling to ask questions in class: they're too timid, find the professor unapproachable, are afraid of looking bad, or just not willing to invest themselves in the issue.  This can leave some professors uncertain of how to proceed: they're not used to this much attention, and in principle they do want their students engaged and asking questions, so how to ask this one student to ease off without discouraging the other students?

The way you gather evidence about the views of other students is to write a letter and let other students sign it. I don't know whether that's a good first step. Socially it's quite akward to do gather signatures like that without first speaking to the offending person directly.

@Christian: I agree that's probably not a good first step, and I tried to indicate that in my answer.  This might be warranted in a situation like the following: the OP is studying with a group of 10 friends, the topic comes up, and everyone agrees on the spot with the OP.  Bringing 11 people to the instructor's office is probably too many, so they could write something down and send a smaller number of representatives.

I wouldn't make an appointment. Simply wait until the next time this student uses up more than 10 minutes in a class. At the end of class, approach the instructor and wait until others leave. Then say "Joe's question really cut into our class time today, and not for the first time." This should start the conversation in which you can express your concerns about material not getting covered, or you not getting to ask questions, or it just being boring to listen to Joe's one-on-one tutoring sessions.
Why do I not want you to make an appointment, bring other students, bring a list of who else feels this way and won't fit in the office, and explain to your prof specifically what gets missed when 20 out of 50 minutes are spent tutoring one student? Because it's patronizing. It's making a big formal deal out of something that your prof already knows. Some "help vampires" are very good at derailing intelligent people, who intellectually know they should not be helping the person right here and now, and getting their help right here and now.
Given that your prof knows intellectually this shouldn't be happening, all they really need is a little reminder and support, as close to the incident as possible. Waiting for an appointment, gathering your posse, meeting with others to write out the (incredibly obvious really) consequences of the time spent inappropriately in lectures - this may all feel exciting and important, but there's no need for it.
If your class has a post class tutorial, Joe should be dominating that instead. I had a student who would use the whole hour if no-one else came. If someone else came, he would let them ask all they wanted and use all the remaining time. We had some very interesting conversations. But he never interrupted lectures for them. If you don't have a tutorial session then Joe should be going to office hours or whatever is needed to grasp the material. Your prof already knows this, but is having trouble saying it when Joe's hand goes up. Don't try to teach your prof this, just remind and support, that's all.

+1 for a lightweight and informal approach – I doubt there's much need for deputations and signatures and so on. This seems to come down to a problem of classroom management, and a brief ‘some of us find these long digressions unhelpful’ may be all the prompt the lecturer needs to reflect on how best to manage these interventions.

Up voted both response and comment: the bottom line is, start informal first, before getting formal. It is very unpleasant if the first warning shot is already formal and can trigger an avalanche of near-hostile entrenchment by prof or Joe early on.

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Is it weird to have a one-year, master's level "general studies" program?
I am a recent grad & my main goal is to do a Ph.D. in Computer Science, but I have some interest in math and physics.
I recently found this Masters in Science program offered by a very reputable university in the US. It looks nice to me because I get to do a Masters to strengthen up my PhD app and also take classes in other topics that I want to learn but didn't have the time for in undergrad (like quantum, analysis, topology, etc.). But, it seems a little weird to me:

It is only one year. Most universities have master's programs that take 2 years.
If I understand correctly, you can take a random array of classes. This seems kind of ridiculous to me (even though it's what I want).  I never knew that there existed these general-studies-like Masters programs.

Am I correct to find this weird? Is this program comparable to other 2-year degree-specific Masters? Would completing this program help me get into graduate school for computer science?

Interesting question. Our scope excludes "providing assessments of particular programs," so I've edited to generalize the question a bit.

"general studies" is not an accurate description of the linked program.

@cag51 I think the question has been edited so it no longer makes sense.

@AnonymousPhysicist Yeah I'm not really sure what to categorize it as. It was just what it kind of seemed like to me so I left the edit as is

@cag51 I don't see why you can't provide an individual assessment. It seems helpful for others who might apply. Also, 'general studies' was just something that the program kind of seemed like to me because of its flexibility, so i might be wrong to call it that.

Many Master's courses in the US and UK are one year (perhaps even the majority), so this aspect is not weird.

@StackOverflowOfficial Because then we'd be inundated with people asking about every degree program in the world, which is quite a few.

@AzorAhai--hehim # of popular degree programs at reputable universities is low

@StackOverflowOfficial It's not though, when you consider Academia covers every field, in the sciences, humanities, law, etc.

Unless you have some weakness in your undergraduate record, I doubt that this program or another masters will "strengthen up" your PhD application. Most US students apply for doctoral studies immediately after the BS.
And doing it now, rather than later, will give you experience at the doctoral institution with faculty contacts, etc, that can build up your reputation there.
And most doctoral programs will have coursework first, though not "random" courses. Do it now.
I'll guess that most of the students in such a program are not in preparation for a doctorate, but seeking a terminal MS for some purpose.

Note that outside the US, the situation is often very different with an MS required for doctoral study in some situations. Not so the US, however.

This is not the perspective I am seeing. Nowadays it seems to be a norm to do a masters degree as a stepping stone to a ph.d, unless you're going to a lower ranking phd program.

When you are saying "Do it now" Do you mean do a phd or the masters now?

The point you make is good to know. do you have any comments on this specific program?

Apply for a doctoral program now. The specific program doesn't seem like a "stepping stone" program. One with serious research might be.

@StackOverflowOfficial: In what fields are you seeing People start by going for a masters as a clear norm?

@RLH A lot of professors i've talked to told me that I should do a masters first to make myself seem more competitive for top programs, so i thought it was the norm nowadays

@StackOverflowOfficial; This is highly dependent on both field and individual factors.


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Will a Second Masters Degree help my chances of getting into a PhD program (Economics)?
I am currently in the second year of my masters degree (MSc. Economics) in India. I want to pursue a PhD (preferably in the US) that is funded. Post my PhD, I want to work in MDBs/International organizations for development, in research - mainly economic policy and macroeconomic research.
I absolutely love economics and have no qualms or fears about stepping into a PhD program - I am sure I will enjoy the rigor and the thrill of diving so deep into this discipline.
However, my chances of getting into a funded program in US/Europe do not seem great as of now. I come from a relatively lesser known college, and the econ-department here is quite small - the professors are mostly new and have just submitted their PhDs themselves. My LoRs will not be very strong, and I don't have any publications or anything else that will help my case. I have only seen a handful of alumni from my current college getting into PhD programs in the US- that too the lowest ranked ones.
Will a second master's degree in Econ, from the US, help my case? - (pros would be a more credible degree, better connections and chances of LoRs, etc.)
If not, could are there any alternatives I could follow to boost PhD applications?

Have you applied already and been turned down or are you speculating about your chances?

Speculating. I haven't completed my Master's degree yet.

I asked this because, applications tend to be expensive. I dont know if I can afford to apply more than once if I get rejected the first time (at least not in the next 5-10 years).

If you want any hope of acceptance you need to apply to more than one institution. I'll probably vote to close this as a duplicate of the canonical question on doctoral application, but note that in the US, no masters is required, so a second one isn't likely to count much. But think in terms of, say, five applications spread out over a range of university rankings. And, "funded" in the US means as a TA in most cases.


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Is PhD worth it when considering your career in industry
I'm a beginning doctoral student in the field of Machine Learning and I've been given several contradicting opinions on whether a PhD is worth it or not. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in front of a desk doing research, but I would like to deepen my understanding on my field. I am interested for a career on industry. Some people say I'm wasting my time for doing the PhD and some people say it is worth it. My plan at the moment is to finish PhD as fast as possible and then continue my career in industry when I'm still young. Any opinions or recommendations on what I should do? :)
P.S.
I want to add to this that I have already 2,5 years of work experience on industry (IT) already. For example I designed and implemented an online language skill tester for my university and have worked as a software engineer. So I wouldn't be entirely newbie in programming after I finish my PhD...
My subject is about applying the techniques of Machine Learning on Big Data.
Thank you for any suggestions and guidelines :)

If you do a PhD in a more practical side of Machine Learning, something related to Big Data, then this surely would be beneficial to a career in Industry.

You might have an answer here http://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/13191/can-a-ph-d-have-a-negative-impact-on-your-career-in-the-software-industry/13212#13212

You haven't really defined what you mean by "...when considering your career" in the subject of this post.  On the one hand, you say,

I would like to deepen my understanding on my field.

If your goal is to deepen your understanding, one way to do that is to get a PhD. You can also do this on your own, without getting a PhD, but you'll find a more structured path and (possibly) more resources if you go down the PhD route.
On the other hand, you say,

I am interested for a career on industry.

Are you interested in industry because of the money?  If that is the case, you're most likely better off earning a full income and "moving up the ladder" during the time you would spend in graduate school, which means you should forego getting a PhD to concentrate on the money.
If you're interested in a career in industry because of reasons outside of financial considerations, then you have to think about what kinds of jobs you're looking to take in industry. If you're satisfied that your current skills and educational level will make you competitive for the jobs you want, you should probably reconsider the PhD, and to "deepen your understanding" in a different way. Then again, a certain percentage of people want to get a PhD for the challenge and for strictly personal reasons, removed from the job details themselves.
If the jobs you want to get are generally given to PhDs, then you have your answer already -- get the PhD to make yourself competitive for those positions.
I suggest writing down all of your long-term goals, and then weighing them against the time and cost (and opportunity costs) of getting your PhD. If after all that you still don't have a good answer, you might consider continuing with your program for another year and just postponing the decision until then.  Eventually, either you will get your PhD, or you will be convinced that it is better off that you stop the program (but the decision may get harder the closer you are to finishing).

It is impossible to answer your question unless you tell in which country you intend to work in the industry.
In France, for example, a PhD is not very highly considered by industry, where the one important criteria is which engineering school you did. This is slowly evolving.
I heard that in Germany, a PhD is highly valued in industry, even if its content has nothing to do with the job.
I have little knowledge for other countries.

Re: Germany. It is. The idea is that a PhD holder has at least managed one large complex project till the very end: his/her own PhD project.

I completed my PhD recently and I am currently working in the industry. Mine is a PhD in CS and my thesis was on development of newer techniques for real time prediction. Before PhD, I had 5 years of work experience in the analytics sector. Personally, I found the entire experience of the PhD to be intellectually satisfying and worth the effort. Yes, I had to forgo 4 years of income or earning opportunities and survived on an adequate stipend. But I believe PhD in a technical field like Machine Learning will always be in demand in the industry. Post PhD, I got the job as a data scientist with the largest online retailer. I think it varies from individual to individual and one should find their own way. In my country, PhD is not that highly valued in the industry. But I guess one should do a PhD in an area for which they have some passion so that they can develop the skill sets that will make them competitive in the job market.

If you have an opportunity to finish your Phd then do so. Failing to continue with a Phd is something that is difficult to change your mind on later in life. In the big scheme of things what you see yourself doing just after graduating is so different from what you may find yourself doing in 10, 20, 30 or 40 years later.
You will never regret having a Phd. You may regret not having a Phd when you could have completed it!

Thank you Brian :) appreciate your help. In fact, I recently graduated as a fresh PhD :)

In my opinion, the key defining feature of  Ph.D. research is to understand a subject in its most fundamental aspects and push the boundary of collective human understanding and knowledge. There are some things that you only get to explore while going through a Ph.D. degree and some results you only get to publish in academia.
Consider what you have said in your post:

I don't want to spend the rest of my life in front of a desk doing
  research, but I would like to deepen my understanding on my field.

The question is what do you mean by deepening your understanding of your field. If by deepening your understanding, you mean, deepening your understanding of the technologies that are used in machine learning, then industry could be a good option. But if you mean that deepening your understanding of how and why things work, then perhaps the industry is not a good place for that.

My plan at the moment is to finish Ph.D. as fast as possible and then
  continue my career in the industry when I'm still young.

I think you should examine whether you want to get a Ph.D. solely to satisfy some requirement on a job application, and perhaps to get a higher starting salary, or do you want to create something that lasts and make a name for yourself in the research community. The key question is: "will the impact of my thesis be felt long after I finish the Ph.D. degree"? And if your Ph.D. research cannot provide a satisfactory answer to this question, then it is better to go into industry.
I have observed that there seems to be a collective rush to finish Ph.D. in machine learning and computer science departments. In my opinion, this collective habit has greatly cheaped the value of their degrees, and this can be reflected in the quality of their thesis, which consists nothing more than a few equations, some hand-wavy explanation as to why their new equations are better, and some simulations with highly controlled experiments.
I have seen the statistics; nobody cares about their research at all (view count less than some double digit number, years after publishing thesis), because everybody else is also putting up a few equations and doing their own simulation and hoping to get into industry asap - the level of toxicity is high, nobody is building upon or examining each other's work. This kind of research is unsustainable in the long run.


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Is it okay for a PhD supervisor to claim co-authorship... even if it's my work, and he didn't ask?
About a year ago I noticed that my PhD supervisor has listed on his faculty page that he co-authored a conference presentation together with me.  The problem is, he didn't-- the research itself was entirely mine, and I wrote and gave the presentation alone.  (This is in the social sciences, not the hard sciences).  He never talked to me before claiming co-authorship on his faculty profile, and in fact, has never mentioned it to me-- nor have I mentioned it to him.
I can understand that he may have felt he needed the "extra credit" to beef up his publications last year while he was trying to get tenure.  Now that he's got his tenure, though, and now that I've finished my PhD and am applying for jobs, I am worried that, should my potential employers google the items on my résumé and come across his co-authorship claim, it will contradict my résumé's claim that I was the sole author... making me look like the liar.
I'm really reluctant to "give in" and credit him as co-author for the presentation on my résumé too, because (a) it doesn't feel fair and (b) I don't have many publications/presentations to begin with... so including him as co-author could dilute what little power my résumé has.
However, I am also embarrassed to ask him to take this "publication" down from his faculty page, because I am worried that he may get defensive, which could ruin our relationship-- which would be a problem, because I still depend on him for references as I look for a job.
Any ideas/perspective on how to handle this??  Thanks!!

@Nunoxic not all conferences in the social sciences have proceedings or even archives of the presentations.

@DanielE.Shub That seems very, very odd. Is there a reason why they don't?

possible duplicate of When should a supervisor be an author?

Keep it on your page as only authored by you. If the subject ever comes up, pretend like you think he just made an honest mistake.

In a number of fields it's standard for the supervisor to be listed as the last author on papers or presentations that their students produce. This is because the supervisor helps in a number of ways, some of them indirectly: they get grant money, they train you to use the lab, they train you to do statistics... or they might make suggestions for the research design, the main theoretical focus of the presentation/manuscript, etc. If I wouldn't list my supervisor on a conference presentation, the only possible reason would be that it slipped my mind to add his name.
I would therefore ask other PhD students in your department what the standard is in this case, because your supervisor might not think that he's doing something wrong.

+1 But there still is an obvious lack of communication (OP goes to the conference as a sole author and the supervisor lists himself as a co-author) and that is something that needs to be solved.

I disagree. Getting grant money, training students, teaching them to write papers, giving them suggestions and all that is part of our job as supervisors. It's what we get paid for. It's also what we owe the student for sacrificing his/her time for us. Publication and authorship is a completely separate matter and should reflect a contribution to science, which all of the above is not.

@Pedro Actually, a number of scholars in different disciplines might beg to differ with you. Remember that publication cultures are sometimes significantly different in different disciplines.

@Pedro: Indeed; see this question which catalogs some of the differences.

You might find this comic instructive - but I partly agree with @Pedro: While it is common e.g. in Physics to not only list your direct supervisor (who actually did help you) but also the head of the faculty (due to more or less providing the funding and proof-reading/approving/discussing the final draft), that might actually be put in the "thank you" section instead. On the other hand however, said head may be established in the the community, so their name being in the author list is rarely harmfull but rather to your benefit

*(so in contrast to OP's situation, said head did actually contribute something by at least discussing it pre-submission, and precisely due to that they are listed as last author)

@Pedro - Many people share your view, but my point was not about whether this is right or wrong as a practice, but rather whether it's common or uncommon. And that really depends on the field. I'm not sure which social science Fretting is in, but I do know that in psychology it's the norm to list your supervisor as last author. If Fretting decides to insist on being the sole author, it will make a difference whether he's going against a single supervisor or against a standard in the field. He might not be as inclined  to do the latter.

I think that what constitutes co-authorship is an interesting issue that deserves its own question and answers.

I’d strongly suggest speaking to other faculty in your department, not just grad students (at least if you have some other faculty member you know or trust reasonably well).  On the one hand, they will be more experienced in the norms of the field; on the other hand, if they agree that the credit is unwarranted, they have more authority to help you deal with it, e.g. supporting you when you raise the issue with your supervisor.

If there is an archival record of the conference presentations then the authors are whoever the authors are. If the conference doesn't have any type of archival record of the presentations, then you are in a grey area. Who is going to be authors when the work is eventually published? It sounds like the adviser expects to be an author. Presumably you have not talked about authorship with your adviser. I cannot stress this enough, prior to starting any project discuss authorship and funding with your collaborators and advisers
Given that a project has already begun without prior discussions of authorship, you need to work it out ASAP. I would hope that your adviser was not simply claiming credit to "beef up" his CV (if he was you have some serious problems). My guess is that he thinks he made an intellectual contribution to the work. You need to have a civil conversation with him to understand what his expectations are about the minimum contributions needed to warrant authorship. If you strongly disagree with this view, you need to consult other colleagues to determine who is being reasonable/unreasonable. Once the authorship parameters are laid out, you need to understand what he believes are his contributions. These then need to be compared to the criteria for authorship.
Do not suggest that your adviser has taken credit he doesn't deserve unless he is substantially below the authorship bar. It is an unfortunate situation but a co-authored paper and a reference is generally much more valuable than a single author paper and no reference. If he is clearly below the authorship bar then you have a MAJOR issue.

Excellent answer. Academics (at least the ones I know) are usually open to reason. Finding out if the adviser actually has a reason to be listed as co-author should not ruffle any feathers (unless he is really trying to 'steal credit' and he feels like he is getting caught which seems unlikely since he's made a public claim which you might well run across).

To be fair, if your advisor had no intellectual involvement in the presentation, then he does not have the right to list it on his CV. However, getting him to agree to take it off is a different matter altogether.
Perhaps the way to begin this conversation is to ask your advisor why the paper is listed on his web page. Don't make it a demand, but instead probe the reasons for doing it, and perhaps drop a few suggestions. For instance, as you mentioned above, you could ask: "Won't having a single-author credit on my CV be helpful?" as part of the conversation.
However, I think if you make it more of a "mutually arrived at decision" rather than a demand that he take the publication off the CV, you'll get a more favorable response.

Thanks a lot, everyone!  These are really helpful perspectives, and I think the points that have been raised about the differences in norms between disciplines is interesting in and of itself.  Made me realize that perhaps I was assuming too much about his motives and about it being unfair.  I will try aeismail's suggestion of probing my supervisor's reasons for doing this.  Thanks again!!

Don't forget also that however counterintuitive it may be, his name on your work may be beneficial for you too (as a "quality stamp" or as the evidence that your point of view is supported by at least one person with established reputation, which in social sciences may make a lot of difference). So, it is much more complicated than just "stealing some part of the credit".


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Why don't journal publishers ask for proof of affiliation?
It seems like journal publishers do not require credentials for proof of your affiliation and identity. There are many places where such credentials are important, but even the most popular journal publishers do not ask for them. Why is that so?

I don't know for sure, but it seems to me that it would be difficult to check credentials. If I had to prove that I'm affiliated with the University of Michigan, I could send a scan of my university ID card, but can publishers tell a genuine ID card from a fake, considering that different universities have different-looking cards? I could send a link to my department's web page, but they could find that anyway by googling my name.

Why do they need proof of credentials?

I guess it's for the same reason that online shops don't ask for proof of your home address when you order something.

@AndreasBlass The last sentence of your comment: they could find that anyway by googling my name makes sense. But, how do they do that before Internet (Google, Yahoo, ... etc) was born?

@scaaahu Before the internet, proving my affiliation would have been even more difficult. I could snail-mail the publisher a xerox copy of my ID card, or of the letter offering me an appointment (many years ago) or of the annual letter telling me what my salary is (presumably with the salary itself blacked out), but all of those seem easy to fake. I guess the best verification method would be for the publisher to phone the department's office and ask a secretary whether I worked there.

@AndreasBlass: "I could send a link to my department's web page" - and others might not even be able to do that, e.g. Bachelor/Master students who participate in writing a paper. At the same time, the secretaries of the department would likely have no idea who the caller is talking about when they ask about the student's name (although the normal course of action would then be to write a department-wide mail to ask whether anyone knows or collaborates with a student of name X).

Why would anyone fake the aff.? For serious authors, it's a very bad idea since if this is ever discovered (and someone eventually will) your career is toast. For frauds, I guess you could be trying to make the paper sound more credible since it's coming from a famous school... But affiliation doesn't really help a paper all that much. Ask people at famous schools who have trouble getting published.

@scaaahu Before the internet and general use of computers, there were almost no bibliometrical data available, so the incentive to list a false affiliation was lower. Also, it would mean people wouldn't have been able to reach you since the simply mailed the article authors by the affiliation in the article (by mail I mean paper mail of course).

In that other thread: http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/3011/4484 says you don't need to be affiliated to an academic institution in order to publish...

@silvado Buh? That's a completely different situation. Somebody who lies by claiming to live at a prestigious address when they order stuff online is instantly "punished" by not receiving the stuff they ordered. And it's common to order things for other people, e.g., as gifts. Somebody who lies by claiming to work at a prestigious university when they submit a paper... well, I'm not sure what happens to them but it's certainly not that they automatically don't receive something they paid for.

@GEdgar: It is true that you don't need to be affiliated to publish. But all are aware that in the absence of blind review, the affiliation and nation of origin do make an impression on the average reviewer. This fact is undeniable.

Information technology will catch up with this.

@DavidRicherby Well, they won't receive any correspondence about the paper that goes to the false affiliation, and people who know their true affiliation may even think that the paper hasn't really been published by them.

@silvado: What if you care less about the people who know your true affiliation. What if you decide to migrate altogether and use the (false) reputation gained elsewhere?

You put your affiliation so your institute is happy. The journal doesn't care what is your affiliation.

@Greg: Is that true all the time? I've heard rumours on how certain affiliation can boost acceptance of manuscripts.

There are several answers here.

They quite probably already do so (eg if a claimed affiliation to a prestigious institution looks too good to be true, or unlikely given other information, or a reviewer says "hey, wait..."), but on an informal and ad-hoc basis, rather than doing it for the 99% of unremarkable cases.
They usually don't need to. Most submitters will provide an institutional email address, which is itself a fairly good indication that you are affiliated with that institution. (In the old days, you might have used letterhead - same sort of thing)
Beyond this, defining "credentials" would be complex. Would you need them to point to an institutional webpage with their name on? Submit a payslip? Produce a certificate of employment? (And what would you define as "counting" for affiliation?)
Finally (and most importantly) most of the publishing system is based on trust. The publisher trusts you to have actually carried out the experiments, and to have reported them honestly and comprehensively. They trust you not to have plagarised, or committed ethical breaches, or misrepresented other researchers. They may ask you to sign something to certify you've done all these things correctly, but they won't ask for evidence that someone else has verified you did them. If they're willing to take your word on the actual content of your science, why be particularly distrustful of your affiliation?

+1 for the first three points. But the account on trust should take a second look. Refer [this][http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/27/fabricated-peer-reviews-prompt-scientific-journal-to-retract-43-papers-systematic-scheme-may-affect-other-journals/?postshare=5031427452343393] This shows how serious identity information should be accounted for in publications.

@ÉbeIsaac The people in question were offering peer review using fake names, not publish articles.

Read carefully; author names were also found to be fake to claim another nationality.

@ÉbeIsaac it's certainly true that some people do like and abuse the system, but that serves to demonstrate how trust-dependent the system currently is. It would need a very dramatic change in attitude (and a much more bureaucratic process) before checking affiliation would become widespread.

Exactly, that is why reputed publishers should be the first to start the bureaucratic process.

@ÉbeIsaac, where exactly in the linked article are fake author names, instead of fake reviewer names, mentioned?

The crucial point is: Why would the author lie? Let's try some hypothetical answers:

To bluff the editors and reviewers so that they think you're at a top place. But reviewers will likely be from your field of study and realize that you lie. They would probably know it if you moved to a high-ranking institution.
To make the paper look good in your CV. This is a non-sense, you sell your affiliation in different ways than by listing them in your papers.

I can't think of any other reason. Given that the authors have no incentive to list a false affiliation, there is no reason to verify it.
Also, remember that some affiliations are very hard to verify, for instance if you stay somewhere for 6 months and want to list it as an affiliation, you possibly do not appear in any official lists.

no incentive to list a false affiliation: I suppose [this] (http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/54683/how-can-i-find-out-if-someone-really-holds-a-doctoral-degree) may be an example of why should someone give false affiliation. This can be used to claim that the personnel has worked/studied in such a institution.

@ÉbeIsaac If a hiring manager relies on affiliations on journal articles to verify that someone has a degree from there, he's a bad hiring manager. What if I published 3 papers but never got the degree? Also, this would require a much bigger fraud (trying to sneak in alumni on linkedin and get many friends from there, etc.).

I'd like to know what the downvote is for. I'm fine with getting downvoted, but if I don't know what's wrong, it's hardly a helpful feedback. If the downvoter spared a comment with their reason, it would be appreciated. Thanks!

A journal is interested in whether the submitted article is,

Appropriate in subject matter for that journal
Of a suitable standard for that journal (as advised by reviewers)

In an ideal world, neither of these things is indicated by affiliation - so why should they care?

Unfortunately, this is not entirely true. I can't give you a reference, but there are observations that your both your affiliation and your name can significantly influence the odds your paper gets accepted, especially in some top journals.

@yo' I'm sure that's true. Thanks for pointing it out - I've added a qualifier to my final line!

@SimonW Yes, it's correlated but it's undesirable, so there is an incentive to push back from this. The journal's editors do not want referees who judge papers written by famous professors to just skim over the papers and not evaluate these as critically as a papers written by other people.

@CountIblis That's also not true. An idea by a famous person gets more attention than the same idea by someone unknown. The same probably holds for institutions. So if journal cares for high stats like the IF, they prefer articles from well known institutions because these are in general more cited.

There are some examples of papers published under false names or pseudonyms. For example, Student's t-distribution. A possible scenario is a scientist working in a private institution which doesn't allow him to legally disclose his research. Just like books can be published under pen names, scientific articles can be written using pseudonyms (see If I publish under a pseudonym, can I still take credit for my work?). If that's allowed, it makes no sense to check credentials, including affiliation.

It is true (+1). It is written that Countess Ada Lovelace herself published her research under a pseudonym. But is that necessary now? If one uses another famous author's name as his own, how would the publisher find out? The motive may even to taint the reputation of such an author. As far-fetched as it may seem, isn't this possible?

But did "Student" actually claim an affiliation that he didn't have? Besides, it was perfectly obvious that it was a pseudonym, since he didn't have a first name and a last name or anything like that, just "Student".

@MichaelHardy My point is that if false identities are allowed, double checking affiliations doesn't make much sense. Maybe a point can be made that either you use your real name, or you use something that is obviously a pseudonym, to forbid someone impersonating another real author.

It's worth noting that most of the linked question talks about 'pseudonyms' which are simply adopted for distinctiveness - using an unusual middle name for publication purposes, say - rather than pseudonyms used to conceal or mislead someone about your real identity. I doubt many journals these days would be happy with explicitly concealed author identities except in very unusual circumstances; 'Student' published in a very different world...

In the case of 'Student', etc, I believe the convention of the time was that the publisher did know who the author was, but permitted it to be published under a pseudonym - so they would certainly be in a position to check its authenticity in these cases/

@becko : Instead of saying "if false identities are allowed, double checking affiliations doesn't make much sense", why not say instead simply that if no institutional affiliation is claimed, then double checking an affiliations doesn't make much sense?

For the most part, your name and affiliation are not relevant to the content of a paper, which is what a journal is interested in. In the vast majority of cases an author would not have any incentive to lie about such things, so a journal would probably be willing to either take you at your word or only perform some basic checks, unless there were circumstances which aroused suspicion. The only incentive I can think of for an author to disguise their name or affiliation is if they wished to hide a conflict of interest or bad reputation, which I have seen happen. I expect it's pretty rare though.

Because academia used to be about science, scholarship, and the advancement of learning and predominantly practiced by folk who would not dream of fibbing about such matters.
Because editors have busy lives and they are not the police and journals are not official organs of the state.
Because universities would only care if something controversial or harmful etc was unauthorisedly stated under their aegis - but they do not mind getting the credit for solid work.
Because if some third party does object (hey! someone has read my paper, or at least the author list!), the affiliation is easily checked with the uni (a quick call, a visit to a web site) and the matter resolved.
Because there are various entirely valid reasons for a person to be affiliated with the uni for the purposes of the paper, even when they are not (no longer, not yet) at that uni right now.


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Clear explanation of Conflict of Interest with examples in journal articles
Some journals require you to state the conflicts of interests (if any). According to the Wikipedia definition,

A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial interest, or otherwise, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation of the individual or organization.

What exactly is a conflict of interest in the context of journals? How does it affect the publication process? All papers I've read so far has the declaration "The authors declare they have no conflict of interests" in that section. Could anyone give some sample published papers which has a notable conflict of interest in it?

We turn to the medical literature, particularly hospital epidemiology, which has a lot of corporate funding relative to federal funding.
Example 1 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/674394?origin=JSTOR-pdf):

E.T.L. has received research grant support from Merck. D.J.A. participates on the speaker’s bureau of and has received research grant support from Merck. All other authors report no conflicts of interest relevant to this article. All authors submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest, and the conflicts that the editors consider relevant to this article are disclosed here.

Example 2 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/658944?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents):

Potential conflicts of interest. E.R.D. reports that he has performed research for Viropharma and Merck and has served as a consultant for Merck, Becton-Dickinson, Optimer, Meridian, and Steris. All other authors report no conflicts of interest relevant to this article.

Generally speaking, the ICMJE asks about any sort of financial relationship that may be thought of as potentially influencing the results of the study, including board membership, consulting, expert testimony, grants, speakers bureaus, payment for manuscript prep., patents, royalties, stock, travel outside the project, etc.
It doesn't necessarily alter the review process, but reviewers are provided with the COI, and it has, in at least one paper I've read, put the results in context. I imagine for particular egregious examples, it could pose a problem. It's also a mandatory disclaimer at the beginning of almost all conference presentations in the field.

Suppose a researcher is funded by the government defence ministry to do a research project. The researcher produces a working algorithm that benefits the funding agency and decides to write a research article based on the result (with relevant acknowledgment and etc.). Here, the correctness of the result is highly relevant to the funding. Would a COI come into play here? Should this be notified in the manuscript too?

@ÉbeIsaac At least in this field, declaring sources of funding is a separate, but also mandatory, portion of a paper. COI, in this case, is meant to cover influences beyond just "Did you get a grant to do this?"

I recall having seen some papers (say, on a method of electrode modification), where an author has been a shareholder in a company implementing this method on an industry scale, commercially. This is an example of a COI; a person is gaining money from another entity (in this case, his company) working in the same sphere.
Here's what I found on the web.

A potential conflict of interest exists when an author has a direct or indirect relationship, through the research-sponsoring institution, with a company that may benefit from the results of the study. The following types of relationship are considered as potentially conflicting and must be disclosed:
If over the past two years one of the authors:

Received fees for consulting services, delivery of lectures and text writing or payment for any other type of service rendered to the manufacturer of the product.
Received any kind of contribution from the manufacturer of the product (funds for the project, equipment, drugs, personnel) related to the project under analysis or any other involving the same product.
Received funds from the manufacturer of the product to participate in congresses/conferences.
Owned stocks in the company that manufactures the product.
Is employed by a company that may direct or indirectly benefit from the results of the study.
The manufacturer of the product has been involved in data collection, analysis, interpretation or writing.

My example falls under 'owned stocks' part.


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How to put a research department of a university or an internship in the acknowledgments?
How can I put a research department of a university or an internship awarded into the acknowledgments section of a research paper?

Do you mean how to acknowledge the department where you interned?

@Spark, yes it is.

You can simply write

this work has been conducted while Alex was visiting XXXXXX


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First Language for the Application
I was applying for an academic research program and they wanted to know about my first language.
I am confused about my first language because from childhood on, I used to speak English because English is the medium of teaching in my school, but my parents speak French at home so I used to speak french at home.
Now, which language should I mention as my first language in my application?

Your first language needn't mean chronological. It can mean your primary language for everyday communication. There is no need to overthink it.
If you are fluent in two or more languages you can mention that somewhere.

So,Will,it be okay if I put English as my First language in the application? Although I always speak French at home?

Some people are truly bilingual and can say so.  In India, I think it is common among the educated to be trilingual, actually.


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How to find interesting/important papers
I am doing a PhD in mathematics, and it seems like the other PhD students/post-docs always have long lists of recent papers they want to read (although they all say they never get round to it).
When I'm working on a specific problem, I'll collect a list of interesting/important papers relevant to it - but making this list takes a decent amount of time and tends to be a result of me thinking about which part of the proofs are important for me to understand in-depth.
How do people identify recent interesting/important papers which are not directly relevant to a problem they already know a lot about? Do people just search on arXiv and look at the recent papers in that field? And if so, how do you know if a paper is considered 'correct' or not?

No single paper is ‘correct’ - you need an ecosystem of papers to start approximating ’correct’.

Why do you want to "make a list" before you start reading?

Nearly the same way you stumble into most interesting-but-unanticipated things in life: get out there, keep an open mind. Avoid the trap of focusing on being a comprehensive paper hunter.

I am subscribed to RSS feeds in most relevant journals and have a filter set to highlight papers based on about a hundred of keywords and author names that I am interested in following. That gives a few hits per day. In addition I read titles on arXiv every few days to see if there is anything interesting there. It takes 5-10 minutes while sipping morning coffee. Only for about 10% of those papers, I actually read the abstract and for only 1% the whole paper. If you want to catch up on some field you didn't follow before, reading review articles is most helpful. Keyword search in publication databases is useful to find answers to specific questions.

Talk to people in your field to get ideas for what might be useful to read.
Join professional organizations in your field so that you have access to their journals or at least the ToC of their journals. Go to some of their conferences so that you can see presentations, but also talk to people in the field for what they think should be read.
When you read a paper, follow up on those it cites.
Search arXiv for keywords.
Carry a notebook and when you get an idea for something (topics) worth following up, make a note so that you can search the literature later. And make notes when you talk to people.
If you have access to citation indexes, look there for things that others seem to think are important. Talk to an academic librarian about this.
Not rocket science.

I recommend registering for Google Alerts for your field/advisor on the technical site and https://www.connectedpapers.com/. Following people in your field on social media also helps.
Regarding correctness: Make yourself comfortable with the journals and conferences in your field to prioritize and discard predatory publishers.

All of the answers already given are valid and useful, but there are some new AI driven tools coming out that might further help you, like ResearchRabbit, that basically takes a few examples and generate lists of related papers for you.


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PhD Position in Germany
I wrote to a professor at a German research institute who was hiring PhD students. His area was a bit different from mine, but he wanted to have a chat. We met over Zoom and I told him about my projects. He found it impressive and said he wanted to explore supervising me and would get one of his colleagues to cosupervise given the minute differences in areas of research. He also asked me to prepare a technical presentation and requested the names and contact details of my references.
After preparing my presentation I emailed him. He was at a conference but still listened to my presentation and asked a lot of questions, took a lot of notes. The presentation was based on a paper he wrote. I could answer most of the questions apart from one. He also told me that he has written to my referees for the references and has even discussed ideas about co-supervison. He said he would also assess the presentation and discuss it further with his colleague and will be in touch.
My referees sent the reference letters. One of them was delaying it and wrote to him saying he’ll take time to which he asked to write at his own pace. But since our last interview he never wrote back to me. It’s been 11 days. The references have all been sent.
His automatic reply says he’s travelling and will be slow to respond but nevertheless he replied to my referee and not to me. I wrote to him that my first referee has furnished the letter while the 2nd individual may take time.
Can anyone tell me if this looks negative or positive? Is the professor avoiding me, in which case it would be safe to assume that he is not interested.

11 days is not a long time in my view. I wouldn't worry about this. Maybe after 3 weeks, but even that isn't outrageously long.

Academics can be very slow with replying to emails. He may be travelling and/or busy with conferences and just needs to be in the right setting before getting back to you. Wait a little longer and if you have not heard back, then send a kind reminder that you want to follow up with the PhD offer.

It will only be safe to assume he isn't interested when he says so. Quite the opposite, he seems to be still interested, though very busy.
If he doesn't want to follow up he will likely say so and then you will know. Good luck.
I don't know if his being busy is a warning sign, though, for future guidance. Keep that in mind as you proceed. But this is the season to be busy with professional things for researchers, so maybe not an issue.

Is asking for a reference a positive sign or just normal since he wrote to them even before my presentation when he discussed some of the co supervision plans with his colleague.

Yes, very positive. Nothing is guaranteed, though.

Thanks so much. I just got to know today he even thanked my supervisor referee for sending in the reference letter.

@Buffy being away on vacation is not being busy. Quite the opposite actually. And him not being reachable during that time is completely ok, because it should be a time to unwind and relax and not think about work. Why should it be a warning sign if someone takes their well deserved vacation? This doesn't say anything about their quality as a supervisor. On the contratry, when not on vacation, he even took the time while being at a conference to listen to OPs presentation.

People in Germany take their summer vacation seriously. Some nevertheless look into their email every once in a while and may chose to answer select mails that they deem important. He sought it important enough to answer the referee to assure them a delay won't matter and prevent stress for them.
If the professor is on vacation and needs to discuss your position further with a colleague he can only do this when back from vacation. Of course it is not ideal for you, but there is really nothing you can do but wait. Normally there is a date given in automated messages that tells you when the person is supposed to be back im office. Give him a few days after that to catch up with things and then contact him again.

I have now come to know that he has been constantly in touch with my referee answering his emails. He however never responded to me. I had only let him know that my references might come in a bit late and then enquired from him if he had received all of them.

@AtmadeepGhoshal Then why would he bother to be in constant contact with the referee if he has not intention to hire you?

I was thinking maybe he was just being nice to my referee since he had initiated the interaction. I’m scared because he did not respond to any of my emails. Also, most of the conversations that took place between them were about clarifying delays in submission  on my referees part and gratitude on his part.

Is the first week of the semesters always busy in Germany? I understand that August was vacation month but now that it’s September I still have not heard anything. In the meantime I also heard back from two other people who wanted to interview me but now that I’ve written back to them expressing my willingness, they seem to be silent.

@AtmadeepGhoshal The semester starts at the beginning of October. Both August and September are free of teaching, thus professors can be absent.


text:
Misunderstanding in the author list. Doing valuable suggestions during group meeting suffices to be considered as a co-author?
In the framework of a collaborative project (i.e. 10 universities of the same country got granted money to do research using different approaches in the same topic), i was hired to develop a model. This model is not very novel, the novelty lies in coupling several sub-models, which have already been published.
I gave a talk to all the researchers of the project (around 50 people). During my talk, an Associate Professor from another university gave me a very valuable suggestion (I missed something, but it could be fixed just by adding a different sub-model to my model: i.e. changing a couple equations in the formulation). After that, he wrote an email to me and we had a 10 minutes skype discussion.
After submitting the paper 3 months ago, the Associate Professor wrote an email to me saying that he had been invited by the journal to review the paper, something that he rejected due to conflict of interests. In a polite way, he said to me that he considers he should be an author of the paper, as he read the abstract and thinks some ideas are his. In his email, he suggests that not only the idea of changing something was his, but other ideas expressed in the abstract were also his one idea. He tries to be friendly in his email, and he explicitly says that he writes to me and explains this situation, so I do not have this kind of misunderstanding in the future (as I am an early career researcher).
The paper has 5 authors. Me, my supervisor (we did all work) and three "guest authors": the principal investigator of the research grant, the head of the research grant at my university and a PostDoc that continued this research line after I left the University. These three people were not involved in the research.
To me, his reaction is toxic and over-dramatic. He was never involved in the coding and validation of the model, and he never saw a draft of the manuscript. The only two times I talked to him about the model was in the group meeting and in the subsequent skype talk (10 minutes). In my mind, he gave his opinion of the model and gave valuable suggestions on how to improve it. To me, this is the behavior a tenured professor (and expert of that field) should have in the context of a collaborative project between several Universities, without expecting to be added to the authors list. Moreover, my field is so small that, during conferences, other senior academics (with whom I have never talked) have suggested me ideas to work in the future.
My questions are:
To what extent giving a suggestion (even if valuable) in the framework of a collaborative project between universities converts you as a co-author, or adding that person in the acknowledgement is sufficient.
Should I reply to the Associate Professor being political correct (I feel sorry you feel this way, you know I tried to add you as a co-author,….) or being a little confrontational to him (One idea was yours, but you gave it in the framework of a collaborative project; you were never really involved in my research project….)?

Please make your post a lot shorter.

At one point you describe an "assistant professor" at another an "associate professor". Is that an error? How many "authors" do you currently have?

Sorry about the confusion, I edit the message, it is always the same person. The paper has 5 authors: Me, my supervisor and three "guest authors": the principal investigator of the research grant, the head of the research grant at my university and a PostDoc that continued this research line after I left the University. These three people were not involved in the research.

Similar question from another perspective: Was I unreasonably left out of author list?

Your use of "political correct" has nothing to do with how this term is normally used. I suggest you remove it as it isn't helpful bringing it in here, rather it is a distraction.

'you know I tried to add you as a co-author'. Oh? Ok, when, how, what did he say?

Guest authorship is unethical.  But since it seems that you are intent on having three guest authors ("These three people were not involved in the research"), why not include a fourth ("you were never really involved in my research project")? What's so special about this fourth person that the other three get to be guest authors and the fourth one doesn't?

Two questions: 1. what does your supervisor, who also is a co-author, think? 2. why do you think it's bad to add another co-author although their contribution was very limited?

"He tries to be friendly in his email, and he explicitly says that he writes to me and explains this situation, so I do not have this kind of misunderstanding in the future (as I am an early career researcher)." << This reads like "I write to you because you're the youngest, least-experienced and most-impressionable author, so I'm more likely to successfully talk you into adding me as an author than if I wrote to your more experienced co-authors"

'Toxic and over-dramatic'?

Does this answer your question? What should I do if I feel that a senior academic is trying to take advantage of me?  the answers there clearly suggest the type of contributions the AP did would qualify for co-authorship

@Stef I get a completely different impression, that this person is prepared to let it go but warning that others may be less tolerant in future. Of course they contacted the author they've previously discussed the project with, rather than anyone else.

Several decades ago, this would have been reason to thank someone in the acknowledgements, but now with author inflation the custom is increasingly to form author guilds and add anyone as co-author who contributed anything. Following current custom, they would reciprocate, improving everyone's citation metrics without any increase in actual accomplishment. These days, it costs more to deny someone co-authorship than to grant them co-authorship.

To pile on: since you already have two unproductive "guest" authors who should have only had acknowledgments, and this other person was actually more useful than the two guest authors, logic dictates that they should also be an author on the paper. Sorry. That's just how it goes.

Frankly, if three people that haven't contributed anything get authorship, it's very hard to defend that a person that at least made valuable suggestions and had some relevant conversations with you is not made a coauthor. Whether their level of contribution justifies an authorship at all in a general context, we cannot say. But according to the criteria that you already apply to your publication, they definitively do. Otherwise you are moving the goalposts to your convenience. And that's certainly not on.

@EspeciallyLime I concur with your judgement. It was a warning for the future. OP should be clearer about how contributions are being allocated authorship. It is a good idea in general to agree on authorship/collaborations ahead of a technical discussion with people one does not know and trust well, if possible. This avoids heartache and trouble. Giving them opportunity to enhance/bolster their contribution (once they have started) is another way to be academically sound. They may say just to acknowledge them or will want to actively improve the work.

I don't know your field or it's customs, but in mathematics the interaction you describe could well be reason enough to include the person as a co-author. It is even possible, in math, that a five minute coffee room chat could provide the crux of the argument that breaks a jam.
Moreover, you lose little, and perhaps gain much, by including them as an author. Think about the possibility of future collaborations as they seem to be able to integrate things.
Some fields are more "strict" about authorship, requiring participation in the actual writing process for example. Others don't, depending more on the nature of the intellectual contributions. The fact that you were asked makes me think that the professor is thinking more like this is the latter case than the former, but there are many variations.
Think about what you gain or what you lose. This won't be your only paper, one hopes.

Edited to add:
Your comment on the participation (or lack of participation) of your authors suggests pretty strongly that this associate professor should be added. Their contribution certainly outweighed that of some of the others. Do The Right Thing.

I would add that (at least as I understand OPs description) there are already 3 people on the author list who definitely contributed less ('guest authors') than the professor who gave you these valuable suggestions. If they make the cut why would you exclude this professor?

I agree that coauthorship for the important suggestion is appropriate. I might go further than  @quarague and suggest that the three "guest coauthorships" are inappropriate.

@EthanBolker,I agree but we are both mathematicians

Well, rightly, there ought to be only two authors on your paper: you and your supervisor, as you did all the work. The three "guest authors" are an academic disgrace. The helpful suggestion given by the Assoc. Prof. merits his mentioning in Acknowledgements. During my PhD, I (1) found an error in a famous Professor's ready-to-submit draft, which he then discarded; it was beyond repair. I was thanked in the Acknowledgements in his completely different second take on the problem. And, (2) I came up with a suggestion after a presentation of yet another famous Prof. to provide him a new angle to solve the problem. Again, I was thanked in the Acknowledgements. This was all well and is how things should work but in modern times, science and scientist have become mere merchandise. CVs and egos must be kept polished to keep afloat on the market. If you really want a scientific career accept/invite any co-authors, who will pave the way for you.

"The three "guest authors" are an academic disgrace." +1

Not being part of all of the communications it's difficult to say for sure, but it's possible there's a bit of a misunderstanding here.
It may not be that this professor feels that he should be a co-author having provided the suggestion and nothing else. Rather, he may be saying that if you wanted to incorporate his ideas, he feels he should have been included in the process, giving him the opportunity to contribute to those other aspects of model development and manuscript review which would fully quality for co-authorship.
Given you're apparently already part of an active collaboration, the context around this is rather different to meeting someone in passing at a conference, and it's perhaps not such an unreasonable request. Although it's the sort of thing they could have communicated much more clearly to a more junior investigator if they felt strongly about it.

In my field, an isolated useful comment or suggestion doesn't really warrant authorship (or necessitate an offer to be included further). I would not make any/every person who provided feedback on an idea or manuscript draft an author. I've never had anyone ask to be an author as a result of one-off feedback either (I have offered if I feel like they provided some critical insight). So I would expect a more active collaboration before discussing authorship. If someone was interested in meeting and contributing significantly to the manuscript, even if it was in a late stage, I would think that would bump them up from an acknowledgement to a potential co-author.
That being said, it sounds like there is some pre-existing collaboration so maybe, from the perspective of your colleague, it's more reasonable to expect inclusion (or an offer of inclusion). You're also admitting to including "guest authors" so obviously there is somewhat looser authorship criteria in your group and therefore different expectations - whether or not this is ethical is a different conversation.
As for how you should respond, diplomatic is probably safest. Apologize for the miscommunication, maybe leave an open invitation to collaborate in the future, and leave it at that. Don't point fingers or make excuses. Don't go on a rant about how they didn't contribute enough. Being non-confrontational in this case costs you nothing (since it doesn't sound like you're being asked to do anything even remotely inconvenient) but you potentially burn a bridge if you're email gets read the wrong way.

What is the 'miscommunication'?

The scientific papers I have been an author for all had specific criteria that need to be met in order to be an author. Check the journal requirements. If an author doesn't meet the criteria then they shouldn't be listed. That being said, it's usually ignored unfortunately. You need to decide if it really is an issue worth fighting.

I've been out of Academia for a while and so there are definitely other people more-qualified than I to answer your question directly. However, the term "miscommunication" has come up a few times, both in your title and in some answers.
If you want to get to the root of the question title - you had an opportunity to determine whether it merits inclusion or not. You had a 1-on-1 discussion on Skype so they clearly had some further interest in your project. You could easily have ended with "Well, it's been great to chat to you; thanks for following up on this! Would you mind if I included an acknowledgement for this input?". (After just a 10 minute dialogue I think that's a reasonable opener - including them costs you nothing). If they instead blocked out 3 hours, it's up to you to ask a frank question beforehand about the expected outcome.
That establishes a baseline from your perspective on the value of their input and gives them an opportunity to react:

They decline. They judge their input to be below the bar for even that
They graciously accept and are happy that you acknowledged their input
They react somewhat "off" to the suggestion. The problem is now theirs - they didn't decide to clarify their position before they followed up (we're talking 10 minutes here...), and anyone that expects beforehand to get something substantial should have laid out their expectations. But, now everyone is clear on the expectations of both sides immediately, not by a 3rd party review request.

If they give a positive reaction (Option 1 or 2) then you might even extend it to a proposal for a full collaboration since they clearly know the field - "That's great! You know, if you want to get more involved with X, Y, Z then..." and then have a concrete discussion on terms going forward.


text:
Acknowledgement in papers
I have helped a scientific(math) author to find a reference and I have corrected several errors in his paper. Should he acknowledges me when he publishes his paper? Will that affect my academic career positively or negatively? And if he doesn't acknowledge me what can I do?

Under the circumstance that you described, I think the author should acknowledge you, but I also think you shouldn't care much whether he does or not. Acknowledgements are unlikely to help advance your career or status.

@Andreas Blass Thanks a lot for your reply!

@Buffy Thank you for editing!

should he acknowledges me when he publish his paper?

Acknowledgments are discretionary, so they needn't acknowledge you.

Will that affect my academic career positively or negatively?

Any impact will likely be minimal.

And if he doesn't acknowledge me what can I do?

You needn't do anything.

Thanks for your answer! But according to APA guide, every person who has contributed to the paper should be mentioned and acknowledged otherwise it will be considered as plagiarism.

@E.s. Helping-out might not be considered as contributing.

thanks! So you mean finding a reference that he needed (and that he couldn't find ) and correcting mistakes are not considered as a contribution?

@CJR If I corrected both? Also, what about the reference provided... is it considered as a contribution?

@CJR thanks! I don't want to be a co-author even if the mistakes were not just typography but someone has told me that in this case the authors should write "The authors would like to acknowledge Mrs. X for her editorial help during the preparation of this manuscript.” ... is this true?

@CJR I'd say authorship goes beyond more than just typography. An intellectual contribution is certainly required, but not sufficient, for me. It's difficult to provide a general quantification though.

@E.s. I'd say the following is true: The authors could write "The authors would like to acknowledge Mrs. X for her editorial help during the preparation of this manuscript," rather than they should (or must).

The usual standard for co-authorship is to "intellectually contribute" to the material. That means being part of the hypothesis formulation, experimental evaluation, theoretical development, and/or statistical assessment. Finding a reference is not an "intellectual contribution".

@user2768 Do you mean that if they were grateful to the aid provided, they will mention me in the acknowledgements but if they didn't mention my name it won't be considered as a plagiarism?

@Wolfgang Bangerth Thanks for your answer! However, I haven't said that I am a co-author :) I have said that they might put my name in the acknowledgements section if they were grateful for the help that I have provided.

@E.s. -- I was responding to some of the comments above. As for acknowledgments: That's a question of personal preference. Some people (myself included) generally are quite happy to spread praise around, others really just thank those of contributed in very substantial ways. You can't draw any inferences from reading acknowledgments, and everyone knows that -- in other words, nobody is going to think less of you even though you're not listed in a particular paper, even if everyone knows that you contributed to it.

@Wolfgang Bangerth Thanks for your clarification! Sry i thought u were replying me in your previous comment! No it is not a matter of value (if they think less of me) but in my opinion, since I have helped him in several things so at least (out of respect) he should mention that... but they have told me now there is no rule that says that he should do so (even if the corrected mistakes were not typographic), thus it is not so much important.

@E.s. Acknowledgements are discretionary, as per my answer.

As per the answers of everyone, things are more clear. Thank you all for your answers!


text:
Requests by PhD assistant to Master's Student - Avoiding an unreasonable request
I am a master's degree student that is going to graduate in the next two weeks.
After having concluded a master's degree thesis with many econometric models in R I also decided to show the results in Latex. It is very good looking and easy to manage considering that was a 100+ pages work with many tables and plots. My thesis's professor was impressed and the dissertation looked very good at the very ending. All in all, it was an extremely hard work for me. Many analysis has been done (far more than requested), but I have learned so much during the journey that just because of this the investment paid back.
Now the problem. The PhD student who was in charge to "supervise me" wants to reproduce my work in "1 weekend". This is my one-year-long work and it is absolutely impossible to do it.
Moreover, since he is pretty statistical illiterate (he use statistical software as running black boxes), he is start asking improbable things, such as to export all input and output in .csv, or to merge data in .xlsx tables so that he can simply put them in Excel or Stata and "check" my work. And if it doesn't work to find a way to make it works.
Then he asked for all the codes, to "check" it. He want to press the button and replicate the analysis. But of course it doesn't work like that. Anyone who have ever used R, Python, etc. knows that is not that simple (just think how to solve directory repository problems...)
He also asked me to copy all the tables and put them in word format, in order to be "reproducible". To copy number by number if it is necessary because he need them.
I don't know the "bon-ton" in this situation. The professor was ok when I told him I was confident in R. This because he trusted me and my capabilities. But nobody told me that after my thesis was complete I would have needed to teach phd students R or how to replicate my analysis and solve their problems in doing it.
What should I do?

Start by talking with your advisor...

Yes but I don't know which exactly are my duties in this case. Am I expected to do all of this?

Is the PhD student expected to submit a suggested grade?

I really don’t know (but I suspect) it. However, tomorrow I’ll have a meeting with my professor. Maybe I can present him the problem.

There are three people involved at least, including the professor. I think the request is not reasonable for the reasons you state. Clearly the junior advisor has expectations, but they seem to be un-doable.
You have to judge personalities, but I'd suggest trying to see if you can have a meeting very soon with all three of you present. Try to come to an understanding about what can be reasonably done in the time remaining.
Try to find a backup plan if not all expectations can be met. Don't be shy about saying why such things are unreasonable and that melding your work to the advisors preferred work-flow at such a late date isn't feasible - or even desirable. Your use of R and LaTex seem to be good choices. I don't know why the PhD advisor wants to check your work independently of you and the professor. Maybe you can get an answer to that in a three person meeting.
My personal opinion is that you have been put in an untenable position. Unfortunately, I have no say or authority in the outcome.