text:
can you get a PhD in an area you didn't do your masters thesis?
My BSc thesis was on general relativity
MY MSc thesis was going to be on modified theories of gravity and cosmology, in hope of pursuing a PhD in this area or similar one day.
I know replies are going to be why would you want to do a PhD in an area you don't want to do master's level research at.
However, modified theories of gravity and cosmology would be my second choice right now, just from brief reading around, I don't think it's going to compare to the excitement of first learning general relativity and I did some reading around for PhD interviews- I got short-listed a fair amount and was told my academia and project description were strong and good enough, but really my lack of enthusiasm let me down-which is the story of my life because I'm a bit shy, anyway, so I just fancy a bit of a break from it, and I was thinking of a topic that involves a bit of pure maths as well as mathematical physics.
I guess pretty much my question is can you get a PhD in an area you didn't do your masters thesis?
Would it significantly lower my chances.
Could it perhaps be the case that I really enjoy my master's thesis and want to pursue a PhD in this instead?
Thanks

I did my MSc in Energy and Automation, and my PhD in Medical Imaging/Inverse Problems. I know someone who did a PhD in Psicology, after her MSc in distributed computing. What you are describing is essentially the same field, in general terms

Of course it's possible to change disciplines, particularly when you move from one degree level to another. It's a natural part of life that one's interests change over time, and nobody expects researchers today to engage in a single area of inquiry for their entire careers.

I found your question somewhat hard to read. I hope I can shed some light (on what I think your asking).
It's not like your switching to Roman History. Your research is still in the realm of Mathematics and Physics. I often meet people who did their MSc in pure Mathematics that then switch to Medical Physics.
So in my opinion, it is irrelevant. You just may need to spend more time getting an appropriate background in the field. The most important aspect of attempting a PhD, is to be fascinated by it. If your not interested in your PhD project, good luck with the next 4-5 years!

Waiting for this comment  did I say I'm not interested ? Qué my ban from this website, but why is everyone so snobby and anal

Are you the same person that wrote the question? Anywho, hope you have a great day.

The question should be instead: if my MSc is in area A, can I be admitted to the PhD program in area B?  In general, the answer is "yes" if you have the prerequisites for the PhD program in area B.
I do know examples of people with previous work in physics, computer science, or engineering that have been admitted to PhD programs in mathematics.  The condition was that, during their studies in those other areas, they learned enough mathematics.
I even know a top student in mathematics, admitted to the PhD program in mathematics at Harvard, who then turned around and did a PhD in political science at Harvard.


text:
I have been accused of copying two lab reports from the previous year even though I had done everything by myself
Today I got accused by my professor of cheating and copying two reports I submitted. I had a formal meeting with the professor where he tried to push me into admitting I cheated by showing me the surprising similarities. Even though I continuously denied it, he went forward to go to a formal hearing in the university where a panel will judge the outcome. I am currently freaking out. I know I did not cheat from anybody and I feel like the similarity could be due to a similar thought process (which sounds ridiculous). Should I just say that I did not cheat and stick with it? Or should I ask if I can redo the reports (though it sounds suspicious)? The reports were 68 percent similar and I feel like the odds are against me even though I did not do anything.
Edit: the software used was turnitin and I do not hav access to the original files to get time stamps. I literally can only deny the allegations. The only reasonable explanation is that the professor taught us in a similar manner and our report writing manner was similar due to the fact we have taken the same courses a year apart and had the same professors who molded our report writing skills.

You're best off being honest, and sticking to your story if it's true. If you start trying to make amends then that just makes you look guilty.

Did you discussed with anyone your assignments? Did anyone tutor you?

"The reports were 68% similar." Is this an arbitrary calculation, or was 68% of your report word-for-word identical with the previous year's report? Is this true of both the reports you submitted.

Surprising similarity with what? What is the benchmark? Would you please clarify what the ground truth is? It would be also valuable to specify which area of study you are involved in, although very generally.

If you have a student union at your university, they probably have experience with the process and can help you with the best way to proceed

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Are the reports so similar because they are from identical experiments (during a prior term)? There are only so many ways to record results, and if the labs were both performed correctly, it seems entirely plausible you got close-to-identical results to at least one person from a prior term. Even more, has the professor instructed you to write up your lab reports in a specific way? If so, that may add to your evidence that the similarity is coincidental.

How is it 68% similar? Does your professor have some sort of software that determines that? If so, then it sounds like you and another student copied work from the same source. C'mon bro, what really happened here? Can you clarify what the 68% is?

Is the report free-form or you were filling a lab report template? Did you include any mandatory (boilerplate) content like the description of the experiment or safety directions?

I was with you until "68 percent similar*...

If the 68% value is determined by a specific algorithm, can you inquire about the distribution of other reports? I would expect inverse dissimilarity to follow a gamma distribution. Are your reports statistical outliers or just part of the long tail?

the software used was turnitin and I do not hav access to the original files to get time stamps. I literally can only deny the allegations. The only reasonable explanation is that the professor taught us in a similar manner and our report writing manner was similar due to the fact we have taken the same courses a year apart and had the same professors who molded our report writing skills.

Are the human judges in the hearing going to be personally inspecting the two reports? I hope so. If they do that, and if they are unbiased, it seems likely that they should be able to recognize and understand why turnitin has given a false positive (assuming that it truly is a false positive). I would ask them to also give you a chance to review the reports, while they are present, so that you can understand what has caused the false alarm.

Why do you not have access to the original files, or earlier versions? (This question will probably come up). Personally: if you did it, admit it.

The professor should have gone through your thought process of why you wrote the report the way you did. And if your explanation made sense, they should've let it go.

If you used a Mac with Time Machine turned on you might have old versions in your weekly backups or daily backups up to 30 days.

@DJClayworth I've given a bit more information about Turnitin's scoring, in what was going to be a comment to you but turned into a sort-of answer

Are there any updates on this? Did you go through the ethic committee hearing?

In this kind of hearing, evidence will be paramount. "I know I did not cheat" isn't sufficient - that's just a denial. You need more, e.g.:

Can you show that you could not possibly have known about these 2 reports?
Do you have drafts of the report, preferably with time stamps, as you were writing it?
Did you work with anyone else? If so, can they vouch for you?

Offering to redo the reports won't work unfortunately - at this point, it's about academic integrity, not about the grade you get. It's likely advisable to get advice from someone familiar with your department and the academic integrity process, e.g. a faculty member you trust, or student counselors if available.
You might be interested in related questions such as this and this.

Yes, evidence is the key here. Drafts, notes, proof you accessed library resources on certain dates, the change log on any files, etc etc. Thinking about the last thing I wrote, I could produce an email where I laid out the idea, the library record where I accessed a digital version of the main source, my notes on the main source with time stamps, the record showing me checking out that physical book, a WhatsApp conversation where I talk about what I'm working on, and the file of the writing in various stages (thanks to the auto backups taken along the way). Gather that level of proof.

Ah, but evidence might be impossible to obtain. Good if you have it, but who is so paranoid that they collect it for assignments.

Isn't "innocent until proven guilty" the norm? I surprised that the accused needs more evidence than the accuser.

Let us continue the discussion about theories of law in chat.

Firstly, use version control. It's quite likely that you've produced your report in either MS Word, Libre Office or Google Docs. All of these programs store old revisions, although Google Docs stores all of the revisions while Word and Libre Office only a limited number. If you're able to produce evidence of partial work, it'll be clear you've produced the report yourself instead of copying it from previous work.
See for example https://www.dummies.com/software/microsoft-office/word/view-older-version-word-2016-document/ for accessing old versions of a Word document. Warning: only a limited number of revisions are stored, so don't save the document again as it will overwrite the oldest versions! If you exported your work as a PDF multiple times, look in the Trash Bin - there may be additional files there.
If you used LaTeX, you might have to use a digital forensics program, such as Autopsy, to recover deleted PDFs and scrub through a sea of deleted documents it recovers to find a previous version of this document.
Secondly, remember that you're innocent until proven guilty. It's the professor who needs to convince the panel that you cheated and not the opposite. Do not accept the professors framing of the situation.

Most of your suggestions don't work. It is now too late. And innocent until proven guilty is only in, for example, the US court system. But, no, don't accept the framing if it is incorrect.

If you use LaTeX, then you're actually much better off because it's better suited for using a proper dedicated VCS like Git, which is guaranteed to store the whole history. (Of course this doesn't help after the fact, it's a decision that needs to be done up front. Everybody should use VCS, unfortunately it's not commonly taught except in CS.)

@leftaroundabout: Not only intentional version control software, but implicit version control via cloud storage, can work well with any of these formats.  Sure, text-based markup like LaTeX makes diffs much more readable, but for the purpose at hand just being able to retrieve prior versions is sufficient.

I do not think version control is essential. A student will have some memories how they came up with the ideas, logic and in which order. If they could express them in a coherent way, I would tend to believe that far more, even without some git history, than some no-further-detailed assurances that this is their own work. Honest students can often tell narratives how they got to their conclusions, even if not particularly deep. If they cannot, this is a strong indicator for a fake - the git repository may even be faked after the fact by some helper in case of a disciplinary hearing.

@leftaroundabout If anything, version control is a much worse proof than say a Google docs history, since it's utterly trivial to fake such a history if you wanted to (depending on the detail, lots of work, but certainly doable).

@Voo indeed it is trivial to fake a history; faking one that's convincing upon some scrutiny isn't. It's still doable, perhaps even easy, but quite a lot of work. And having forged such a history is kind of proof of work too...

@leftaroundabout Just saying (as someone who wrote all their papers with LaTeX, checked into a git repository) that in this particular case Google Docs would actually be a pretty fool proof way to show that you did the work yourself. Although imaging writing a paper in Word or gdocs makes me shiver.

@Voo Yeah, indeed! I wonder if there are online services that can somehow “certify” a git repo, in the sense that they only accept pushing commits with timestamp in e.g. the previous 48 hours. Github, Gitlab or Bitbucket don't do that.

@leftaroundabout I'd think using Pull Requests with e.g. GitHub would work for this (I'm reasonably sure that the PR itself would be timestamped by GitHub), but rather cumbersome. Not an uninteresting idea. There might really be an idea for a service in there!

@leftaroundabout: s/much better suited/a little better suited/. git records changes by line. In LaTeX, a line is often a 200-or-more-word paragraph.

@einpoklum-reinstateMonica that's getting off-topic here. I actually put a (single!) line break after every or every second sentence in my LaTeX files, one of the reasons being precisely that it makes the diffs nicer.

@einpoklum I agree with leftroundabout that it's kind of irrelevant how Git records changes; all that matters is that it can show you a snapshot of what the content was (claimed to be) at a particular time. For the purposes of the situation in this question, people probably aren't very interested in the diffs.

@CaptainEmacs: Exactly; fair teachers can almost always determine the truth in any cheating case. Unfortunately, many teachers are unfair.

@einpoklum very offtopic but I think it's worth mentioning: You should read up on semantic linefeeds. It's not much taught, but it's an amazing concept for every kind of documentation or LaTeX documents and really makes a difference.

I've read the above answers, and they seem to give pretty good advice, but I have some more for you that isn't about procedures of college, but on personal etiquette and experience when being questioned by those who have authority.
In the military we say, "He who yells first has lost the argument."
When you go into this, have your facts ready, and find some way to keep your calm. If you are freaking out as you say, this can easily be misconstrued as acting in a guilty manner. When you are in front of them, treat it like a soldier would at a military board. Listen to their questions carefully, do not interrupt them, answer their questions truthfully, support your statements if possible, and correct any inconsistencies in their facts as you find them.
In short you are having a logical argument with them, and if you can find a weakness in their argument you can use that to unravel their argument or cast doubt on it's validity.
Most importantly though, you cannot do this if you are freaking out.
Also, remember, if one of them yells first or gets upset, you've won the argument. You kept your cool, and now have a means to attack their argument, or show that it is not logically sound, but emotionally driven.

Students can freak out even if they are not guilty. They are less experienced than the plagiarism hunters

@jgn Yes (not yelling, but reacting badly).

If a private goes into a review with an NCO who claims he did wrong and his commander, and the NCO starts to try to yell in order to make the private admit he did wrong, often times the commander who did not witness the scene will pick up on things the NCO let slip. If the private continues to keep his bearing, this can only reflect well for him. In an academic situation, you could use this fact that the other party was yelling and badgering you to press that he is trying to bully you, to either the others present, or those above them after, like the dean.

Find an advocate to support you. Some universities have an office (ombudsman) for this. In other places a student organization provides help. You may even need a lawyer if you are able to afford one. Another professor who trusts you might be able to help.
Papers were similar. It happens. I assume that whoever did the previous work had the same teacher, with the same lectures, and the same written materials (books, etc). Students were actually encouraged to think in a certain way.
Instructors should make sufficient changes from year to year that this sort of situation is impossible. Lazy professors lead to spurious charges.
If you have evidence, of course, present it. Insist on your innocence. Complain to the department head or the dean.
If you have to ask for the chance to do it over, ask that someone else set the assignment and evaluate it. Ask the department head.

If using the same preparation material is the case, then the high similarity would strongly suggest that both students insufficiently cited those preparation materials while copying them too closely.

@ScottSeidman, you are being quite speculative here. We haven't seen the assignments and have no knowledge of the scope.

I don't think so.  68% similarity is VERY big.  It does not happen by chance.  In my answer, I've provided the only other process I can think of that would result in similarity that high.

@ScottSeidman, you haven't seen the assignment or the solutions. So 68% is just noise here. Nor do we know who made the assessment of that number.

I've seen how these similarity reports are generated, using three or four different software tools, in the context of academic honesty hearings.  I have seen these numbers boosted by in-text citations that use authors names and dates, as well as reference lists, but assume that the prof would have noticed this.  My experience is that 68% is a large number, regardless of the tool used.  I have no trouble believing that the student did not copy an old report, but the description certainly has me scratching my head at the student's process.

@ScottSeidman, and my head is itchy over the professor's process.

No need for it to itch over that.  The prof used a plagiarism detection tool, and it spat out the number 68%.  You could criticize the prof for reassigning multiple times.  That might be poor pedagogy, but it is not a license for students to cheat.

-1 for demands to get a lawyer and that all instructors must not re-use assignments or be charged with laziness, etc. Way off base.

"Instructors should make sufficient changes from year to year that this sort of situation is impossible." That's not an appropriate note in this case. It's completely normal to have the just a single kit for the Compton scattering, Frank-Hertz experiment or measuring Brewster's angle. Students will do the same experiment with the same guidelines and filling the same form year from year. The only error here is to put the lab report in a plagiarism checking tool.

@Džuris, actually the OP hasn't described the nature of the "lab". It could be a lot of things. And is the named experiment so boring that only one set of things can be asked about it? If so, how are similar answers not inevitable. We also don't have a definition of the 68% similar or any way to judge its validity. There are far too many assumptions being made here.

@Džuris Even with those experiments somewhere it is just a form you fill but in our place we always wrote a report in a form of a paper. Several pages with a theoretical introduction and methods, results, discussion, conclusion. There was a lot of potential to copy and, alas, a lot of copying did happen. People even put the protocols on the web. That's why the prof might have some incorrect suspicion. I have also seen similar checks to do loads of false positives including marking of the obligatory legal declaration in the theses.

You don't have the option of resubmitting the reports -- and haven't since the day you handed in the reports. If a hearing process has been started, it will be finished.
68% similarity is a high number, and unlikely to happen by pure coincidence.  I suggest you examine your process of writing your lab reports with a fine tooth comb, and be ready to convey this process to the hearing board.
In preparation for the hearing, you should ask for the document which you are accused of copying in order for you to prepare.  As I said, 68% is a high number, but there could be explanations. For example, if both papers cite the same sources, then the citations in the bibliography could boost the similarity percentage, and the prof did not examine the similarities carefully enough to see this issue.
Another possibility is that you didn't copy the older lab report, but that both you and the student who wrote the old report used the same sources for their preparation, and there was insufficient citation of the sources you used.  In this case, both you and the student you're accused of copying from plagiarized from the same source, and the hearing board will likely still find you responsible for a violation of an honesty policy.
If this is the case, and you insufficiently cited the same sources that the other student used, I'd encourage you to have the information in-pocket for your hearing.  There is subtle difference between finding an old lab report and copying it, or boosting text from a wikipedia listing without citing it, because you don't understand how to do it correctly.  Both are violations, but convey different intention and might differ in terms of severity.
You may also be faced with whether the two reports are treated as TWO violations or pooled together as one violation.  If the case is improper citation, and not copying from an old report, you might ask for some mitigation of penalty for the second offense, as it would have been dandy if the prof could have identified your issue before you repeated it.
Go into the hearing realizing that the committee isn't out to get you, but to correct you and make sure you learn the right way of doing things.
Good Luck with your hearing.

"In preparation for the hearing, you should ask for the document which you are accused of copying in order for you to prepare." That is unlikely to be shared with the OP. At my university we cannot and will not share another student's work. At most, the OP may be shown excerpts of the previous text. Maybe.

@GrotesqueSI your student's union needs to be doing a better job then, IMO. Trying to punish a student on the basis on secret evidence would have caused a fit, where I went to school.

Let us continue this discussion about theory of law and the GDRP in chat.

I am a professor. Even if you don't have any "hard" evidence that you wrote it yourself, one thing that would be convincing to me, if I was on this committee, was that you knew the material you handed in. E.g. you could take an oral exam on the material. So, make sure you really know what you handed in and why you wrote it the way you did.
And as written on another answer, try to stay calm. Have some faith that the committee will find the truth.

In addition to other excellent answers, I suggest you use make the following argument:
Rare events are likely in large populations
... to explain why it is reasonable for your version of events to have occurred.
The panel would be thinking: "It's extremely unlikely for independently-written reports to have such a high degree of similarity - @Ballislyf must be lying to us."
And you tell them: Yes, it's extremely likely if you're looking at just two report-writers. But in both this and the previous semester we had at least n students taking this lab; so actually, we have n * n pairs of students. And whenever some pairs of students all have non-similar reports, that only increases the probability of the remaining pairs to produce similar reports. Thus the probability of finding at least one pair of students with similar reports is in fact much much higher.
If you know a bit of math - and you probably do - you can work out an upper bound of this probability and present it.
Something to consider: The analogy of winning the lottery, or being struck by lightning. If a student misses a deadline saying they were struck by lightning and their laptop died, you would probably think they're just lying. But - some people do get struck by lightning; and some of them are students; and they often have homework on their computers. So - this must happen sometimes.
There are few problems with this argument:

Students aren't randomly-sampled from anywhere, nor are their reports uniform samples from the space of possible reports.
You don't know how slim the "faux-probability" of similar reports is.
To have two separate lab reports be similar between the same students is less probable than just one, and seems more damning. That might need extra explanation.

And, again, see "birthday paradox": the probability of two things being the same in a population tends to only need square-root-of-N population, rather than N or N/2, where there are N possibilities.

@paulgarrett: Well, it's not exactly like the birthday paradox since you take one person from each group. I could have said "two-sided birthday paradox" but that seems a bit too much...

As a professor, I don't think it should be the student's place to make these kinds of arguments. It is the job of the committee to understand the strengths and weaknesses of turnitin and to evaluate the reports and the documents which are supposedly 68% similar.

@jerlich: While the committee should realize this, it doesn't mean that it will.

And combine that with the fact that in a few areas there are only a few ways in which something can be correctly expressed. If you ask 1000 mathematicians to independently define the derivative, you will get approximately one answer. (excluding "I forget", perhaps)

From turnitin.psu.edu:

False Positives
A false positive, that is a paper with a high similarity score that is
  not the result of a student committing plagiarism, can occur for the
  following reasons.
If a rough draft is stored in the Turnitin repository, you may get a
  false positive for a final draft.
If a student submits a paper to Turnitin.com independently of the
  course to check for plagiarism, the version uploaded for the course
  will be a “copy.”
It is possible your student is being plagiarized. The Originality
  Report identifies matches, but does not necessarily identify which is
  the “copy” and which is the “original.”
A student could be expanding previous research for a new assignment,
  but copying text from the original research.

Does any of this apply to you? If so, you can use this as your defense during the hearing.

This is actually a denial by Turn-it-in of having any actual false positives...

@einpoklum-reinstateMonica: ... which they like any system (or human) will inevitably have in reality. (And seeing that they basically deny this doesn't improve my trust in that claim)

The second item on the list (rough drafts) shouldn't occur if the system is set up properly - but does.  The third is a bigger issue as the student submitting independently shows up as a different user.  The final is often accounted for in the submission instructions, and there are workarounds for that (I think it may involve not checking against work submitted by the same student, but I don't configure the system)

Here's a little more detail on Turnitin's process.  It's a little too much for a comment, and offers some hints as to what's going on.
Turnitin (produces a "similarity score" using a black-box algorithm, but the marker can see duplicated passages, and in many cases their sources*.  In the reports I marks, a similarity score of around 20% is common for reports on projects that run every year - titles, references, standard terminology, etc.  Over about 35% generally seems to indicate some use of choice phrases from the literature, often combined with a limited vocabulary that ends up repeatedly using the same wording.  To reach 68% would require many sentences in which only a few words are changed from the sources.
If the score is 68% I'd expect the marker to do some digging into what the "copied" passages match. If you match an earlier interim report of your own - no problem. Here we have guidance and systems to take care of that.  But that should be commonplace, so I doubt it's what's going on here.  The software is only a tool, and one that has to be used carefully; so far I see no evidence from what they've said that the necessary checks have been carried out, but that's something that should come out in the investigation.

*Published sources and sources within the same institution are identifiable; coursework from other institutions is only identified by institution name (and perhaps year).

The other answers seem to have summed up the main part. I'd only add that, depending on where you are, threatening a lawsuit might actually be a good course of action as well. Where I'm from (in Eastern Europe) many professors would probably drop the whole thing if you get them to believe you will actually sue the university as it's not worth the trouble and risk to them. In the US trials seem to be a somewhat trivial matter but where I'm from the professor could get fired if you do in fact win the trial. Going through the trouble of getting a lawyer involved also seems to make people think you actually believe that you're right.
Do keep in mind it could backfire as if he does decide to pursue he will do his absolute best to prove you cheated and you will have lost time that could have been spent preparing evidence in your favor. Think of it as a last resort. In case you go that route, even if bluffing, make sure you document as much as possible just in case you do decide to sue.

this is poor advice. he hasn't been found guilty of anything yet.

@jerlich It's not really about the trial itself but the threat/pressure of one. Pretty much a last resort bluff. The part about documentation is in case the threat makes the professor emotionally invested enough to do something unprofessional enough to provide legal leverage.

You are implying that a lawsuit would be a good action even if they were actually guilty.

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text:
Is University reputation considered when I am applying for a PhD in Europe?
I am currently studying for an entrance exam to get into a masters program in either IITs (Indian institute of Technology) or NITs (National Institute of Technology) and by the looks of it, it's seeming more and more likely that I would get an NIT.
The reputation of IITs are slighly better than NITs in India. The IITs are the creme de la creme of Indian universities but NITs are for people who don't get IITs. This would not have been the end of the world had it not been for the fact that I don't want to do a PhD in India (having heard terrible reviews for it from the ones who have done it). I want to move out of here for good when I finish my Masters, so I was wondering if the reputation of the institute was a deal breaker when it came to applying for PhD's (in Europe particularly) or would a good GRE Physics, research proposal help me while applying for a University?
Any suggestion would be helpful. I am willing to do internships (6 months to 1 year) abroad. How common/uncommon are fully paid internships abroad?
Also, my grades in Bachelor's are pretty nominal. And I have a 3 year drop for the 3 year program (1 year Covid + 2 years of Drop). Will this be a deal breaker in PhD admissions or do they look rather at the Marks in masters?
PS: 1 year of drop was to help my family out because we were running short of money after the pandemic.
The another year, this one, was to study Physics

Hi, I believe that many in Europe don't really have a clue on the reputation of different Indian universities. In general, Europe is less hierarchical when it comes to higher education, but those unfamiliar with the Indian system may be skeptic about if your work meets what they would be consider 'western quality standards'. Would it be possible for you to join a Master's progam at a European university? In many European countries, applications to those are only needed for verifying minimum requirements. It will be easier to move to PhD from there.

unfortunately no! I don't have that kind of money unfortunately and my grades won't warrant a scholarship. I am pretty sure they have heard of IITs and NITs though. I mean, many Indian students from IITs apply here. I was doing a linked in search for NIT students in Germany and IIT students in Germany and the IIT graduates were far more than NIT graduates.
edit: Is it possible to do an internship and thus make my application more attractive, or publish multiple papers maybe?

I think it's impossible to give a general answer to this questions. For instance in Germany, it would completely depend on the professor you're applying to - and thus, on their personal opinions and also any kind of personal prejudice (unfortunately). One piece of advice: if you have any influence on whether or not you'll write a Master's thesis for your degree, then I'd recommend to write the thesis. Many people I know (including myself) would be reluctant to take a PhD student who hasn't written a Master's thesis. (I'm in math; maybe a physicist can comment whether it's similar there.)

thank you @Roland
If you don't mind me asking, which institute was he from?

I know professors that only take top IIT students. In your case, make sure you have the best grades, a strong master thesis on a research problem, and try to get a publications in a respected international conference or journal. You cannot do all of that just by yourself, find a strong advisor, ideally with research connections to Europe, check their co-authors.

@Roland I needed a small suggestion, do you think me doing some internships or another MSc in Europe would help my situation?

@derptank need a small suggestion of sort, would doing a masters Europe after doing a masters in NIT give me a better shot at a European PhD? In the Worst cast scenario I mean.

@AkashSingh a Master in Europe (regardless of NIT or not) makes it easy to get in contact with professors and show that you are capable. You can convince them through your work, not with a CV. If you do not want to stay with them for your PhD, they can recommend you to other profs. "Worst case", you have a European MA, which European profs know.
Since an MA in Europe might be financially impossible for you, keep your eyes open for short-term exchange programs, check the national funding agencies for international research/exchange (e.g., DAAD in Germany).

I am going to do the best I can at NIT and then try and get into a PhD program. I will do my best and if no one will take me, well, I will do a PhD in India (probably in a good institute). Last question, do you think Physics GRE would help me in Europe?

In fact, it might be better to do your UG at a less competitive university.
Getting better rank there is easier, and you're more likely to be admitted if you're in the top 2% of your university than if you're from an IIT.
Getting into the top unis like ETH Zurich would be easier from IITs because of better mentorship opportunities, but otherwise it doesn't matter much.
What matters much more is what you do while in undergrad than where you went for undergrad.

First note that this is a general answer as I have no specific knowledge of application procedures in Europe, other than what I read here, nor any knowledge of the reputation of institutes in India.
In many parts of Europe, decisions are made by individuals, so it is impossible to say how they think or how they evaluate anything. However:
If you are accurate that one institute has a "slightly" better reputation, then the effect should be small if any. The reputation, if known, of your advisor would be more important.
Second, and probably more important, especially in general, is that a mediocre performance at a top institution won't be judged more valuable than a top performance at a lest prestigious one. What you do is more important in almost all cases than what others who precede you have done in the past. In the US, we say (only somewhat in jest) that there is nothing worse than a C student from Yale.
My advice is to base your decision on other things, such as who your advisor might be or how the overall program meets your needs and expectations.

Admission requirements for many places are detailed at our canonical question on the subject.

Should I consider doing a second Masters in Germany (1 year master programs) in Germany before applying for a PhD?

I can't say. I would consider applying for a doctorate at the same time if you think another MS would help. I personally doubt it will, but have no basis for real advice. Good luck.

thank you very much!

I personally do think it can help, but only if you do well. People will find it easier to judge your performance when it's within a system they're familiar with, and at a University that they know. (I'm a prof in Europe and had this problem before.) However, it's a huge investment of time and money without any guarantees that it will succeed, so think carefully about this.

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


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Is it common or appropriate to use the phrase 'A Ph.D. in Subject X' to describe someone who has been a PhD student without earning the degree?
There's a book written by John Smith (*pseudonym), an American writer, and on the American copy that I have of this book (I'm in the UK) the jacket describes John Smith as 'A Ph.D. in Subject X.'
I take this to mean that the author has completed their Ph.D. (e.g. 'John Smith is a doctor of philosophy in Subject X').  That he is Dr John Smith.
The thing is, when researching John Smith, I discovered that they never completed their Ph.D. - they seem to have started it, achieved ABD (All But Dissertation status), and never completed their thesis.
Publication of this book would have occurred circa two decades after achieving ABD status, so this was by no means a current doctoral candidate still working on their project at the time of publication.  On later publications, both of this book and later books, the Ph.D. claim has disappeared.  I've found numerous news articles for which this person was interviewed which either imply John Smith completed his Ph.D. or outright state he did, but the institution themselves where John Smith claimed to have graduated have confirmed for me that he did not.
It's unknowable, but given how the publication process typically works it's unlikely anyone other than John Smith himself would have authored the original claim.
So, I'm just wondering, is it common in the US to use this phrasing (e.g. 'he's a Ph.D.' as opposed to 'he's a Ph.D. candidate' or 'he's studying for his Ph.D.') to describe a doctoral candidate who hasn't yet completed their thesis?

This question together with your previous question gives the impression that you spend significant effort on investigating other people's (perceived or real) misbehaviour. Are you sure that this is a healthy way to use your time and energy?

Yes - I research misinformation in my subject area

In the immediate case, it is possible that this is a consequence of the time it takes to publish a book combined with the expectation that the candidate would complete soon. Perhaps, then, interrupted by outside forces and not corrected. Intentional fraud is also a possibility, of course.

As mentioned, the information I have suggests the book was published circa 20yrs after John Smith discontinued his studies

Please do not post answers in the comments, much less answers copied from AI.

Regarding the appropriateness: When can you call yourself doctor?

Typically, "ABD" doesn't mean anything in terms of official status. There is "candidature."

No, it is not common. The convention is that saying someone has (or is) "a Ph.D. in X" does, as you said, mean that they have completed a program of study in X and were awarded a diploma stating that they have received their doctoral degree, majoring in X. Graduate students persuing a Ph.D. are Ph.D. students or Ph.D. candidates (and some universities won't consider a Ph.D. student a Ph.D. candidate until they have passed some preliminary exam.)
The language you observed has disappeared likely because someone pointed out to John Smith that he does not have (and is not) a Ph.D in X, and claiming to have one (or be one), in certain circumstances, would potentially constitute fraud.

It sounds like the word used was "is a PhD" rather than "has a PhD" and OP is wondering if it makes a difference.

Ah, yeah, I've witnessed a few (former...) grad students (math, in the U.S.) describing themselves as "ABD" (all but dissertation), when they hadn't actually passed the prelim exams, or saying "PhD" (imbedded in other words) when they had not finished their thesis. In my experience, these have been people with substantive mental health problems... perhaps not consciously intending to defraud.

This is a very prominent person and it seems intentional

@NateEldredge thank you for catching that.

@AnonymousAcademic444 You've provided enough information in your comments to positively identify this person. His LibraryThing page has the info about the Ph.D., but his Wikipedia and GoodReads pages do not. The New Yorker interview explains the situation.

So, I'm just wondering, is it common in the US to use this phrasing (e.g. 'he's a Ph.D.' as opposed to 'he's a Ph.D. candidate' or 'he's studying for his Ph.D.') to describe a doctoral candidate who hasn't yet completed their thesis?

No.
I encounter this phrasing and similar on this website occasionally among writers whose first language is not English, such as "I got a PhD" to mean "I got accepted to a PhD program"; I don't know if this is due to a direct translation issue or just overall lower familiarity with English.
It's possible the description was intentionally misleading, it's also possible that a mistake was introduced by an overzealous editor at some point. Unless this concerns you directly I don't think I'd trouble over it too much.

Even here I treat "is a PhD" meaning "is a PhD candidate/student" to be a kind of fraud. It is just sloppy phrasing. After all, PhD means "Doctor of Philosophy". Clearly "I'm a Doctor of Philosophy" would be fraudulent use by a student at any stage. And the distinction between "is" and "has" is too subtle for my taste, especially on a multi-national site.

@Buffy I wouldn't call it fraud when it's clearly a language mistake from surrounding context, but yes, "is a PhD" should not be used in English to mean "is a PhD student".

I'm likely to edit a few questions going forward to add "student" when appropriate. My sense is that this usage, here at least, is more UK than US, though my memory is faulty.x

A student in my doctoral cohort added "Ph.D" to his resume before the degree was conferred.  He was dismissed from the program for that.

@BobBrown How close was he to the degree being conferred? E.g., was it after he had successfully defended his thesis? In my school (UVA), there's a tradition of the committee immediately saying "Congratulations, Dr. " once they've agreed you've successfully defended, so for someone to have added "PhD" to their title after that point, but before officially getting the degree wouldn't be horrible, IMO. However, anything prior to that would be wrong.

@BryanKrause  His dissertation may have been in progress, but was neither complete nor defended.

I think you meant to ping @BenHocking


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How can one prevent thief of academic work and get recognition/listed as a co-author?
There was a problem in my first lab (I suspect but do not know for sure) that my first PI gave some of the results of my project’s work I found for her to another student to present at a small school/institution based conference; it could also be the case that this other student or his buddy who also works in this lab and has access stole it without her knowledge as well.  I’m not sure why she (or they) did this to me as I was never rude to anybody.  I also had to fund this botany project she wanted me to work on and buy supplies for it too out of my own pocket even though it was not a project of my own choosing (it didn’t amount to much but this isn’t the point).  Anyway, I decided to just ‘let it go’ (i.e. not report it or make a big deal out of it) as I’ve had enough hardship and drama in my life – I’m an older/non-traditional student who just wants to move forward.  I decided to just move on to another lab and PI.
Now I’m in another lab, and the professor reminds me from time to time that he own my lab notebook and research.  Luckily, the project is funded by NIH, so I haven’t had to buy any supplies yet.  I’ve already decided that I’m not going to spend anymore money out of pocket, so if I’m asked to this time, I will report it to the Dean, the Media, and whoever else will listen and walk away…  Anyway, I understand that my new PI and/or the school will benefit financially from any discoveries which I’m cool with as I’m in this for the mental stimulation and because it’s a stepping stone, but does this mean that I have no intellectual rights to the work I’m doing?  Here’s a very clear “yes/no” question that I’d like to have answered: Will my name be listed as a co-author on any papers published as a result of the project assuming I continue doing a good job?
I’m also having some issues changing my official focus (i.e. switching from a professional/terminal biotech master’s to pure biology masters with a more rigorous science focus and the option to pursue a PhD later).  I initiated this process 3 months ago when I was accepted into the new lab.  At that time, I was told by my new advisor/new PI that I wouldn’t need to reapply or resubmit transcripts, but the problem hasn’t been fixed yet, and my new advisor/PI hasn’t responded to questions related to this issue thus far.  What should my next steps be?
I want this masters degree to work out.  I’m not a ‘trouble maker type’ and never have been.  In fact, I frequently get taken advantage of, have my ideas and work stolen, etc.  I previously posted a longer more detailed version of this post with more background, and others criticized that post for being too long/too specific to my situation/whiny.  I’m a 39 year old who’s seen life and death up close, worked in a variety of jobs, and had my fair share of hard knocks – not a whiner but I’ve also been around the block enough to know BS when I see it.  I’m asking you what I can do about it and how to ensure I’m not taken advantage of yet again.  I want to earn my master’s, but if I’m going to have a repeat of my work being stolen, maybe I’m at the wrong school or maybe I shouldn’t bother at all…  How can a student ensure that he/she is given the credit/recognition that is due?

I'm the one that down voted your question... Please limit your question to one topic. You asked multiple questions that may be pretty much related together, which are really hard to answer... By the way, I think your questions might be more appropriate for someone in your university such as graduate school coordinator or something like that, who is more familiar with your situation or at least you can describe it more freely to him/her. I can understand you are really frustrated and I'm sorry for that but it's really hard for us to tell what to do or not to do in your life...

This question is still very very long, and has lots of unnecessary content such as a discussion of your previous question. Your "hard knocks" are completely irrelevant: you don't get academic credit for seeing life and death or working a variety of jobs, you get academic credit for doing academic work.

I understand you're emotionally involved and feeling the need to air this out, but a Q&A forum isn't the appropriate channel. Please rewrite making it shorter and more neutral, with one specific question per post.

Your question has many different layers, some of which we can't answer as they are specific to individuals.
But this we can:

Legally, your discoveries belong to the university. If they lead to any kind of monetary reward, such as if they are commercialized via a patent or a company that markets a product, then every university has a policy that specifies who gets to share in the reward. The inventor is generally one of those who get to share. (I'll add this: Few people have gotten rich this way. Most inventions and scientific discoveries get you scientific credit but not any kind of money.)
Professional ethics dictates that if you significantly participated in the intellectual developments presented in a paper, then you should be a co-author of it. Will you actually be a co-author? We don't know -- it depends on whether everyone else on the paper behaves ethically. But at least you know that you should be  co-author. (And here, I'll add this: All of the stories on this forum notwithstanding, the vast majority of scientists behave ethically and will make sure that everyone who significantly participated in the intellectual development shown in a paper is, in fact, a co-author.) Of course, that also comes with responsibilities, such as participating in the writing and editing.

Right. What should happen and what may happen are not necessarily the same. It is important to be "on the same page" with your advisor(s), so that you know what their appraisal of the/your situation is, and so that you can work to reconcile their perspective with your own. If you truly ascertain that people are unethical and dishonest, it is a serious problem... and there is generally no easy fix. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that there are "simply" misunderstandings, that could be overcome. Talk to your advisor(s), preferably in person (so you can gauge body language).

Yes, precisely. Communicate with the people you work with.


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Are there any area in arxiv without requiring endorsement?
Are there any areas in arxiv to post without endorsement?

If you have affiliation with an academic or research institution, then submitting with your institutional email ID will often waive the requirements for you. (see https://arxiv.org/help/endorsement)

Nope, you have to get an endorsement to post on arxiv. After you have an endorsement in a specific area, you can crosslist your paper in other areas, which will give you the ability to post and give your own endorsements in different areas.


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How do you decide whether to let a student asking for a (professor-level) advisor to be apart of their senior/junior undergraduate thesis?
What are your expectations for a student asking for an advisor for a senior/junior undergraduate thesis and what do students need to have to write a approvable junior/senior thesis?
Is there some minimum kind of research proposal they should submit or a rubric you keep in your hand to evaluate their proposals to sift out students who don't have their ideas planned out, and what students do?
Do you try an experimental approach where you agree to everyone who asks you to be an advisor, and let the ones who can't swim, sink, and let the ones can can swim, swim or do you do prediction and tell them yes or no?
When should you deflect/defer their idea or how do you measure/predict its worth?
In what circumstances should you refuse to advise them on a thesis, and tell them to downgrade their project to a collaborative paper instead where they aren't first-author? When do you tell them this idea, it's so cliche-overused, you should just apply for jobs telling people you have this idea, and it's better off in a corporate world?
When do you tell them this isn't good enough idea to write a thesis, and you should just write something that's no-name and so bad-it belongs at most in ArXiv, and they submit it on your own to ArXiv without anyone's input?
In what cases do you tell them a undergraduate thesis is too bad for them, and they should go straight into a PhD and find a good advisor to have this idea and become a published paper/PhD dissertation because they're so good, because you don't have the resources/time/knowledge to help them develop the idea, so they can go to a PhD without a senior thesis?
How much of an outline or draft does the student need to write themselves before you can help?
Does this have to be hands-on, or is the idea mostly theirs?
Does the student have to pick someone who writes at least one research paper a year/is an active researcher? Do professors who haven't written a paper or published in 4-5 years are too rusty to advise or advised only 2 papers in 10 years of teaching/working ill-equipped to do this?
Some people may say the idea has to be original, but I've seen approved senior/junior thesis on topics that are not original. I am not against baseball or game theory, but as an example...
I've seen according to my limited knowledge students finishing thesis with a main idea on a topic that aren't original, and they've succeeded. For example, baseball +Nash's game theory analysis via simulated data or real data. Baseball analytics isn't new, and neither is Nash the mathematician's theory.

Too many questions. The standard we look for is one per post.

Agree with Buffy. Your "main question" seems to be, how to choose which students to advise on their undergraduate thesis. This is an interesting question. I recommend you [edit] your post to focus on that question only. After the answers come in, if the other questions still remain, you can make another post.

I think this is unanswerable. Every professor, and every institution, are going to have different expectations.  And polling for what various individuals choose to do is off topic.

Do you mean "apart of" (separated from) or "a part of" (included in)?

An undergraduate thesis project isn't expected to produce original, publishable research. Rather, most undergraduate theses require students to demonstrate knowledge in their field and proficiency in the skills they will eventually use for research. While it's possible to fail a senior project due to missed deadlines, poor work, etc., research novelty typically isn't a requirement.
To use one of your examples, undergraduate students working with game theory analysis aren't trying to expand on the field. They're trying to show that they understand game theory, know how to work with simulated data, can complete a semi-independent project, and can write a short paper or presentation on their results.
Requirements for an undergraduate thesis will of course vary between region and institution. I am answering based on my experiences with STEM programs in the United States.

What's good about those who do one compared to those who don't write one?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. The good of doing a senior thesis is getting an experience of working on a months-long project with an advisor and, presumably, fulfilling your program's requirement to do a senior thesis.


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How do scientists deal with studies that show results which contradict legislation?
I am not a psychologist. But I studied studies about psychology. The ones I read have in common that their results are never contradicting legislation. If a scientist realized that some criminal activity contributed significantly to the well-being of those executing those actions and was able to combat long-lasting trauma of the ones executing, would he be able to publish his findings? Would he refrain from publishing them due to the results being unpopular and therefore risking his reputation?
The study could simply be conducted by interviewing criminals in jail.
The reason for this question is to enable me to understand better whether studies are biased and the results do not show the real picture but a distorted, watered down view to please legislation and to preserve reputation instead of finding and describing truth.

Your question is vague. Are you trying to ask about marijuana?

In your question you forget that crimes often have victims (not always, but often). Drug dealers, thieves and murderers might sometimes feel better (at least wealthier) as a consequence of their actions, but their well-being is not compatible with the common good.

@AzorAhai My question is vague on purpose and no, I am not.

@Erwan No, I excluded them on purpose. That is the whole point of my theory. That "success stories" are not being told, because they are unpopular. They are unpopular among victims of crimes. Therefore victims and the government bully scientists into neglecting the benefits of crimes for mental health of the perpetrators.

@Alex I don't see any part in your question where you exclude crimes with victims. Apparently your question focuses on the well-being of the person committing a crime, as if what is a crime or not was arbitrary.

What do you mean by scientific studies contradicting legislation? Science describes facts, legislation prescribes norms.

@Alex If that's the case, can you provide an example of a crime you're considering?

Let me distinguish between a scientist and a "scientist". The former is honest and follows truth. The latter is a propagandist, usually in service to some cause other than truth. For example, the tobacco companies and the petroleum companies employ a lot of "scientists", though they may also employ scientists. But they have an obvious agenda, and it has little to do with truth. So, in such cases, the work of the "scientists" is promoted and that of the scientists is suppressed (non disclosure agreements, and such).
But in general, in most places, science isn't under control of political or economic powers with a non-truth agenda. So yes, contrary studies will get published, provided that they can be conducted.
But a complicating factor is that governments and economic powers do control a lot of the funding around research and some of the rules that govern it. This can be a problem. It means that a lot of science just won't get done in the first place.
For example, in the US, the NRA and others have made it impossible for the government to fund most studies on gun related violence. They also, for many years, made it impossible for law enforcement agencies to treat domestic terrorism in the same way it treats other forms. The first case is about funding. The second about regulations.
Therefore, a lot of research just doesn't happen. People decided, generally, to give up research on gun violence since funding was unavailable and there seemed to be little future in building a career on that topic.
However, if the research does get done, somehow, I have no doubt that it can be published. Most places, anyway.
A different situation would occur in countries with authoritarian governments. In such places, certain research can be dangerous. People have died mysteriously.

But if you need to decide whether something is valid or not, you can, in addition to making your own judgements, look at the source of the information. If the person has a "post truth" agenda you would be well advised to be cautious.

You got a little off track here...

Then, perhaps you should clarify the question.

There is quite a lot of research showing that tax cuts do not actually lead to more tax revenues in the long run, as well as that tax cuts generally benefit the rich more than the poor.

@WolfgangBangerth, I think that is the unanimous consensus among reputable researchers. It is ignored, of course, by those who benefit. But, the research is published, at least.

@buffy I guess I did not end my thought. The point of the example was that these findings contradict public policy in many countries.

It is important to identify what you call a crime. To avoid arguing about relativity of crimes with respect to the law (valid laws can be unethical and immoral according to ethics and intuitive morals; but even the latter can change quite quickly and abruptly), I will limit myself to distinguish victimless crimes and crimes harming 3rd parties.
There are victimless crimes, in which case, probably the fallout, if the study is solid and scientifically well-founded, is limited and containable in modern western societies.
However, if you talk about crimes harming third parties, you can be behind creating a situation where people will use the "Alex" paper in Nature/Science as defense for the crimes against third parties that they are perpetrating. You may then be removing a taboo from crimes which otherwise would be strongly societally sanctioned. This can have unforeseen and uncontainable consequences.
Related examples (not in the context of crime) is the emergence of "flat-earth" "research" (harmless) or the now debunked "vaccination causes autism" work which might have been a contributing factor to the current "vaccination scepticism" and may actually thus have quite number of lives on its conscience.
In the latter case, however, if the study had been correct, it would have at least contributed to perhaps abandoning a harmful practice.
In your case, even assuming that your study would be scientifically sound, you would (under the victimful crime assumption) contribute to remove a taboo that hitherto protected potential victims. You would therefore be trading off the well-being of the perpetrators against that of the victims. This is not your decision to make. There is a good reason that such power is only given to legislation. The very least you should do in this case is to have an in-depth discussion with the ethical board at your institution.
One interesting variation can be found in the hacking community: there, there is a view that forcing bug fixes through "responsible disclosure" (i.e. offering a reasonable time window of secrecy during which they are fixed) is acceptable. There are different opinions on that, as that community basically has decided on its own that it becomes the arbiter of how/when pressure is applied to achieve the goal of more safety. At least, on the whole, the intention is ultimately constructive, even if individual would-be-victims may not have the resources to actually solve the problem - or the would-be-victim is not even the one whose actions had created the problem in the first place or can do much about it. Here, we are clearly moving in a grey area.
Since we do not know what crimes you have in mind, I can not come up with more a specific response.


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My advisor wants me to make my PhD thesis weaker
I am a final year PhD student in mathematics at a university in Spain and about to submit my thesis in a few weeks. During the last months, I have been writing up the remaining details of a project. Let me make clear that this project is not the only one contained in my thesis. However, it is the heart of the thesis and the other projects contained in my thesis, while in some way independent, yield interesting results when combined with the project I am talking about in this question. Moreover, the topic of the project was proposed by my advisor, but I mostly worked on it without talking to him (he was visiting other universities and sick for a very long time, and there were other reasons as well).
The project is a classification of certain objects, meaning that it consists of two parts:

Giving a list of examples of said objects;
Showing that the above list is in fact complete.

While coming up with the examples was kind of hard at the beginning, it was pretty straightforward and algorithmic once I got the hang of it (I always told my colleagues that one could teach a chimpanzee how to do it). The mathematically involved and complicated part is to show that the produced list is in fact complete. This involves several creative ideas and is highly non-trivial.
My advisor now thinks that the thesis is too long (it is about 130 pages, part 2 being roughly 25 pages long), and that I should remove part 2 from the thesis (i.e., that I should not show in the thesis that the list is complete): according to him, a longer thesis has more potential of containing small, subtle mistakes, and obviously mistakes are bad. He said that he cannot be sure that everything is correct, since he never read all details and I need to submit rather soon. He is also travelling and busy until I am supposed to submit.
However, I do not want to cut the second part of the thesis, for the following reasons:

I already have the proof, and I am sure that it is correct. Why should it not be included in my thesis? The alternative is to include an unproven claim in the thesis, similar to "the list is in fact complete, which we will show in a forthcoming paper".
If I remove it and only keep part 1, my results are incomplete and the project only consists of "describing some examples", which is - as I explained above - pretty easy once one knows how to.
Obviously, I want my thesis to be as strong as possible.
The interplay between all projects of my thesis cannot be made as strong, as well.
I know who the referees of my thesis are going to be, and one of them is notorious for being a very harsh grader. While I am pretty proud of my thesis in the current form, I am afraid that removing part 2 will affect the grading of my thesis.

I explained my point of view to my advisor, but he kept saying that the thesis is too long (apparently the period of time the referees are given to evaluate the thesis is pretty short) and that it is too unsafe for him to submit it as in its current form.
How should I behave in this situation? I am extremely thankful for any advice!

I think this might be geography dependent.  In the US, I would say it doesn't matter what's in your actual thesis, because no one is going to read it; people are going to read the paper you submit for publication with the results of your thesis instead.

@Alexander Woo I would say that is blatantly wrong. In fact, once you leave academia, the theses become quite interesting because they aren't behind a paywall. In addition, theses are often more complete and provide the necessary background which isn't provided in a paper - and not all places teach or focus on the same aspects of a subject.

Isn't an advisers role to make sure you've gained the skills necessary to obtain the degree rather than proof reading your thesis? At this point you're supposed to be an independent researcher with your own criteria and standards. I know an example of someone who obtained their PhD from prestigious university and whose main proof  was then shown to be flawed. Regardless of this they now have a great position in academia. IMO your adviser needs to let go.

My experience is with US/UK systems but this is a little strange to me: It is not the advisor's responsibility to ensure that your thesis is correct. So I agree with user347489; your advisor should probably step back on this one. "Mathematical Correctness" is not usually a criteria for awarding a PhD?

What exactly is the "grade" of the thesis? Honors such as cum laude, etc.?

From the sounds of things you made your thesis a success despite less than ideal circumstances. Well done! That's an utterly non-trivial task. And your advisor's arguments sound quite unreasonable... They are lucky to have had you.

Your advisor's concern of not being able to verify your stuff is a valid one. Put the parts your advisor not comfortable reading into the appendix. Once you are done, upload the whole thing to arxiv, and then write a journal article (either as an individual paper, or jointly with your advisor) about the contents.

If no one has verified the second part of the thesis (besides our question submitter) then I agree with his/her advisor that it would be wise to remove that portion.

Is there somebody else you can ask? It does no harm to get a second opinion so long as you're subtle about it, i.e. don't go "Prof X said this, is he an idiot or what?"

Could you give us some more context about how the Spanish system works as far as thesis submission is concerned? In the UK for example, you would still have the opportunity to amend your thesis – sometimes with major corrections – after it's been submitted and read by the examiners.

This is a math thesis we are talking about. Math thesis are more important on their own than engineering or physics thesis. Plus, in a math thesis or paper it is more important of it being correct 100%. Because the advisor must sign off on it, a mistake is capable of destroying a career, both of the advisor and the student.  If your list of "examples" is long, then it is not unlikely that you would have missed some. Some things to keep in mind...

Nevertheless, I can suggest a compromise. You keep all the examples in the thesis and remove the label theorem from your proof that these are all the examples. Without the theorem label, your advisor will agree, I think.

My thesis (pure maths) was around 250 pages. So I would say that no, 130 pages is not especially long.

If it isn't going to damage the relationship with your advisor too much, you should submit your complete thesis. The arguments you provided from your advisor are pretty weak, and I'm quite sure that 130 pages isn't particularly long. Your arguments to keeping the length are compelling (strength of ideas, likelihood of appeasing difficult thesis committee member, etc). That said, we are only hearing your advisor's opinion second-hand. It's possible you are not giving us all the information, either because you misunderstand your advisor or your advisor has not fully detailed his concerns (which is definitely not optimal).
You said you mostly worked on this without talking to him. I may have missed it, but I don't see that you have explained your reasons to your advisor. Is there time to do this? Ask him what would happen and how would he feel if you submitted your thesis as is? This should preferably be done in person, but you may need to phone or email him.
Good luck! Thesis time is always stressful, even under the best of conditions!

Thank you, you made some good points. It is actually likely that I might have misunderstood my advisor, since he is not a native speaker of the Spanish language, but insists that conversations with no or little mathematical content should be in Spanish so that he learns the everyday language (however, his Spanish is actually pretty good, but far from perfect). I edited my question to address your question whether I have spoken to my advisor about my point of view (see the second to last paragraph). I will talk to him again. Thanks for the "good luck" wishes!

While not my choice of words, I agree with this response. As described, the arguments for a shorter thesis sound ridiculous. And 130 pages is not that log  (at leasy for engineering), though it also varies between countries. Further, no thesis is error free: from the data you didn't have (for avriois reasons) to the typo nobody noticed in the end as everybody wanted to get it done... - I would always recommend to write a more complete work. If your advisor is truly concerned about length, add an appendix as others have suggested.

I submitted 300 pages (though it was experimental physics with a lot of plots and concepts and so on) and a large appendix. However, a friend of mine who is also finishing his phd in math atm, has about 180 pages now. And his supervisor is still asking for more things to do and to show and to prove...

@Ben 300 pages used to be the limit for the University of Leeds when I was there. Though even then the content can be adjusted. 11pt to 12pt typesetting and one-half to double spacing can change the page count significantly (I prefer the smaller denser typeset) - and finally one can play with the margins too... (And given that I often don't proof-read, I typed a few typographical errors into my comments above too... - So much for no written text is perfect :D)

I have a very small typesetting and small margins and so on. But page number is not everything. In the first instance I didn't want to extend 200 pages and then I did everything that was necessary to not extend 300 pages.. however, I spend evenings discussing phd topics.. :)
I found some errors as well..   but I wasn't allowed to remove them afterwards. Well..  ok..

@DetlevCM Mathematics theses tend to be shorter, but 130 pages doesn't seem remotely excessive to me. (Indeed, my theoretical comp sci thesis is basically mathematics and is 130 pages.)

The main thing to keep in mind is to finish your degree. If your advisor thinks that leaving that part out helps in that goal then you should consider it. It may be that a minimal but sufficient dissertation is advantageous here.
However, that doesn't mean that you abandon the work. You have, in fact, the basis for an additional paper that can probably be published separately from your dissertation, giving your early career a boost. Expanding the work of your dissertation is a pretty good way to get started in academia.
Think about the short term (getting done) and the long term (building a CV). A long thesis might be good or bad, but an extra paper is good.
Explore it with your advisor. I'm assuming, of course, that he is experienced and well aware of the system you are in and the likely outcomes.

He could have the PhD thesis he dreams about and write the paper. That argument is not very strong. Given that you can write proofs in a more detailed way in a thesis, it might be beneficial to publish it twice. If I find a paper that is based on a thesis, I usually read both and which is newer, contains more details, or gives more applied examples.

@usr1234567, while I don't necessarily disagree with you, the advisor does. He may know something about how it will be judged by the local committee that we don't. It isn't a win to fail your defense.

I think the "length" argument is a red herring and I think it's influencing your thinking too much.
I think it's more likely that your advisor is simply not comfortable with the second part of your thesis. I suspect that the uncertainty that your second part is correct may actually be a feeling that your second part is wrong or incomplete (perhaps because of the "creative ideas"), but your advisor has not yet been able to show definitively that it is wrong. He's likely concerned both with his own reputation among his peers and for the success of your defense if your reviewers are similarly unconvinced.
If you are certain that your proof is correct, then it's up to you to convince your advisor of this. If you can't convince your advisor, your chance of convincing your committee is slim. It seems that the time it will take to convince your advisor is longer than the time between now and when you will defend. In that case, your advisor's suggestion to leave the second part out (especially if they feel the first part is sufficient to support you passing your defense) is quite reasonable. You mention that there are other aspects to your thesis, as well, so this means excluding only one (potentially problematic) part of one project of multiple that make up the whole thesis.
It doesn't mean that you abandon the second part of this project, only that you exclude it from your thesis.

Very insightful answer!

I also believe that this is the right answer. (except if there is a hard page limit set by the rules of the university).

I agree with your premise that the advisor is not comfortable with the thesis, but would add it's concerning that an absent adviser hasn't made time to get comfortable with it or find fault.  In math, it's an exceptional student who produces a thesis so technically advanced that their adviser is unable to judge its correctness, and one of the adviser's jobs is to help a student craft that answer into something readable for all.  Absent info that the student didn't complete the writing in a timely manner suggested by his adviser, this seems like a pretty big failure on the part of the adviser.

@Mathprof I agree the advisor should have been more present, but it seems a bit late for that and possibly the fault of the student too a bit (with the caveat that it's the advisor that should know better). Still probably not worth delaying the defense over, the student will have time afterwards to publish.

@Mathprof: It might be unusual for a student to submit something too technically advanced for the advisor to judge, but it’s quite common for students to write something sufficiently unclear and poorly organized that it’s difficult to work out whether the underlying ideas are correct and salvageable.  It’s impossible for us to know either way, so I would hesitate to assign blame.  Yes it might be the advisor’s fault, but it might not.

Two reasonable goals at this point are

graduating with your Ph.D. and
publishing your mathematical discovery.

As other answers suggest, achieving the second of these goals is possible with or without including all your current results in your thesis.  Thus my general advice is to focus on the first goal.
As members of the community at large, there is no way we can possibly guess at the behind the scenes politics that goes into awarding PhDs at your institution, particularly when you have a particular committee member who's rumored to be  a "harsh grader" and an adviser giving unusual advice.  What we can affirm is that your adviser is giving you some unusual advice about a thesis that is not that long (even in math, where the PhDs tend to be shorter than in other fields).  He may have good reason for it, or he may not, and as a student it will be hard for you to judge.  I'd strongly recommend repeating your question to your graduate chair and a second member of the thesis committee you trust and asking for their independent advice before making a final decision.  It appears you could use an advocate in this situation, and it's unclear whether or not your adviser is acting as such.

If I remove it and only keep part 1, my results are incomplete and the project only consists of "describing some examples", which is - as I explained above - pretty easy once one knows how to.

Since you are saying that the first part is the easier one, I would suggest cutting that one shorter instead of the second part. Whether you cut 25 pages of the second part or 25 pages of the first part shouldn't ultimately make much of a difference to your advisor if he is really just worried about the length.
Additionally, you could try to find some compromise of cutting it by 15 or 20 pages instead (or whatever you think is doable without ruining your thesis) if you don't want to cut that many pages from the first part either. In my experience compromises usually work better than a straight out "No".

I am not sure. The problem is not that the thesis is too long (that does not really make sense in a maths context) but that the thesis is "too long for the supervisor to check it thoroughly". Especially, the part that is time-consuming to check is the second part (the proof that the list is complete)

You could move part two into a appendix. That could be a compromise which could be acceptable for both your advisor and for you. You can argue that the actual thesis is now ~25 pages shorter and he does not need to read the appendix. You can refer to your appendix from your main text and keep your thesis strong. Moving technical details to an appendix is common. Whether your part two is really technical might be debatable, but could help you to get what you want.
I know of many theses that were initially too long where the author resorted to the appendix way to satisfy formal length considerations.

From the way OP described it, it is rather the list of examples that could go into an appendix, not the proof that the list is complete. OP says the proof contains the strong mathematical ideas, whereas the example list is mostly mechanical. Unfortunately this would only help against a length bound for administrative reasons but doesn't resolve the issues with the advisor.

I like this answer, but from OPʼs description it sounds more appropriate to move parts of part 1 to the appendix, and focussing the thesis on part 2, which contains the true intellectual contribution.

The problem with a proof that contains "creative and non-trivial" ideas is that one mistake near the start may invalidate the entire argument, and if someone produces a counter-example, then obviously the proof can never be fixed up.
From your description it's not obvious whether it matters from a practical point of view if the classification is complete (whatever "complete" means).
If you have created an effective algorithm which does something useful, maybe trying to prove that it is "perfect" is being too ambitious. There are plenty of useful algorithms (for example to solve NP-complete problems) which are certainly not "complete" - but discovering them and implementing them efficiently was probably worth a PhD.

I stumbled upon your question as I experienced a similar situation back in 1999.
A thesis is a wonderful experience and a once in a lifetime project. Breathe it and Own it.
Your supervisor remains a supervisor and you have the right to diplomatically tell him what your conclusions are on the structure and logic of your thesis, rather than he tells you what should be in.
I made my thesis in theoretical quantum physics and the goal was somewhat similar to yours. I had to work on examples and see if a set of equations reproduces astrophysical observation. The thesis was meant to be mainly numerical simulations. However, from literally day one, I disagreed with the derivations of the key equations I was asked to simulate. While he agreed the derivation of the current equations was not so rigorous, he considered that ultimately they should be correct.
The reason he did not want to dwell too much on the foundations of the theory was, first, because there was already a lot of numerical simulations to do for collaborators to model stellar atmospheres and, second, because dogmas exist in science. Break them, and people will appreciate even if your are wrong ultimately. We set up a meeting and derived the equations again. These equations were derived in 1970 by a known astrophysicist who was very knowledgeable in his field but who was not a theoretical physicist. He took as a starting point an equation picked up from A. Sommerfeld in one of his 1930 book
Atombau und Spektrallinien, but Sommerfeld made an assumption which was not realistic in our scenario.
During the first year of my thesis I worked on the derivation of such equations from the ground up using quantum electrodynamics combined with Boltzmann type master equations, came up with alternative equations and showed them to my supervisor. He never really read them, too long, dogmas or whatever. I carried on with numerical simulations based on the old and -to me- wrong formulas because there was a demand for this.
As my thesis came to an end, your dilemma came up. I came with a structure, where Chapter 1 would be an introduction, Chapter 2 would be questioning the current equations and deriving them anew, where my equations would popup with orders of magnitudes of the terms I found out to show their importance. And the rest of the thesis would focus on the numerical equations of the old equations. As he read through my proposed outline, he told me to skip Chapter 2. I went home and talked to my girlfriend.
She said, and I tell you the same, this is your thesis, you believe in it, you do it.
Luckily, my thesis supervisor who was nevertheless a scientist seeking the truth eventually read my chapter and agreed that there was something going on, but to him it required more work (we were at 2 months before submission). He agreed I could include it the day after. I included them at the expense of shortening the rest of the thesis. I submitted my thesis and received feedback, defended it and got it hands up. No one can bother you because you know your thesis more than anyone else.
Coming to your situation, I believe that you do not have a publication in a refereed journal of the proof of your completeness. If that is the case, I would, as you suggest, dedicate a chapter on the proof of the completeness. Completeness of something is an important part of mathematical reasoning and characterizes you more than an enumeration of examples. Don't be shy but you can be diplomatic by saying at the end of the chapter that "While we believe this proof is solid, further investigations should be made prior to its publication in a refereed journal". That formulation is to be discussed with your supervisor as it will depend on who will be your referees and the philosophy of your research community.
Regarding your referees, don't be afraid about those who have a reputation of being harsh. Often those people appreciate those who stand up, politely but stand up.
In what this can help you? First your supervisor can remain a good friend of yours in the future as it happened with me. Second, as it also happened to me, in your life as a researcher that Chapter can help you a lot in getting jobs in other disciplines because employers appreciate the fact that you question things and stand up on your arguments more than enumerating.

Octopus' advice is solid, so I would only add a few things. This reminds me of my dissertation defense experience as well: some advice I received was good, some was bad, but all of it was important to consider.
Feedback from your adviser on your work can help with aspects such as style, correctness, or direction. However, the level of rigor in your work says something about the kind of academic you are. Despite some of the comments above, people do read theses and dissertations. In fact, you should be mindful that it will be only a quick Google search away for anyone in the world to access. Ultimately, you are the author, so unless you are 100% comfortable with it, I would not recommend submitting yet.
If possible, try to postpone your defense. I say this for two reasons. First, and perhaps most importantly, you need your adviser on your side. You only have one PhD adviser, and they can help to make or break your career. He/she claims there is not enough time, so provide more time. Second, this will give you some time to submit a paper or two to academic journals. Committees like seeing that your work has already been peer-reviewed and published. It means they don't have to work as hard and are not signing off on anything risky. Plus, publications can help your career immensely.
Of course, if you do not have the luxury of postponing (entirely possible) or you are just in it for the degree (which seems unlikely to me), I would agree with some of the others who suggest compromising by thinning it out elsewhere, and keeping the content which is most important to you. Whatever you choose to do, though, make sure your adviser is on board.

I have two suggestions:

Ask your colleagues whether they are willing to check your proofs that your advisor has no time to check (and include them in the acknowledgements). This way, not only can you be more sure that they are correct, you can also let your advisor know so that he does not feel as uncomfortable with you putting the proofs in.
Give one or more talks in your department about your results, including sufficient technical detail so that others familiar with your research area can grasp your precise claims and understand the rough outline of your proofs. When asked any question, make sure you give complete answers. In some cases, when presenting (or preparing the presentation) you will find subtle issues with your original arguments, and can fix it before submitting your actual thesis.

I believe you should submit your thesis in it's entirety. Your advisor is just pushing you to publish both parts and also testing you as to which you will take: easier route (only part 1) which has less chance of having mistakes since it's 25pg less. i.e. less room for mistakes
or your true work which is both parts.
Go with your head not your gut as a thesis takes brains not luck.

I don't envy you your situation as regards the difference of opinion between you and your adviser. Nevertheless, it's never a bad problem to have more good material than you need, rather than less. So, well done for overperforming :)
Despite being a thesis adviser myself, I don't think I can really tell you the best course of action. For one thing I don't know all the practical contraints that apply, neither the stance of the other people involved. More fundamentally the "best" course is to a large extent dependent on what you regard as most important you.
If the overriding goal is to achieve your PhD then the most pragmatic course would perhaps to be guided by your adviser, whether his advice is optimal or not. As pointed out by others, omitting the completeness part so does not preclude making it part of further work. There may even be some benefit in doing so, perhaps there are some interesting questions that would repay time spent on a later study?
But I can understand your emotional attachment to your thesis, and in wanting to make it as good a work as possible, something part of yourself as a scientist.  You might feel that is the most important. If you decide to include part 2 thenyou have to be prepared to defend it in response to questions, and you may have to do that without much support from your adviser.
In any case, I hope you are successful with your PhD, and that you and your adviser reach an understanding. That last might be the most important!


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How can one prevent the unauthorized reuse of the technical content from a rejected paper
One of my colleagues told me that one of his papers was rejected for presentation at a conference. One year later a paper was accepted with almost the same content at the same conference.
Is it in some ways preventable? Does a preprint ensure against such idea copying?

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/172842/how-do-i-share-my-ideas-without-being-scooped/172843#172843, https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23874/how-do-selection-committees-ensure-that-they-wont-steal-an-applicants-ideas-as

Also related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/65817/how-can-an-author-get-assurance-that-his-work-will-not-be-stolen-by-journal-staf

The title of your question is ungrammatical and, as it stands, very difficult to understand. If you're unsure how to improve it, could you leave a comment to explain what you are trying to say. Are you saying that you want to suggest a technical solution to a problem of plagiarism? ... or is "technical contribution stealing", a kind of theft, like "art stealing". Any clarification would help.

There are two aspects. If the author of the new paper saw the old one and copied it, then it is clear plagiarism and a conference might have ways to deal with that, provided it can be proven and is brought to their attention.
But, ideas are free. In some fields, a lot of people are thinking the same thoughts simultaneously as the state of the art is open to all. It is possible that the new paper was done independently of the first one, in which case there is no issue. No one "owns" ideas. Ideas are free. For such a case, no, it isn't preventable and is normal.
A middle ground might occur if the new paper acknowledges (cites) the old one, in which case this is just normal academic progress.
If the paper has appeared on a preprint service then you have a claim on priority but not "ownership of the ideas". You still don't know whether the other author actually saw and copied the paper or developed it independently. But it would reduce the novelty of their paper, given your priority.

according to copyright law etc the ideas are free, but what I actually mean is the recipe of a technical implementation which is no exactly only one idea (I will edit my post)


text:
Bioinformatics pipeline flow chart guidelines?
I am going to start work on the Materials and Methods for a paper I contributed to a lot in the bioinformatics processing part. I have seen some papers nowadays tend to first present the processing steps that they followed as a flow chart, to show the reader what happened generally before going into details in the written M&M section.
Are there any specific guidelines for creating this flowchart? Do you have any tips or advice from personal experience?

Welcome to Academia Stack Exchange! Maybe you can add a link to an example of those flow charts?

Welcome to Academia. Asking for lists such as guidelines are shopping questions, which are off topic for this site. Also, you're asking about the subject of research, which is also off topic of this site.

@RichardErickson What exactly is on topic then?

From the help page: If you have a question about...academic careers, requirements and expectations of students, postdocs, or professors, inner workings of research departments,
academic writing and publishing, studying and teaching at institutions of higher education (universities, colleges, …), ... then you're in the right place!

@RichardErickson but this is asking about precisely that: "academic writing and publishing". About whether or not there are any guidelines about when and how one should present a computational pipeline as a flowchart. I'll grant you it's too broad, and probably opinion based, but off topic?

@terdon I disagree and think is is a domain specific writing question that might fit better on another SE site like the bioinformatics site. However, you're free to start a meta-question if you'd like others to chime in and think the question should be re-opened.

@RichardErickson fair enough, but as a bioinformatician and ex mod of the bioinformatics site, I don't see how it's specific to the field. I would say all questions about publishing papers would be better served here. But yes, meta is the place to discuss it.

This sadly doesnt seem to be stated as a question proper for the site as noted in the comments. Perhaps you can rephrase it and add some examples.
From personal experience, UML is widely accepted for the symbols and flow of charts on various charts. There are software to so it easily like DIA (openware), flowchart (online) or Microsoft Visio. But there are plenty of sowftwares to do it. What you must abide to, however, is to be consistent.


text:
Is social media affecting the creativity of students?
I have been observing my small sister for about a year now that there has been a huge decline in her studies and academic results and this all has happened soon after we got an Android device common for the home and she has started using it to chat with her friends and use social media platforms.
My question is - Is social media making her smarter and the only bad thing is the number of hours of usage or should I stop her from using it since it's useless and just a waste of time?

I would be careful to outright "stop her from using it". Forbidden fruit is the most tantalizing, after all. I wonder if there is a way to artificially speed the progression of realizing it's a waste of time. You'd have to make her time more valuable to her.

This site is for questions about postgraduate study and/or teaching at universities. I think that this question as it is currently worded is off-topic.

It is generally useless and a waste of time. There is a reason why Australian states are banning the use of personal electronic devices in public K-12 education.

It would be great if you could elaborate on said reason.