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Letters of Recommendation - Duration Etiquette
I finished my undergraduate degree in mathematics about two years ago, and started a master's program last year. Now that I am about half way through the MS program, I am convinced that I want to get into a doctoral program. I was admitted to the master's program based upon very strong recommendations from respected scientists at the university where my undergraduate degree was obtained.
The MS program I am attending is at a small, noncompetitive institution. I am thinking that recommendation letters from this school would not be as meaningful. Also, based upon the limited scope of the research being conducted here, and my limited capacity to participate, I fear that letters from these professors might not be as strongly worded.
It is my intention to apply to several programs starting in December of this year. My question is this: Is it unreasonable to ask for my old references to "re-send" their letters of recommendation, almost 3 years after my association with them has concluded? Would it seem peculiar to the admissions board if all of my recommendation letters came from a school other than the one where I (will) have completed my MS?

I am afraid if all of my recommendation letters came from a school would be a problem.

You are asking two different questions at the end.  For the first, what you should do is update your old professors on what you have been doing--e.g., CV, statement of purpose (and if easy to arrange, it's not a bad idea to meet them briefly in person).  Then they will likely revise their old letters for you.

It would be normal to have some letters of recommendation from professors at your undergraduate institution.  In my experience, faculty often write such letters for students a few years after they've graduated and will typically keep old letters of recommendation on file as a starting point for an updated letter.
However, it is also important to have positive letters of recommendation from your current advisor and possibly others at your current institution.  If you don't get such recommendation letters, then this could be taken as a sign that you've done badly at your current institution.

What about one from the MS (from the department chair) and two from undergrad? You seem to imply that it is not necessarily too late to ask my old references for another letter.


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Referee reports not coming
It happened the third time to me and I start wondering what is going on? I have submitted two papers since May last year (11 months) and didn't get any answer. I wrote to the editors and they answered to me the following:
One of them said that it was very hard to find a referee for the paper and finally they succeeded to find a person willing to referee the paper.
Yesterday the other editor told me that the two referees where the paper was sent "eventually didn't write a report. We are now trying to get a report from a third referee".
In the last two years I noticed a very long delay in receiving reports for my papers. It also happened to a reasonable journal, JA, to receive a favourable report  after some corrections are done. After I sent the corrections back I didn't receive anything back for six months. When I wrote to the editor, he wrote to me that the referee refused to answer emails and then he sent the paper to another referee, starting practically from scratch the reviewing process. The paper was finally rejected after 9 months.
Please help me concerning the following matters. Although I never commented on referee/editor's decisions it seems that something has changed. The community does not want to referee my papers anymore. Once I got a first rejection on the reason that the table of contents is not symmetric.
My question is the following:
Is anything I can do with respect to this matter? What should I write to those editors. I have asked clearly when should I receive report on my paper and didn't get any clear answer.
Finally it is my work and cannot be just deleted as some people/referee like, but these delays somehow have ruined the scores for my ongoing research grant.
Maybe I should add that most of the journals I am talking about are well established journals in the field, some of them being in the top (first quarter) of the AI/ISI ranking etc.

@ Bjørn Thank you very much for the site. I will post it there two. I post it here since it is of course about mathematical papers.

Unfortunately, it is not about mathematics specifically.  Even if you were to ask about the response time of a specific journal or field, this is still the wrong forum.  If you have any academic contacts (former advisor, colleagues in the area), you would do well to ask them.  If you are (like me) an outsider wishing to cultivate such contacts, this question on MathOverflow is a poor place to start.  Gerhard "Other Ways And Other Days" Paseman, 2015.04.06

@Gerhard Paseman - I don't quite agree, the point being that the process of refereeing in mathematics is much more time consuming and significantly different from other areas.

R W, if you think it is a good question for the community, vote it up if you haven't done so.  The vote count suggests to me that the question is in a gray area of community acceptance.  Further, a citation may be needed to support the assertion of refereeing being more time consuming in mathematics than other areas (of science, I presume).  I agree that the process might be different, but I imagine the author-journal interface is (on some level) very similar across refereed journals in all branches of science.  Gerhard "References Referring To Referees Requested" Paseman, 2015.04.06

As always, one needs to look within oneself. Ask yourself the following questions:

How broadly interesting is your oeuvre? In my experience, difficulty in finding a referee often indicates that the field is very narrow, and the editors are looking for a referee to check whether a paper is a breakthrough in the narrow field. Otherwise, the paper is rejected.
How well-written are the papers? Especially the introduction - if the prospective referee's eyes glaze over when s/he reads it, s/he probably won't want to referee the paper. I realize that the author is not the best judge for this, but show the paper to a friend.
You can usually get papers published quicker if you submit to a lesser journal (and I assume that it is ALREADY published on arxiv.org). The optimization problem (quality vs speed) is for you to solve. From a careerist standpoint, the journal weighting is very nonlinear: a single paper in Annals of Math is worth essentially an infinite number in, say, PAMS (no insult meant). If you are already established, then you might not care. If not, you might.

Just one man's opinion (though I am active on several editorial boards, so the opinion is somewhat informed).

@ Igor Thank you very  much for your answer. It is indeed the optimization problem you mentioned (quality vs speed). All the papers are on arxiv.org but unfortunately that is not enough for a research grant. I was thinking seriously to send some of the work to some lower quality journals only to be able to show that there is some published work when the grant report has to be completed.

@ Igor Indeed my interest is very narrow and the papers are very techincal. But some of the big journals reject papers in two weeks based on this reason. I don't understand how can a journal need one year to take a decision and mostly this decision to be made without a report. If a referee promises to write a report to an editor  why after one year s/he would change his/her mind and "eventually didn't write". I also refereed for some of these journals but always I got a deadline for the report and hardly get some extensions in some cases.

@mathuser04 Basically, if the "big journal" has an editor close to the field, the journal can make a quick decision. If not, the editor takes a semi-educated guess of which referee to send the paper to, the referee often takes months to respond; sometimes the referee agrees, but then decides he is too busy, then you have to find another. After a few attempts, the journal bails, but the few attempts can take a year. The worst is when the referee agrees, then flakes (sounds like you have been there).

Thanks again. It seems indeed that in these cases things moves quite slowly and it might easily get to one  year.

I'd just add that we all have horror stories of our papers being badly handled.  It sounds like @mathuser04 has had a string of bad luck, but none of the incidents he recalls sounds grossly atypical.

Indeed.  I've had much more horrifying experiences (including one paper under review for 4 years).

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What is the difference between literary review and abstract
My undergraduate dissertation requires a literary review and an abstract.
I have been reading published papers similar to my topic but which are mostly at masters level and all of them have an abstract but no literary review.
So what is the difference between a literary review and abstract?
My understanding is the literary review is talking about what you have read and being critical and that an abstract introduces the dissertation. The problem is that when I start to write the literary review, it starts to become the abstract and I will just be repeating myself in the abstract.
Furthermore, where should the literary review be placed?

An abstract is the summary of the work you have writen. While the literature review is a summary of other literature, which you would connect together, and might derive a conclusion from

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How long do I study on my own before applying to math grad school?
I'm one of those who realized near the end of their Bachelor's in Business Mgmt that they really really love math. I'm interested in research in pure, theoretical math. I am confident in my ability to learn advanced math on my own. I admit this is based on a small sample of experiences I've had so far with self-studying. After a year of working, I decide to do it full time.
Since I'm behind my peers, I was thinking to just learn the fundamentals (Logic, Real Analysis, Abstract Algebra and Geometry) on my own, and then apply for a Master's. The reason I want to do these on my own is that I find I understand things better at my own pace taking the time to solidify the fundamentals. I took a year of math courses on an exchange program at London School of Econ and it felt like learning disconnected facts. Something like saying object x is round, black, with 4 holes etc. vs showing you a picture a black shirt button (which I find more efficient mentally). Concepts were introduced which were too new but no time was given to "form a picture" of the objects. As a result, it felt like very "syntactic". If I understand the basic concepts used over and over in math, rather than things built out of those facts like calculus, linear algebra, applied math and other "less abstract" branches, I feel I'd do well in my Master's course. I love taking the time explore mathematical concepts on my own, seeing how things fit. I find quite often I make my own concepts (simple ones though) where the picture feels incomplete, which is why I want to do research.
I was wondering how long I should continue this approach (i.e. when have I learned enough fundamentals)? More objectively, what should aim to master on my own, before applying to a master's program? (unless you disagree this is the right approach)
PS: I'm 22, and I have financial support at the moment while I get this done. I've started with Logic and Set Theory and becoming good at proofs. I find calculus and linear algebra intro books skip over too many of the more abstract underlying concepts, hence the bottom up approach.

Related

It's an unorthodox approach but you might be a maths "natural" who needs a lot of time to get concepts into your own mental toolkit but, once there, can reason very powerfully about them. If so then set theory seems a good area to start with and I'd suggest continuing to topology. You might want to check the career of R.H.Bing.

"Becoming good at proofs" sounds like a warning flag. It is similar to "I want to become a lifeguard, I am now getting good at swimming".
Proofs is 95% of mathematics after you've done the calculus and linear algebra aimed for engineers etc. If proof by induction still scare you, you need to do much more.

I hope other people will pardon my critique, but I would object to the notion that "set theory" is foundational, for one thing. True, it is interesting, and may be helpful, but the (by now obsolete) idea that set theory is a prerequisite for "everything" is passe'. Nor are "proofs", per se, the essence of mathematics. For outsiders to "professional mathematics", the internet provides much disinformation about mathematics... unfortunately, but sociologically-understandably.

I disagree that this is the right approach. Many grad schools in the US would require you to have a Bachelor's degree in some subject and to make up the courses you missed by not having a Bachelor's degree in math. So your best option is to get started actually completing those courses. I think that unless you have some publications in math with someone who can vouch for your skills even though you don't have the coursework, you're not going to get into a good Master's degree program without the necessary coursework. The further your history is from the required classes, the more work you're going to need to do. Some programs might admit you with the requirement that you take a few semesters of undergrad classes to catch up, but if you need more than a few catch-up courses, you're really looking at a second Bachelor's degree or working on the side through a non-degree-seeking program at your local university.

Thanks for injecting a bit of realism. Yes I agree a totally unproven person could never get accepted into a master's program. I was planning on becoming good first with the basics (which I honestly feel I'd learn better on my own). Perhaps there are these options after that:

Join  a bachelor's and graduate super early
Talk to professors to get some ideas on research problems i could work on. If I'm really as good as I think, then they should be able to vouch for me/my research. Then try for a master's directly.

I think you're going to find that professors don't just give out their research problems for people to work on. Also, may not be able to start a BS in math program and graduate quickly. Most have requirements beyond mathematics that will take up a lot of your time. Your best bet, if you want to accelerate your path, would be to take the math courses you lack at a quick pace as a non-degree seeker. You'll meet a lot of folks along the way who can give you some advice about getting into a math grad program with (what will be) your unusual transcript. You might also find some research to work on.

Thanks for getting back. I clearly need to revise my expectations about how much work this takes (although I have decided get it done whatever it takes). I will look at non-degree programs, and may be even a bachelor's degree. I'll have to figure out how to fit in my own self-study, but what's life without a challenge :)

I have a bit of a disagreement with this. Namely, yes, the typical/orthodox route involves degrees certifying "a certain...  competence in iconic rituals", I would claim that this barely sets the acolytes above "people on the street who are interested"... Maybe I'll have to elaborate in an "answer"... But, yes, good to raise these issues...

I don't know how common they are in math, but in physics/astrophysics I know several people who have pursued "post-baccalaureate" work.  Here is an example from my own department. The people I know who are a part of this program are from non-physics/astro backgrounds and are using this program to transition into a graduate astrophysics track.
I think if you can find a good post-baccalaureate program (or something similar) in math, it will provide what you need and what you are looking for.

Postbacs are not that common in math, but they exist and I agree that it would be a good idea for the OP to pursue one.

Although perhaps you might slightly discount this advice on the grounds that apparently I'm sometimes perceived as "radical" or some other dismissive + mildly perjorative modifier, I might recommend that you do study for a bit, especially if you have funding, to... drumroll... be a better scholar for the thing that you want to ... be a scholar/researcher/expert/maven.
In on-the-ground practical terms, if you can find a friendly "post-bac", this would indeed be helpful. These are the catch-up possibilities for people in the U.S. to replicate what (more narrowly educated, due to the system) students in Europe have been required to do... crazily-ironically, whether they were interested or not.
Back to specific advice: follow your interests; do not believe people/advice that urge absolute conformity to ... style, content.
The tipping point is making-a-living verus scholarship-or-whatever. Now that the Cold War is over, it is not as easy to make a living proposing ways to defeat that particular "Evil Empire", and, truly things are subtler. But not much, though perhaps even less gratifying for any of us who thought there'd be progress... nevermind...
But this does explain the situation young academics often find themselves-in. So it's not "how long do I study before trying to enter academe", but a different question about one's own practical situation.
Back to an idealized issue: if one has a good job, and spare energy to study, I'd recommend doing more of this pre-study... and put off petitioning for re-entry to academe a bit... Getting some corroboration of one's putative competence would be wise...
So, as often, the issue is not quite (as I would think) what the questioner asked... but/and the question raises the right further questions...


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Increasing chances of getting a research internship with no experience?
I am starting an MSc in Computer Science in the autumn and I am concerned that I don't have any research experience. My interest is in Theoretical Computer Science and I am finding it hard to find any internships, as there is very little funding for undergraduates available at my university and no advertised positions in this area. I have seen an industrial position that matched my interests, but it was only advertised for Msc/PhD students.
I asked around last year and was unsuccessful but it was suggested that I self study a topic, so I don't know if I should do this again, or try to pursue an actual internship.
I think the reason I was unsuccessful was that I was too general and not specific enough about my interests. However, as an undergrad I am finding it hard to identify something that is achievable at my level and to narrow down to one area.
Therefore, would it be better to find a paper and a topic and directly approach an academic, or would I be better off using the summer to study more broadly and find a specific topic to pursue? Is there anything else I should do to increase my chances of getting an internship?

I am starting an MSc in Computer Science in the autumn and I am concerned that I don't have any research experience.

Not having research experience when starting an MSc is not a problem! One of the goals of MSc is to acquire research experience.

However, as an undergrad I am finding it hard to identify something that is achievable at my level and to narrow down to one area

It is perfectly normal that at this stage you do not already have well defined interests.
A potentially more successful approach would be to ask your current teachers. Even if they do not have any funding in their lab, they may be able to suggest some of their colleagues and to recommend you.

I believe strongly in personal growth as a means of getting where you want. I am trying to get an internship as an undergrad, so I checked which skills interest both me and the companies I am trying to work with the most, and now I am developing them on my own.
My suggestion is that you start some extensive reading on the subject, start with a book or two, read some papers and try to apply that knowledge (of course, I'm in computer engineering so it's easy for me to say). I started by writing tutorials to showcase my knowledge, and I have also published a game and a small development tool for example, participated in a contest and participating again, and am still developing.
The point is, it would probably give you good odds of getting the position if you show that you are already in touch with the topic, have some working knowledge and interest in really learning about it well (for me that's optimization, abstraction and low level programming that show that I'm really into it), and that you're already capable of delivering some work, and thus can give them better quality work in less time than other candidates.
Also, having a large portfolio/showcase with plenty of good work in it, shows that other than knowing what you're doing, you like doing it and are working a lot, thus you  will  deliver work rather than just occupy space and, possibly, resources.
In short: do what you can to show that a) you're already into it (less training, producing sooner), b) you're good at it (no low quality work), c) you  will  deliver work (not just trying to pass your time / put a check on the task). This is my approach to the whole issue.


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Could there be a problem with my PhD supervisor (lack of assertiveness, essentially a "yes woman")?
I am a first year maths PhD student at a UK university, and I recently made a very long post about potentially quitting my PhD and I am severely lacking motivation (see here for much more details).
I am starting to wonder whether my disillusionment is partly caused by my supervisor. Don't get me wrong - my supervisor is lovely, we can talk about things fairly openly and she really knows her stuff when it comes to mathematical analysis and partial differential equations. Over the first few months of my PhD she was very supportive of everything I did, but only recently have I realised how that has essentially bitten me in the arse.
We had a couple of very long conversations recently about the fact that she is worried about my progress despite being only 6 months in - namely that she feels I have not been putting in the time required. This is definitely true I must admit, but the reason for that is my motivation has really plummeted recently and as a result I've been finding simple tasks very difficult (her main worry recently is that I've been spending 2 months trying to figure out a task which she says would take any analysis graduate student 2 hours - or moreover, I've had a lot of difficulty getting around to it due to other departmental commitments such as attending classes, doing teaching and marking, and taking lecture notes for special needs students) I do also feel that because my analysis background is probably a bit weak (and she was aware of this when I applied to the studentship) that my supervisor has been expecting that I'll just solve this problem myself rather than carefully structure the first few months to allow me to absorb the content and take my own time.
I feel as though my supervisor has been leading me into a false sense of security somewhat; towards the start of the PhD she was just politely agreeing with whatever it was that I was doing (even if there were some errors in the way I was doing things) in order to positively support me, bearing in mind I was a new student and she was still getting to know me, and this falsely led me to believe that I was somehow doing okay. I feel as though she has been insincere and hiding the truth from me,  hoping that I'll pick up on her polite "hints" that certain things should be done, rather than just simply saying if there was something I wasn't doing right or saying "that's good, but you really need to do X". I would much prefer being supervised by someone who is much more direct about if there is something I have done wrong as this would allow me to correct things at an early stage, rather than let things slide and then only later on down the line realise that something really is wrong.
This is a repeat of the research project that happened during my MMath at my previous university. Once again, I have encountered an inexperienced supervisor (who is fairly new to supervising students and getting a lot out of them) who has not been actively engaging with me as much as they could have done, who has been overly nice up to this point in the hope that it will have made me more productive, only to say that "I have been very positive and encouraging, and even when I have been trying to make things a bit more difficult for you, that doesn't seem to have worked" as though they are trying to use their own politeness as grounds against me. WHY DON'T PEOPLE JUST TELL ME DIRECTLY IF SOMETHING ISN'T RIGHT?
Anyway, this could be purely my own fault and this may just be the result of my own incompetence at research work or time management (hence the other post about me considering quitting), but is this something that would ring alarm bells for other PhD students or alternate supervisors? Would it be worth considering a much more assertive supervisor (my advisor is someone who seems like a genuinely nice guy but he is also incredibly knowledgeable about mathematics and he has supervised a lot of PhD students - the students I've spoken to who have him as a supervisor seem to be doing well) instead of quitting altogether? To put it simply, I feel as though my supervisor has just been a "yes woman" and only now do I feel that the indirect politeness has bitten me in the backside.

You might find the following question useful: Can I successfully adapt to an advisor who will not push me to work?

Sounds to me like she's treating you as an adult and expecting you to take personal responsibility for yourself and your work. (That's a good thing). Re "This is a repeat of the research project that happened during my MMath at my pervious university", the common factor linking the two projects is you. I'm suggesting that the problem does not necessarily lie with your supervisors. It seems like your expectations of what a supervisor should do (you seem to want them to motivate you and tell you what work you should do) aren't lining up with reality.

Some people will be kick you, some - not. Some people prefer to be pushed, some - not. You may prefer the former (in both cases), but you cannot blame your advisor for not whipping you while you are rowing in a galley, chained.

There would be many, many people (like me) in the world who'll say - You are incredibly lucky to have an adviser who is happy to hand you the steering wheel! Doesn't always work out like that.

You should see my supervisor who treats students as paper producing slaves.

Possibly relevant background information: are you originally from the UK? It may be that there is a cultural difference going on here. In some countries the degree of "control" a supervisor / advisor provides is generally greater. If a PhD is about becoming independent, maybe this attitude is a deliberate strategy by your supervisor. The only way to master independence is to practice independence.

Yes, I am originally from the UK - and my supervisor is originally from Iran. But that on its own probably doesn't explain anything...

Omega, could you please explain why you are aiming for academia long term?  What about that life appeals to you?  Also, could you please tell us some pleasurable math memories?  And finally, could you tell us what you think your strengths are?  (In math, and in other things -- just tell us (in a bulleted list form) what strengths you are aware of, that are helpful for you.

Omega, do you feel that your advisor is laying a guilt trip on you?  Could you write a simple script of what you feel she should have said?  If it's more a matter of tone that you would have liked to have been different, rather than the actual words, then put some stage directions in.  This suggestion, along with my previous comment, is mainly designed to help you understand yourself and your situation better.  (But also, these would help me understand you and your situation better.)

Since this post - a lot has happened for me. I decided to withdraw from my PhD studies as my supervisor and I decided it was the best thing for me. Come to think of it, my supervisor was actually really good at her job but I was in the incorrect mindset and I hadn't taken the time to properly appreciate how well she was treating me.
Essentially it's not a matter of needing the supervisor to kick me up the backside in the end - I was suffering from two problems: (a) declining interest in research topic, and (b) feeling worn out having been studying continuously all these years without a break.

From what you've written, your supervisor actually seems like quite a good supervisor. Students rarely accomplish much of note during the first six months and the majority of students would quickly lose motivation if their supervisor immediately started criticising their work ethic/output while they were still getting their feet wet. As StrongBad has said, 6 months is probably the earliest point that your supervisor can stop giving you the benefit of the doubt and sit down with you and point out the areas in which you need to improve.
Different students require/prefer different styles of supervision. You seem to want less independence than most PhD students I know. So, you need to sit down with your supervisor and communicate this to her. Frame it in a positive way, e.g. "I really appreciate how supportive you have been of my early attempts but I feel that I have become a bit lost and need more direct guidance. Can we start having regular meetings for the next few months where I show you what I'm working on and the approach I am taking, and you can let me know whether you think there are alternative approaches to that question or whether I am better working on a different problem?" Right now it doesn't seem like you are even giving your supervisor a chance to change her style of supervision to fit your requirements.
Finally, as somebody who has witnessed what can happen with a 'direct' supervisor and an underperforming student (it's not pretty), I think you might be underestimating the importance of a supportive supervisor, which your supervisor certainly seems to be. Talk to her, tell her what you are struggling with and see how it goes over the next few months.

I have been a PhD student once (passed), and subsequently during a long academic career I supervised about 30 PhD students, about 28 of whom stayed the course and submitted a thesis.  They all passed.
You sound as if you are not very interested in the subject you are researching.  When you started, did you not think, "Wow!  It would be really neat to find an answer to that problem"?
When you become Dr Smith, an expert in thingology, that says two things to the world:

You know a lot about thingology and have contributed new ideas to it, and
You can work independently and with self motivation to get a big
 long project completed.

Doing a PhD is neither like doing a job (even an interesting job), nor is it like being educated at school or as an undergraduate.  After the important animal necessities of food, sex, sleep, shelter and so on, the work of the PhD should be something that you find intrinsically fascinating to the extent that it fills your thoughts most of the time.  It may be that at its start you merely found it intriguing, but that fascination should grow as you find out more about it.
If you regard it like a job (with a boss), or like doing a first degree in order to get a job, then you will perform indifferently at best.  And you won't enjoy it.
At a minimum you should not do a PhD unless - in altered circumstances - its subject would be something that you would study anyway as a hobby in your spare time.

In general, it is difficult for supervisors to be able to quickly identify if something is wrong. Often UK programs evaluate students after one year. My department holds an viva voice after the first year and progresses students from MPhil to PhD. In my field, psychology, a reasonable outcome after one year is an understanding, and literature review, of the thesis, and a completed experiment. As a supervisor, the 6 month point is probably the earliest I can identify if a student is unlikely to clear the minimum bar unless there is a major change. Even at 6 months, it is difficult to judge. When tasks that should take hours are taking months, that is an indication of a problem.
PhD students, especially in the short time-limited programs in the UK, need to be self motivated. That means you need to understand what you need to accomplish by when. By now you should probably be outlining your thesis is a big picture sense and have some well defined aims and some background reading about why these aims are important and substantial. The aims should be agreed with your supervisor as being worthy of a PhD. It is likely that over the next 2.5 years these aims will change, but you want a starting point. You also need to know where you need to be at the end of year 2. As you build a roadmap with your supervisor, you can get an idea of how long things should take. When things take much longer then you and your supervisor think they should, you need to meet with your supervisor ASAP.

I'd have to agree with AE that you are not expecting the correct things from your relationship with your supervisor. Sure, it's her job to help guide you, but it is not her job to make you feel motivated. That's squarely your responsibility. If you don't feel her style is to your liking, it's not her fault if you stick with her instead of finding someone else. If you feel like you don't enjoy the work you are currently doing due to the time consumption, you may want to ask yourself if you are cut out for the field to begin with.
A job requiring a doctorate probably isn't going to be light in requirements schedule-wise. In addition, you will have to work both for, and with, people who may be similar to your supervisor. If you don't like her when she's optional in your life, imagine how you'll feel when you can't simply walk away and find another person. You'll need to be more flexible and really talk with her about your issues. In fact, try having an adult conversation about how you feel concerning the way she operates.

Why would you want to add this as a comment? It reads like an answer and is definitely long and thorough enough to be one.

Sorry for being blunt, but: forget about your supervisor.
I mean, don't actually forget about her, but it sounds very weird to hear you talk about her "giving you tasks" as if she was having you sort her bookshelves alphabetically or something. You have a subject you want to study, right? Or even some specific research questions? Make the assumption you're not going to get a great deal of help from your advisor right now, regardless of the reason.
Now, try to come up with a broad plan. I know it sounds impossible, especially when you need to make assumptions regarding your own abilities, but really - pretend it's a plan for somebody else. Try to get to a point when in the back of your mind you can tell yourself "Ok, I want this and that to happen already", "I need myself to accomplish X because then I would be able to do Y which I am looking forward to" etc. Your work plan doesn't have to be perfect, or even valid; you'll probably scrap it when your viewpoint changes or when you've obtained some partial results on something - but that doesn't matter either, it's the mindset, I think, that makes the difference.
And when you have this kind of mindset, you'll essentially be trying to utilize your advisor: Come to her asking for very specific guidance, opinions on what you're doing on your own, oracling references to the literature on this or that obscure aspect of your field, and so forth.
(Yes, this is much easier said than done and it's not like I did that during my Ph.D., but that's a long sad story not for this post. I made it through though.)
So, technically, the answer to your question is: "Maybe there's a problem and maybe there isn't, but that's not what you should be concerned about given your situation."

I know this is somewhat tangential, but have you every been evaluated for learning disorders, particularly Attention Defecit Disorder (ADD)?
While you mention that there could be some subject area knowledge that you're lacking in order to complete the tasks she's assigned, it sounds like your biggest hurdles are time management and procrastination, which are very, very common problems with ADD.
In that respect, instead of expecting your adviser to help you with those issues, you should consider seeing an ADD coach (a therapist trained in working with people with ADD to manage time and track progress on tasks). You could also consider a behavioral therapist, who could help you develop new patterns for how you approach tasks in the first place (some coaches are trained in both). Very frequently, universities either have in-house staff who can help you with this or can get you a referral to a local therapist.

I do actually have Asperger's Syndrome (with which there may be a link with dyspraxia) but I have actually thought that maybe I do suffer from ADD, so I might see if I can get tested at some point. My brother has suffered from ADHD so it might be a thing that runs in the family.

Nonetheless, I've managed to annihilate my main source of procrastination by creating a separate login account on my work computer which is meant strictly for work-related matters. No Facebook, no YouTube, just websites like ResearchGate, Stack Exchange and so forth. Worked really well today!

@omegaSQU4RED: kudos to you for creating the separate login account. As an ADD sufferer, I've actually zero'ed out (0.0.0.0) Facebook, YouTube and other distractions in my hosts file, and I think it's good advice for anyone who gets easily sidetracked.

Although most of these responses are from an academic point of view, which can be biased against the student, I'm relieved to see a reply for once that is sympathetic towards my psychological background.
My supervisor said that there was a task to be done that didn't need to take anywhere near as long as it needed to - and it's not even an open problem. I got sidetracked trying to understand a proof of an inequality which subsumes another one which I used to derive the result I set out to prove - even though in the end it didn't help.
I'm going to see if I can get screened for ADD at my GP.

Having experienced a "hands off" advisor myself, I'm going to say yes, there is something wrong with your advisor. Where my advisor was horribly emotionally abusive, yours sounds like she simply doesn't give useful feedback; in either case, though, you aren't getting the guidance you need. Many people forget that graduate students are students still, meaning they came to grad school to get guidance in how to pursue advanced research. If you aren't getting that guidance from your advisor, that means they aren't doing their job.
Most people who reach the upper echelons of most branches of academia have never learned about teaching or mentoring - they do what was done to them or what seems like a good idea. However, there's a whole branch of study that has developed concrete guidelines for how people learn best: successful learning involves timely and appropriate feedback. Without the feedback (and guidance, so the lessons aren't excessively hard to come by), the rewards centers of the brain never light up, and motivation to continue down the path you're on decreases. It sounds like this is what's happening to you (and it's what happened to me when I couldn't get a response from my advisor about my research, even when I asked him point blank whether it was acceptable or not). If you knew enough to light up your own reward centers (i.e. if you knew how research was conducted and what "accurate" results look like) what would the point be of paying a school to teach you this? You'd already be an expert, and wouldn't be looking to an expert for guidance.
And just to back up what I'm saying with the opinion of a respected professional mentor on the topic of academia, I give you the following link:
The 5 Top Traits of the Worst Advisors
Oh hey, look at that - Is nice, and friendly, and available made the top spot on the list.
Good luck with handling the situation; Karen's blog (the one from the link) is actually a great place to find solutions to the type of bind you're in.

Read the blog post and completely disagree that being nice, friendly and available is the worst trait an advisor can have. Her main point seems to be that you you do not want an advisor that is unwilling to confront you if you are underperforming or have a massive problem with your research profile (e.g. no first-author publications), which I wholeheartedly agree with. But being nice, friendly and available and giving tough love are not mutually exclusive. Do you seriously believe the only advisors willing to tell their students that they are lacking in this or that area are horrible people?

As an example, I would consider my advisor as 'nice, friendly and approachable'. But I could not for a minute conceive how anybody in our group could get a decent way through a PhD without a first-author publication and feel they were doing OK (wrt the blog post @lead linked to). Before I even started my PhD, I knew my advisor expected at least four first author papers at minimum. I know of nobody in our group who has left with fewer than this. If I were to get off track then my advisor would let me know but that nothing to do with being nice, friendly and approachable or otherwise.

@user49483, lead: Note that the blog post was provocatively stated, and the full quote is "Is nice, and friendly, and available... And never gives you the fierce criticism and the tough pushback that forces you to confront your weaknesses, take risks, stop whining, cut the excuses, get over your fears, and make hard decisions about reputation, money, and jobs." To paraphrase to the first part is very misleading.

I think the context of my answer speaks to the full quote, not the partial quote.

" If you knew enough to light up your own reward centers [..] what would the point be of paying a school to teach you this?" --- Who on earth actually pays for being a PhD student? You get paid, normally!

Could there be a problem with my PhD supervisor?

No, certainly there is nothing inherently wrong with your nice supervisor (based on your description).
It may be that you would benefit a stricter more direct advisor, but this does not mean anything is "wrong" with your supervisor.

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


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How long to wait after sending an email to a professor before I should assume that I will never receive response?
I have sent  an email to a professor at a local university. The email asks for assistance with a fairly large science fair. I have done much of the work and the email was asking about how I could improve it.
After 4 days I have not received a response yet.
Usually people check their email on a fairly regular basis (Once a day, usually) and so I am naturally worried about it.
Is it possible the professor has not read the email yet or should I email other professors?

Don't confuse "has read my mail" with "has had time to answer my mail". I very frequently read mails, but I answer them in batches, unless they are trivial to answer or very important.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9542/is-ignoring-emails-acceptable-in-academia

It depends on how long you think it takes to answer your email!
If you are just asking a few simple questions (= request for information), you can politely email again the professor after one week. Make sure you make your email as simple to answer as possible (bullet points, yes/no questions).
If you are asking the professor to do something for you that goes beyond answering an email, it is more complicated. An absence of answer can often be interpreted as a 'no'.


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Assessing the relevance of textbooks
I have accumulated a lot of textbooks, many of which I have yet to read, and I am wondering how to determine the relevance of those books for me based on my field of study, my interests, and academic relevance (which I suspect varies by field of study).
What are some techniques for determining the relevance of a textbook for future reading?

Looking at the table of contents is a good start.  I don't understand the presence of "by date" in your title; are you suggesting that the date when the textbook was written is likely to help you in deciding whether to read it?  I don't think that will generally be true.

To determine the relevance of a textbook for future reading, you have to extrapolate your past field of study and interests, based upon which you bought the textbooks in the first place.
If you intend to remain in your current field, keep the books immediately pertinent for that discipline. Otherwise, keep mainly the textbooks on reusable skills, such as math and statistics, computer programming, foreign languages, etc.
You may also want to ask senior students/researchers what books they kept on their shelves.

If there's a book you haven't used for +3 years, it would be safe to keep it in storage until the need comes up, when that happens you can (almost) always find the book in the library or borrow it from a friend.
I sold/gave away almost all my textbooks before I went to graduate school. It's better for a textbook to be studied by a student who needs it than to gather dust on my bookshelf.


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What I should write to a professor to decline a PhD offer, while I have accepted it months ago?
In Dec. last year, I got admitted to CUHK as a PhD student, and have chosen my 'future advisor', with whom I had been emailing for several months. Three months later, I recieved HKPFS (Hong Kong PhD Fellowhship Scheme, HK$20,000/m, big award). Currently, I'm waiting for the result of visa application. If nothing happened, that's the university I would like to go, for the award and its academic achievement.
However, after the time having accepted the admission offer, I met a few guys, and  gradually realized that I am homosexual and what I want is a place to live freer. I also have applied several American universities before CUHK's interview. Two weeks before, an offer was made by one of them. From my birth, I have been living in Mainland China. This could be an opportunity for me to seek a change in my life - date a guy and get married eventually. So, after months of struggle of my identity, choosing which university to go is not a problem. No matter how CUHK outperforms the american one, I would like to go america.
So, the question now is what and how I should write to my CUHK advisor? I know making excuses untrue or creating 'irresistable event' is not a wise idea. But telling him that I am homosexual and decide to go america instead would make things better? CUHK has rather early admission, and they have made all the admissions long time ago. I think they would get mad/annoyed no matter how. :(
Another problem is that my teachers from my undergraduate college heard about my story. (They thought why I chose America over HK is that I have a crush on a girl there. But the rest they know is the same as the truth.) They all want me to write back to CUHK asap. So, what I should do these days to make them not thinking less of me?
My problem is not typical. I'm not serving 'being homosexual' as an excuse. I know many people are not OK with it. But it's the truth I have to deal with. Any advice is appreciated, :)

What about something simple like "for personal reasons, it's important to me to move to the US"?

@NateEldredge Thanks for your comment. I have thought of that. But would that make people annoyed, becoz I haven't explained things clear?

That depends on that CUHK advisor. I would not be annoyed if you just said for personal reasons if I were your CUHK advisor. Note that I am a Chinese (in my sixties and I am not a gay). Is he also a Chinese? A westernized one?

Don't worry people don't really want to know your true reason (cause they also may not know how to respond and end up we got another question here in academia)...

On the other hand I would suggest you to think twice if your plan to america is just for a "freer" environment, that is not necessary the situation. There could be even more discrimination there depends on the city you live.

I agree with @NateEldredge that you should just keep it general. If you state that it is 'for personal reasons' then frankly it's none of their business what those personal reasons are (at least that is the general view in the english-speaking countries in which I have lived - things might, of course, be quite different in China). It could also backfire if you try to explain your circumstances in detail and your supervisor disagrees with your reasons, which presumably is a possibility if you are leaving the country to escape the intolerance towards homosexuality.

@scaaahu Thank you! He is a Chinese who studied several years in US. I agree that explaining things in 'personal reasons' is a better way.

@NateEldredge Combining your comment "for personal reasons, it's important to me to move to the US" with mine(being Chinese) and other users' comments, it would make a good answer. You are the one who first suggests the "personal reasons", would you make an answer for the OP? Thanks.

I would suggest writing something like this:

For personal reasons, it turns out that I cannot attend this university after all; I will be moving overseas. I am sorry I will not be able to work with you. Thank you very much for your time. I apologize for the inconvenience and late notice.

It is possible that he may be a little disappointed or annoyed, or  suspect that you  are moving because you have another offer that you prefer for academic reasons, but I don't think it should be a huge deal. You've exchanged some emails, but it isn't as if he has invested years of his time in working with you. It's generally not a good idea to go around alienating people in the small world of  academia, but I don't think one slightly annoyed professor will cause any real harm to your career. Anyway, clearly this decision is important enough to you that it's worth the risk.
It's possible he would be more understanding if he knew the real reason. It's your decision to whom you want to come out, and I can't offer any advice on that. But you should only tell him if you're really comfortable with doing so; I don't think the academic consequences of keeping it private are significant enough to enter in the decision.
The phrase "personal reasons" is intended as a polite signal that you don't intend to discuss those reasons, and that it would be rude for him to press you. There is some cultural context there (I am in the US) so it's of course possible he won't take it that way. If you know a better way to express this to him, by all means use it.  If he is rude enough to demand more information than you want to share, you can just repeat that "it is a personal matter".

+1 For the last paragraph. I understand it and I think that advisor would also understand it (at least I hope so). To @aidenio, I believe more and more Chinese understand it in these days. It just takes time, that's all. Good Luck to you.


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Is it bad to apply to the same PhD program two years in a row?
I will be entering my first year of college next Fall. Even if most of my AP classes don't count for credit, I will probably be eligible to graduate after six 15–16 credit semesters. Though my desires might change throughout the next few years, I intend to pursue a PhD in Computer Science, Neuroscience, or something else that I'm interested in.
So, if I am eligible to graduate after three years, and I apply to and am denied from desired PhD programs, can I complete a fourth year of my undergrad and reapply to the same places?
I understand that each year of undergrad adds an additional valuable summer of potential REUs, internships, and other experiences. What are other reasons (besides the aforementioned and taking more credits per semester) people advise against completing undergraduate studies in three years?

See http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19248/does-rigor-thoroughness-of-undergraduate-program-matter-for-graduate-phd-applic?rq=1

The title and the actual question are not the same.

You are absolutely allowed to reapply to schools in successive years. However, unless you have had a substantial updated in your profile, such as through improved grades, or additional work or research experience, I would not necessarily expect a better result.
However, it is definitely possible, and if there has been a substantial improvement, the results can be very different. (I've seen firsthand examples of this in students for whom I've written letters of recommendation!)

You mean go to, say, industry and then work there for awhile and then have your boss(es) recommend you instead of professors?

On rather general grounds, I would recommend against viewing college as a race to be completed as quickly as possible.  In all likelihood you really will not have another time in your life where you are expected and encouraged to explore the intellectual landscape in a really broad way (of course you're encouraged to explore it much more narrowly as a Ph. D. student), and if you rush through it you may look back on this with regret later on.  That said, since I assume from the reference to AP tests you are in the US, given the cost of college these days I can understand viewing the expense of an extra year as an unaffordable luxury.
More practically, as you already seem to recognize to some extent, finishing quickly will significantly reduce your chances of getting into a strong graduate program.  I am a faculty member involved in graduate admissions at a decidedly non-elite mathematics department, and even here we expect our applicants to have done appreciably more than the minimal amount necessary to get a degree--e.g. they should have taken multiple graduate courses (if available at their institution) and/or have done some substantive research or seriously advanced independent study.  Especially since you haven't even figured out what specifically you want to do yet, I'm pretty skeptical that you will be able to build the kind of record that's going to impress graduate admissions committees if you spend a less-than-normal amount of time as an undergrad.
Of course I have no way of knowing your talent level, but whatever it may be, it seems almost tautologically true that the people who will be competing with you for admission to the kind of graduate program that you should be going to will be about as good as you, but with at least 3.5 years of undergrad experience under their belt when they apply (in the fall before they graduate).  If you only have 2.5 years' experience when you apply then you have to expect that you'll lose out to those people, and end up somewhere not as good as where you should.
This suggests a sort of compromise, which happens to be what I did as an undergraduate: plan to finish after 3.5 years.  Since one applies to grad school in the fall anyway, the missing senior spring semester doesn't affect the strength of your graduate applications, but you do save a semester's worth of money.  (As alluded to earlier, if money is no object then your goal should be to be an undergraduate for as long as you can.)  I got into an excellent graduate program doing this, and while it would have been possible for me to graduate in 3 years instead I'm sure that this would have led to me going to a much weaker graduate program, which in turn would have done permanent harm to my career.
But to answer the question in the title, unsuccessfully applying one year would not prejudice your application in future years, if your record improves in the interim.  I would however recommend waiting to apply until your record is where you want it to be instead of applying early and going to a suboptimal (for you) graduate program, which would be the likely outcome.


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Is it valuable to present a paper at an international conference?
My abstract/paper has been selected at 2nd International MISG-2015 conference held at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I would like to know if it's valuable for an Undergraduate student to present paper at this conference and will it have a high impact when I apply for an university for Masters?

Welcome to Academia! Interesting question - you may also be interested in this question: Attending conferences as a first-year undergrad

Could you please edit your question to clarify how your paper "has been selected"? Did you submit it, was it peer-reviewed (abstract only/full text), and was it accepted based on that review? Or were you e-mailed by the conference organizers with an invitation to present your paper (or your research in general) on that conference?

If that's the same conference discussed in the comments here, then I don't think it will have a positive impact when applying for a master's degree.  But I have no direct familiarity with the conference.

@O.R.Mapper yes, it was peer reviewed. And they sent me an acceptance letter.

@AnonymousMathematician It's the same one.

I've got a fairly pessimistic view of the value of publishing in obscure, questionable places.  As an admissions committee member, I periodically see applicants with papers in journals or conferences I've never heard of.  Without more information, publishing in an unknown venue is completely meaningless, since the world is full of junk venues that will publish literally anything.  Many of them claim to do peer review and enforce scholarly standards, but they will actually accept nonsense text.  Unfortunately, there are no magic words (like "peer review" or "international") that will certify a publishing venue, because some venues simply lie, while others are honest but incompetent.
When I run across a completely unfamiliar venue listed in a graduate school application, I do some quick web searches to try to find out more about it.  Sometime I discover that I should have known about it, or that it's a perfectly reasonable and respectable venue that just doesn't have much of an international reputation, but often it looks pretty suspicious to me.  In those cases, I have one of two reactions, depending on how the application comes across.  Either I think "Oh no, this applicant was tricked into publishing a possibly worthwhile paper in a worthless journal", or I think "Hey, this applicant is publishing in a worthless journal to try to manipulate the system".  The former is more likely, with the latter being mainly when the application contains unseemly self-promotion or exaggerations.  Being tricked is mildly negative, since it suggests the applicant was naive and insufficiently careful, but it's not such a terrible thing.  (The main outcome would be that the paper counts for little or nothing.)  Being manipulative is very bad.
If you can't evaluate a conference yourself, it's important to seek advice from people who can, since sending good work to a bad venue is not a winning strategy.  As for MISG-2015, I can't speak from any direct knowledge, but the list of topics strikes me as absurdly broad, and I find it difficult to believe any scientific committee of twelve people could possibly do a responsible job of handling submissions from such diverse areas.

Another red flag: I downloaded the proceedings for last year's MISG conference. The conference lasted one day (08:30-18:00) and included a grand total of 26 presentations (the three conference "tracks" were consecutive rather than concurrent, and the website shows another four tracks which presumably received no submissions at all). When the number of conference topics exceeds the number of presentations by an order of magnitude, it doesn't give a very good impression.

As mentioned in the comments, you can see discussion about this conference here that suggests the conference does not have enough staff to excel in its claimed fields of expertise or review the submitted papers properly. A publication will, at first glance, look good on an application, but any investigation by the admissions board will highlight the fact that this conference is not prestigious and probably a scam. I believe that it would be possible for this to have a negative impact on your applications. The only potential redeeming factor would be if the process of its submission to this conference provides an opportunity to publish elsewhere. This seems unlikely given the conference but a real publication elsewhere would have a much greater positive impact on your research career.
I recommend talking to academics at your university about this conference and if they have any knowledge of it.

"I believe that it would be impossible for this to have a negative impact on your applications". I disagree. This particular conference, as discussed here and in the linked thread, is obviously an academic scam. If you get taken in by a good scam, nobody will hold that against you. But if you fall for such an obvious scam and then even include the paper on your CV, that will reflect badly on your power of discernment. (Or did you want to write "possible" instead of "impossible"? Your answer almost reads that way.)

Yeah its interesting, I think I trust people too much, I don't feel like I have enough evidence to know this is a scam, but maybe others, yourself included, feel that what has been discussed is conclusive?

I personally strongly feel that there is no possibility whatsoever that this could not be a scam.

Agreed actually, I looked at all this before (as mentioned) but I somehow forgot how vast their subject list was.


text:
Should I ask for a confirmation of my interview if I answered late to the invitation?
I have been short listed to be interviewed for admission to graduate school. A couple of days ago, I received an e-mail with four possible time slots, but I coudln't answer immediately because of a health problem. Indeed, a friend answered for me. My answer was a bit delayed but still on time, during the past weekend. The first slot was on monday morning but certainly, I choose the last slot to be sure I am going to be in the best possible shape for the interview. That slot is in 1 day and half and I haven't received additional information, neither a confirmation nor a plain rejection of my interview.
Should I assume that the interview has been setled and wait next to the phone or write to confirm the interview? If I have to write, which is the best way to do it? I don't want to sound like harrasing the interviewer.

It's not really an academia-specific question, but you should always have any interview or appointment confirmed by the other party. What if you'd fly cross-country (-continent) for an interview that fell through the cracks?

You should attempt to confirm the interview.  It's quite possible that somehow your email was somehow missed or there was a miscommunication.  The people doing this stuff are human and make mistakes.  Even if they are actually planning to do it, getting confirmation is a reasonable request.  If you don't hear anything, you should probably be ready by the phone at the appointed time, but don't be surprised if they don't call.


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Vague paper submission guidelines - can I use double column if not specified?
I'm writing a paper for an upcoming congress and there are no author guidelines except for:
"... Articles must be single-spaced, with figures and tables included... References should be double-spaced and in alphabetical order..."
Since guidelines are so vague with respect to all other aspects, should I use any LaTeX template I wish so long as the text is single-spaced and references double-spaced?
My personal preference would be to use a double column template, but since the guidelines are so vague I'm wondering if I should just submit a single column simple manuscript...

I would look at past editions of the conference proceedings to see what style they were ultimately formatted in. Double-column (like IEEE) is typically denser than a single-column, so by picking a two-column format, you may be giving yourself some extra room that other submitters won't have. But you may lose this advantage if your paper is accepted and the format was intended to be single column, since you may have to cut something like 20% out of the content if you are already pushing the limits.


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Should you include uncited papers in your CV?
Is it convenient to include in your CV papers that have not been cited at all along several years?

Please flesh out your question.  What do you mean by "convenient"?  Why do you care about whether it's convenient?  The purpose of a CV is not your convenience.  I can't understand what you are asking.  Take a look at http://academia.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask, then think about how to edit your question to provide more details, context, your thoughts, etc.

Convenient? No.  Appropriate?  Yes.
Unless you are at a point in your career where you can release an impressive "selected publications" CV, your CV is expected to contain everything that you have ever published.  That includes publications that nobody has cited and even ones that you are embarrassed by in retrospect.  I've certainly got some of those in my CV (we were all grad students once), and I simply trust that they will be drowned out by all of the good work that has been done since.

Somebody once said that, unlike real doctors, scientists are forgiven their worst work and judged on the basis of their best.

By publication you mean just journal papers? Apart from many conference abstracts, I also do not include a paper my supervisor published in a predatory journal with me as a coauthor, I really don't wait when they will be drowned out, I am embarrassed about it now and I think it can even endanger me now.

Yes, it is. Your cv is about you, not about the people who cite you. It will give the reader an opportunity to see how you write, how you think. And what you have done over the years.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава

authors: НИКОЛАЙ  КЕРЕМЕДЧИЕВ


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How can people with debilitating social phobias get through foreign language?
I almost didn't get my BS degree because I have never successfully tolerated a foreign language course. My most recent attempt was no exception. I paced about in front of the building trying unsuccessfully to force myself to enter the classroom. Surely this represents a severe defect of my character, but I maintain that an alternate teaching strategy would make success possible for someone like me. An extreme social phobia of this type is rare (<2%). There will never be a house reform because those who gravitate to teaching language are extroverted, and communication is a social activity. so there is little basis for empathy. This is something that I need to figure out, because I learned that the math PhD program requires fourth-semester proficiency. I am sure that the masses love this ubiquitous type of social teaching philosophy, and that the best way to handle statistical anomalies is to tell them to "get over themselves" and "get with the program". This is what I have tried to do, so much against my nature. Language is the only department where this is a problem for me. The format is always the same.
How can someone with a debilitating social phobia get through a foreign language course?

It's unclear how a social phobia relates only to the language learning portion of your degree. Language class aren't that different from tutorial type coursework.

Language courses are (always) about 10% lecture and 90% group work. I do not know what a TA session is, but if the coursework had a standard lecture format I would probably do well. I am seeking strategies that may be employed by a 100% briggs-myers introvert to successfully navigate through a 4'th semester language requirement.

The problem could be solved by taking a written-only language, such as Latin, Ancient Greek or Sanskrit, which tend to follow more traditional un-social pedagogy.

@reluctantmathematician Where are you getting these numbers? I don't know what country you're talking about, but at least in all of the languages courses I've taken (one of my majors is French and I'm taking Japanese and Russian electively), about 75% of the course is lecture and 25% group work. I live in the United States, attending an average university. I work in our language department, and the vast majority of courses are like this. Moreover, it was even more time spent in lecture when I was studying abroad  in France.

@reluctantmathematician And to counter "those who gravitate to teaching language are so extroverted that there is not even a basis for empathy", I am an introvert (even according to the B-M test), and I plan to teach English and French in the future. Don't think that I'm not being empathetic - I'm good friends with a girl who recently dropped out of all her French courses due to social anxiety; I understand why this is an issue. I just don't see validity in your claims about foreign language learning and teaching...

My scornful tones are admittedly unnecessary; I was not attempting to disqualify the entire profession, although I do not think that schools should force the unwilling into a language. In my experience the cited numbers are fairly accurate, but I am willing to concede this point which does not diminish my conundrum. The point is that language makes me uncomfortable in a way that is unprecedented in other departments and if any empathy exists it has had no effect on the outcome. This almost ruined my academic career. What can be said for your friend who dropped out due to anxiety?

I just read this question and was definitely colored with intrigue. Would you mind me asking you a few questions? In your dreams do you speak out more freely? Is your phobia of a specific foreign language or is it all of them? Can you point me to more resources about this phobia specifically? It's the first time I read of it.

@JerrySaravia: The OP has social phobia (social anxiety disorder), not a specific phobia of a foreign language. His/her issue is with language instruction, which generally involves a high level of direct social interaction, rather than with the subject matter itself.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is a question about how to learn foreign languages, not a question about academia.

@reluctantmathematician My friend has social anxiety and is an anxious person in general. In one of her French courses they were tasked with role-playing famous French artists in order to sell their art to (fake) buyers (French students in other courses). It was a semester-long project and I suppose that the stress of needing to role-play in French turned her off to the language. She says that she's going to continue later, but she couldn't handle it this semester. Two of the courses she was taking were taught by a professor who emphasizes in-class engagement more than every other French prof.

The only way I got through the undergraduate requirement was to take the proficiency exam multiple times. I treated this exam like a cryptography puzzle, returning one meaningless symbol for another according to an algorithm. There is not any validity to this metric, but it was enough to get a degree awarded. At the new institution the evaluation requires translation of passages from foreign textbooks into English. I have 2 years to obtain proficiency; I will try do this without taking any language coursework.

Maybe it's been so long now that the question is moot, but I wanted to ask - what was really the deal with the foreign language requirement?  Math PhD programs do often have a language requirement, but I've never heard of one that would require anywhere near four semesters of language study. Typically they only require proficiency at reading, which is only about a quarter of most language courses (reading / writing / speaking / listening), and surely the least problematic part for you.

Moreover, it's proficiency at reading mathematics in the foreign language, which is much easier than reading general texts or literature - many of the technical terms are cognates, and mathematical writing tends to follow a quite restricted pattern.  I successfully passed a math PhD language exam in French without ever taking a French class in my life.  (I had taken some classes in Spanish which helped a little, but I think I could have done it without them.)

I have voted to reopen because the question is not really about learning a foreign language in general, but rather about satisfying a foreign language proficiency requirement for a graduate program in another field.    (And I would suggest editing to focus on that aspect.) This particular kind of requirement is unique to academia and may involve different approaches than just trying to learn the language.  I think Academia.SE is a better community for this question than a language-learning or linguistics forum could be.

This matter is resolved. My current program allows a diagnostic tool such as Matlab or R to be considered a foreign language. They also permit translation of textbooks using a dictionary and allow 48 hours to complete the assignment. At the time of this inquiry there was concern because two of the schools I applied required an equivalent of second year proficiency. An edit was recently completed because I could not delete the question, which contains too many adverbs and excessive victimology.

... I paced about in front of the building trying unsuccessfully to force myself to enter the classroom. ...

I'll be honest with you. If you cannot get over yourself and force yourself to face your fears, there's little point in getting your degree, since you're extremely unlikely to land a job that requires a degree in which you could function.
If you don't want to quit, my advice is to deliberately seek out social occasions as often as possible. Face your fears and try to desensitise yourself to your phobia. It will be hard, but it's the only way.

-1. Facing one's fears, especially alone, is not the only way to combat a phobia. OP might benefit from a professional therapist.

First, social phobia is not a character defect. It is a recognized medical condition. You are not worth less as a human being if you suffer from a phobia.
Next, depending on your school, you may be able to get a medical exemption from certain requirements. You may want to discuss this with your local student services. (By email if meeting people in person is impossible to you.)
However, I would strongly advise against this approach. You will need to interact with people after leaving college, too, so avoiding the problem is not a good strategy in the long run. Instead, I would recommend that you actively work on this issue.
The good news is that social phobia is very amenable to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The accepted form of therapy is a desensitization approach, where you will progressively learn to tolerate being around people.
No, this will not be easy. You will need to work on your disability. You will encounter setbacks. But your student services should again be able to point you towards resources and therapists that can help you. And there is no better time for doing this therapy than now, when you have a more-or-less flexible schedule, and before you hit the job market, where social phobia will be an enormous problem - regardless of which career you want to pursue.
Good luck!

Since it is a disability, I would think that (at least in the US) the school should accept reading/writing proficiency as an alternative, so online courses &c would suffice.

@Kimball It'd read like that if it was unprompted or out of the blue, but I think it was in reaction to this comment in the question: "Surely this represents a severe defect of my character..." so there is context to it.

@user568458 Ah, thanks, I missed that line in the OP (or had forgotten it) when reading this answer.

I am not aware of your location, but I can comment on the position in the UK. If a student (or academic or researcher) declares a disability to their institution then (together with clinicians or other appropriate evidence and an assessment of need) they are required by law (Disability Discrimination in Education) to make provision and adjustments (except for where the adjustment would be unreasonable). Only the courts can rule what is reasonable or not.
However, an individual may choose to keep their condition private, in which case the institution has no obligations until the point of disclosure. Privacy law overrides disability law in such cases.
I have responsibilities for students with alternate needs in my subject area, and this includes students with social phobia conditions. Some as extreme as you describe.
We have, for example, conducted oral examinations and tutorial using skype between two adjacent rooms so that the student does not have to share a space or be overlooked by another person.
It can be done, if there is a will and a motivation to do it on behalf of the institution.
Edit: however I also strongly concur with Stephan's answer. When a student has declared they are offered help and support. In particular CBT and other therapies are very helpful in putting students and staff in better positions for employment and promotion.

One alternative is to take an online course. There are many MOOCs that offer foreign language courses. You may then try and solve assignments and take exam of the real course to get the credit. Of course this will require some convincing to the authorities that you would like to skip attending because of the phobia. I should add that you may want to consider seeking therapy for your condition. I have heard positive stories of therapies working, even the rare cases as you describe.

Many unis won't happily tranfer credit from a MOOC.
But on a very similar note, many unis offer corses via corespondance, which has similar advantage.


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How often are results faked in computer science papers?
Especially in the the more experimental subfields of computer science like systems, how often are results faked? If there is no verification process for any code used, do researchers sometimes fake results to save time?

Do you want to add the [tag:reference-request] tag? Currently, this question may only elicit personal anecdotes.

Are you asking how frequently researchers intentionally fake data?

Yes, how can you unintentionally fake data?

Mistakes happen all the time. Also, many cases of fraud involve one person knowingly using false data and many others unwittingly accepting what that one person said. One retracted paper can have many authors, the majority of which were unintentionally part of the fraud.

@eykanal: Then they weren't the ones who were faking the data.  It seems pretty clear cut that the transitive verb "fake" implies intensionality.

How do you expect anybody to be able to answer this?

How can you fake computer science data? Anyone can verify it on their computer. It's not like archaeology where you need a dig team to verify data.

@RenéG If authors don't publish code to replicate their experiments (sometimes a difficult task), it can sometimes take a significant amount of work to re-implement their system, and often details that seem minor to the author and therefore don't end up in the paper can be important to the exact results they've seen.

These two questions might be of interest to you: Reference on availability of source code used in computer science research articles?;  Are there any journals or conferences that take into account the availability of the source code when selecting the papers to publish?

Nobody knows. Unless someone tries to reproduce the results and cannot, there's not ever even going to be a challenge to the results. Direct reproduction in CS and similar fields is generally done in papers that extend older results or propose a new method. To my knowledge, we do not see a lot of retractions based on these kinds of studies, so I'd say the rate of faking is low.
Retraction Watch's CS section has about 15 articles in it, but most of them appear to be about retractions for plagiarism not for faking results.

"Direct reproduction in CS and similar fields is generally done in papers that extend older results or propose a new method."  It's unfortunate that it's very hard to get short papers of the form "yes, we were able to reproduce this result" published.

Also, few papers publish executable code, and some not even pseudo code, along with their studies. Since we don't have a publication culture that appreciates effort of reproduction (cf @JoshuaTaylor) few results are checked. I suspect a high dark figure of published, peer-reviewed falsehoods.

And the falsehoods aren't necessarily faked. Code has at least one bug in it. Suppose the bug in your unpublished code on which your paper relies happens to make it give incorrect but encouraging results, that you publish, and nobody ever checks. As a programmer, I'd say bugs that make your code appear to do what you wanted are the hardest to spot yourself.

@SteveJessop spot on. It must be very common for code to have bugs which give technically invalid results that nevertheless support the hypothesis. So the author is doing nothing wrong by publishing. However, one wonders how often a bug, even a significant one, might be discovered prior to publication and nevertheless conveniently ignored.

@SteveJessop Intentional or not, if the code is not there for people to check the authors don't act responsibly.

@Raphael: CS academics keeping their code secret is another (related) debate, but I think this applies even if the code is published. The word "unpublished" can be struck from my comment above. Just because it's available to check doesn't mean anyone will check it, and if not then quite likely the only person with a chance of spotting the bug is the author. The rate of errors in papers (or sections of papers) that with hindsight are mostly insignificant, is probably elevated for this reason in all fields, because checking unimportant parts of a paper is a waste of time ;-)

@SteveJessop The difference is that once the code is published (in a useful way), the responsibility is shared between author and community.

Let me split my answer into two sub-areas: reputable venues and crap venues.
In reputable venues, it is just as possible for somebody to commit fraud (or any of the other deadly sins of science) in experimental computer science as in any other experimental science.  It also appears to be quite rare, because there is usually pretty clear observability and a pretty clear relationship between theory and practice in computer science (unlike, say, certain subfields of biology) and so fraud would often be relatively easy to detect.  More to the point, however, the risk/reward tradeoff is terrible: one detected incident will likely destroy a career.
In crap venues, there might well be constant fraud---but who cares?  If they'll accept machine-generated papers, they might accept anything, and I'm probably not going to cite it or even look at it in any case.

Thanks for the link. While I knew about isolated cases (eg, a high rep user here published one as a proof of concept), this really surprised me. Are proceedings of the IEEE considered "crap" these days? They used to have a decent reputation, didn't they?

@gnometorule The IEEE in general is quite good, but they've been less careful than they should in exercising oversight as they have continued to expand.  Thus, while the IEEE brand is a very good sign, you still have to exercise judgement just as you would for any other venue.

Hey, machines have just as much right to publish as humans do! Their papers may not be up to our standards yet, but they are trying their best to learn. :)

"there is usually pretty clear observability and a pretty clear relationship between theory and practice in computer science"  Though there's an unfortunate tendency to publish  results that are based on computation/simulation/etc, without always making the code available.  That means that reproducibility is actually much harder, because it's difficult to know whether a difference is a result of a bug, data, or the actual intended method.

@jakebeal the IEEE brand is a very good sign — [citation needed] The quality of IEEE publications in computer science varies so widely that the label itself indicates nothing about the quality of the venue. (In this respect, they are no different than any other large commercial publisher.)

I would love to upvote this answer, but simply can't agree to "because there is usually pretty clear observability and a pretty clear relationship between theory and practice in computer science" - this leaves ample room for first coming up with a nice algorithmic idea together with a good theoretical reason for why this should work well, and to only then fabricate benchmarks to support this theory. This is difficult to detect, and a mere biased selection of benchmarks is already sufficient to imply the practical applicability of a new technique when there is none.

There are quite a few interesting articles on the topic of fraud rates. I didn't see anything specific to computer science, but the general sense is that it's very difficult to determine.
It's very tough to actually detect fraud. Most cases (that I'm familiar with, at least) involve someone falsifying data in a highly active field and publishing earth-shattering results that turn out to be false. As was said in other answers, detecting the fraud requires attempting to reproduce the results, failing, and then determining that the problem is on the other end.
With that said, there aren't many good proxy measures of fraud. Retractions are a start, but they're far and few between. We can almost be certain that not all fraud is retracted. Surveys can be used but they're also notoriously inaccurate. There really aren't many other ways to measure that would actually provide a useful metric.

As most cases of exposed fraud happen due to researchers becoming to comfortable with falsifying data I think it's a very fair assessment to assume the large majority of fraud are not caught.


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How to measure achievement in a field where large collaborations are normal?
In some fields of research, huge collaborations are the norm. This is especially true in experimental high-energy physics.
Say I'm evaluating someone's resume, and that person is transitioning out of one of these fields into something else, such as a career in industry or teaching. I'm not a specialist in that field, and I'm not familiar with current research in it except at a very broad level. How do I tell whether this person was any good at what they did? I can do a literature search on the person's name, but that will just pop up a bunch of papers where the list of authors looks like this: "The XYZ Collaboration: A. Aarons, J. Abelson, ... [183 additional authors not shown]"

I am a nuclear phenomenology (theory) guy, and I'll add here that the situation is complicated by the fact that even when it is obvious that the contribution of the author in each such publication is fractional, these mostly have a lot of publications to show (in the same amount of time in which a typical theory guy would churn out one bi-authored publication). So, the correct answer needs to involve a balancing between a large $N$ and a small $1/f$.

A while back I asked a related question, whose answers you might find relevant here: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23981/how-are-citations-used-to-fairly-compare-researchers-fewer-publications-and-few

Years ago, I was on the college executive committee when we had to decide whether a certain experimental physicist should be promoted (to tenure, if I remember correctly). Her papers were of the sort you describe, huge collaborations that gave us no information about the extent and quality of her contribution to the project. But that information was provided, in considerable detail, by the letters from external reviewers. (Here "external" means outside our university.  In cases like this, the college waives its usual rule that so-and-so many letters must come from people who are not among the candidate's co-authors, because essentially everyone who has real information about the candidate's contribution is a co-author.)

How do you judge the validity of the information that they feed you? What if they are inflating it just the boost the prospects of their friend/acquaintance? Do you simply take their word?

@TheDarkSide We treat this information just like external letters in all other promotion cases.  We assume the reviewers are honest unless there's some indication to the contrary.

@TheDarkSide: This is why such recommendation letters need to be detailed and persuasive, and why more than one or two of them are solicited.

This is basically a social thing: if you consistently fail to pull your weight, people notice. If you consistently excel they notice. If you're just average, but will step up for the dirty work or when the pressure is on, they notice. And word gets around. So talking to people who've worked with the candidate more than once is the best way to know.

I have two answers.
First, if the person in of interest has many publications with a diverse range of coauthors, then you might be able to glean some insights by looking at the overall pattern.  For example, you might be able to determine this person's areas of specialization and perhaps their focus in research.  But these inferences depend on having papers that are sufficiently diverse that you can isolate interesting patterns that are common to all of them, but otherwise uncommon.
My second answer is that you probably can't derive any useful information from the fact that a person has been part of a very large collaboration team. Instead, you need more detailed and context specific information about their tasks, responsibilities, and performance.  This might come from seeing their specific work products, from their performance reviews or recommendations from their supervisor or peers, or similar.
In a way, this is no different than the situation in industry where you might know that a person is employed at a National Lab, and maybe that they are part of XYZ Department, working on ABC Projects.  You can't really tell much from that information about their individual role or individual performance.

I heard that the number of presentations they give (check e.g. Indico) is a better indicator than the number of papers.

authors: عبد الرزاق نعمة