fuzzylogician

This feels dangerously close to feeding trolls, but in the interest of others reading: I bet you'd be the kind of math teacher who gives a student 0 on a problem that has a simple arithmetic error that's carried across multiple lines of calculation because LOOK there are mistakes ALL OVER. I would be inclined to mark the error and deduct some symbolic point but then grade the rest of the problem taking this error into account and if the result is correct *given this mistaken early calculation* then the student will get most of the points, maybe even all of them. We say MAYBE because we don't actually know what happened. You don't either, nor does the author of the blog post, but you seem determined to interpret everything only one way, whichever is the most nefarious and ill-intentioned one. But most of us can easily imagine making an error or two as an undergrad or even a grad student and ending up with something inaccurate or even plain wrong on our CVs. And since the way we update our CVs is by adding new stuff, not re-vetting old stuff, it's not at all shocking that something that was on a CV in the 90s would be carried over to later ones. It's also not a stretch to see how it'd end up on an NIH CV, which is presumably simply constructed based on the person's professional CV (that's how I'd do it..). So yeah, we're not saying that there were no errors made, but we are willing to calibrate our outrage-meter to the size of the error and its timing. Undergrads do all kinds of stupid things. If all someone with a vendetta can find is a couple of questionable decisions from two decades ago, I'd feel pretty encouraged that there's basically nothing to see here.

Thanks for doing this serious investigative work, @TakeruK. It's more than a little alarming that someone can publish this kind of slander with very little fact-checking, ascribing all kinds of malicious intent to people without any proof. Yes, there are some things that I definitely agree that this professor could and should have done better. But we're talking about two relatively minor mistakes that were made when the person was an undergraduate student. I don't think that we should cast aspersions on a person's entire career because of something like this. In particular, I don't think that this has any relevance to the person's current research, or how they obtained their job, or how they obtained any government funding. I don't think this could be considered serious enough padding (if it's that at all) to influence decisions at that level. Suggesting otherwise is unfair at best.

No need. It's fine to just say "In my thesis, I show that [blah]" or some such.

^ I do not go on my field's Jobs Wiki. It is evil.

Moderator note: This topic is locked and posts containing details on how to cheat have been removed. OP, this is NOT acceptable information to post on this board. Consider this a warning.

This. Your LOR writer may very well have other priorities in mind, such that your letter isn't at the top of the list more than 10 days or a week out from the actual deadline. (If fact, as was noted above, there's often some leeway for late letters even beyond the official deadline for students, and your professor may know this.) If you don't have to wait for the letter to submit (=the usual case, as far as I know), just go ahead and submit. There is no reason for you to wait for the letter first. If you actually do need it, let your letter writer know; this would be an unusual situation and may affect their plans. If you have a chance to see the prof in person, you could try having a quick chat instead of sending another email at this point. But to the extent that you just want the letter submitted early but you can submit your application without it, I think you need to let it go until just around the deadline and then send another reminder, keeping in mind that even then it might take a bit longer.

Yuck. You might want to rethink how you treat people who take time out of their day to help you. Also what you expect academia to be like. Anyway, since you've descended to calling me names and we're not talking substance anymore, I'm done. I don't think there's still a way for me to help you or anyone else reading this thread. I can only hope that a few years from now you're embarrassed at how this conversation reads.

Tell you what, if you don't like my attitude, don't leave a tip. I'm always amazed when people get good free advice and still complain about "the service".

I don't know who is telling you that going over the limit is allowed. Academia is full of page and word limits, and you can't just ignore them. If you submit something that's significantly over the limit, readers will notice, and frankly you are not any more special or any more deserving of your readers' time than any other applicants. It may be hard, but suck it up and do it, just like everybody else.

Sure, include it. I have a bunch of things on my CV with future dates. I add them only after they're finalized. Things like invited talks, conference travel, what I'm teaching next semester, etc. There are several ways to specify future dates. I put mine in square brackets. [2018] How to use pixie dust to manipulate evil politicians. The Magic Society of America, January 2018. 2017 The secret lives of kittens and unicorns. The 17th Annual meeting of the society of cute animals, University of Fluff, November 2017. For open ended things like jobs, I'd do something like "2018–"

Looks like good news for stipends but still bad news for the endowments, which will probably also mean fewer financial aid packages, or lower ones. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/11/10/endowment-tax-remains-in-play-but-graduate-stipend-tax-is-off-the-table-in-senate-plan/?utm_term=.28499b8d2733

If you're working in an English-speaking environment and expected to do research in English, then it's going to be expected that you produce writing that's up to par as well. If you're concerned about your writing skills, now would be a good time to start working on them, as others have mentioned. Academic writing is an acquired skill for everyone -- native speakers or not -- but certainly it's more of a challenge for non-native speakers, for obvious reasons. You have good advice above about how to proceed. It might help you to acknowledge the feeling of uncertainty and accept that your first-pass product might require some work, but know that this isn't uncommon for beginning students (all of them! including native speakers). The important thing, as @Sigaba points out, is not to let this stop you from doing what you want to do. You may have to put in some work learning to produce the kind of writing that you are comfortable with, but it's worth the effort, so you can get to have all the opportunities that you deserve.

It's the lie that gets you -- every time. The offense itself is small and insignificant and it's good that you didn't lie about it. If you had, and they caught you, that would have been a much bigger deal, an actual recent offense that they could hold against you. We can't make you any promises, but I think that any reasonable person would be able to put it in perspective; it shouldn't hold you back from getting a job at this point in your life. I hope it works out soon, I understand how nerve-wracking this can be.

Wait, your professors asked you about this, or you're just going to try and volunteer this information? Professors will usually have a lot of experience writing LORs and may not appreciate your opinion on what to put in the letter. You could ask them to make sure they highlight/address aspect X of your profile -- in which case, it only makes sense to ask someone to do that if they can actually speak to it directly and in detail. You may also just leave it up to them to do as they see fit. Either way, be careful how you phrase this request. Bottom line: only ask someone to highlight an aspect of your application if they actually know the details. So, don't ask all three of your writers to talk about your research experience if only one of them directed the study. The others may mention it or they may not, but really it's the opinion of the prof who knows the details that matters most.

Some strategies that have helped people I know: (in addition to the above advice) Keep a journal. Since you aren't good at estimating times, spend a few weeks actually accounting for what you did and how long it took you. Be honest, no one is watching. Don't forget to account for the time it took to get to and from places, the time you took off for chores, sleep etc, and time you set aside for non-work things (whether it's goofing off while at work or time you had actually planned to take off). Try and keep a tally of unexpected things you weren't planning for but had to do on the spot, and how much time they took away from your schedule. You might very well find that the actual things change, but there's always some time that goes toward unplanned chores each week. Also see if you can identify patterns: on days when you got a lot of work done, what went well? On not-so-good days, what went wrong? Are there times of day when it's easier for you to write? read? do coursework? I definitely have preferences for what I do when. Do this for several weeks, even if it gets tedious. Then analyze your results: how much time do you *actually* have for work per week? How long did that paper *actually* take you to write? How long did you *actually* spend on that problem set? Break things down into small chunks that are easier to perform. It's also easier to estimate how long they will take. Have detailed to-do lists, listing these small chunks. Again, this helps with planning. It might also be gratifying to cross things off your to-do lists. Having small chunks makes it easier to keep track of your progress and not feel like you went whole days without accomplishing anything. Write down time-estimates for how long you think things will take. When you're done with the journaling above, compare your expectations with reality. It's not at all uncommon for even very organized people to suck at these time-estimates. What organized people tend to do better than disorganized people is be aware of how much they suck, and give themselves that extra cushion to take them from expectation to reality. Use reminders if you need to. I assume you know how long it should take you to get from point A to point B. Plan a longer time period than you need to get there, and set reminders to help you leave on time. It should be a rule that when that timer goes off, you actually leave -- no taking care of one more email or spending just 5 more minutes doing whatever. If you can do it, I find that it's very helpful to have self-imposed early deadlines. If you have to be somewhere by 3pm, set your arrival deadline for 2:45. If you have a paper due on the 30th, have a final draft deadline by the 24th. Again, give yourself extra time so you're not always running around doing things last minute. These are habits that take time to form, but you can be very explicit about training your body and your mind to follow certain patterns.

Ask your PI. He can give you the best answer, since you're interested in this one particular school. All we can do here is speculate.

So, the way I think about these things has to do with priorities. Do I want to do it? Do I need to do it? I don't like doing things half-assed in a way that makes me feel bad -- but I do sometimes choose to do less than perfect work in ways that I find acceptable. So basically, I think it's okay to drop the class if you don't need it and don't want to do it anymore, but if you choose to stay, then you need to decide how to do enough work to make yourself happy. At the end of the day, when you're done with grad school, the grades and assignments won't matter, but your language proficiency will. It's up to you to decide how much time to invest in it and what to prioritize. If you ask me, language proficiency is important, and believe it or not, there aren't going to be very many better times to pick up a new language than now. As for getting yourself to go, there are small things you can do. I get a disproportionate amount of happiness out of crossing things off to-do lists. In this kind of case, I might even add "go to class" as an item every day just so I get to cross it off separately from "do homework" and whatever else is required. Set small goals and reward yourself at the end of the week. We should be compassionate with ourselves when things get hard. (That said, I dropped out of a language class my last semester of grad school, because there were just WAY too many other things going on, like dissertation writing and interviews, and I was missing too much class to enjoy it anymore. No shame in that, either!)

My $.02: grad schools do look at fall grades if they are submitted, so you want to keep them decent. But if you are going to submit your applications before the semester ends and you aren't planning on submitting new transcripts later (and if the schools don't ask for that, which I assume is the case), then there isn't much of a point in worrying about these grades in particular. Keep in mind that as an undergraduate student, if you get admitted, you'll likely get a conditional acceptance, with the requirement that you show final transcripts before you start a graduate program. Those can sometimes (but I would say, not often) come with some GPA requirement. Which is to say, it's not like you can completely slack off in your last semester. This all said, I would be inclined to suggest dropping one class to keep the grades in the others up, and hoping that you can find classes with a reasonable workload in the spring. If you do get a conditional acceptance, ask if there are any particular requirements of the last semester/year, so you're not worrying overmuch. It's very likely that you just need to make it through and nothing more, but you should make sure of that.

Abstracts are almost certainly going to be too short and not what admissions committees are looking for. Papers are more in the right direction -- but, if you submit something that's basically a summary of someone else's ideas and work, we're getting into a serious gray zone. It should be clear in such a case what part of the project is your contribution and what isn't, and if someone else has been involved in the writing/editing, that should be clear too (and frankly, in that case, I don't think it's fair to use such a paper anymore; but you may want more field-specific advice on this issue). On top of that, there are the questions of confidentiality that you mentioned, to be cleared with your PI. The purpose of the writing sample is to showcase you research ability as well as your writing ability. That is, your ability to (a) do science, and (b) communicate with your audience. Your paraphrases above are too far afield for me to be able to judge. But ask yourself, which one is doing a better job communicating the science? Both the research question and the setup, as well as the results and their importance? Maybe you need to create a new paper that contains parts of both of your existing papers, if neither one delivers on both counts.

You don't really attend a PhD program for the classes -- you do it because you want to do research in a certain field. What happened to that part of your plan?

So, this isn't exactly a case of miscommunication. Whether you meant to or not, you appear to be continuously challenging your supervisor's authority. I would apologize *in person* and stop asking so many questions, at least until you have a better sense of procedures and who to ask. In any event, the time to ask these questions wouldn't be in front of everyone during a presentation but in private in a one-on-one situation, when your supervisor has time (or better yet, ask someone else), and you should figure out a way to express that you're just curious and not that you think what your supervisor is doing is wrong ("why did you choose to do X", not "why not Y").

Unless they're obscure, it's probably not necessary. You can give a short description with the relevant information in the text, and anyone who is curious can google and find the full information. "Smith's ("The Secret Lives of Unicorns and Kittens") seminal study of unicorns in the wild inspired me to research the effects of pixie dust on proposed tax increases in the North East United States," etc.

Generally you should just plan to behave as you would in any less familiar place. I assume you do speak the language so that will make your life easier, but either way, just be wise. Keep your valuables in a safe place (e.g. not in an outer pocket of your bag; and not even on you if you don't need them). Have a plan for where you're going and how to get there; try not to seem lost or confused. Don't walk with earbuds in your ears, so you can hear if anything happens. Read up on the town you're going to, to make sure that the conference venue is in a safe part of town (it almost always is) and that you book accommodations nearby in a place that's also safe. The conference website may have recommendations, or you can ask the organizers. Have the address for where you're going written down somewhere, and keep in mind that your phone may not work abroad. I always have some cash in my pockets and in my bag (outside my wallet), just in case. Some women wear fake wedding rings when traveling to minimize interactions with men, but that may be overkill for France. Join groups of folks when they go to lunch/dinner from the conference; walking with a group is always better (and more fun!).

Anyone's work can get hacked at any time. There's no greater risk of someone stealing and publishing your work as theirs if it's with an editor for proofreading than if it's on your own computer or your advisors'. I'm not suggesting not taking measures to minimize risk, but I do think it's wise not to spend too much time planning for extremely unlikely scenarios. Ask the editor about confidentiality, and go from there. If this is someone who comes highly recommended who does this for a living, that seems like as safe a bet as they come. If it ever comes to it, you have been working on your thesis for months and have lots of proof to back it up. Anyone who steals the work won't. You should be able to make a complaint with the research integrity office of any offender (in the extremely unlikely scenario that anything happens!).

PDFs aren't platform-specific. They don't depend on your readers having some particular version of the proprietary software you used to create the document. Fonts and design won't get all messed up simply by opening the file in a slightly different version of the software than was used to create it, or if your reader happens to not have a font installed that you used (because you can embed them in a pdf). And PDFs are usually smaller in size. Your feelings about Word aside, PDFs are universally easier to use.