TakeruK

Wow, that blog link is really interesting and I think I can learn a lot from that! I can share how I read scientific papers but I don't think I have such a detailed system. It does depend a lot on what I want to get out of the paper because that dictates how much time/energy I spend on the paper. Since you asked about reading papers "quickly", I'll talk about the three methods I use for the lowest level of reading. Level 0, for "keeping up" reading: The goal of this reading is to ensure I know about the latest papers. Every day, the pre-print server I subscribe to sends me a list of paper titles and abstracts for my subfield. This is how I mostly "keep up". The other way I "keep up" is to follow social media for my subfield---there are several facebook groups for various areas of interest to me and papers are discussed there. I also stay connected with my colleagues and see what papers they find interesting. When I do this type of reading, I will read the paper title and the abstract. If I remain interested, I might also skim the introduction since that's how people put their work in context with the field. Once you are familiar with the subject area, skimming for key words and citations will tell you what area of the field they are building on. The main goal of the Introduction reading is to figure out what important question they are addressing and why I should care. Then, I skip right to the conclusion and see what their results are. I do all of this reading/skimming without taking notes. Usually over my morning coffee. I try to spend about 5 minutes per paper. At this point, I decide whether or not to spend more time on the article. If I find the motivation compelling and the results significant, I will put the paper in my Mendeley library for further reading (see below) at a later time (sometimes right away if I'm really excited about it). Otherwise, I move onto the next one. Level 1, for "cataloguing" papers. The goal is now to take good summary notes on these papers so that I am able to find more details when I need them in the future. I may never need them in the future. I download the PDF and import it to my Mendeley library. I assign it a unique ID (usually AuthorLastNameYear plus additional letters for extra papers in the same year). I have some Mendeley tags that I use to organize papers by topics (like Gmail labels) that I also assign. I also have some special tags like "citeThisinPaperX" so that I don't forget to cite the paper when I get around to writing it. After adding this meta-data, I read the abstract, intro and conclusions again. This time, I will highlight key words. The goal is that if I am looking for details about X in the future, I want to be able to quickly flip through this PDF on Mendeley and have these important words pop out to me. I will also read over the methods section to ensure I know what they are doing. Often, this allows me to classify the paper further (using tags if appropriate). I'll also skim the rest of the paper, particularly the discussion to see their interpretation and any caveats. I use the "Notes" field of Mendeley to write a very short summary of the paper. Here, I also mention anything interesting that comes up or if I have any concerns, e.g. a new method, an unorthodox method, interesting interpretation, problematic assumptions, etc. I think this type of reading takes me about 30 minutes to do per paper. Level 2, for "understanding" a paper. This is a more careful reading. I actually read every word this time instead of just skimming. I use more highlighting. I also now use the sticky notes annotation tool in Mendeley. One big use of the sticky notes is to make sure I can understand the authors' flow of logic in each section. After each section, if I found the logic hard to follow, I try to figure it out and then write a sticky note that summarizes what I thought they were trying to say in that area. I also add sticky notes for Methods. Since these notes are searchable, I try to use standardized terms so that I can find related papers easily. For the discussion and results sections, I use sticky notes to summarize each and every one of their individual findings (whereas in the above sections, I focus more on the big picture results). I add my own commentary to their interpretations where appropriate. The goal is to annotate the paper enough that when I view the paper in Mendeley, I can click the notes tab and see just the list of my sticky notes. I should be able to reconstruct the main argument from the sticky notes without having to read the paper again. If I have done the "Level 0" and "Level 1" readings before this, then this more in-depth reading usually takes 1-2 hours, depending on the paper length and whether I already know a lot about the field. Sometimes it can take up to a half-day if I'm trying to read way outside of my area. I sometimes also print out a paper to read at this depth because it's a little easier for me to read things in print and when I want to be able to read it while away from my desk. I try not to print too much because it wastes paper and I will have to spend time importing my annotations into Mendeley. I usually do "Level 0" and "Level 1" every day (or at least try to). The "Level 2" reading happens maybe once per week (a little bit more recently because there's lots of cool stuff). This is the depth I read to when I want to be able to speak about a paper at a Journal Club or something informal. Deeper reading levels, for me, include reading related papers , comparing results across papers, and making even more notes. I don't usually seek out papers to read to this depth level. Instead, I only do it when I need to, for example, when starting a new area of research and needing to know the foundational papers, or when I really need a question answered.

If it's a confirmed acceptance for presentation, then I would just list it as any other conference paper. In my field, it's customary to include the date of the conference when listing conference presentations, so doing just that will be enough to signal to the reader that this is a future presentation. We generally format it like: Lastname, Firstname et al. "Super cool work" The League of Extraordinary Researchers Meeting, March 2018. Some people might write "to be presented March 2018" instead. In some formats, we specify the type of presentation (oral vs. poster and contributed vs. invited) but maybe not relevant in your case. Note: In my field, there is no official/required format/style for bibliographies in CVs. There's also no style that is common across our entire field (every journal will use a different style) so we can pretty much add on whatever notes we want to a bibliography entry in our CVs.

Congratulations on submitting! How much do you need A and C after you graduate? What are your long term plans? If you don't plan on needing references from A or C in the long term, I think it's probably time for you to "break up" with A and C as well. Why add even more stress to your life? You don't need to "help out" A or C at all, unless that is something you really want to do. Just focus on your work with B, it's a full time job. I think taking a full time job with B and also doing work for A/C in your spare time is going to be a lot of stress! On the other hand, if you really do want to work with A/C or if you will need for A to say nice things about you in the future, maybe you can find a compromise. You could first talk to B for advice on how to "break the news" to A in case they have some insight or knowledge that you don't know about. I would say that usually when faculty squabble and fight, the students don't know the full story. If you do decide to continue your work with A for whatever reason, make sure you are entering an agreement as equals/colleagues. It sounds like you have said C "ordered" you to work with A but there is no reason for you to enter this type of arrangement when you have a good job offer from B. I would wait until after A and C have no more power over you in terms of your degree. At North American schools, the steps to graduation are usually: 1. Submit (draft) dissertation 2. Defend 3. Submit final dissertation (this may or may not require your advisor's approval, depending on the school policies and the result of your defense) When you say "submit" in two days, I'm not sure you mean Step 1 or Step 3. In any case, I think the best time to tell A that you will be working full time for B is after Step 3, unless your school/defense results allows you to submit the final dissertation without any further approval from A or C required. If you are only at Step 1 and the defense is not until way later, then perhaps you should talk to B to see if you can start a little later. If the defense is not until much later then my advice may not apply! I originally write this thinking you are at Step 3. Then, when you are no longer in a position where you need A/C for anything, you can discuss the next steps. You should tell A that you have an offer from B and that you want to take that position. You can then bring up finishing up the projects with A. But now, you don't owe them anything and A/C will have to offer you a fair deal if they want your time. You said that you don't (rightly so) care about 2nd vs 3rd author, so they need to offer you something better for you to continue working for them. I think one fair deal is to: determine (fairly) how long you will work with A on their project. Then, ask if B is willing to delay your start position with him by that amount of time. Then, tell A that you will be willing to delay your job with B to work on the project with A for exactly X months if they can pay you what B is offering (or, if they at least offer you a fair wage instead of "less than your PhD studentship"). In my opinion, having been in situation with overly demanding supervisors, the things I would want the most out of this kind of relationship is 1) fair pay and 2) fixed time contract. You agree to work with A for exactly X months and after that, he's on his own to finish the project. You can move onto your new job with B. Ideally, you finish the experiments for A in the fixed time and everyone wins, but if not, then you aren't stuck being in the middle for the entire time working for B. Again, you don't even have to continue working for A, but if you did want to, my advice is to ensure you are coming into it as equals not as supervisor/student because you're not a student any more. Also, B sounds like a good supporter of you so make sure they are okay with all of this. If they don't want to delay their project with you then you can just cite that and decline continuing work with A.

Yeah, I think you cannot wait an entire month for C. If you do get an invite for C and it's the same time as A, since they notified you an entire month later, they will probably understand if you need to book an alternate date (or if you really do prefer C a lot more than A, then you could try to move A since what else can you do!)

I'd second fuzzy's advice. Many North American applicants will have an "okay" 3rd letter. If you can't find anyone to even write a very short letter, you should consider contacting the schools and explaining your situation.

Ah okay, this seems to all be consistent with what I remember. I started in 2012 but did not apply for GRFP (not eligible as a foreign student). However, I did remember something about TAs and GRFP fellows and a big positive change. So it must have been related! There was a similar change for the Canadian equivalent of the GRFP a few years earlier too.

All of this just depends on the required format for whatever work you're submitting, doesn't it? There is no objective "right" answer. If the requirement is to use MLA format, then you can just ignore the suggestions for justified text (or better yet, respectfully decline their suggestion and refer them to the format requirement). If the readers are the ones setting the required format, then it just makes sense to do whatever they ask, even if it's not MLA format, since there isn't a requirement to use MLA format. If there are no format requirements set at all, then it just makes sense to me to use whatever format works best for the people involved. Depending on the nature of the relationship with your readers and the nature of your work, it might make more sense to choose a style yourself and explain it or do what they ask for, or some in-between made-up format that works for you and your readers (e.g. "MLA format but with justification")

The same text is in the 2016 version of the guidelines: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2016/nsf16104/nsf16104.pdf

Oops, just realised the quote above is from 2012. Going to check for a more modern source to see if it's still correct.

I think this was changed in recent years? The FAQ says (https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2012/nsf12062/nsf12062.jsp#mib) May I also be paid (supplement my Stipend) from a university or private Fellowship? Supplementation to a Fellowship while on Tenure is at the discretion of the GRFP Institution. Fellows should check with their COs. May I be paid (supplement my Stipend) as a teaching or research assistant on top of my Stipend? Fellows are expected to devote full time to advanced scientific study or work during tenure. However, because it is generally accepted that teaching or similar activity constitutes a valuable part of the education and training of many graduate students, a Fellow may undertake a reasonable amount of such teaching or similar activity, without NSF approval at the affiliated institution. It is expected that furtherance of the Fellow's educational objectives and the gain of substantive teaching or other experience, not service to the institution as such, will govern such activities. Compensation for such activities is permitted based on the affiliated institution's policies and the general employment policies outlined in The Administrative Guide for Fellows and Coordinating Officials. But maybe we are splitting hairs with wording? The FAQ reads to me, very clearly, that you can get TA and RA funds on top of the GRFP. However, I think you are right that they cannot "require" you to take the TA or RA ship. But "require" is a subjective phrase, for example, GRFP fellows at my old department were asked to TA like every other student. We were not paid for TAships, they were instead "educational opportunities" and whether they are really "required" was never written down anywhere. That said, there is a general expectation that you would TA for years 2 through 4 unless there weren't enough TA spots (happened a few times). I don't think I ever heard of a showdown where a GRFP fellow refused to TA. No one got out of TAing due to being a GRFP fellow, so it might be an "unwritten rule" required rather than a hard requirement to TA. Also side question: The GRFP tuition support only covers 25% of the ticket price of tuition at my PhD institution. Does the GRFP really prevent schools from requiring service in exchange for tuition waiver?

It depends on your department. I think it's best to apply first and then figure it out after you get the award! Usually you will already know what school you'll be attending by the time the results come out so you just have to figure out the details for one place. However, there are three typical scenarios: 1. The NSF fellowship (I'm assuming you mean the GRFP right?) completely replaces departmental funding. You get nothing from the department, except usually for a tuition waiver for the difference in the NSF tuition payment ($12000 ish) vs. the school's actual tuition. This is most common when the GRFP stipend is higher than the typical stipend of the department. But I've heard that at some places where the standard stipend is higher, the GRFP may still replace all other funding, so you might end up with less money. 2. Same as #1 but you have the option of doing TA work for additional pay. 3. You get a new funding package that combines the GRFP with internal funds. This might mean the GRFP package plus an additional amount of money from your department, which may come in the form of internal awards with no strings attached (to entice you to come to their institution) or TAships and/or RAships. This is more common in places where the stipends are higher than the GRFP (more common in high cost of living areas).

As others said, this is why PhD students (and postdocs, although to a lesser extent) have advisors and mentors. This is the type of thing that gets figured out with more experience. In addition to not having to worry about all the details at the application stage, remember that your PhD project can be an evolving thing that changes over time with your interests and available resources. Beyond your advisor, you will likely have a tracking committee, thesis committee or whatever your institute will call them that meet with you regularly (often annually) and review your progress and make suggestions on altering your track if necessary. So it's not like you are writing your next 5 years in stone when you write a research proposal!

Except for the Tier 1 journals (that aren't solely Astronomy), the main journals in my field would accept all articles that are valid science and communicates results clearly. I think this is the way publications should be done, instead of wasting everyone's time (reviewers and authors) having to "shop around" for a journal that will publish your work. At least, when I review for these journals, I never get asked "is the science impactful enough for our journal", it's always questions about whether or not the science is sound, the interpretations are justified and the results communicated clearly.

Definitely good advice to check in the online status pages to ensure everything was received! I sent reminders to do so on my calendar. Just a note (hopefully would reduce your stress): My middle name is a single name but it is two words, properly punctuated with a space in between. It's not an English name so to an English speaker, it does look like two foreign names but it would make no sense to separate them in my language (made up example: Ke Vin). Sometimes it gets written as one word (Kevin), sometimes hyphenated (Ke-Vin) and when it comes to middle initials, sometimes it's "K" or "K-V" or "K V" (again this is not actually my name, but just an example). Sometimes they think the second part of my middle name is my last name. Anyways, as you can imagine, when the computer system gets a score report with these 4 words (my first, middle and last name), there are plenty of different ways it can be parsed and separated. Often, it is done wrongly so it gets flagged as being unable to match with an application on file, so a human has to take a look and figure out what went wrong. This led to some online portals being delayed in updating the status. In one example, it never updated the status at all! When I inquired, the tech desk help person said that the online system only updates to "received" if the computer was able to auto-match: manual intervention doesn't trigger an update for some reason.

Sorry to hear about USC Indeed, the only real "too late" is too late to be considered and I guess they really did have an earlier deadline. Best of luck on the rest!

It might be "too late" for the online software system, which may have been programmed to lock out letters after a certain date. But as others advised, it's not actually too late until you try to contact the department to directly send a LOR (or for them to open it up again) and they say no. This is a very very important rule in academia: if you ask need something and ask nicely, people are often able to make it work. Don't be a person that constantly has to ask for exceptions but for major things (e.g. applications, especially when it's a LOR extension), never give up!

Yes, you should list whatever is actually available to you. It shouldn't really matter what you put there if you don't have anything external. Sometimes international students can put funding from their home country's fellowships. So Department TA or RA ship is fine. And you can list "personal funds" if you have them but you don't need to feel like you must have some!

This question does not affect your competitiveness for admissions. Answer yes in your case.

I've only experienced the tax treaty the other way around: as a Canadian living in the USA for school. My understanding with these tax treaties is that either 1) only income up to a certain amount is actually tax-free and 2) the Canada Revenue Agency and the IRS have measures in place to prevent double taxation of their taxpayers. I would not rely on the "plain language" description of the tax treaty as presented by Turbotax because these are actually much more complex legal documents. When filing as a Canadian in the USA to the IRS, I just input all of my info into Turbotax and let their algorithm figure out what I qualify for. If you have a copy of turbotax, the best free thing to do is to put in some example numbers and see what it says. The actual best thing to do would be to consult a tax expert but that might cost money. Note: Canadian schools do not usually issue tuition waivers. Instead we almost always have to pay tuition out of whatever financial package we get. Sometimes they award us a scholarship that is the same value as tuition (but it doesn't count as a tuition waiver in the US tax sense because it's no different than a scholarship for any other reason) or they just compensate us with TA and RA assignments so that there is enough money to pay for tuition. In addition, you might be relieved to know that most Canadian school tuition is very low, even for foreign students. As a Canadian in the USA, what I had to do was to file my US taxes first and then include a copy of my US taxes with my Canadian tax return to show Canada I've already paid income tax. Canada will then calculate how much tax I owe to the CRA and then give me credit for taxes already paid to the USA. If there was more tax owed to Canada than what I paid to the IRS, then I would still owe taxes to Canada. I imagine the reverse situation is something very similar. So as long as you have paid more taxes to Canada than you would owe to the USA, then you should be okay? But again, check with an expert if the precise numbers will make or change your decision on where to go!

That's fair. For my field, I think it's a very rare case where an undergrad student does exceptional work in their undergrad thesis. The work is often not publishable, but when it is, it's usually something the student writes up and publishes within the first 2 years of graduate studies (i.e. it's very rare that the work will be in a publishable state by the time they graduate). When evaluating for graduate admissions, I think profs in my field are looking more for experience doing research than what students actually achieve. In any case, most applicants are submitting in the fall of their final year, so the only distinguishing feature is whether or not they're planning on doing thesis work or not, since most of them will not have finished a thesis yet. Often, the thesis work is the only research experience and it at least signals that the student won't be completely brand new to research when they start graduate school.

Are you asking about collaborating on additional projects (or some components of your thesis) with external professors, or actually doing your thesis with the external professors and only using your on-paper advisor as well, an "on-paper" advisor. Either way, you'll definitely need to do this through your advisor and your department. The first type (collaborating with external people) is fairly common in my field and a great way to get a LOR from outside of your institution (a plus for postdoc applications in my field). The second type is more rare. One of my good friends from grad school was the first type. They finished the first four years of their PhD at their home institution and spent their last 2 years in my department (across the country) working with my advisor in my department as a visiting graduate student researcher. It's not as common for the student to physically move but it made sense in this case as my advisor was much more closely aligned with my friend's work than their original advisor. My advisor and their advisor are long time collaborators so that made things easier for everyone. One thing to keep in mind if you plan on moving like this is that my friend was still a student (and therefore paid) by their old advisor according to the policies at their home institution. So due to cost of living differences, this could be very good or very bad! I have some other friends who have done this and was able to draw their high stipend from a high cost of living place but actually live and do work in a very low close of living area.

I generally agree, but for some reason, I think thesis projects that are required to be part of the degree are the exception in my field. No matter what happens, the student will graduate with a finished thesis by the time they start grad school. It may not have the same scope as when they started but if they don't finish the thesis, they don't get the degree. So, on the same reasoning as you could put an expected date for a BS/BA or MS/MA degree on a CV before you've completed it, or that you can list coursework planned for Spring 2018, I'd argue that a student with a thesis-component to their degree can and should list their thesis work in their grad school applications.

You should send them the same version as the one you've submitting for the grad school or scholarship that they are writing a LOR for. If there isn't a resume requirement for the application, send them the version that you would send if there were one. (Although if your full version resume is only 3 pages, there's no need to cut it down to only 1 page for grad school apps unless you were required to do so).

In my field, students generally do include undergrad and masters thesis work under "Research Experience" of their CV. Even though it's generally not an official research assistant position (my undergrad did not allow paid research to count towards the honours thesis requirement, as that is coursework, but in my field, it is common to put non-paid and non-official research positions in Research Experience in our CVs---the experience is what matters, not the position). Alternatively, it can appear as a note under your school's name in "Education" to indicate that your degree includes a thesis component instead of just coursework. Normally this would show the thesis title and advisor but in your case, you can just say "includes thesis work advised by Prof. XYZ".

I said, "I do not wish to disclose the other score recipients and my subject GRE score" or something like that. Just kept it simple. I also censored my Physics GRE score because the school in question did not require the Physics GRE (it was optional) and I wanted to take the option of not sending my subject GRE score.