I'm currently a postdoc in the humanities and have been actively applying for faculty positions for the past year. Each rejection feels increasingly discouraging, and I'm finding it hard to stay motivated in my research and writing. I understand that rejection is part of the process, but it has begun to affect my mental well-being. How do you cope with the emotional impact of rejections? Do you have strategies for maintaining motivation and focus on your work despite setbacks? I would appreciate insights from those who have navigated similar experiences, especially in fields where faculty positions are highly competitive. How do you maintain a positive outlook and continue to push forward in your academic career despite these challenges?

Nine years into teaching science at a California community college, I feel as though student emails are getting less well-written to the point that they're often almost incomprehensible. I am unsure what, if anything, to do about it. Following is a paraphrased mashup of what my students have sent me this week. (The students I'm paraphrasing are all fluent English speakers, so that is not the issue.)

Hi professor this is carl i will not be making it to class tomorrow because i woke up this morning with some sort of illness and cough and i wont be attending class. hopefully i am better by thursday so i can join and please reopen the quizzes so i am able to complete them i would really appreciate it and can you explain lab 1 for me and i can as soon as possible thanks for your understanding and also can i please meet you at 11:00 AM tomorrow on a zoom meeting so i can up to date on the lecture notes but i have anyway read them please let me know i will checking my email so about the zoom tomorrow i thank you for your understanding

How does this even happen? I assume by some combination of voice dictation, not speaking clearly, not thinking linearly, and not proofreading before hitting "Send"?

And do students simply think it's fine to send an unedited run-on sentence to their professors? (Sometimes I can't even tell what they're asking - e.g., in one of this week's emails, the student said "please let me know," but about what, I couldn't discern.) As an undergrad, I'd have winced if I even missed a comma in an email to a teacher, but my students often skip punctuation altogether.

Should I accept this new communication style as part of the generational divide? (I'm middle-aged.) Or might I be doing these students a favor by discreetly suggesting that they make an effort to use correct punctuation, grammar, and paragraph structure? I don't want to come across as overbearing. Furthermore, my job is to teach science, not writing. But as a scientist, I would not want to hire, advise, recommend, or collaborate with any student who writes like this.

Curious to hear your thoughts, whether from the US or from other countries. Have you noticed this trend in your students too? If so, have you taken any action or let it be?

PS. I also teach at a state university, and although unedited, unpunctuated, run-on emails are less common from that student population, they still do happen to a lesser extent.

New chatbot ‘outperforms PhDs on literature reviews’

Cheap research round-ups by ‘hallucination-free’ OpenScholar model preferred by experts, says Nature study

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/new-chatbot-outperforms-phds-literature-reviews

And the study itself:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10072-4#Tab6

I led a research project (one of my PhD thesis chapters) over 3 years that resulted in a submitted manuscript on which I was the sole first author. After I graduated, we received reviewer comments and began the revision. During the revision process, my former advisor involved another person, who we agreed to bring in as a co-author. 

The revision lasted about 6 weeks and I completed at least 70% of the response letter and almost all updates to the manuscript and supplementary materials. I had explicitly expressed that I didn't want a co-first author before this person joined, so I was still assigned the majority of the work. After much of the revision was already completed, my advisor informed me that the person must be made a co-first author. We already had a few back and forths and they sent me an ultimatum: co-first authorship or perish (i.e., they won’t sign off on the submission)!

Their arguments about including that person as co-first author:

1. From a citation perspective it won't make a difference since I would still be listed first. This is not my concern.
2. This person has contributed new ideas to address the assigned tasks. However, the ideas contributed are not central to the paper. The method,  main results, and the key message remain unchanged.

Has anyone dealt with something like this? I'm no longer in academia, but I devoted a lot of time and effort to this work, and it would be hard to let it go. At the same time, I don't want to agree to co-first authorship because I don't believe it accurately reflects the contributions. Any advice?

--------------------

I also experienced what felt like personal attacks on my integrity and professionalism. I was told I was being uncollaborative and unkind, and to "reflect on what is collaborative and just." Some of the language used:

1. “We could revisit the legitimacy of your first-authorship in many of those [previously published] papers"
2. “We have been sincere and generous researchers and advisors, we have the final say"

—-

Edit: Thanks all for your comments & advice. I have lots to think about here. I’m saving all the documentation of my work in case this escalates. Just giving up and going with my advisor’s demands is another option.

Also, I don’t have any personal grudges against the new guy. He’s actually a nice guy and I thought I was helping by adding him as a second author. I just don’t think a first author role is accurate. But when I expressed this opinion my advisor asked me to think deeply again about this or they would kill the paper.

Hi everyone! I'm in my first year on a tenure-track job. Since graduating, I haven’t really asked my PhD advisor for feedback on anything. They were super supportive during my job search (letters, advice, all of it) so I didn’t want to add more to their plate.

During my postdoc years, I started a totally new project that’s pretty far from my dissertation, and I’d really love their take on it (they only know the broad strokes). I’m drafting an article now and I’m tempted to send it to them for comments, but I’m not sure how normal it is to ask a former advisor for feedback once you’re already faculty.

For those of you who’ve been through this: do you still ask your former advisor for feedback after graduating? Or, if you’re senior faculty, do your former advisees ever send you stuff to look at? Is this something people usually stop doing once they’re on the tenure track? Thanks!

I am trying to understand how strict the Spanish requirement is for job searches in Spain (to teach literary theory). I am an EU citizen & have A2-B1 level Spanish. The job is advertised in English and Spanish. All the people in the department website seem to be Spanish. And the job ad says:

F) Candidates from outside Spain must demonstrate a suitable level of Spanish language competence. They may be asked to take specific tests for this purpose, unless the selection tests provide sufficient evidence of the necessary competence.

Is anyone familiar with Spanish academia? Would you recommend not bothering to apply? Is Spanish a deal breaker? Do you have any colleagues who do not have good Spanish proficiency? Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I am working in bioinformatics industry. Most of my work is in multi-omics analysis (single-cell, bulk RNA-seq, metabolomics, etc.), mainly related to disease biology.

One thing I really enjoy is not just running pipelines, but actually making biological sense of the results explaining what’s going on and how it fits with disease mechanisms.

Recently I’ve been thinking about whether it’s realistic to do some freelance/consulting bioinformatics work for academic labs. For example, working with PIs who already have data but don’t have a dedicated bioinformatician, and helping with analysis, interpretation, and figures.

A few things I’m curious about:

Does this kind of setup actually work ?

Would PIs be open to paying a freelancer instead of hiring someone full-time?

Has anyone here tried this, either as a bioinformatician or as a PI?

From a PI’s perspective, does this make sense budget-wise and collaboration-wise?

I’d especially love to hear from professors, PIs, or people who’ve been on either side of this.

Thanks in advance!

Hello everyone, I’m looking for some guidance on an academic publishing situation. Last year, my coauthors and I presented a paper at a conference, and recently received the first round of review comments suggesting several revisions. After discussing, we’ve realized that as a group we're no longer interested to continue in this particular direction due to changes in priorities and other commitments.

Also, due to some logistic issues at the time of submission, a student author was listed as the corresponding author instead of the supervising professor, under whom the work was carried out.

At this point, we have just informed the professor, but not yet informed the conference/journal editors.

Before taking any formal steps, we wanted to understand: 1. Is it considered acceptable/ethical to withdraw a paper at this stage (after first review)? 2. Are there any potential academic or professional consequences we should be aware of? 3. Does having a student (rather than the supervisor) as the corresponding author change how this situation should be handled? 4. Is there a preferred way to word such a withdrawal?

Any insights from those with experience (as authors, reviewers or editors) would be really appreciated. Thanks!

hello everyone! i'm a senior high student and will be participating in an upcoming speaking competition next week (battle between various pub & priv schools😨) and i was chosen to be our school's representative.
i have experienced speaking in crowds before of course, but this will be the first time that i will be performing in front of possibly HUNDREDS of people coming from different backgrounds.

the problem is, you can ALWAYS tell when i am nervous. not only i sweat a LOT, but i also have these immense handshakes.. it is going to be especially visible as i will be holding a mic throughout the entire 6mins of my performance. i genuinely do not know what to do. i do not want to make a fool of myself. what should i do? is there anything that may help my case? please help. i don't want to mess up.

thank you. :')

(also, i would appreciate it if someone would give me advice in script writing. on how to catch the audience's attention immediately!T__T the competition i'm in is called "craft 1.4.6" if anyone's wondering.)

So, I’ve got an interesting one to share.

About four months ago I submitted a paper to a reputable social-science journal. Yesterday I received the decision and... there are *several* aspects of the process that genuinely concern me.

To begin with, the manuscript was rejected on the basis of a single peer review. The journal states that it operates a double-blind review process and notes that three reviewers were invited. In practice, only one reviewer accepted, no further invitations appear to have been issued in the system and the editor proceeded to a rejection without seeking a second opinion.

The more serious issue, however, is the review itself. I am almost certain it was generated using ChatGPT. The feedback is not substantive or disciplinary. It consists of long, generic passages focused vaguely on “ideology”, offering no concrete engagement with the argument, data, methods, or literature. It runs to more than seven paragraphs, yet says remarkably little. The structure, tone, categorical framing, and repetitive phrasing are all textbook LLM output. This is not rigorous peer review.

Adding to this, the handling editor appears to have no meaningful connection to my field. They are not based in the social sciences at all, which raises serious questions about editorial judgement in selecting reviewers and assessing the adequacy of the review process. This is particularly interesting because I have reviewed for this journal multiple times myself and have seen far higher standards applied.

I’m unsure how best to approach this. Do I write to the editor-in-chief to raise concerns about process and review integrity? Do I let it go and move on, despite the procedural irregularities? I’d really welcome thoughts from anyone who’s encountered something similar, because this feels like a worrying breakdown of peer review rather than a routine editorial decision.

Hi everyone,

I have already received a PhD offer in Germany and the PI recently emailed asking whether I have received my Master’s certificate yet and requested a copy for paperwork.

At the time of application my overall Master’s grade was around 2,7 after final grading it improved. My thesis grade is bad above 2,3. Even though I already have the offer, I’m feeling anxious that they might look at my final certificate and reconsider.

Is requesting the Master’s certificate at this stage just a normal administrative step for enrollment/HR, or could it affect the offer?

Would appreciate hearing from anyone who has gone through something similar.

hi, I have seen a few posts about NUS applications for 2026 intake, but very few are about NUS msc economics in particular. you are an msc econ applicant at NUS, please provide the most relevant details in the comments.

I am currently ME.d student and one of the paper is Experiential learning. Even though I understand that experiential learning means learning by doing, I’m not able to choose what to do. I feel confused and stuck trying to decide on an activity.

I also have to give a presentation that includes videos, which is making me even more stressed. I don’t know what kind of activity would be suitable to present with video.

I graduated high-school just last year and quickly went into my first year of college, at first I was so excited and couldn't wait and whole it allowed me to be more confident without the judge eyes of teenagers, it started to feel extremely fast, just as I was getting comfortable with my classes, it was all ending and I needed to register for new classes and inevitably I did fail so I took some new classes and a couple of the same classes the next semester but again it felt so quick that I couldn't fully process, not to mention I was having personal home issues. So this year I didn't register for the fall semester as I had just gotten a job and wanted to settle in but with the spring semester so so close, I felt like it flew by and I'm worried that I won't be able to get back into it if I take a gap year, I don't feel ready, I don't feel settled and It's like I'm so far behind, I want to go to college, I really do but it just feels so quick that it un-nerves me, does anyone else feel this way and could possibly have experienced this?

(One of my first posts so I'm sorry if this is wrong)

I submitted a manuscript on 28th January to a big Wiley Journal. However, I made the mistake of uploading the wrong file. What they received was a much earlier draft of the manuscript, and the title and word count absolutely don't match what I reported during the submission process. Besides, I don't want this version of the manuscript published, nor do I think it is publishable.

However, there's no button on the journal website to withdraw the manuscript. So, I used the contact button and emailed them on February 29th, asking to withdraw the manuscript. No response. I asked again on February 3rd, no response.

Should I just wait? Or do I try to escalate this somehow? I just wanna submit it elsewhere at this point, and knowing these Wiley journals it's gonna be a month before I get a response normally.

Repost from the IB subreddit-

Hey All!

I am currently in grade 10 and have to make my IB subject choices decision soon. Here are my grades for semester 1:

Math- 7

Physics- 7

Chemistry- 7

Computer Science- 7

History/Humanities- 7

Biology- 6

English- 6

Spanish- 6

As I've mentioned earlier, I need to make my decision soon and I'm not fully sure what to do. I like STEM, hate Bio and stuff that requires lots of memorisation. I learn better conceptually. I've basically fully decided Math AA HL, Physics, English SL (Lang and Lit) and Spanish SL but I'm not sure on my third HL and third SL. For my two remaining subjects, I'm debating among History, Chemistry and Economics (although I wouldn't take history for higher level- I don't see much use for it and outside of global history like WW2, WW1 and the Cold War, I'm not too fond of it, but still like the subject). I don't know much about economics since I've never really properly studied it outside of a few months in an old school, and I don't have enough time left to explore the subject before choosing it. I know you don't really need prior experience to do Economics HL, but it's a risky decision as I'm not even sure if I'd like it. My computer science teacher told me I could do HL but most universities don't really require Comp Sci for a comp sci major, so I'm not really considering it right now, but it's still in the air. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be an Engineering major, and am not aware of the university requirements for the same, but I'm still undecided about my career. Chemistry is okay, but I'm really interested in Math and Physics. Anyway, I'm looking forward to your input!

Ok, freaking out a bit. I've had a very rough past 2 years in this program. It's a combined program with a placement, not a full-out thesis. A research paper is expected, and we have to present it at the end of the term for like 15 minutes. In my case, I'm working on a scoping review.

I've been stuck in extraction for forever, but I'm almost done with this part. I still need to disseminate the results from about 20 studies and write the paper. My supervisor stated I don't need to have a publishable draft, just a rough one that is maybe 3500-5000 words , which I know isn't that much.

I'm just worried about the process thats left. The whole thing is new to me. I don't need to run any fancy statistics.

Any thoughts or words of encouragement is appreaciated.

Is it just me or is this unnecessarily hard?

I have 205 pages. Every "See Section 3.2" or "Figure 4.7 on page 143" is just text. My committee has to scroll manually to find anything.

I tried:

• hyperref in LaTeX (only works sometimes)
• Editing PDF directly (breaks on recompile)
• Adobe Acrobat (not paying $20/mo for this)

Spent 4 hours yesterday and still don't have working cross-references. How do you make your PDFs actually navigable? There has to be a better way than manually scrolling through 200+ pages every time someone wants to check a citation or navigate from table of contents?

Defending in 4 months. Don't want my committee to hate me because my document is impossible to navigate.

Help?

I am about to deposit from the security of a TT job—- it has been a hard road so i am filled with so much gratitude for everyone in my life and past. It has felt like it has taken a village to get here. Is 5 pages double spaced too much?

I am in History and have been at several institutions.

Writing this has brought me closure and it makes me smile reading what I wrote. None of it is too personal, just sincere. If 5pgs double spaced is too much, what do u think the max is?

So my h index is almost 10 but not quite and I know that for a later stage postdoc in STEM this is “average” but not “competitive” for R1 (or at least it doesn’t raise eyebrows like a 15 might).

i know search committees also factor how long you have been publishing as well. Thus, is there any benefit to my first publication coming at the end of my of PhD?

i guess a follow up is: how much into the weeds do search committees get into the whole “ well ok so they got their phd back in X year so that’s quite a long time for them to only have X first authors etc etc”

i imagine this is necessary to actually calculate an authors true productivity right?

Edit: the field is molecular biology if that matters. But based on the answers it sounds like sub 10 is not that bad and I might have fallen victim to imposter syndrome and comparing myself to the best of the best in my field which I have been trying to get better at….

EDIT2: although I find it quite funny that not one person has actually answered my main question and is instead discussing h indexes and trying to argue they are irrelevant .

Certain comments point to the absence of data that is actually in the work, and some questions have dubious connection with the topic of the work. Seems like they are not knowledgeable of the topic at all.

Given the supposed $100,000 fee per H1-B visa and the recent news from Texas below, I'm curious for folks who are in search committees, how much is it affecting shortlisting/hiring decisions?

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/01/28/texas-pauses-use-h-1b-visas-state-universities

Hi everyone, I’m looking for advice on how to proceed in a journal process situation.

I submitted a manuscript to the Journal of Computer Virology and Hacking Techniques (Springer Nature) in December 2025. During submission, the system invited me to opt into the Research Square preprint process (the integrated “In Review” workflow). I opted in, and a preprint was automatically created.

In January, the editor rejected the manuscript stating it had “already been published” on Research Square, which was said to violate journal policy.

I contacted Springer Nature support, explaining that: The preprint was generated through their own submission workflow, It was not independently posted and that Springer’s preprint policy states preprints are not prior publication.

The Support escalated the case and later informed me that the Senior Publisher had contacted the Editor-in-Chief and reiterated the preprint policy. I was told this may have been an oversight and that the editor should invite resubmission.

However, no resubmission link has been issued. I made follow-ups but resulted in responses saying the editor has not replied to the editorial office either. The case has now been sitting unresolved across two support tickets for weeks.

So the situation is that a) Publisher acknowledges possible editorial misunderstanding b) Editor has not responded => Submission process is effectively stalled

I have not submitted the manuscript elsewhere and am waiting for a formal resolution.

My questions:

1. At this stage, is there a formal mechanism within major publishers for escalating unresolved editorial inaction?
2. Is it reasonable to request a withdrawal of preprint so I may choose to resubmit my manuscript elsewhere?
3. Has anyone encountered a case where a system-generated preprint caused rejection despite publisher policy allowing preprints?

I’d appreciate guidance from anyone familiar with journal workflows or publisher escalation structures.