Avoiding publishing in a particular journal without bringing up politics

The other answers are focusing on OP's particular ethical stance, but I think this question deserves a somewhat general answer, so here goes:

You are essentially asking how to take a political stand without involving politics. This is impossible unless you hide your motivations for wanting to avoid this journal--as you've already tried without success.

You just have to decide whether you feel strongly enough to state your beliefs out loud, at least to your advisor. If you don't want to publish in this journal under any circumstances, even if it means taking your name off the paper, so be it, but be prepared to face the consequences of that. If your priority is not rocking the boat with your advisor, so be it, but be prepared to have your name associated (at least a little bit) with the journal. It's up to you how much that matters. A middle ground would be raising your objections with your advisor but leaving the decision up to him. This is about your personal ethics, so no one can tell you what the right choice is.


How do we know that regression results are real and not the result of bias?

First, any statistical measure provides only evidence of the truth of something, not proof that it is true. Only a population study can provide proof and in many cases, especially with human studies, it is impossible to nail down a population (since the data changes over time as people grow, change, and die).
One can certainly design a "study" to come to a preconceived result. This is why experimental design is all important and must be disclosed in any research. Then, with all the details of what was done, a reader has the opportunity to replicate the study or to question it. But, assuming the "researcher" isn't just cheating, it is the research design (hypotheses and methodology) that one questions.
While you don't arrive at truth in statistics, you can approach it by replicating studies and also by researching the same hypotheses with different research designs. If they agree, then you have additional evidence.
In some studies, such as those involving racial bias, part of the design might need to be making the data blind in some way to the researchers.
Good papers provide complete design information including reasons for the decisions that were made about data (collection, analysis, possible alternative designs...).


What is the reasoning behind the publication of poems in academic journals?

Your first reference comes from Qualitative Inquiry journal, that describes themselves as:

  Qualitative Inquiry (QI) provides an interdisciplinary forum for qualitative methodology and related issues in the human sciences. The journal publishes open-peer reviewed research articles that experiment with manuscript form and content, and focus on methodological issues raised by qualitative research rather than the content or results of the research. QI also addresses advances in specific methodological strategies or techniques.

Emphasis is mine. It seems that publishing poem in that case comments on the fact that insomnia affects general academic performance. That is an "experiment with manuscript form" that addresses statistics of insomnia.

Your second reference comes from "Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory" which aims to publish:

  scholarly essays from interdisciplinary feminist perspectives. For us, “women” and “performance” denote not simply what we study but how we study it—that is, not preconceived objects of analysis, but rather an open assembly of political, ethical, and aesthetic orientations, feminism chief among them. We encourage dialogues among various fields of performance scholarship, including theater and performance studies, dance studies, music history and criticism, ethnography, new and digital media, cinema studies, and cultural studies; as well as queer, critical race, and post- and decolonial theory. Working with/in this disciplinary hybridity, we explore critiques of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, dis/ability, technology, nation, and capitalism.

Emphasis is mine. That poem seems to connect work of the artists and current events, put work of artists into context. But that is just an opinion.

The shorter answer TL;DR would be that these poems represent unconventional (for Science/Nature/Cell readers) opinion pieces.


What does it mean when a professor says that he'll pay me as a 'mission' for an internship?

In my experience, there are typically three methods for dealing with funding for a short- to medium-term visit:

Directly collect travel and living expense information (e.g., via receipts) and advance/recompense money to those documented expenses.  This can be quite painful to actually implement for anything more than about a week.
Take on the person as a short-term employee, paying them a sufficient wage that it is expected all told to cover their travel and living expenses.  This can often be complicated due to subsidiary problems with HR, hiring policy, etc., and may often be much more expensive for the host depending on how their overheads are calculated.
Give the person a lump sum of money that is expected to be large enough to cover their travel and living expenses.  This is the simplest method, but requires available money that is allowed to be used for this purpose, which is often hard to come by except in specific visiting scholar funds and the like.

My guess is that the statement about "mission" may be an unusual or mistranslated phrasing referring to the third type of funding.  The only way to know for certain, however, is to ask for clarification from the person who used the phrase.


What to do about students who ask for help too often?

Here is one strategy:

Specify the level of changes the student needs to make before they can come back again.
Request that the student shows you what changes have been made by comparing the old and new versions of the assignment.
If student has failed to reach the level suggested or fails to show you the differences, simply tell them to go away until they have made the requested changes. Simply state that your previous comments still apply.

Adding a time delay between when they ask and when you give feedback or when you give feedback and when they can come again might also help.


Is it okay to print an ebook downloaded online?

There are two cases here:

You bought and downloaded the ebook legally. In this case it most likely came with a license, stating exactly what you are allowed to do with it. Most of the time you will be allowed to print it for personal use. However, there are also ebooks available by library services, which you only get for a certain amount of time (e.g. two weeks). In this case, printing it would be just as illegal as going into a library, getting a book, go to a copy shop, print the whole thing and then return it. In most cases, such library services will have a way to prevent or at least hinder printing, so if you need special software and some "hacks" you found online to print the book, you have to be careful.
You downloaded the ebook for free. In this case the question at hand is not if you can print it or not, it is if the download was legal or not. There are books available online for free, but many of them are not legal. If in doubt, contact the original author. I would say that if you downloaded an ebook and then print it out, the printing itself doesn't make a potential illegal download any worse - unless of course you distribute the book - but I'm no expert for copyright, so I can't give a definitive answer on that.

I will furthermore not comment on "how bad" an illegal download of an ebook is, depending on who you ask it might differ from "who cares?" to "you are going to jail!".


What you describe is often the common case for a PhD. But, in a letter and also in real you should have some related interdisciplinary or methodological background. Starting as a complete novice a PhD is very risky. An expert you have to become during your PhD, no one is one at the beginning, this would be a pointless odyssey. But a background is necessary, otherwise everybody could start a PhD without educational requirements like a bachelor in natural sciences/engineering  when looking for a STEM PhD.


How much is too much when it comes to diagrams in a research article?

That entirely depends on the article itself. In some cases diagrams aid an explanation and make it clearer. In others they offer little insight. If an article depends on having many diagrams of the former kind, then I don't see that "too many" is an issue. But even a few of the latter kind may just get in the way of understanding.

Words and pictures can be complementary. It is a judgement call by the authors as to which is best in a given case. They may err a bit, but that is human nature.

In general, think about whether words or pictures/figures better convey your meaning and act accordingly. Sometimes both are needed. Examples illustrating (note the word) a concept are often best presented in figures. Imagine a Calculus textbook without figures. Now imagine one without formulae. Would either work?


What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing a postdoc in Singapore and UK?

My answer will focus on entirely non-academic aspects of a post-doc in UK as you seem to have those "sorted".

I think you have been slightly mislead:

~£30K will not result to ~£18K after taxes. I was taking ~£31K and ending up with ~£24K. Maybe you are in a different tax-category or something but from ~£30K to end up <£20K is quite unrealistic. Finally, ~£30K with 0 years of experience is pretty decent. One more point: spend an hour or two and check the HM Revenue & Customs. Do not rely on word of mouth on something so vital.
You need to factor council taxes and these will dependent where you live. Council taxes can be quite hefty (£100+ per month in Cambridge for example).
As @John mentioned, you need to base your decision on where are you going to live; ~£30K in central London, Oxford or Cambridge with 2 kids? No way. ~£30K in Manchester or (even cheaper) Coventry? Probably tight but doable.
London allowance have not saved anyone. Sure you will get probably ~12% more than your equivalent post-doc outside London but that's about it. In some cases you can get the same salary outside London. Lesser known universities try to give more monetary incentives to candidates.

I recommend you do some very good research about where exactly you are going, what is the cost of living, what are schools/nurseries are there, etc. Also do maybe a quick online search for houses to see what is available. If the going rate of a two bedroom flat +£1100 well... you need to consider things seriously. And do the same search for Singapore too afterwards!

Post-doc is a stepping stone. Realistically you will not get a salary that will allow you to live a luxurious life. Also take into account that the chances of tenure in an institution after a post-doc while usually better than being a complete outsider are all but guaranteed. Therefore consider that relocation might be something you will have to re-examine. You do not tell us if your wife will be able to contribute to your family income. Even a part-time job might make a significant difference.

(Reading back my answer I think I sound a bit grim... I do not mean to dishearten you or anything, just I do not want to be mislead on taxation or living costs issues.)


How should I state my affiliation and funding if I am not funded and have no academic affiliation?

For this project, your "affiliation" is independent researcher. Your "funding" is just self funded. Both of those are well known and perfectly acceptable.

But be sure that your employer has no claim on your independent work. Some will have a claim, or will claim that they do. For some employers, permission is necessary.


Which is better, a paper with pedantic vocabularies or a paper easy to read?

There is a third way:
Be pedantic about your vocabulary in the right way to make your paper more readable.

Using established, clear, and consistent vocabulary and defining it when necessary is the best way to ensure that you are not misunderstood. The main advantage of “simple and easy words” is that they do not need to be explained to the reader, but this also entails that you rely on the reader interpreting these words the same way as you do, which may be not given surprisingly often. Defined vocabulary does not have this disadvantage.

Moreover, you need to at least need to mention the established, “pedantic” vocabulary for context and to avoid the impression of reinventing the wheel. By consistently sticking to it, you avoid switching between different terms for the same thing, which usually impedes intelligibility.

However, you should also bear in mind that readers unfamiliar with this vocabulary may want to read your paper. For these readers, define the more uncommon words and cite papers explaining the basic underlying concepts. Papers are not difficult to read because they contain new words, but because these words are not properly explained or because the reader does not understand the concepts represented by them. For example if you write a paper on theoretical particle physics, readers will have to understand some elementary aspects of quantum theory to follow your thoughts. Using vocabulary that can only appeal to readers without this basic understanding of quantum theory is pointless and only raises false expectations.

Finally, if you get to introduce new concepts, you can try to choose words for them appeal to intuition, but this does not mean that you are relieved from the burden of explaining these words.


Should I mention that I am interested in developing bioinformatics tools in my SOP for a "Software Development/Engineering" Master's program?

Put yourself into the shoes of who should decide to select you or other applicants for this program.
Will she/he be interested of what you are going to do after the Master program?

Also, if you really like bioinformatics, probably you should approach it more from scientist point of view than a software developer point of view.
You should already have a strong base on biology, molecular biology, genetics and proteomics to start to develop new algorithms that give a substantial contribution in the field.


Is it acceptable to hide your affiliation in research paper?

You're trying to solve the wrong problem: either your work is a decent contribution and then it's worth publishing with your affiliation, or it's not and then it shouldn't be published at all (and anyway it's likely to get rejected in respectable venues).
So the real problem here is whether this work is a decent contribution. However you might not be able to make the call yourself:

You are a PhD student so you might not have enough experience to judge, and especially to judge your own work.
You also seem to assume that researchers in your university never produce any mediocre work, although this is very unlikely even for a top university.
The fact that you talk so negatively about your work might be a sign of impostor syndrom, a bias which frequently affects researchers (and not only them). The competitive environment of a top institution is a fertile ground for this kind of psychological bias.

But the solution is very simple: you just ask your PhD advisor their advice. It's precisely their job to teach you what is a decent contribution and what is not. If they tell you not to submit the work, then it's not even worth submitting. If they tell you to submit, then it was actually better than you thought and it means that you should revise your criteria.
You can even ask them about your idea to submit without the affiliation if you want. But be aware that they might laugh at the idea, it's not something academics do anywhere.


Is it common in any other first world countries besides the US to work while attending university?

In Germany, at least one survey reports that 47 percent of students work during the semester, and 63 percent work during the holidays between semester.

Most of these students earn less than 500 Euros a month, but 6 percent earn more than 1000€ after taxes. Over 60 percent that have jobs have one to finance their studies/living expenses. For 7 percent of students, their job is their only source of income.

According to the Sozialerhebung 2012 (a large survey by a federal agency)  figure 9.10, 13 percent of students studying towards their first degree  worked more than 20 hours a week on average in 2012. Whether that's "common" is a matter of interpretation.

The part on financing reports a median income of 300€ from working, with 63 percent of students doing some kind of work. Figure 6.5 shows that 2 percent of students only finance through studies through work, with an average income of 960 Euro, and 13 percent mainly finance their life through working, with an average income of 660 Euros.

(All sources in German)


Can somebody with a PhD in theoretical physics become a Assistant Professor / Instructor in Mathematics?

Can somebody with a PhD in physics become a mathematics professor? Yes. My department has (at least) four such people.

Is this common? No, not particularly. I think my department is rather unusual in that respect.

do people in academia view theoretical physicist (someone with a PhD in theoretical physics) as equivalent to someone who has a PhD in mathematics? No, as a general rule I don't think anybody will say that they're equivalent - theoretical physics is certainly very distinct from math, and most theoretical physicists will not be seriously considered for a position at most math departments. Nonetheless, some theoretical physicists publish work that is close enough to pure math, or even outright do a career change after their PhD and start publishing exclusively in math journals, to make them a good fit for a position in a math department.


How is the production of a Festschrift usually initiated?

There is no standard, but most frequently, the 'birthday child' themselves initiate the Festschrift. This may be disillusioning, but it is the reality. I can say that as someone who has been involved with a few Festschriften (including once as an editor).

Only in exceptional cases can I imagine a Festschrift being initiated without the jubilarian's knowledge. In such cases, the jubilarian should have an extremely high reputation; otherwise it is improbable that people would voluntarily use so much resources to initiate and edit such a huge (and not-so-rewarding) project.

But as stated above, usually, it is the jubilarian who expresses a wish to have a Festschrift. They then need to convince friends to take the time to serve as editors. The jubilarian and their friend-editors coordinate the whole Festschrift together so as to ensure that the jubilarian's wishes and preferences are satisfied. (There are quite some sensitivities and vanity involved, e.g. who should contribute, who must not contribute, who and how many hundreds or thousands of people should be listed in the Tabula Gratulatoria etc.)

As regards the involvement of the institution in your case, I can imagine that the institution may have provided a part of the budget (or perhaps administrative work or materials). A Festschrift consumes a lot of money, time and work. The help of an institution can be immensely valuable.


Within the UK, how are roles corresponding to academic grades defined?

As @StrongBad notes, here and in the other answer, there is a national salary spine for academics and academic support staff.

Typically (ie, universally in my limited experience), these are grouped into overlapping ‘grades’ or an equivalent term.  Thus here, grade 6 is spine-points 25–29, with three discretionary spine-points above that.  This is, I think, primarily for administrative convenience and will tend to correlate with a (loose) job description, or with the amount of ‘leadership’ and grant-getting expected; for example, you might have to be on a particular grade before you'll be allowed to be a PI.  Thus a post-doc will usually be grade 7, a lecturer or ‘senior’ post-doc grade 7 or 8, a reader grade 9 and, as noted above, professors are on a notional grade 10 which isn't on the spine.  People will tend to automatically rise one spine-point per year, until they reach the top of the grade.

So the answer to your question is that although the details will doubtless vary between universities, the grades and their consequences/expectations are probably pretty common in UK academia, without there being any specific agreement or constraint.

If I look at some job adverts, I see only salary ranges mentioned, but if I look at detailed job descriptions, they're articulated in terms of grades, and I see phrases like ‘The salary will be on the Research and Teaching Grade, level 7/8/9, £33,574 - £37,768 / £41,255 - £47,801 / £49,230 - £55,389 per annum’


How to convey your full length paper in conference through slides?

In a short face to face presentation, remember that insight is much more important and valuable than detail. People aren't going to remember the detail, and can get it from the paper if they need it, but they will remember if you can show them why your main result is true from a chain of insights.


Research in computational neuroscience or computational medicine in Europe

For computational neuroscience in germany, the website of the National Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience (http://www.nncn.de/en) might be a good ressource for you.
They list groups that are part of the Network, distinguishing between "centers" "groups" and "collaborations - i assume corresponding to scale of their involvement in computational neuroscience.


How to cite a conference paper with no pagination?

I have a confession to make: some of my citations use fake page numbers.

Why do I do this?  Because sometimes there just aren't any page numbers or I cannot find the page numbers for a document with any reasonable amount of searching.  This happens especially often to me with computer science papers, where some venues just don't bother.  Online journals also often have unusual approaches to page numbering, sometimes giving a DOI-like token rather than a number.  In other cases, such as some book chapters, there are page numbers, but the versions accessible online aren't marked with them.

My preference in these cases is simply to omit the page numbers: citations are about information accessibility, and if the page numbers aren't a meaningful part of accessing that information, then I see no point in trying to fit the citation onto that particular Procrustean bed.

Occasionally, though, a journal with a particularly zealous and inflexible copyeditor will force me to add page numbers to things that don't have page numbers, and that is when I use fake page numbers, simply numbering an N-page document as pages 1-N.

Bottom line: don't sweat the page numbers, much less the volume number.


A professor of mine pronounces an author's name incorrectly, what should I do?

Ideally, find your professor during office hours, and say something like "Hey, this has been confusing me... I'm seeing all these references to one pronunciation and you've been using another. Is there a disagreement in the academic community, or are both pronunciations valid, or did the author use a less-common pronunciation, or are these other references simply wrong?"

In other words, don't tell her that she's making a mistake; ask her to help you learn. Much more polite, much harder to take offense at, and much less likely to embarass you if she says either "Well, this is how [author] always pronounced his name when I spoke to him" or "I have a slight speech impediment that I'm a bit embarrassed about; thanks for not bringing this up in public."

The fact that she's outvoted does not necessarily mean she's wrong. For that matter, she may not be aware that there is a difference, or not be able to reproduce that difference accurately, if her accent isn't the same as the others you've spoken to (or your own)... or you may be having the same problem in the other direction.

You have an interesting question. Ask it. In private, and as a question, and you'll probably get an interesting answer and maybe a bit of an uptick on your grade for having made additional effort. If you tell her that she's wrong, and/or do so in the middle of class, it's likely to go less well for either of you.

If you really can't meet with her before the exam, despite your best efforts, you have to decide whether you're going to pronounce it her way, pronounce it your way and -- if challenged -- say "I've been meaning to ask about that; this is how I've always heard it...", or try for a compromise between them with the "I've been meaning to ask" as a fallback.

But I really doubt you're going to get dinged for getting this wrong if you get the rest of the exam right. So maybe you should focus on aceing the exam, rather than on this nitpicky point.


Why isn't there a doctoral degree that does not involve a major project?

The doctoral degree indicates that you are ready to "do research" yourself. A Ph.D. (or similar doctoral degrees) is essentially your qualification to join the academic community as a fully fledged researcher. Until this time, your research, e.g., for a Master's thesis, was conducted under close supervision by your professor.

The community believes that the best way to find out whether you can conduct a research project yourself is, in fact, to have you conduct a research project yourself. This is what the dissertation is all about. (Of course still under supervision - after all, you are still learning the ropes.)

No amount of classes or coursework will prepare you adequately for the realities of research, just as you can't get a driver's license through a written test only, without demonstrating that you can indeed drive a vehicle.

I strongly recommend that you reexamine the value you may see in a doctoral project.


What sort of research experience does a college or university expect a professor to provide an undergraduate?

Faculty in such situations might be expected to provide research experiences commensurate with the size and scope of the institution. Undergraduates usually cannot devote the time to a project that a graduate student does, so the outcomes are different. Publications are not generally expected; conference presentations are more common. Most importantly, the undergraduate gets experience working on a complex problem and develops transferable research skills. What the faculty member gets is not the same as what he or she would get from graduate students.

What an undergraduate does as research depends on the facilities, infrastructure, and culture of the institution. At a major research institution, undergraduates should be working on the same types of problems graduate students work on, but perhaps in a more limited scope. When I was a grad student, we had several undergrads in our lab, one of whom was grad student quality and got some publications. The others contributed valuable (if not always publishable) work to our projects.

At a smaller institution that maybe does not have a graduate progran (like where I am now), you give an undergraduate student work commensurate with the type of grants you are expected to write. My institution (and my department especially) does not emphasize pursuit of large external grants, and so the types of projects I can give to my students are more limited. At the undergraduate stage, the process is more important than the results. I regularly send my students to regional and national conferences, and I hope to eventually have them publish something, but I am not given low evaluation marks. However, if you are expected to apply for and get big grants, then your undergrads should be doing work at that level.

All in all, in the chemistry departments I have been a part of (large and small), most faculty have one or more undergraduates doing research and most undergraduates get the opportunity. However, not all undergraduates choose to, nor would their be enough opportunities to support them if they did. The onus is on the undergraduate to choose to do research, not on the professor to guarantee an opportunity is available to all students even if they do not want it.


Does the second round of reviewing process typically take a longer time than first round?

In my experience, it is usually the other way around.  The first round of reviews typically takes longer, because the reviewers are new to the paper and first reading it and forming their opinions.  In the second round, they are more likely to be simply looking at differences and seeing whether they agree with your adjustments and replies to their comments.

There is, however, a lot of noise in the process, because in most cases the main amount of time is not spent in reviewing per se, but rather in waiting for the reviewers to make time in their schedules to review.  It differs from journal to journal of course, but sounds to me like in your first round of review you got unusually lucky with the reviewers' schedules and things went very fast, and the second round of review is taking a more "normal" length of time.


My advisor has literally no idea what my research is about and I am freaking out (phd student)

But not knowing what my research is about is just plainly freaking me out!

So it seems like there are two issues here. One is the classic "my advisor works in field X while I want to work in field Y" problem (you will find lots of discussion of this problem if you search this site). The other is that your advisor is hands-off to the point of you being completely on your own. Given both of these factors, your decision to seek a new advisor seems reasonable. And yes, if you are unwilling or unable to work with anyone locally, then it follows logically that you will have to transfer.

The thing is that the closest school is ranked higher than mine. (Mine in the top 50, the other school in the top 15)

You may need to consider schools other than the closest one. I assume you were not able to be admitted to a top-15 school when you applied last time. Unless you've done something impressive in the last year, your odds of getting admitted are probably lower than they were last year, not higher.

Should I go to the other school and talk to the admission office? To the dean perhaps? (For my major, It is not common for students to contact prospective supervisors.

You say you are in the US, so I am surprised by the question. Graduate admissions are usually done by the department, not by the admissions office; the admissions office is usually for undergraduate admissions. The dean is also not usually involved in such things.
The only way to "short circuit" the usual admissions process is to find a professor who wants to work with you, and have them help you from the inside. But if you don't have such a person in your network already, this is a long-shot; most professors will just say "please apply to the program and we can talk if you get in."
Bottom line: You should pursue all the options in your desired subfield, not just the closest one. But if your subfield is small and all of the programs are highly-ranked, you may need to consider other subfields, "like it or not."

I don't know how I ended up here. I just found myself here!

I suggest that you reflect on this. You did not "find yourself here"; rather, you applied for admission in this department and then agreed to attend. There is no real harm in making a mistake; we have all made many. But it's important to recognize what went wrong so that you can avoid having it happen again.
Update: OP has since clarified that their field is Law. I cannot speak to whether this answer makes sense for law, not my area.


How does an Erratum on one's own paper affect one's career as a researcher?

It will not affect you career. You'll be fine.

An erratum is not a bad thing, per se. Errors happen, and if you fix them it's fine. The error you describe are totally normal and I would even guess that a large fraction of published paper contains this type of error and does not have an erratum.

Even a more serious error that invalidates some of your finding will not necessarily have any impact on your career (but in this case you should write an erratum!). A retraction would be more serious, because retraction are associated with misconduct.

Another point is, that most people will not even notice that there is as erratum for one of your papers.


Where should citations be placed relative to punctuation (e.g., full stops and commas)?

As others have mentioned, all sentences should be grammatically correct. The citation marker of the form [X] may play the role of a noun, or of silent word.

1, 4 and 11 are never correct - they put the citation into the next sentence, where it doesn't belong. Similarly, 8 and 9 put it into the wrong phrase of the sentence.

3, 6 and 9 combine words incorrectly. Spaces can't just be ignored.

That leaves 2, 5, 7 and 10. These are all used, except that the exact form of 7 will depend on the referencing style in use. You could have 'According to Smith [3]', but not 'According to Smith [Smith, 2017]', The latter would become 'According to Smith [2017]'. Also, for 10 you need to think about how long the second phrase is.


The citations should come directly from the source, and the details will depend on how they've licensed it.  There's a lot more to open-source licensing, but when you're just doing the citing proper attribution is the main thing you need to concern yourself with.

Here's one example from the St. Louis Fed database, on their data series for GDP:

  Suggested Citation:

  US. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Real Gross Domestic Product
  [A191RL1Q225SBEA], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St.
  Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A191RL1Q225SBEA, October 24,
  2016.

Here's another from ICPSR (https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/32241?classification=ICPSR.I.A.3.):

  Citation

  United States Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census,
  United States Department of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and
  United States Department of Agriculture. Economic Research Service.
  Current Population Survey, December 2010: Food Security Supplement.
  ICPSR32241-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for
  Political and Social Research [distributor], 2011-12-16.
  http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR32241.v1

In my experience most data series have a citation right on the page now days.  If it doesn't, try looking in the site's FAQ, or elsewhere on their site for how they wish to be cited.


How much time of unemployment after PhD in order to still be competitive in postdoc application

As I'm from Europe, Horizon 2020, ERC grants and other recognize starting grants as for individuals up to 3 years after PhD to be eligible for postdoc. After that the postdoc experience in academia or industry is already expected.

For me it took personally 8 months to find appropriate job after I submitted PhD thesis - different field (computational biology). I submitted 25 CV, did 4-5 interviews and did also homework to explore different opportunities and laboratories. I had some small money to travel to conferences other sites and I had support from my previous supervisor. Thus I spoke with some heads of labs personally too.


How do you politely ask someone to be on your committee?

I suggest an in-person meeting with each of them, which you can initiate with a brief but explanatory email: "I would like to meet with you for an hour in your office to discuss the possibility of you joining my dissertation committee.  Based on your work and experience in X, Y, and Z, I think you might be a valuable committee member. ".

When you meet in person, you can treat it as a two-way interview.  They should be interviewing you to determine if this is a good match and if they believe in your research topic and approach.  Likewise, you should be interviewing them to determine that they will perform well on your particular committee.  Do they have enough time?  Do they get along with other committee members? How do they evaluate dissertations and the process of writing dissertations?  What sort of feedback or support are they capable of giving you outside of the official meetings? What do they dislike or seek to avoid in the process of evaluating dissertations or being on the dissertation committee?  And so on.  You should also ask questions regarding their future plans, including sabbaticals, possible changes in job or employer (esp. for non-tenured professors), or possible retirement.

These questions that you ask a prospective committee member can help you avoid many committee problems later on.


What to do when no one speaks English around you?

This is a very relevant and interesting question. I agree with all answers so far that the problem can only be solved by being (pro)active, perhaps more than many young PhD students are comfortable with.

Anyway, what I can add to the discussion is a bit of insight from the "other" side. See, I am Austrian (mother tongue is german), and in my line of research Germany is pretty well-established. Hence, when there is a conference in Europe, german speakers (Germans, Austrians, Swiss) often form about a third or so of all participants. In these conferences, random chatter (not so much technical discussion, which people are used to doing in english anyway) often starts in english when a non-german speaker is present, but usually changes to german when the non-german speaker moves away or seems to be not interested in the conversation (e.g., he/she is turning away, or does not contribute at all to the conversation). Of course this means that it is hard for a non-german speaker to join in on a conversation after it started. Usually, if a non-german approaches the group, chatter will turn to english again, but this usually does not happen unless this person is already good friends with one of the people in the group (or would you approach a group of strangers talking in an unknown language?).

However, I don't think there is much to be done about this - it is just natural that a group of people converses in their joint language that they are all most comfortable with. People are not actively trying to be rude - but, sometimes, what comes naturally is not what is appreciated by the largest group of people in the conference.

Some concret suggestions:

When at a formal dinner, and you don't know anybody, try to not be seated surrounded by larger groups of people who are clearly friends or come from the same university / country. This can make for awkward dinners, even independently of language issues, but it is easy to spot already when sitting down. For networking, it is much easier to get into conversation with other people in your situation (more or less alone currently).
At receptions or conference breaks, as you say yourself, I would usually just move away from people who are excluding me by speaking a different language. If you are actually interested in what they are saying, but can't contribute for language issues, rocinante's suggestion is best - just tell them.


How Can I Specialize In Two Different -but related- Areas

It is too early for you to commit to a final field of study. It is good that you have a lot of interests and the opportunity to learn some things about many of them. Studying math at a liberal arts college, as I did, or at place that otherwise permits a broad education is a good way to build up a body of interests, any of which you might later decide to focus intently on. But you don't need extreme focus yet.
Your interests are likely to change, at least a bit, in the coming few years. Wait until you have more knowledge and experience before committing too deeply to any one area.
A note on math. A professor of English once told me that studying math gave me an almost perfect education, since the university also required those other subjects you mention, and more. Had I studied, say, sociology, instead, then my education would have missed something (logical, mathematical, computational thinking) that I wouldn't get otherwise. He was, of course, measuring against an Medieval notion of an "educated person." An educated person has a lot of opportunities. Strive for that.


Google Scholar intitle and OR search combination

virtual reality and retention  intitle:"Visual cues" OR intitle:"cueing" OR intitle:"signal" OR intitle:"signalling"


Performance of the Toronto Paper Matching System (TPMS) for (conference) paper review assignment

Laurent Charlin's reference (http://papermatching.cs.toronto.edu/webapp/profileBrowser/about_us/) suggests that it's been adopted by "over 50 conferences", including the following conferences:

European Conference on Computer Vision
Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence
Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems
Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
International Conference on Computer Vision
International Conference on Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence and Statistics Conference

And it also "keeps the profiles of 8,000 reviewers". In machine learning circles, this is just about as good as it gets with non-mass-market data. The size of the training pool and the fact that it's been continuously worked on means it is likely to have become a fairly reliable tool.


Can I ask a non-academic for an academic letter of recommendation?

The purpose of such letters is to get some assurance from "trusted" commentators who can attest to the likelihood of your success in the program. While for most academic letters, professors and teachers are best, in this case it may be different. I can't suggest who would be best, but keep the two elements in mind:

People who can be immediately trusted to give an honest assessment, and people who can judge your likelihood of success.


Asking questions of examiners in PhD thesis defense?

Perhaps you can ask for advice on post-PhD life? Assuming you're pretty confident that you'll pass your exam (and your advisor shouldn't have allowed you to defend if they didn't think you were 100% going to pass!), your next step will be getting a job or postdoc somewhere. Perhaps you can ask the committee what they found most important during their first few years post-defense?


Should I wait for the next Ph.D. openings?

I'm not sure where in Europe you are looking, but in my experience not all positions are advertised. I would suggest to use your network (especially your MSc advisor) to contact the labs you are interested in and inquire about opportunities.

In both European countries I am familiar with (Germany and France) there are government PhD funds that are allocated on individual application from the student. So often, you can get professors who are willing to work with you if you apply for your own funding, even if they don't currently have funding for an open position and therefore aren't advertising anything. There are usually yearly or twice-yearly deadlines for this.

Whether openings are continuously advertised or clustered around certain dates will depend on your country's habits. What makes you think that better positions will open in 6 months? Are there some big grants being awarded at that point?


Organizing discussion groups in online conference

WAGON, the Western Algebraic Geometry ONline conference, had some interesting ideas in this direction. Here is a blogpost from one of the organizers about how it worked. Here is a twitter thread about some of the problems.


Is it good to try to present every interesting paper I study?

For me, -It really depends on who are you presenting to. Usually when I share something that seems interesting to my friends, usually they are happy but this won't suit to everyone. I would suggest to share a lot with people who is in same subarea of study with you or interested in your readings and do short presentations to others infrequently. The frequency of both of them will depend on your time and how interested people are.


Found better technique just before publishing old, but still good technique – can the old one still be published?

Publish T1. Later, when you have time to write a whole new paper, publish T2. Doing a comparative study between the two sounds like an excellent follow-up decision as well. I'm not sure why you classify T1 as a failure... it sounds like both work and one works better.

That said, yes, it is okay to publish "failure papers." Depending on the field it might be harder to get it approved by a journal because it's less sexy to find a negative result than to find a result. This causes a measurable bias in some fields and depending on the field can be a major problem, because failed research is just as important as successful research epistemically speaking.


Syllabus change with no warning nor discussion with students worsened grade

I would let the professor know that you had been deliberately putting more effort into larger assignments with the understanding that the coursework was worth 10%, and point out the pattern in your marks as evidence of this.  You could ask that the 10% of project marks be distributed over the other project marks rather than the coursework marks.  Your professor may be willing to do that as an exception for students that complain.

But I wouldn't go in angry and suggest that a contract has been violated.  There should be a mutual goal between the students and the professor to do the best they can at both education and marking / ranking.  Probably a lot of students were happy to get more credit for work they'd already done.  Spending a lot of time on something that presumably doesn't affect your GPA that much may not be that good of a strategy, or that professional of behaviour.

(How much better were your assignments than your homework?  And then this difference is only on 10% of your mark for one course?)

Of course, if you are near a borderline and this really will make a big difference to you, go talk to your professor honestly about this problem and how the decision disadvantaged you. Do this during their office hours.


Do I need to get a reference letter from a postdoc host?

First of all: It seems you're on good terms with your host. Well, talk to him about this exact issue. He will probably sympathize and either let you in on drafting the letter, or at least agree with you in principle on what he intends to write. (And if he evades then you'll at least know there's something wrong.)

  What is worse? A weak letter from my postdoc host or no letter? Is this something I should try to explain on my application?

The answer depends a lot on whether the place/person you're interviewing for might talk to him over email/phone/Skype.

If they will certainly talk to him, then a letter - good or bad - is not very meaningful anyway. He'll tell them what he wants to. So I wouldn't bother.
If they will certainly not talk to him, then your actual merits regardless of his opinion are likely to count for more than his letter anyway, so I'd get the letter from him just in case, and mention in passing that you worked mostly independently. I'm not 100% sure I'd add the letter to the application, it depends on the circumstances.
If you can't tell whether they'll call him up or not, I'd use the letter just to be on the safe side - assuming you actually get the letter in hand and don't have to ask him to send it to them directly (a weird custom that exists in some countries). Better this way then for them to call him up and for him to say "Uh, Dr. Foo? Umm, yeah, he was here, umm, he worked on... let me see.. it was some... stuff, I dunno. We wrote a paper together at some point, it was ok I guess. Not sure what he did exactly."

But frankly I have to say that it's not clear-cut. I, for one, would not put much stock in recommendation letters unless they said something exceptional.

One last point: Perhaps you should ask your host to focus on specific traits of yours, your skills or strengths in some things he's observed, in which case it won't matter all that much that you haven't worked a lot together.


Shall I inquire about the status of my application?

We don't know the schedule of skype interviews for this particular institution, or the review process that happens after skype interviews and before candidates are invited to campus.  In my recent experience of chairing search committees, the top candidates got invitations for on-campus interviews within a week of the end of the skype interviews (which typically took us about a week to do.)  It's obviously in our interest to do this as quickly as possible.  However, this process could be delayed by administrative indecision (e.g. if the administration is uncertain about whether or not they'll have enough of a budget to actually hire someone.)

It's quite possible that the search committee has sent out invitations for on-campus interviews.  If you contacted the search committee chair he/she would probably tell you whether or not this has happened.

Even if the initial round of invitations have gone out and you haven't gotten one, don't give up hope yet.  It's possible that some other candidate will decline the chance to interview on campus and you'll get an interview later.  In the past I've had to say to candidates something like "We sent out invitations for on-campus interviews to three candidates earlier this week, and we're still waiting for responses from two of them.  We may be sending out additional invitations."  This doesn't tell the candidate anything specific about whether they might be next on the list or much further down (or even off the list entirely due to a bad phone interview.)

I can't think of any reason not to politely ask the search committee chair about the status of the search.  You could also start checking the institution's calendar for seminars to see if anyone that looks like a faculty candidate (or is explicitly named as such) might be scheduled.


Programming Interview for PhD Admission in Computer Science

I had the interview yesterday. I would like to share the experience as it might be useful for anybody who might go through similar kind of interviews in the future.

The interview was via Skype with an outsourced software engineer (not the prospective supervisor), and we used shared .doc file to solve two programming problems about strings. By the way, most of programming interviews I had (mostly industrial and this academic one) pretty much involve strings manipulation and sometimes data structure.

The interview lasted for an hour whereby I was given 20 minutes to solve each problem and 10 minutes to discuss. The general impression was positive. The concept was always known, yet I needed some practicing to make my code works.
I was given the choice to choose the programming language I like to write in.

I would say, bachelor level of programming is enough. You will just need to revise and practice a little bit your information. You might need to focus on the logic you follow more than the small details that differ from language to another.


Will one with record of unfinished PhD on his/her CV be doubted of his/her ability?

does a record of an unfinished PhD program makes employers doubt a person's ability?

I very much wish it were not so, but the honest answer is yes. Employers, within the restricted context of reviewing job applications, are forced to rely on very partial and superficial information given to them in CVs and job applications. Moreover, they are given huge numbers of applications to select from under time pressure. They respond to this in a way that I think is completely rational, but nonetheless extremely frustrating (to them as well as to the candidates), which is to assign a highly inflated significance to each piece of information given to them: positive things appear much more positive than they should, and negative things appear much more negative than they should.

In particular, both an unfinished PhD and a long period of seeming inactivity in one's CV are likely to be perceived at least somewhat negatively, certainly if they are unaccompanied by an explanation, and possibly (to a smaller extent) even when an explanation is provided. It wouldn't kill someone's chances of getting a job, and can be overcome by many other positive things one has to say about themselves, but I'm pretty sure it will have at least a small negative effect.


Delayed second review of a reputed journal

After 2 months it sent to the same reviewer (as per info given at help section)....[W]hy would the editor wait for almost 2 months for the reviewer to just accept the invite the review[?]

The timeline seems to vary a lot by field, but sometimes the journal publication process is extraordinarily slow. On the whole, 2 months doesn't seem out of the ordinary to me. If it was just the editor waiting to ask the reviewer, I agree that seems strange, but there may have been some good reason for the delay (e.g. back and forth with this reviewer to see if they would be able to accept it or not).

  and I am told that the reviewer has not accepted the invite.
  It is very surprising, why would the same reviewer who reviewed my
  article once would not accept the invite to see my answers.

Unexpected things can happen. For example, the reviewer had some personal tragedy or health emergency. You simply cannot tell, so the best thing you can do is to discuss with the editor of the paper what to do next.


Where else are teachers not paid for prep time?

It is quite common in the UK for hourly payed lecturers to bill University for contact teaching hours only. The rate is usually significantly higher than the hour worth of a full-time lecturer, to account for (unbilled) preparation time.


How can (or should) I reference basic physics equations?

Justifications are for claims you make that need to be justified. Everyone reading your paper will know about Newton's second law. Everyone reading one of my papers (in quantum theory) will know Schrodinger's equation. I don't think people generally cite them, because everyone will need to know them to understand anything in the paper even a little.

On the other hand, I don't know what "Coulomb's friction model" is off the top of my head. If you introduce this, you should cite it. In general, if it's something that's well-established (but not necessarily well-known) I often see people referencing a textbook. This is quite common for things like mathematical theories. If it's less well-established or more particular, find a paper or review article.

My main recommendation, however, is to learn from your surroundings. If you're writing a paper, you must be citing a lot of previous work. What do they say, and what do they cite? That can tell you what the expected norms are in your field.


Reference letter from third world country

First, contrary to the optimism of some of the other answers, you should not expect that the university you're applying-to will translate a letter sent to them. At my university in the U.S., the traditional requirement was that a "certified translation" be made-and-paid-for by the student.

At the same time, the tradition in applications in the U.S. for many years is that the student does not send the letters of recommendation (and/or translations) themself, but has either the faculty send them, or some secretarial staff. If you send paper mail and include such letters, they will most likely be considered "compromised" and invalid...

Your recommender's having an email account is not so important, as perhaps having internet access to upload an electronic file (scanned letter and translation and certification-of-translation, or PDF letter and others directly electronically), since the default process is more-and-more purely electronic.

Some application systems seem to default to sending an email to the recommenders, asking for an upload, and additionally asking for other information. I shudder to think how these systems could be made to cope with cases not fitting neatly into the designers' (often ill-informed) design choices.

(Indeed, the most recent "upgrade" to my university's over-arching software system makes certain things essentially impossible, ...)

The degree of complication will vary from university to university, and you'll need to be very pro-active to make sure that the certification of translation is adequate, and that paper-mail really arrives, if your recommender cannot manage to send email.


How likely are you to be stressed in academia?

A majority of the expectations tend to be self-imposed.

While there are some things you're made to do by others, most deadlines etc come from your own choices. Do you agree to referee that paper? Do you want to submit to that conference? Do you agree to give that talk?

There is no "having done enough".

There is always something more that you could do. There will be almost certainly peers who get much, much more done than you (or at least appear to do). Research is never finished. The academic job market is very tight, so until you have tenure, there is always this question of "could doing this extra thing be the decisive factor in whether or not I get a job"?

Deadlines tend to be on a medium time scale.

Unless you are eg a postdoc with a micromanaging team lead, you will be rather flexible in the short term. Teaching aside, things are of the "do this this week/month", nor "this day".

There does seem to be a widespread culture of celebrating stress.

While relaxed academics exist, in my experience most academics tend to convey an aura of constant low-level stress. Of those, many seem to enjoy this. Admitting to be overwhelmed is very much acceptable, but I suspect that the stress can be infectious for some people.


Are participations in competitions well recognized for a Ph.D. application?

Competitions can be valuable evidence of achievement, but they have to be not just widely recognized, but also really relevant to the field.  (Nobody cares if you're a chess champion, since you aren't going to grad school in chess, and the fact that it involves hard work and talent will not help your case; if anything, it will be viewed as a potential distraction that may cause trouble in the future.)  The best case is if some of the faculty once participated in the same competition.  Then they will know exactly what's involved and what success means.  The next best case is if some of their current students participated.  Otherwise, it will mean very little, unless your recommenders somehow make a strong case for its importance.

As a test case, let's think about the Putnam examination, which is the most prestigious math contest for undergraduates in the US and Canada.  Doing well on the Putnam exam is very valuable in math grad school applications, but even being one of the winners is not a guarantee of admission.  The big advantage of the Putnam is that it gives objective evidence of talent compared with a nationwide pool, but the disadvantage is that solving contest problem is really not the same thing as doing research.  If an undergraduate writes a paper a faculty member would really be proud of having written, then it looks better than winning the Putnam exam, but most undergraduate papers do not rise to that level and may not be as impressive as winning the exam.  It's hard to quantify this trade-off, but I would definitely not advise anyone to neglect research opportunities in order to prepare better for the Putnam.  Ultimately, graduate school is about research, and admissions committees sometimes worry about applicants who look more interested in competitions than research.

The Mathematical Contest in Modeling may be more along the lines of the contests you mention: it's a multi-day, team-based contest.  My impression is that it carries less weight in admissions decisions than the Putnam exam does.  Being able to help organize and train a winning team has real value, but it won't play much of a role in graduate admissions.


Attending university as an adult freshman

I would say definitely - it's worth a try. I am studying at a university that usually ends up high in rankings (although it dropped quite a bit now because of student feedback), the oldest person in my course is about 9 years older than the rest of us. He spent around 5 years after school working (he had already worked there during school) and then two years ago took some additional courses at an adults' school and applied here. What should I say, they happily took him and he's constantly getting the best grades in the year.

As you mention that you have professional experience related to the subject, I think you may find it interesting that his years of work were completely unrelated to the subject he is studying now. I think that's a good factor as well.

I think in such a situation I would put much more stress on what I have done since school rather than what I achieved at school. With such a long gap, what happened at school should be practically irrelevant unless you can demonstrate what strengths you have taken from school that you still maintain today. This should go by the same reasons for which certificates such as IELTS or TOEFL are not accepted more than two years after getting them.

Finally I should add that this is a UK university. Procedures in the USA may of course be very different and so may your chances - but in any case it's worth a shot. It can't get much worse than having your application rejected can it?


When is the best time to ask for letters of reference?

You can choose either of the options, but I would wait at least till I've had quite a few accomplishment. However, some professors take a long time to write, so it would be good to approach them at least a few months before you start applying. Letter of recommendation can be collected and filed till the time you need them.


Choosing which version of an article to cite

It's a little unusual to have the same or even similar material published in different venues. First of all, you didn't say whether your area uses conferences as primary publication venues or not - I'm assuming it does, otherwise why even cite a conference publication.

In that case, what exactly are you citing in the article ? If it's a specific result (empirical, theoretical etc), then probably the oldest venue where it appears is the first occurrence of that result, and should be cited. If you're citing background material or motivation, then either the first paper that discusses the relevant motivation, or maybe a survey article ?

At any rate, the key is to understand exactly what you're citing the article for, and find the oldest occurrence of that concept.


GRE scores. Is it a good idea to send multiple scores?

The weight of your GRE scores and the extent to which they interpret scores when sent multiple is very dependent upon the university that you are applying to, rather than across programs in the same field. I have seen that some programs provide their stance on multiple scores on their graduate admissions website or departmental website (e.g. welcome multiple scores and will only assess your top scores, have you self-report your highest scores but will nonetheless take into account all score reports received in their admissions process, etc.).

I ran into this same situation, whereby I took the GRE twice and was trying to decide between sending the scores again, being that they were so costly. I reached out to the graduate coordinators at each program I applied to and asked their advice and naturally was given different answers. That being said, if you have the means (read as: money) to send your scores again, I would do it to be safe. Though the analytical writing section may not be the most important section for a PhD in Computer Science, a higher GRE score could potentially impact other facets of your admission, such as the funding you receive.*

*I am not a Computer Science scholar and every program assesses admission and funding differently but provided that funding is such an important component for many of us, I wanted to at least present the idea. Many admissions work on a scale wherein you are assessed holistically, and higher GRE scores could "even out" other components of your application that could be stronger.


How do I cite a mathematical definition replicated verbatim?

This is common practice in mathematics.  Definitions are not normally thought of as containing creative content, and if you need to use exactly the same definition as the previous paper, you use the same words.  As far as I know, no mathematician considers this to be plagiarism of any kind, provided an appropriate citation is given.  Quotation marks or block quotes are not used, because, as you say, it would look weird.
Some phrases you might use:

We define, as in [4]:
The following definition is taken from [4]:
We follow [4] by defining:
We use the definition from [4], which we include here for the reader's convenience:

Then format the definition as you normally would.  Minor paraphrases and spelling/grammar fixes that do not change the meaning are also fine.  If you fix a typo that makes a mathematical difference (e.g. the original author wrote 2 but from context obviously meant 4) then you should point it out explicitly, but this is more for mathematical correctness than citation practice.
Note that if you are publishing in a non-mathematics journal, standards might vary, and you might have to use quotes or otherwise format in some way that would look weird to a mathematician.


ratemyprofessors' alternatives for francophone or German-speaking countries


Locating old Russian literature in the US

If it is a paper you are after, and the journal is still in existence, try contacting the editor of the journal, and asking for a copy of the paper.

Depending on the age of the material you are trying to access, it is quite possible that the original authors are retired, dead, or otherwise hard to contact. If the journal continues, however, the editor(s) of the journal will have an interest in helping you obtain the information you require, with a view to having their journal cited.

I had this exact problem with a few old (~40 years) papers published in Russian journals to which I didn't have access. I contacted the editor directly, and was rewarded with photocopies of the papers I needed.


This is a private business transaction between you and the student.  Neither the university nor the professor was a party to that transaction, so they'll have no interest in interfering, and it would be inappropriate to try to involve them.

Anyone who provides services to clients for money will eventually find that some of them don't pay.  You can see many examples, and suggestions for ways to collect, on Freelancing.SE.  To say more here would be off-topic, I think.  I'd just keep in mind that pursuing your non-paying client will require more of your valuable time - make sure it doesn't become disproportionate to the amount of money at stake.  At some point, the most cost-effective approach may be to just let it go.


Handling possibly unethical disclosures in letter of recommendation

In your position I would (try to) ignore the extraneous information.
Perhaps well after the hiring decision is made you could say something to the letter writer in an informal way. I don't know whether I would. A lot depends on the tone and the details that you have (correctly) disguised.


How long should I wait for graduate admission decisions before moving on?

You should delay your confirmation until the deadline. There's no reason not to. (Assuming the offer is valid until the deadline.) You may get a better offer.


Using my ethnically misleading name in a field where it's relevant

Would this be true for an American of Chinese descent who didn't speak Chinese as a native language? Or who might have been adopted and therefore has no childhood experience of Chinese culture?

You do have a personal connection: you married a Chinese man and you are a serious scholar of Asian studies. If it's really true that it's culturally offensive in a way that would be professionally damaging, then use your maiden name or whatever name you feel represents you as you wish to be represented. But this seems a bit overwrought to me. If you identify with Leung, then use Leung, and just deal with the fact that some people might have a problem with it. You're already OK with being a non-Asian Asian studies scholar--what do you say to anyone who objects to that?


about academic proof-reading, what to do in this situation?

I don't have any advice about who to use, but I do suggest that you look to the long term. Try to find a person or a service that you will be able to work with on future papers, not just the current one. The person will get used to you and how you write and so the task will go quicker and maybe cheaper in the future.

Don't look for the cheapest service, I think. Your English skills will improve over time, but you will probably have a better experience if you can establish a relationship. You might even get writing tips from such an editor if you ask, after the person gets some familiarity with how you naturally write.


First of all, I'm not an academic yet, but I'm planning to be. I read a lot of academic blogs in my field daily or should I say, semi-academic. By semi-academic I mean that they have articles of an academic subject but with more in-layman's-terms approach. And I absolutely love all of them. I believe that being able to explain things simply is an art, not mention extremely valuable, and having a similar blog is something that I aim to do in the future.

To address your concerns:

  Maintaining an active blog takes a lot of time and effort. (i.e. it may stop being fun.)

Yes it is. I've been blogging about tech (Android and Linux) in the past and after a while it became an extremely cumbersome experience maintaining a steady flow of news, reviews and opinion articles. BUT this is not what an academic blog is all about. You don't need a good article every day. You need a good quality article once or twice a month. This is not so hard.

  Fear of failure - many blogs die.

They do. And yours might too. So what? Firstly, you shouldn't fear leaving your blog inactive for a couple of months. This is something you want to do, remember? If you don't have the time or you just don't feel like it for a while just don't do it. If you don't like the view of an abandoned blog after a few months just delete it. It's ok.

  Being a junior researcher, I worry that people will not care about my blog...

Producing quality content is the key here. If you produce quality articles from which your readers learn stuff you'll find out that after a while a significant amount of them will care.

  ...or, worse, disagree with what I say.

That's the best part! Being a junior academic you already know that:

Everything you say must be backed with evidence
No matter the evidence some people will disagree with you

Disagreeing means views and comments. Disagreeing is how you'll make regulars. This is a key concept in blogging. Rarely you will get comments like "I completely agree with your article", not to mention that they don't have a special value. But comments like "I think that you forgot to include the fact that X" sparkle interesting conversations from which both parties learn.

To answer your questions:

  Is academic blogging a good idea? Is it worthwhile?

Yes, it's a great idea and it will be worthwhile for you and your readers especially if your articles sparkle interesting conversations. An academic blog indeed increases visibility and creates a more friendly/casual view of the writer which in my opinion most of the times is very much needed.

  Does it become too much effort?

Not if you limit yourself to one or two articles per month. Your goal is quality, not quantity. You're not a news site, you're an academic.

  How likely is blog-death?

Very. So what? Just do it.

  What are pitfalls to watch out for when starting an academic blog?

Do it because you want to do it.
Don't burn yourself out.
Don't get stressed over the quantity. Aim for quality.
Use a simple language.
Be fun.
Have fun.


How are reviewers rated by editors after a peer review proccess?

You can probably guess how reviewers are rated. Did you provide a good review (as in, read the paper and provide constructive comments)? Did you provide a review on time? Did you write a biased review (a giveaway would be to say the paper's acceptable if and only if the author cites your papers)? If you wrote a good review then you get a high score, otherwise you get a low one. If you get a high score then editors are theoretically more inclined to invite you in the future; the converse is true if you get a low one.

Whether or not ratings are shared between different journals of the same publisher depends on the publisher and the editorial boards of both journals. Obviously, journals can only share reviewers if they have some overlap in scope. There're also technical limitations to linking reviewers. Different journals use different systems, and while it's theoretically possible to link all of them to the same database, it's not always done. Beyond that the editorial boards must also agree. If an editor is relying on his or her personal network, (s)he might be less willing to share. Comparatively, if an editor is using Google Scholar, Web of Science, etc to find reviewers then (s)he might not object.


How to write a rebuttal for a conference

Even for conference papers you can still perform (relatively small) changes after the notification. When trying to rebuttal, it makes much sense to address the main issues raised by the reviewer (and not to pick on the minor changes they suggest). Some good practices include:

Acknowledge good suggestions made by the reviewer. If those suggestions are easy to fix, say they are fixable and will be fixed in the final-version.
If the reviewers suggestion makes no sense or is not valid - explain why their review is invalid. However, you should acknowledge the fact that if the reviewers did not get it right, there might be a problem in your paper. Promise to clarify those issues for the final version.
If the review raise up a valid point that makes your result significantly weaker than you claim, I don't think there is a reason to rebuttal, but other might think differently (trying to justify why it is still a strong result).
Don't claim that the reviewer has no idea what s/he is talking about (even if that is indeed the case..)

Bottomline, you should be respectful and polite to the reviewers. Thank them for their suggestions and suggest to fix whatever is fixable even if you think nothing is wrong.


How can I get a Copyright Transfer Form without notifying my advisor?

This makes me sick (sorry). While I may understand your motivation and enthusiasm. But   betraying your co-author is not an acceptable solution. All co-authors need to agree on when and where to submit. Most likely, she knows better than you where the work should go. Moreover, If you planning to continue research after graduation it is better to keep good relation with her (at least you will need a recommendation letter written by her). You can continue your hidden game but no one would guarantee the outcome. She may even ruin your graduation. You need to have an honest discussion with her and make a decision. Tell her why you want to publish. No games. People tend to publish years after doing research/graduation.


Is it unethical/unscientific to omit outlier data in a publication when they are in FAVOR of your argument?

Science aims at revelation and insight.  Before you can even consider dropping these samples, you need to understand why they exist.

The reason is that unexpectedly "good" data can be just as much a sign of problems with your theory as unexpectedly bad data.  Are these data points telling you that you've got a bug in your algorithm?  Are they saying that the instrumentation you were using for timing was unreliable or not calibrated properly?  Or is it just that under certain circumstances your random problems happen to be exceedingly easy to solve?  There may be other possibilities as well.

If you can't determine why the outliers exist, then you must include them, in order to help the reader evaluate your work.  If you determine they exist for a problematic reason, then, well, you're not ready to publish yet.  If you determine they exist for a benign reason, then you can drop them from the figure, but you must explain exactly what you've done in the text and why, or else you risk misleading the reader.

At the end of the day, the data you got is the data you got, and you need to deal with it honestly.


Will leaving a PhD program show on my transcript?

Even if your transcript does not explicitly say "left a Ph.D. program," anyone who sees that you have two masters degrees in related areas can make a reasonable guess that you have left a Ph.D. program.  It's also the sort of things that's reasonably likely to come up in discussion of your academic background.

If you are applying for industry jobs at an appropriate level (i.e., Masters or equivalent), this should not inherently be a problem.  In some cases, it may even be a good thing---for example, if you left because you were more interested in focusing on implementation or real-world impact.

In short: if you have good reason for leaving your Ph.D. program and heading for a particular segment of industry, I would advise you to own that and embrace it as a positive part of why you are making a move towards the jobs that you are applying to.


Is writing a R package equivalent to a journal paper or PhD thesis chapter?

Writing useful software is not equivalent to writing and article or a thesis chapter (which are generally not equivalent to one another either).  It may, however, be equally valuable for your career, depending on what you want in your career.

The real question is whether people will find it highly valuable.  If they will find it valuable, then it can be worth something to you.  If you want it to readily count towards a conventional academic career, then after the software is done you can write a journal article about it, and people can cite that.  If you search for "analysis software" in Google Scholar, you'll find many highly cited works of this sort, showing that it is certainly possible, even if not the straightest and most conventional road to take.


How to submit a paper to Bulletin of Number Theory and Related Topics

You will need a time machine.  According to WorldCat and MathSciNet, it appears this journal ceased publication sometime around 1991 or 1992.


Research statement for liberal arts college: how much detail should I go into?

I don't know why @aparente001’s answer was downvoted. I teach mathematics at a liberal arts college, and when we hire, a detailed research statement is not very important, but a research area that has the possibility of involving students is a plus, and we’d like to hear about how you might do that. But chances are good that no one in the (very small, teaching-focused) department will be well-informed about your specific area to be interested in great detail.

What I look at first is the cover letter. If it’s nothing more than a summary of your CV, and/or mostly about research, my interest is diminished. If it’s not well-written (good communication skills matter, even in the math department) I’m worried. But if it elaborates sincerely and believably on “Your position interests me because I want to teach at a liberal arts college. Here’s why.” If it shows you did your homework and know some particular things about my university that attract you (and I don’t mean generic praise for “our excellent reputation” and “strong department”) I’m more interested.

We (I don’t know about all liberal arts colleges, but I might speak for many) want great teachers who will remain professionally active and engaged in their discipline, but that can be interpreted broadly and doesn’t have to include a fancy research program. We also like colleagues who are interested in other disciplines. Maybe you’re a world-class analyst, but we’d rather hear you tell us about the time you helped an art student study perspective for her thesis than tell us about your improved bound for some well-known (to analysts in your area) asymptotic formula, not that there’s anything wrong with that. We’d rather read your thoughtful blog on teaching or frequent, patient and carefully written answers on math.stackexchange.com, too.

Related to your question is the issue of recommendation letters. All too often we get letters for new R1 Ph.D.'s that go on and on about research and assume we know all the best young recent Ph.D.s from that school (“Janet’s research is comparable to ”) and then barely mention teaching (“She gave a seminar talk that was very good,” or “She spends a lot of time with students during office hours.”) This, even though we ask for letters that specifically address teaching excellence or potential. Tell your letter-writers that you want them to address your creativity, your ability to explain, your cross-disciplinary interests, and so on. Perhaps even choose teachers you think you did great homework or exams with, or ones you T.A.’d for. Even a letter from a LAC faculty member who finished a few years before you, knew you well in graduate school, and has kept in touch with you.

Honestly, I find it incredible (not in a good way) that so many R1 senior faculty think the research-focused letters they write will be helpful at places like LACs. It’s more understandable that applicants don’t know what we want, but asking, like you’re doing here, is a great idea.


What to do if a team member does not work but they have to answer committee questions?

Usually, the committee members are able to distinguish between difficulties which are due to language issues and incompetence. Don't hesitate to ask for clarification if you don't understand a question and maybe you have a chance to make som drawings on paper or on a board / flip-chart which show the relevant concepts.


Display well-roundedness in letters for Grad school applications

Why be well-rounded?

Well-roundedness for undergraduates is partly about being adaptable and therefore prepared for a college education. Someone who both has good grades and also competes in athletics, holds a job, etc. has perhaps shown some experience in balancing their different responsibilities. Additionally, someone with a breadth of experience is more likely to actually know what they want to do next rather than sort of just blindly going with the flow.

Usefulness of well-rounded experiences for potential graduate students

I think this last part applies best to the appropriateness of well-roundedness for graduate school. Someone who has shown multiple interests and is now choosing to specialize one is probably making a more informed decision than someone who hasn't. As an example, if they've gathered experience in math, physics, and engineering and are now applying to a physics graduate program, they probably know physics is actually the field that excites them most. They also might carry in some extra skills that not everyone in their graduate program would have: programs in the biological sciences or business, for example, can really benefit from incoming students with quantitative or computational skills.

Knowing what sort of recommendation letter to write

As far as how to write recommendation letters, I would recommend asking the student for some feedback. Prospective students should have some idea of why they are asking certain people for recommendations; when I applied, I asked for one professor who taught me in courses on the history of science, completely outside my field of interest. I hoped to convey some breadth of experience by asking for that letter.

My other recommendations were from people more in my field and were better positioned to talk about my potential for research (which is still the most important thing in a graduate application). If those people had written about breadth instead of their opinions of my research potential in my field, they would look quite odd and probably not be helpful.


So, I am wondering what we can make to help increase student turnout. What do you use to attract people to seminars?

Short answer: Make the seminars useful for the group members.

First, the diagnosis: The group members are probably too narrow-minded and do not understand that getting insights from currently irrelevant topics does in fact become often very useful in the long-run. The group members seem to optimize in a greedy manner for their short-term interests, shooting themselves in foot in the long-run. It seems, they do not understand that seeing connections between dots at some future timepoint is much much easier if you saw the dots and their contexts before. But this does not come by direct explanation, they need to realise it by themselves. It's your task to set the example and at least showing how at least you benefit from the seminars. This is a long-haul task and has to do with your general attitude to world. In the short term, you can perhaps do the following:

push for all group members (including the professor(s)) giving conference rehearsal talks - if you are in an area where going to conferences makes a difference. At the talks encourage giving the speaker not only content-relevant feedback, but more importantly methodological feedback on how to speak.
invite external speakers and actively support networking of the group members with the speaker. Especially in informal interactions (which are often started by interactions during, or right after the talk), people tend to find common interests and receive feedback on their own work. Possibly start even a small collaboration. The idea here is to, over time, show the group members that attending tangentially relevant talks is useful for cross-breeding of ideas.


Why is it called an "abstract" if it is 10 pages long?

I am guessing you are talking about RECOMB, one of the most important computational biology conferences. The story behind this is a little complicated and can show you some of the difficulties faced by a relatively new interdisciplinary field.

Since computational biology has both computer scientists and biologists, it needs to answer the needs of both cultures. For computer scientists, presentation and publication in the proceedings of an important conference is considered excellent. In biology, however, publication is mainly in journals. A second difference between cultures is that in computer science it is standard to publish extended versions of conference papers in journals. In biology, this is usually not acceptable unless it is a low-tier journal.

So what do you do if you want to get submissions of great work from computational biologists of both sides? This is a challenge that computational biologists have been dealing with not just in this conference but also in other conferences. There have been all kinds of proposed solutions - I will not list them here.

RECOMB organizers have tried different solutions and decided to call the accepted manuscripts "extended abstracts", and these are published only in the conference proceedings (which are not freely available). This way, computer scientists consider it published in the conference and biologists consider it unpublished so they can still submit it to a high-tier journal.

Actually they usually also have other "submission tracks" such as coordinated submission to a specific journal in parallel with the conference.


How can I obtain an academic reference, if I have been out of college for a very long time?

Your situation now is very similar to my situation in 2001. I got all my references from colleagues who knew my recent work. Fortunately, I had been doing research-like work, except in an environment where it lead to product and patents, rather than papers.

The professor who supervised my master's degree project was still working, and I could have contacted him, but I felt that my recent work was more relevant than a project I had finished in 1975.

I made sure one of my references was academically well-connected, although working in industry at the time. The other two were a software engineering manager and a computer hardware engineering manager who could write about my range of knowledge as well as my research potential.


How should I introduce myself (a graduate student) at a conference?

By starting a discussion on a point of interest to both them and you. This can typically be a question, or introducing yourself and suggesting that you would like to discuss some of your results with them. But before you can get this conversation started, you'll have to give your name, and state your position, so: all of the above.

I think the best time/place to introduce yourself is at a poster session, if your conferences have some. And the purpose of these sessions is for people to discover new research and new names in their field, so that's where it is most easy to do so.

I'd suggest the following:

  Hello, my name is X, I'm a PhD student at Y in the group of Z.
  (now, you've given him enough context… time to start a discussion)

  I've read your recent papers on W, and I had a question about it which I could not really solve myself. I was wondering whether, in the diagonalisation step of your algorithm, you could use a direct-space method based on partial sampling of the matrix, rather than transform it to reciprocal space. Do you know if someone ever tried that?

  or

  I have a poster discussing the economics of greenhouse gases' role in global warming, and how it will enable us to save on the costs of construction of actual greenhouses. I think it may be of interest to you… I'm over there in row 307, and I'd really love to get a chance to discuss this with you…

Scientists are curious, and the best way to approach them is to pique their curiosity…


A lecturer wants to grade me based on 'creativity' in a task, how do I succeed?

tl;dr: your lecturer is right in principle. Commit time and effort to your project and try to be creative.

In higher education, students are expected to develop the skills which enable them to apply a number of techniques, compare the results, evaluate their effectiveness, synthesise new methods, or even suggest new approaches to a problem. Your lecturer is right to expect students to be creative.

In the last decades academia is under an increasing pressure of corporate managerial culture: education is considered as service and students are treated as customers. This creates a new kind of relations. Some students expect to acquire complex skills without spending sufficient time practising them (without feeling overworked) and expect first-class grades without committing themselves to the work required. Some students, supported and encouraged by academic managers, require more strict and deterministic rules to be set for academic assessments, such as precise specification of assessments, past papers to be provided with model solutions, and new assessments to be very predictable. Under this pressure, academics are forced to remove creative elements from their assessments and ultimately from their courses. As the result, many students don't develop the creative, teamwork and communication skills which are important for employers.

Even if your lecturer was not very efficient in communicating expectations, they are right in principle: they actually want you to use education as the opportunity to develop right skills. You want security and a good mark. Your think as a consumer; your lecturer thinks as an educator.

So my suggestion is: trust your lecturer; commit time to the project; try to be creative as much as possible. For this, learn at least 3 different methods to solve the problem, reproduce them, and try to create one more from scratch. Compare the results and present results in an engaging and visual way. Plan at least 5 hours of work for 1 minute  of final presentation or 1 page of final report.


What is the academic weighting of being a project associate on a cutting edge research project?

Graduate admissions typically gives high weight to evidence of technical proficiency and research potential.  It sounds like working on this research project is likely to give you such experience.  If this can further turn into a strong recommendation letter from a well-reputed faculty member, then it will almost certainly be a significant boost to your chances.


Is it important to do a PhD at a different institution than undergrad?

He used a lot of hyperbole which has made the decision seem dramatic.

We do not know this person, but it is possible that this is the professor's way of saying he wants you to change your plan for a reason he does not want to tell you.  Perhaps he thinks the PhD supervisor you are considering at your own institution is not suitable, and he does not want that professor to realise he thinks they are unsuitable.  So he is telling you indirectly.

Reflect on past advice this professor has given you.  Was it reliable?  Was it coded?  Ask more faculty for advice.  What do they tell you?  Ask your potential supervisors' former students what they think about the supervision they received.


Piece of identification needed at first registration day of a US conference

If you're registered as a student (or some other role that gives you a discount) then you may need to bring proof of that, but otherwise I've never attended a conference and had to bring anything in order to register.

If the organisers of the conference expect you to bring something then they'd almost certainly tell you. Check the information you've been given, and if they say nothing about bringing proof of ID then you don't need it.


How to do evaluation when the methodology is unique?

TL;DR: if you don't know how to evaluate your work, you probably don't know exactly what research question you are working on.

  How would we perform evaluation for methods that can't be compared against others?

I work in applied computer science, and this qualifies as the Number One statement my master students usually have when I ask them how they plan to evaluate their work - "I can't compare my tool / approach against anything - no existing tool has exactly the same scope, so the comparison won't be fair!".

This is of course true, but it also shows a misunderstanding about the research question that the work is addressing. Essentially, the "compare against a standard tool" approach is a valuable evaluation method if the research question is "Can we improve the performance/quality/whatever of an approach that does X?". If the research question is rather, as presumably in your case, "Can we find an approach that does X?", the evaluation of course needs to be different.

In that case, you need to find an evaluation that actually shows what you claim your approach does. Some recent examples from my students:

Is your claim that it makes sense to show software developers certain information, which isn't visualized by any other development tool? In that case you need to set up a study where you show that developers that see this piece of information do something better than developers that don't. Is your claim that taking costs of cloud resources into account when scheduling tasks allows for cheaper execution with the same quality? Set up an experiment where you compare costs with and without taking costs into account for a number of representative workloads.

Orthogonally, it often makes sense to do a partial comparison to existing approaches and tools, to also check how your approach fares in comparison to standard tools on standard problems, essentially to make sure that the improvement your approach presumably has in a "new" dimension does not mean that something else does not work anymore. For instance, in the development tool example above, you may also want to check if the new visualization distracts people so much that they now fare less well in usual development tasks than with standard tools.


Is it crazy to leave a tenured position for a non-tenured but tenure-tracked job?

It's not crazy. We've had people at my elite R1 give up tenured positions to come in as assistants or even lecturers. Usually they had good reason to leave their old institution (lack of intellectual stimulus; bullying; family; etc.).

The main thing is that you need to determine exactly what you will need for tenure at the new place. Will they start you off in year 5 as a "high assistant prof?" If so, do they expect new work to come out in that single year or can you use your old tenure file in its entirety?

An elite liberal arts college or regular R1 might hire at the high assistant (if not associate), the most elite R1s might suggest you reset your assistant prof clock to zero and decide when to come up for associate on your own volition when you feel your file is strong enough.

But this might be putting the horse before the cart. You have to apply and actually be offered a position before you should worry. It's only then - and after a few rounds of negotiation- that you can make a rational choice.

Until then, apply and dream fond dreams.