Writing papers in language X and translating to English vs. writing papers in English to begin with?

As a non-native English speaker myself, I've faced similar situations during my PhD. Some pros/cons of writing not in English, and then translating.

Pros:

If you're working with people who don't speak English very well, it can make it easier for them to write in their native language first, so that they can focus on explaining the idea, rather than trying to find a correct vocabulary.
You might be able to publish the work twice: once for a Chinese-speaking conference (or journal) and another time in English.
If you plan to have this paper read by undergraduate students later on, then it might be easier for them to understand it if it's in their native language.

Cons:

This is a waste of time, since you're basically working on the same thing twice.
Translating is hard, in general, and speaking two languages does not necessarily make you a good translator. In practice, it might give a structure, but you might have to rewrite entirely each paragraph.
If you're working with people who aim at staying in academia, they they need to be able to write directly in English. It's hard in the beginning, but it gets much easier with time and practice.
It could make complicated any external collaboration (I've been collaborating with some people who write their papers in English, but their comments and ideas in another language, it was really frustrating).
It's probably a subjective perception, but I think that a paper is not only a technical idea, it should also be an interesting piece of work to read. It might be specific to CS (I don't have the same feeling when talking with people in maths), but I feel that we're already reading A LOT of papers (probably due to the multiplication of conferences/journals in CS), and at some point, it becomes harder to focus on those that are not pleasant to read. The best way to make your paper pleasant to read is to think it in English from the beginning.

Note that in the Cons, I assumed that you would translate the paper yourselves, and that you're not particularly trained for translating technical documents. Of course, that would be quite different if you were to delegate the translation to some professionals.


Correct way of referencing equations, figures and tables inline?

As far as I know, the standard in mathematics is:

Put parentheses around equation numbers; don't use the word "Equation" unless after a period.
"Figure/Table/Algorithm X", with no parentheses. Parentheses are reserved for equations, and square brackets for citations.

Example:

  This follows from (11). Equation (12) does not hold in this case. See Figure 13 for further information.

In your LaTeX source, use from~\eqref{someref} and Figure~\ref{someother}, with nonbreaking spaces and \eqref for the equations.

(The standard in mathematics is LaTeX; Word is often frowned upon.)

That said, as already stated in aeismail's answer, every journal has its own house style, which may override the standard.

EDIT: see also the answers to Referencing non-equations as to why adding "Equation" is not a good idea: not all numbered formulas are equations.


Is it necessary to include and update the status of a paper on arXiv once it has been accepted for publication in a journal?

My practice is to replace the initial preprint with the postprint as soon as it is accepted.  After it is published (electronically), I go back and add the DOI and such.  The reason for this is that the paper is often significantly improved during the refereeing process, and I'd rather have people reading the improved (postprint) than the original preprint.


What effect does a good research paper have on a university's reputation and worldwide ranking?

None. One good paper makes its author(s) look good, but does not make the university more or less remarkable (either in term of perception by the research community or rankings). It takes a lot of good output (papers, conferences, etc.) for people to start saying “hey, that university has great research done in so many research groups, it looks like a great place”, and for whatever rankings to be affected.

Unless by “good” you mean “outstanding”, not in the academic sense “quite okay but I’m writing in hyperbolic style” but in the meaning of “exceptionally good; clearly noticeable”. One groundbreaking (Nobel level, if you wish) discovery made at a single institution will help it.


A terrible PhD situation in Germany. Please help

It is not uncommon that a German professor does not give advise to their PhD students. Neither is it uncommon that the 2nd referee does not want to read your thesis. In Germany, whether your dissertation is good enough or not is mainly decided by the first advisor. If they say it's ok, then it's ok. Your advisor theirself is the chairman of the exam committee, the other members would not say "no" to him.

That is, there is no need to worry about your situation.

If I were you, I would just write up my dissertation, give it to my advisor, and ask them for advice. Then, from what I know, the advisor would find some time to read it, and tell you something to improve (they have to pretend as if they understood your thesis). Then you could do the improvements, mail the thesis to the 2nd referee. Again this guy would also tell you something to improve, you do it, and that's it.


Your abbreviation is a bit misleading because you left out the initial of system, but you want it to mean system.

If you want to write just the abbreviation, I suggest you to use UFHS instead, to comprise system.


You are overthinking it and maybe trying to plan too far in advance. Your current prof, after retirement, will most likely still be able to help you. He will still have his contacts and may still give you some, if less, feedback on your ideas.

You are right to maximize what you have now. But as time passes you will have the opportunity to fine-tune your future. You will know more in a year or so. You can explore with your current prof what he intends after retirement. It may be retirement in name only, perhaps. You can also get connected to his network as you work along, so that his direct presence is less important.

Far worse if someone leaves suddenly for any reason. That can leave you stranded. This situation seems well controlled with a lot of planning time.


How to Help Commuter Student with problems at home

Don't get between the student and the parents. That's a complicated and stormy dynamic and [you] can't do anything but harm there.

You may not like it, but it's really not something to get involved in.


PhD student leaving current program for reasons of safety. Recommendations for what to do next in terms of schools and catching up?

I think the department is 'on the hook' to do more than just vouch for you (whatever that means). Sit down with your advisor and the graduate supervisor. Work with them to identify programs which would be a good match for your research plans and with which they or other department members have strong ties. They should be working their networks to help you transfer as easily as possible.

If you're only a year in, you might also want to think about whether you want to cleanly start over at the new university--retake any classes, etc. as opposed to trying to get credit for any classes you passed in your current program. Were you accepted to other programs before? See if one of those are still a good match.

I know you want to move for various reasons, and you may not want to do anything with the person who harassed you. However, if that person is not getting punished, counseled, or something, the problem is likely to recur with someone else. Ask the department to do something, if only to require the person to undergo a psychological evaluation.


Important questions to ask yourself when writing research paper

It's probably not exactly what you're after but it's commonly recommended to answer the three standard questions what-why-how:

What is it? What is the object of the work and what is the context? Are there any similar questions already solved or studied in the literature?  How does your goal/question differ from existing works?
Why does it matter? What are the motivations for doing this work? What problem does it solve (or contribute to solve)? what use cases does it apply to?
How? Which method can be used? Why this method in particular? What are the potential limitations of this approach?


Does requesting to speed up on application process affect its outcome

Asking to speed up the process will not hurt your chances. They may not be able to speed anything up, but if they do/don't, they will not hold it against you. Likely what they will do is take a look at where you stand and then be able to judge if they can definitely fund you. If so they will tell you. If not, they will tell you they don't know yet. They also might tell you it is unlikely. Something like you are currently ranked 25 and we have funding for 8.


Upload monograph to preprint repository before acceptance for publication?

You have to check with the publisher, or read their posted terms and conditions.  For some publishers it might be fine.  For others, they might insist on having the exclusive rights to distribute the work, and if you've already uploaded it to a preprint repository, that would make it impossible for the publisher to be the exclusive distributor.  In that case they might refuse to publish your manuscript.


If I cannot get sufficient recommendation letters, what can I do?

Of course, the best solution to this problem is not to have it in the first place. Being proactive and thinking about the future is sometimes a rare talent, especially in 18 year olds fresh out of high school, but then again grad school is supposed to select the exceptional individuals.

There is a world of difference between a recommendation from someone you worked with, and from a mere acquaintance. The latter kind rarely benefits your application in a meaningful way, and can sometimes even hurt it. No matter how enthusiastic your instructor is, unless the course is at least a project-centric course (eg. grade is based entirely on your individual term project), they will not be able to make a good, in depth argument for your abilities, and the recommendation will therefore be weak.

The point of the recommendation is that the admissions committee will read it, and decide whether you have potential to be a good researcher. How can they, if the recommendation does not talk about your research at all? And how much better if instead of hinting at your potential indirectly by citing course performance, the recommender can just say "this person has potential to be a great researcher because I have personally seen that they are good at research"?

This is why there is a qualitative difference. This can be a big problem when applying to a very selective program. What if you apply to a program where the committee has a philosophy that "an application is only as strong as its weakest link"? Even if you are quite exceptional otherwise, you can get eliminated early on because there are many other applicants who are also exceptional, but don't have a recommendation problem.

Also, similar to how a lukewarm recommendation can mean "I think this person is a bad candidate, but I am not being negative out of politeness", a recommendation from someone who only taught a course can mean "this person is a slacker who never bothered to do real work, so they can't find any supervisors to recommend them".

The best way to remedy is really to obtain more "good" recommenders. Because you want people who supervised you, the solution is obvious: You haven't been supervised by enough people who will vouch for you; you must undertake more projects and be supervised by other people whose recommendation will carry weight.

If still in school, look for faculty whose lab you can work in. If that is difficult, try approaching a former (or current) instructor with an idea for a theoretical or computational project (this requires less commitment from them, so they may be easier to convince). It doesn't necessarily have to be original research, so long as you can come up with a relatively long term (at least half a year) project where you are the primary contributor. It could also be (more) valuable to spend a summer working in a lab at a different university.

If out of school, delay your application by 1-3 years, and look for work as a lab tech at a university, institute or private company. Make sure not to displease your boss.

A related problem is working for a long time with the same person, for instance an undergrad who spends 3 years in the same lab. This is actually better, because you can accomplish much more in 3 years, and you can have a very impressive project to sell yourself with. The issue is that you will have only one supervisor - but hopefully after 3 years, you will have networked with collaborators and other scientists and will not have a problem there.


What physical contact, if any, is acceptable between a supervisor and a student?

In general, I refrain from initiating any physical contact other than handshakes or "congratulatory" gestures such as high-fives or fist bumps. This allows the student to control the level of interaction if they so choose.

My suspicion about what would be considered "acceptable" is that it varies widely from country to country, depending on what is considered an "acceptable" level of contact between strangers or professional colleagues. For instance, in Muslim-dominated countries, the "side-hug" mentioned in the answer—or even shaking of hands—between a male boss and a female subordinate, or vice versa, would likely be frowned upon! Similarly, in other countries, I could see how a "side-hug" could be within the realm of acceptable contacts (although still on the somewhat "iffy" side).


What to do when your idea turns out to be an old one

Push Idea A into a background section and push novel results elsewhere. There's no real need to explain why you include a background section, but you might like to mention where your presentation differs from the original and explain why.

I seem to be the first one to see that they could all be combined into a considerable collection of interesting results

That's (part of) the novelty your paper provides.

to what extent it is appropriate to mention that I stumbled upon the idea "independently" of the older paper.

You could mention this somewhere, but it isn't necessary. Your paper has changed direction, like many papers. There's no need to provide a history of such changes. (Unless they are particularly interesting to your story.)


Is it appropriate to drop by another university's professor's lecture to talk about research afterwards?

I would not appreciate that. I have a schedule, which means that after a lecture I may have a meeting, I may have an appointment with someone I am supervising, I may need to pick up my children from day-care, etc. etc. etc.

If you have emailed twice and not received an answer, then that is your answer... That is not very polite, but none of us are perfect.


Why might professors in an online masters program give fewer assignments and less feedback than those in an in-person program?

As someone who has taught both the answer is actually pretty simple.  When you're in class you can't help but make a physical connection to students.  Online, you have to make an effort to do that.  Some teachers  do, but many don't.


When did it become customary to eschew gender pronouns in scientific essays?

While I don't know that there is one answer as to how this phenomenon came about (and I agree with you that it has gained traction in recent years), it has certainly been habit in some fields for a long time. Anthropology is an example of this, although I cannot find an American Anthropological Association style guide old enough that contains reference this (nowadays, AAA defaults to Chicago). My anthropology professors generally encouraged us to maintain gender neutrality, and the use of 'they' was considered an acceptable way to do so.

My graduate studies are in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) and, as you might assume, gender neutrality is generally encouraged. At the risk of stating the obvious, the use of 'him' or 'mankind' in generalized reference to people is considered inappropriately sexist. There are some circumstances where I have seen exceptions made to this-- especially in literature about sexual violence. Older monographs about sexual violence commonly refer to abusers and perpetrators by 'he' pronouns and victim/survivors by 'she' pronouns (see Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft for an example). However, I have noticed that this is less and less true for books published since 2000-- probably the result of greater acknowledgement of male rape victim/survivors, as well as the occurrence of sexual violence among queer couples.

I also know that some WGSS writers explicitly refer to neutral third person references with 'she/her' pronouns, specifically in defiance of the academic tradition of using 'he/him' for neutral third person reference (e.g. "A doctor might tell his patients..." or "A police office is expected to holster his gun..."). A similar logic is used in defense of new words like 'herstory' instead of 'history,' especially when the material focus on/deals primarily with women. Indeed, I have seen pushback on the use of 'she/her' in this way on the premise that it, too, is sexist. The debate around this is very complicated and probably not going away any time soon.

I have seen folks (including on english.stackexchange) attribute the invention and/or rise in 'gender neutral' pronouns-- and even the invention of 'they'-- to the feminist movement, but even a brief foray into the history of the English language upends that argument (see my second reference). There may be evidence that gender neutral language is coming into greater usage and popularity in the 21st century thanks to feminists, but thus far I have only encountered the anecdotal.

Outside of WGSS, I have seen writers switch between 'he' and 'she' for generic third person in a single piece of writing. For example, Bruce Perry does this in his book, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, although some people may consider this to be a less formal piece of writing.

None of the major style guides for humanities and social sciences (APA, Chicago, MLA) explicitly endorse 'they' as an acceptable third person singular pronoun (read more here). In fact, Chicago actively discourages it. While APA encourages 'gender neutrality,' apparently it considers 'they' to be 'too informal' for academic writing.

In reference to your last question about guidelines, you may want to look through this page, which gives examples of gender neutral pronoun suggestions in chronological order, dating back to 1792! As others have argued (again, see my first reference), the use of 'they' is not some new-fangled trend, but actually has a long and complicated history. (An oft-cited, 400+ year-old example comes from Shakespeare.) So-called 'grammar nazis' who refuse the use of 'they' on the grounds that it is 'ungrammatical' may be surprised to find that the debate around the gender neutral third person in English is over a two hundred years old-- older, depending on who you ask. This doesn't stop some of them from being outright offended at the lack of subject-verb agree (or at least this is the most common objection I come across). Others argue that it strains their linguistic faculties to use 'they' as a gender-neutral third person singular (see linguist Sally McConnell-Ginet's chapter "'What's in a Name?' Social Labeling and Gender Practices" in The Handbook of Language and Gender [2003] for more on the 'awkwardness' of 'they' as third-person pronoun).

On a more personal level, I have a lot of feelings about the issue of 'they,' because I go by they/their pronouns. I have encountered a great deal of hostility in my day-to-day as a result of this. People have made all kinds of arguments to me about why it is wrong or why they can't cope with my pronouns. On a sociological level, it would certainly make for an interesting study.


Authoritative source for the title of an article: print or online?

You appear to have found something quite bizarre: not just this article, but many of the Nature "Comment" articles appear to be titled differently in their HTML and PDF versions!

So, how to sort such a bizarre occurrence out? In my opinion, it's ambiguous whether print or online is "definitive", since many journals do not even bother with a print edition any more, and following a DOI will take you to the HTML version.

Instead, I would revert to first principles on the purpose of citation: to enable a person to find the document that is being referenced.  To this end, I suggest searching online (as somebody who might follow the citation would). Here, one finds that the HTML title predominates (perhaps unsurprisingly), and thus I would recommend using the online title in this case.


How do I find research topics that yield profitable patents?

Pick something that has just become possible, or which people have only recently realized is possible, and which hasn't been worked to death by others.  Look for untilled soil.  If you're the first to tackle a problem, pretty nearly anything you do will be new and potentially patentable.


If I'm personally invited to give a talk but have to pay and submit an abstract does that count as a invited talk?

Yes. It does count. For example, many meetings have special topic sessions (e.g., SETAC). When people organized these sessions, they are often required to have a number of committed speakers.

That being said, here are some caveats:

Beware of predator conferences.
The value of being invited to a special session is different than being invited as a plenary speaker. Be careful to not overplay this on your CV. For the life sciences, invited talks are nice, but not as import as fields where conference proceedings are highly valued.
The custom related to being an invited talks vary across academic disciplines.  Also, some meetings wave registration for all speakers (e.g., ODSC). Most, however, do not.


How to valorize Volunteering work in a NPO

TLDR

If you did significant, relevant work for this organization, I would remove the word volunteer and treat it as any other experience. If however you did occasional work or work you didn't learn from, I would leave it as you did above.

From personal experience

I volunteer to build a certain NPO's data infrastructure from the ground up. I find this work mentally stimulating, educational, relevant, and like any other FT employment. Thus, I'll include this in the experience section of my resume and not write volunteer next to it on my CV. If an employer asks, I'll tell him that it was in-fact a volunteer role. By leaving it off, the first impression of that role is as it should be: FT employment. Do note that my resume does not have an employment section and that this is by design.

I have also volunteered for the food-bank, my university, local homeless shelters, etc. None of these positions are particularly relevent and you won't even find them on my resume/CV. They don't contribute anything to my qualifications for a role.

Regarding phrasing

None of the provided examples communicate anything about the nature of your work. If you decide to include these roles in what I presume is a CV, you will need to add a few words indicating what you did for them. For example if I were to tweak your provided titlees (Depending on the context, "Volunteer" is entirely optional):

Volunteer Tech Support for Institute of Electrical Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Volunteer Webmaster for the Project Management Institute (PMI)
Volunteer Teacher for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

A Final Word on Honesty

It is exceptionally easy for an interviewer to know when you are "Valourizing" your experience. It would do to repeat that again. Humans are terrible at lying and your interviewer likely has at least a decade more experience than you.

Embellishment is okay to an extent and only you will know what that is for your role. I heartily support selective truth-telling (ie changing of job titles to communicate what you really did or removing irrelevant tasks from descriptions of roles), but I am careful that I never lie on my resume or CV.


Graphing a paper's number of citations by year

If you have access to Scopus (Web of Science also works, I presume) you can show the publications citing this paper in search format. Using the filters on that search page, you can retrieve the data you're looking for quite easily (year filter > show more > show all). In this case, that shows the following:

Problem with this, of course, is that Scopus only shows the citations it has in its database (410 documents).


Is it wrong not to cite a bad quality paper when the literature on the topic is scarce?

To which extent citing means endorsement if no furher evaluation of the cited paper is included?

None at all.

By citing the paper as using the software, you are acknowledging that the paper exists, and that it used the software, and that is the only thing you are doing. Citation is not a sign of approval or agreement or endorsement; it is merely acknowledgement of existence and relevance.  Citations are not statements about the quality of any result, either positive or negative.  If you want to state an opinion about the quality of a result, either positive or negative, you must actually state your opinion in the text, using English words.

I suggest initially citing both papers, and then giving more details about how paper A used the software to derive interesting results, and then remaining conspicuously silent about paper B.


Are American universities letting international students start their PhDs from their home countries?

In general you will need a visa in order to get any of your tuition covered either by a fellowship, research funding, or teaching assistantship. Tuition without remission can be very expensive in the US, usually much larger than the stipend you actually end up being paid to live on.
My best guess is that if you are accepted, you can defer your start date until your visa comes through. This way you won't have to enroll and pay tuition before you can get "paid" by the university though tuition payments.
Also, your visa might come through! I moved internationally September 2020 for a postdoc, and all my paperwork came together in time. Neither the country I lived in last year nor the country I live in now are my home country of citizenship. Covid did cause some complications, but both governments were understanding, and in the end everything was approved.
Edited: check out the comments. Apparently some (maybe many?) universities ARE able to cover tuition without a visa! This wouldn't have been my guess, but that's great for international students! In any case, start talking to your dept. If they can cover you, great, if not, you'll still need to talk to them about the possibility/process of deferring.


Should I keep all my .bib files in a single folder, or one with each .tex file?

Several .bib files in the a single folder:

You might want to do this if you write about quite disjoint topics, or if you want to keep several sets of inherently different references in separate files (e.g. scientific publications in one file, technical standard documents in another, etc.). Overall, however, I see little reason to choose this approach.

One .bib file (obviously in one folder):

This allows you to build up a database with your personal literature collection. Given that BibTeX by default only shows cited references, this is one of the ways the system is supposed to be used. For someone working entirely alone, this might be a viable way to go.

Several .bib files in several folders:

This is the approach I follow (using JabRef), with the further restriction that the .bib files usually reside in precisely the folders where they are used by .tex documents.

Advantages:

The .bib file is a part of the source. When using a VCS, everything required to build the document should be in the VCS, and with one repository per paper/project, the appropriate .bib file needs to be stored in each repository.

This might be solvable by including repositories in repositories (such as with SVN externals), but that still assumes a central repository location that is accessible to all co-authors, which is not a given when collaborating with different groups.

As also remarked by Federico Poloni, when several authors work together, they need to use the same references. It wouldn't make any sense if each author had his or her personal large .bib file, rather than having one common .bib file for the paper/project.
Even when working as a single author, the .bib file sometimes needs to be submitted for the camera-ready version of a paper, to allow editors to build the document themselves. While I don't think it's usually explicitly forbidden, I'm quite sure it's not a very good idea to submit your complete multi-MB literature database every time you submit a CR version.
Different papers/projects need to be formatted according to different styleguides. While the actual layout of the bibliography is imposed by the BibTeX Style that usually comes with the paper template, some paper-specific tweaking is required more often than not in my experience:

Some styles show URLs, for other styles, the URL needs to be inserted into the howpublished or the comment field.
In some papers, you want to (or have the space to) show some redundant information such as publication months, publisher locations, or DOIs, in others, you don't.
In some papers, you may want to use full journal or conference proceedings names, in others, you may want to abbreviate them as far as possible
In some papers, you can use special packages (e.g. for correctly rendering a Latvian name with a comma accent), in others, this might not be allowed.
In some papers, the layout of the bibliography is such that you need to repair some ugly block formatting with additional \hskip commands, custom hyphenation, and the like.

When starting a new paper or project related to a topic I had written about before and want to grab some random related work for the introduction, I find it most convenient to open the .bib file of the previous document to get an overview of the ~30 references that I had used there. Of course, I could also look in the compiled PDF file, but I cannot directly copy the entries that seem suitable from there.
As mentioned by darij grinberg, it might not be desirable to have later changes to bibliography items retroactively show up in old documents. It would mean that the old sources compile to something else than what they did at the time of writing the document, and it may even ruin a carefully adjusted layout.

Disadvantages:

I regularly need to copy some references from one file to another when I want to reuse them.


How to cite computer terminals like Bloomberg or Thomson Reuters?

Unless there is a unique, persistent link to the statement from the rating agency - e.g. a link to their archive of ratings, etc, you cannot use that information as a citation. You should imagine the reader far in the future, reading and trying to verify your work - what would they consult, if anything in order to validate your statements, or reproduce your work.

If the agencies do not maintain a public archive, you may be able to take a screenshot of the terminal, and publish it to a place which will keep a persistent public archive of it, e.g. figshare.


overlapped results in tables for research journal

Sure, there is no rule against that. Just make it clear to the reader that some of the data is the same as in the other table.
The main disadvantage is that you are increasing the length by duplicating content, but if not doing so seriously degrades the readability as you say, then I don't think it would be an obstacle.


How do I find applied math tenure track positions at at liberal arts / four-year colleges?

Context: I'm a professor at a mid-sized regional university, non-research oriented, but taught for 14 years at small liberal arts colleges.

It sounded in the question like you have only just begun the job search process. I'll assume this is the case in my answer. With that assumption there could be a few things in play here.

Pretty much all small colleges have closed their searches for Fall 2014 by this point. There may be a few exceptions, but for the most part small colleges tend to adhere to the usual ebb and flow of the hiring process -- advertise in mid- to late summer, initial screening and phone interviews in the fall, initial interviews at the Joint Meetings in January, on-campus interviews in February, hiring decision in March. Unlike research universities where sudden influxes of grant money or sudden faculty turnover is more common, smaller schools deviate less from the basic pattern.
Likewise, if you are looking for a position for Fall 2015 and are early, most of these places won't have advertised yet. Check back in July. I know for a fact that MathJobs.org does get ads from smaller schools so it's not that you're looking in the wrong place. Also look at the EIMS, the Chronicle, and Inside Higher Ed.
If you are doing a search with the term "applied" it, take it out and see what happens. At smaller or non-research oriented schools, you'll see only ads for mathematicians, not "applied mathematicians" or "pure mathematicians". (There are exceptions.) In such places, like where I am, its expected that people will be generalists.

Good luck!


Should co-author mention you in talk-abstract

I would say it's certainly inconsiderate, but I don't know if I'd go so far as to say "unethical", as long as you are credited in the talk itself.

Rather than telling your coauthor it's "unacceptable" to leave it out, he would be able to save face if you treat it as a simple oversight, whether or not you really believe that it is.  (Even careful people make mistakes, and I am always in favor of applying Hanlon's razor.)

  Hey, I saw your abstract for conference XXX.  It looks like a very nice venue to discuss our work.  One thing: it looks from the other abstracts like this conference follows the usual convention of mentioning coauthors in the abstract ("this is joint work with...") and it looks like this is missing from yours.  If it isn't too much trouble, would you still be able to add it?  I would really appreciate it.


How to get students to use the course forum?

I think the key to a forum being somewhat lively, at least from my experience, is a blend of the following:

There needs to be instructor/TA participation in the forum itself. This is both a boost to the "signal" of the forum.
Incentivize interaction not just posting. If you're requiring forum posting, require not only an original post, but also one or more replies to existing posts.
Start broader topics early and help keep them running. Many forums are organized by chapter, assignment, etc. which kills any participation (even if you have it) the moment people click 'Submit' on the assignment.

That being said, I cannot yet think of an instance where I was actively glad to have the forums for an online class.


How good is the idea to do MBA after an MS

Both are very diverse field. A general advice, MS may be done without any industrial experience but MBA should be done only after working for a couple of years with proper industrial exposure.


Should I reply to email from institute director congratulating me for being shortlisted for a position?

A short thank you email would be appropriate. "Thank you for the continued interest. I look forward to the interview and the future".

Something along those lines, but you can probably come up with a better statement. It lets them know that you got the message, and, more important, that you are still very interested.


I'm applying to transfer, and am filling out the Common App. Should I put Yes to disciplinary action?

This is likely to be closed, as we do not discuss undergraduate admissions here. Still, I'll take a stab at it.

My understanding is that the whole point of "expungement" is to allow you to answer no to questions like this (unless the question specifically says to include expunged matters, as is sometimes the case, e.g., with law students). That's certainly the case when  legal matters are expunged; I assume it is the same for in-house educational matters.

Still, I would recommend doing two things:

Don't just "assume it was removed from my record" -- verify. Ask specifically whether other colleges who request your records will learn about this. Note, this is the kind of thing where it's easy for someone incompetent to just say "nope, it won't show up" to get you off the phone -- so keep asking questions until you're really satisfied. Getting an in-person meeting with a career employee (not a student worker) or the associate dean might be better than just calling on the phone and asking the receptionist.
Contact the college you want to transfer to (anonymously, if you like) and ask whether they require you to disclose expunged matters on the common application.

If you can get it in writing that you don't have to (and save this
reply in permanent storage), that should be sufficient to protect you
if you are accused of anything later.
If you discuss this over the
phone and are told not to report it, but can't get it in writing,
send admissions an e-mail, in which you say "This is just to confirm
what I discussed on the phone with Name at 8:00 AM on 12/1. As we
discussed, expunged disciplinary matters need not be reported on the
common application for transfer students. Please let me know if this
is incorrect." Then retain this e-mail and their reply, if they send one.

As to the second part of your question, yes, if reported this could certainly adversely affect your changes of admission (and improperly concealing it could lead to your degree being revoked).


If you were the professor for the course, I'd give a different answer, but consider the following.

I'll assume that you have the same group for each meeting, rather than a random selection of students that changes randomly over time. This lets you set expectations and a general flow.

One problem you may be encountering is that the students haven't yet learned how to learn. They haven't learned how to take notes and study properly. It is a lesson that needs to be taught, actually. Many students at this level have had an easy time of their earlier education. For some, at least, this is now changing and they need better procedures to capture and retain learning.

If you aren't getting questions, then ask a lot of questions yourself. They can be simple or complex. One of the simplest is to ask the class for volunteers to answer "What was the most important point in the professor's previous lecture?". Ask if anyone has anything to add to that. Evaluate and supplement any answers.

Use metaphor and examples to explain/illustrate things rather than being pedantic. Try to give them insight. While precision is good, it sometimes masks what is really at the heart of things. Why do some mathematical systems obey the commutative law and others not?

It takes some experience, but you can turn some things into games. Even competitive games. I once created a Jeopardy like game for teaching key ideas. It was a computer program that automated the questions. "Square Matrices for 10, Professor Buffy". Teams were formed and the students had fun trying to outdo other teams. This might solve your "working together" issue to some extent.

But just repeating what the professor said isn't likely to be effective. If they don't know what the professor did say then they need some instruction on effective note taking. Also on lecture summarizing, etc. Show them what tricks you used to learn hard stuff.

In fact, if you want an "ice breaker" question, ask what it was that the professor didn't make clear enough in the previous lecture.


Is it wise/ethical to take up a TT position with a desire to leave?

No, it is not unethical. When you accept a job, in academia or anywhere else, you imply a commitment to do the job in the immediate, short-term future, and nothing more. What that means exactly is somewhat context-dependent, and in academia that minimum period is usually interpreted as one year.

Leaving a tenure-track job after only one year may leave people at your department a bit disappointed and potentially sour your future relations with them a bit, but I have never heard anyone argue that doing so (or even having the intention of doing so) is unethical, and don’t believe a reasonable person would adopt such a position. All the more so with a plan of leaving after 2 years or more; I simply cannot see how this can offend anyone’s moral sensibilities.

As for whether such a plan would be wise: it may or may not be, but your explanation of what’s driving your doubts about this makes me think you are overthinking the matter. It is no harder in general to move from one tenure-track position to another tenure-track position than it is to move from a non-tenure-track position to a tenure-track position. Depending on the precise circumstances, it may be harder, or less hard, or (most typically IMO) would be exactly as hard. Everything depends on how attractive of a job candidate you will be 2-5 years in the future, which is a function of how attractive you are now and what you’ll be doing between now and then. One particular factor that could actual play in your favor is that already having a tenure track position in an R1, top-50 department could give you a stamp of legitimacy that would make other departments of equal or lesser (or even slightly higher) stature more inclined to view you as a strong prospect for hiring.

Finally, another thing to consider is that, while you think you don’t like the location of the place where you have the current offer, your opinion about this might change in the future. People generally tend to overestimate the extent to which they can predict what their future selves will want. Which is another reason the whole ethics question here doesn’t really apply in my opinion - you should reserve your ethics-based doubts to actual actions (which in this case are also okay ethically given what you are considering doing), and not to tenuous intentions that may or may not ever translate into actions.

Good luck!


In applying to graduate programs, what are best practices for proposing research to investigators before and during the application process?

Graduate programs in the United States (since that is all I know) will typically have a letter you write as part of your application. It is there where you identify an area or areas you are interested in working in. My program in particular requested that I speak to this in the written letter AND identify a few professors and areas of research I want to pursue in explicit fields in my application.

Besides doing the above, you have a few options that all center around getting feedback on your proposal, which I cannot stress enough. I've lost count of the number of times I thought I had an excellent proposal or idea, when in actuality it wasn't all that great; however, having a kernel of an idea gives others a starting point to help guide you into a better direction. One option is to discuss this with your supervisor at NIH and see if there is any potential for you to either present work similar to your proposal or attend a conference to network and speak with people that work in this area. Knowing which conferences to attend could be based on your supervisor's opinion or you can find labs or people working in your field and see where they usually publish.


Since keywords are meant to be used as search indices for certain topics, allowing authors to generate their own keywords makes little sense. For all journals I know, keywords have to be selected from a list published by the journal. Some journals have adopted common keyword lists (for example most journals in astrophysics use this list).

Keywords in academia play almost exactly the same role as tags on SE sites (except that author cannot invent new keywords). In particular, their selection by the authors follows the same principle: find the most suitable set of keywords for the given study, such that a keyword search brings up the most relevant articles.

Keywords are perhaps not as important now as they used to be since electronic word searches on title, abstract or the whole article.


Does leaving a lab disqualify me from being a coauthor?

If you would have qualified as an author otherwise, the act of leaving a lab should not disqualify you. However, make sure you would have qualified as an author under normal circumstances before confronting someone about it. Most journals and universities have their own authorship policies. You could use these policies as a starting point to talk your lab mates about being included as an authors on this paper.

For example, the IEEE authorship policy: https://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/authors/author_ethics.html

You can look up your own university's authorship policy.

However, be aware that most policies place a much greater emphasis on writing/drafting, and higher level design or analysis work than they do on low-level activities. Just working on a project for two years is not necessarily enough to qualify you for authorship on any paper related to that project. The kind of work you performed and it's relation to the published paper is what is really crucial here.

For example, simple data gathering is usually not enough to qualify one for authorship under most policies. Spending time doing tool-building or building an experiment that you did not design are also activities that probably don't qualify you for authorship on their own. Designing an experiment included in a paper does qualify for authorship. Spending time with the other authors comparing and contrasting competing explanations of data might qualify for authorship, depending on your overall role and contribution in the project.

In my experience I have seen people not have authorship when they spent a significant amount of time testing and validating an experimental setup that they did not design. In this case they were more of a paid technician than a researcher, even though they were working with research equipment and contributing to a research project.

I contrast, I know a guy who did get authorship for simply coming up with a really good idea and doing zero work. He was a graduating PhD student and had a great research idea that the others in his lab implemented and evaluated. Even though he did zero work on the project or paper his colleagues thought that the single original idea was enough of an intellectual contribution to grant authorship.


Email to potential advisor after submitting an application

It is uncommon to ask a faculty member about the status of an application as most of the time it's the admission staff who handle this kind of inquiries. If the faculty has said that you can email him/her, then it may be fine. Otherwise, check with the admission staff.


Journal ranking statistics on scimagojr vs. the "prestige" of its editorial board

Sumbit where you think it will have a better visibility. Rule of thumb: do not submit to a journal that you barely know any member of the editorial board. You want to maximize the impact of your paper and, as such, submit somehwere where it would be most appreciated both by the editorial and by the readership of the journal.

I do not think it will do your paper a big favour to submit to a journal with high (possibly artificially infated) statistics than to one well known and well respected, with distinguished editorial board most likely to take good notice of your work and, consequently, you.


Late bachelors graduating overlaps with possible future masters degree start

There are two problems to be solved, and each problem needs to be addressed in the appropriate institution.  Hopefully all involved will be reasonable and a happy solution may be found.  Here are instructions for your friend:

Ask the master's institution for permission to begin the first semester before the Bachelor's is granted.  Explain the request.

If you might miss a couple of days of classes, correspond with the individual instructors.  Explain the situation, and see if you can get the syllabus, text book and first assignment ahead of time, so you can work ahead.
Ask the undergrad institution to allow you to take an early final exam or omit the final exam in each class.  I would start with the dean of undergraduate studies or department administrator or department chair, and then I would be prepared to follow whatever instructions s/he may provide.

However, if there is an uncooperative person at the top, take a somewhat different approach -- start by talking to the individual professors, after you are far enough into the final semester, so they can see that you are a proven quantity.  Explain to each one: "I'm just asking if you you would be amenable to an alternate grading scheme, or an early final exam, in case the department provides approval."  Once you have some instructors on board, then it will be easier to get department approval.

If none of this works, do not hesitate to go higher up in the hierarchy.  If you can, find out something about the administrator your propose to meet with, before you go.  This last piece of advice is not necessary in all countries and in all universities -- but it can't hurt.  If the person seems to be authoritative and negative, maybe skip that rung in the hierarchy and go straight to someone else.

Your general approach should be to be humble and ask for an exception to be made; but if you need to, you can still gently point out that it is an honor to be invited to join the master's program at your-grad-university, and you want to do your alma mater proud.


A journal keeps requesting reviews after I have declined any more

If you are in the EU or the service provider operates from the EU, send them another email in which you remind them very kindly of their legal obligations. Sending you spam after you opted out of their mailing lists is illegal under the GDPR. Even not providing easy ways to opt out is an offense.
You can get in touch with the journals Data Protection Officer (DPO), if the editor fails to respond, or directly file a complaint at your national Data Protection Authority (DPA).
You can take also take legal steps, they are outlined here: What should I do if I think that my personal data protection rights haven’t been respected? (European Commission)
An email to the DPO with "GDPR violation" in the title will most likely prompt immediate response and apologies though. Fines are substantial if the company doesn't comply.


How to correctly cite adapted and translated course lecture notes?

For course lecture material, unlike scientific publications, there is no requirement for uniqueness.  It seems that you are giving clear attribution and credit (which can be nicely enhanced by a link, as @JeffE suggests), so I think the only further thing to do would be to drop a courtesy note to the original professor(s) to let them know how you are appreciatively using their material.  Likely they will be happy and knowing that you are using it may even be beneficial to them; in the unlikely event that they are displeased, then you should not use their material (and should ask them to post a clear statement to warn others not to do so either).


If you did well at a college ranked 25 in your subject matter, applied broadly for a Ph.D. (did you?) only to be rejected everywhere, then I’d start by looking into your application package and strategy first because that is a bit odd: are you sure your letters are good and from the right people, is your statement of purpose well-written and as tailored to where and for what you apply as it should be (have someone read it), etc, etc.
If your Ph.D. application was rejected because of a lack of relevant undergraduate research experience, then going for a masters first might help. Going to a lower-ranked place is not going to hurt you I think, but it’s not clear how much it is going to help you either.
However, as M.Sc. programs tend to be less selective than Ph.D. ones (because they usually help finance a university), to see you rejected again almost everywhere despite what you say are good credentials, there might be something off or at least sub-optimal with your application package (or you simply didn’t apply at enough colleges). You should go over it with someone experienced, like a mentor at your alma mater if you have one.


First, as  Caharpuka says, make sure to discuss this with your supervisor / PI and any other collaborators who are involved in your research.  Ask them about how much detail they are comfortable with sharing, and show them a draft of your statement before submitting it.

However, in general, you want to give enough details so that it is clear what you are working on.  You want to show that you have a deep understanding of the overall project as well as your specific tasks.

It is pretty unlikely that an admissions committee member would try to scoop you.  First, it's generally agreed that student / job / grant applications are confidential, and it would be highly unethical for a committee member to use such information for their own benefit.  Second, researchers usually don't lack for ideas of what to work on, so they don't need to steal them; usually the limiting factor is the time and resources to work on the ideas they have already.

So, err to the side of more details.  The risk is small, and it is far outweighted by the benefits.


How to explain a recent bad semester to graduate school admissions?

If you explain as eloquently as you have here what happened, I cannot imagine a semester hurting you.

What impresses admission officers is when they see people who have a passion about themselves, and express
intellectual curiosity, but at the same time, are willing to be vulnerable.

If you explain what happened on your statement of purpose, just as you have here, that will go along way with admissions.

My answer is that one semester of subpar grades will not hurt you.


It’s not an “honor” to be funded by a normal NSF grant, or any other grant. It’s how you got funded, and is not something you can typically claim as an “award,” because it doesn’t represent you specifically. The only exception to this would be if you were somehow involved in the preparation of the grant.


Breaking figure order by referencing a figure in a later section

Certainly, there are vastly different personal preferences among readers and authors alike. Unless you can establish a pattern that matches the preferences of the reviewers1, you will have to go with what you (and your co-authors, and others who you ask for advice) think makes most sense in the concrete case.

If you conclude that Figure 14 is best left where it is (between Figures 13 and 15), because e.g. Figure 14 is descussed in depth in a later section while the mention between Figures 5 and 6 is only a side note, it sounds correct to me to leave Figure 14 as Figure 14, even though it is mentioned earlier. (More concretely, it would sound extremely cumbersome to show Figure 14 early in the paper between Figures 5 and 6, and then, later on, where the figure is discussed in depth, force readers to constantly switch between pages while reading the text.)

In that case (if only to appease reviewers who think otherwise), it could be adviseable to explicitly acknowledge the side note character of the early mention of Figure 14:

  This can also be seen in Figure 14, presented/discussed below in Section ... .

1: Note that I consider it at least somewhat ethically questionable to deviate from what might be most conductive to the readability/comprehensibility of the paper just to please a specific small set of reviewers (who might not think in terms of what supports the reader's mental model in the concrete case, but rather based upon "general formal criteria" such as "Are figures ordered by the order of their first mention?"). So, it is up to you whether to actually follow such a pattern.


Vita means life. Vitae is the genitive (possessive) form, of life. Curriculum means something like course.  So Curriculum vitae means the course of one's life, and makes good sense. Vita by itself also makes good sense, though it's perhaps less accurate as a description of the document in question. Neither curriculum vita nor vitae without curriculum makes sense.

Addition, suggested by Patricia Shanahan: All the words in bold italic are Latin.


Is it necessary to ask permission before including someone in the acknowledgements of a research paper?

When you list someone in the acknowledgments, you're just thanking them, as opposed to speaking on their behalf or assigning them responsibility (the way authorship does), so I don't see why permission should be required.  I've never asked for permission or been asked myself, so it's certainly not standard in mathematics.  I haven't heard of it in other fields, but of course I can't say from personal experience.

Of course it depends on what you say.  "I am grateful to Alice for her steadfast support of my research" suggests Alice endorses your research, and you should certainly ask for permission before saying something like that.  "The determinant calculation in Section 2 was supplied by Bob" suggests Bob is responsible if it's wrong or clumsy, so you should make sure he is OK with being thanked (but in this case you presumably already discussed with him your plans to include his calculation in your paper and attribute it to him without making him a coauthor).  And of course if your topic is really controversial, then you should be extra careful about everything.  However, if you had helpful background discussions with Carl and write "We thank Carl for helpful discussions about functional analysis", I don't think you need to ask his permission.


Getting an offer for a PhD program can be difficult, and if you are receiving repeated rejections it may be worth seeking some feedback on your applications.
 Given that your undergraduate degree is from a non-English speaking country, if you are applying for PhD candidature in England or the US (or some other English-speaking country), you will need to make sure your writing is clear and grammatically polished.  That is a major aspect of what professors are looking for when seeking research candidates.

Without wishing to be unnecessarily critical, I note that in your three-sentence question in this post I can see two obvious spelling errors and at least one major grammatical error.  This might just be because you are writing while upset, or it might be indicative of a low standard of written English.  If the latter, I would suggest you engage in some practice writing essays and other papers in English and getting feedback on your work until you have improved your writing.  This may assist you in future applications.  Good luck.


How do you determine whether a case study is fraudulent?

Contact the author and ask for the primary data. Offer to sign any required non-disclosure agreements. I fail to see though how providing information on the history of a city means that protecting privacy was not important to the author. The same for certain biographical information. Indeed, you appear to be adding 2+2 and coming up with 7.  If you have evidence of fraud then contact the journal. Many famous examples of "fake cases" have come to light in the last few years but your reasons for questioning the validity of these interviews (as stated in the question) appears flawed.

EDIT FROM COMMENTS

Do you really think this will be effective?
Sometimes yes,often no. But if you get a flat-out refusal this does give you some additional useful information.

Looking from the point of view of the author, suppose you have pledged confidentiality to your participants, are you really going to be comfortable voluntarily sharing your data with someone you have never met? (Is it even ethical for you to do so?)
You are making the incorrect assumption my answer says the author will reveal the identities of those interviewed. They should not and will not. What I would like to see are the notebooks or audio files with the interviews that should not contain the names if standard interviewed protocols are followed. For any interview I have done I would gladly give out the redacted transcripts.

*Would any NDA offer sufficient protection? (How would you enforce it, if the requester is in another jurisdiction?) Is it worth your time (and money) to get university counsel to draw up the NDA? *
Your NDA comment is based on the miss-assumption  I am saying the author will give out the names of those interviewed. I did not nor would I condone this. university counsel need not be involved to give out redacted transcripts of interview notes. This is just academic legal-speak. I would just draw something up asking for my notes to not be used for anything I do not want them to be used for.

Wouldn't it be much simpler and safer to just say "No"? Yes, but isn't it always when someone makes a request of your data or similar. In my experience quality academics have always made an effort when I asked for something.


How is it possible to get a masters in electrical engineering in one year?

How is it possible to get a masters in 1 year? Simple, sign up for a course which offers a masters degree in 1 year. Perhaps not so simple.

In the UK, we have something called an integrated masters degree offered on many engineering courses. This typically follows a 3 year bachelors degree. The theory being that if you have just spent the last 3 years studying the same subject, you can then simply continue on using that as the foundation to build on to get a masters.

The reason a masters degree, which is not integrated, is usually (again from a UK perspective) 2 years, is that the first year is intended as almost a foundation year to get everyone up to speed with the more specialised skills that they may be missing. For example if you do a BSc in physics, you could then do an MSc in EE, but you wouldn't have the same electronics knowledge that somebody who was coming off a BEng in EE would have. In fact at the Uni I went to, during our third (final) bachelors year, we would frequently share modules with those doing the first year of their MSc for this very reason.

Now it may be possible if you have the relevant skills (e.g. if you have a good bachelors degree in the same subject) to be able to skip a year of a 2 year masters degree, and just do the final year. However this would be very much dependent on finding a Uni which would allow that, and probably also would require some form of aptitude test to ensure that you have the skills to do so. I doubt this would be a common offering though.

Again, this is a very UK centric answer. I'm not familiar with other countries systems. As far as I know, in the US, bachelors degrees are typically more like 4 years because the US education system ends high school at a level more equivalent to the GCSE (or possibly AS) level from a UK perspective. So the first year of Uni in the US is more like an A-level equivalent in the UK.


How to make a bachelor thesis out of optimizing /updating an application?

The usual, and normally a good, way is to get an advisor at the university if you don't already have one and discuss this with them. It could save you a lot of grief later and their advice would be more valid in your circumstances than mine.
You may also need to discuss this with the company in case any trade secrets are involved in the application.
But, in general, reimplementing a legacy application using modern design patterns and/or improving performance and/or providing better UI is not a bad idea.


Is it legal to share an electronic copy of a few book chapters?

In the U.S. the key to this question is whether or not your use is considered fair use. Here is a link that explains more. In determining whether a use is considered fair use in U.S. copyright law, there are four factors:

Character of the use - If the use is personal or educational, it's more likely to be considered fair use than if it is commercial.
Nature of the work - If the material is factual and published, it's more likely to be considered fair use than if the material is artistic and/or unpublished.
Amount of the work - If you use a small amount of the work, or in the case where your use is transformative (you're not just making a copy) if you are careful not use an amount larger than what you need to achieve your purpose, it's more likely to be considered fair use.
Effect on the market for the original - If your use would be unlikely to affect the market for sale of the original work (even if it were widespread), it's more likely to be considered fair use. Factors that help: taking steps to prevent widespread distribution of the work, if the work is out of print or otherwise difficult to purchase, if the work is not available in the format you need (e.g. digital), if you are sharing a small part of the work, if your use is transformative, etc. (Here, the fact that the students already have access via the university's library, which owns a legal copy of the work, helps your case.)

There are no hard-and-fast rules; you have to use your judgement and weigh all four factors to make a determination. This link has several examples of common copyright-related scenarios in universities.

  What I want to do is not dissimilar to sharing the files with one or two people.

The scenario in which you copy a small part of a factual published work for distribution to a very limited group of people for personal educational use, who can already access a legal copy owned by the university, and you take steps to prevent more widespread distribution, seems completely fine under U.S. copyright law, although IANAL.

However, distribution to a much larger group (almost 100 people in your class) changes things, because it shifts the balance of the fourth factor away from fair use.

(Again, all four factors are relevant. If you were copying a single page to share with the entire class, or if you were copying 10% to share with one study partner, it would be more defensible - but sharing 10% of a book with the entire class is less defensible.)

As a reference: this sample campus copyright statement says that "making multiple copies of articles or book chapters for distribution to classmates... would most likely not be considered fair use."


Should you keep a notebook of example problems while going through science and engineering courses?

I find myself constantly being told I should not intentionally jog down example problems but to understand the core logic of a topic.

You're offering a false dichotomy.  If you can't generate concrete working examples, you don't really understand the definitions; conversely, if you can't prove things from the definitions, you don't really understand the examples.  You should both work through examples and understand the definitions; the two approaches strongly reinforce each other.  In particular:

If you are given only examples, you should figure out appropriate formal definitions and core logic yourself.  Aim for both simplicity and generality.  Look for weird corner cases.  Work out new examples that stress-test your definitions.
If you are given only formal definitions and few or no examples, you should work out several new examples yourself.  Aim for examples that both illustrate and stress-test the definitions.  Together your examples should exercise every case, every word, and every symbol in the definitions.  Failure to cover the definitions completely may mean that the definitions can be simplified; success may mean that the definitions can be generalized.

Write everything down.  Fail, revise, repeat.


How to find the leading researchers in a new field

Problem is that you hamstrung yourself by eliminating the only correct strategy: doing a long literature survey yourself. You wish to rely on proxies, and sometimes surveys can do that for you, but other people's opinions of "good" and "bad" are just that: opinions.

The only way to really get a sense of good and bad is to read a LOT, think a lot about what you read, discuss with people who might know more about the area, think a lot more, read more, and repeat.


PhD student wanting to do "the minimum required"

There should be some university rules which state what the student has to do in order to obtain the phd. Treat them as a contract -- do they state exactly some minimum requirements to obtain the phd? Then, a student satisfying thoss requirements should obtain the phd. If (what is more likely) they say something about you being able to state more requirements, then you can give more requirements (maybe after writing them down formally). (Or maybe the rules allow you to remove the student? If yes, you might want to think if you want and can do this.)

Please be also aware that you may be requesting too much.  Some instructors were always the best in research and may be biased when supervising.

If the student meets the minimum requirements, they should of course be granted the phd. Not doing more might or might not be a problem for the student's future. You should warn them that (e.g.) an academic career might be a problem afterwards, but, depending on the student's goals, receiving a "minimum phd" might be not at all a problem.

Many people in the world do only the minimum required for their job/studies. If the mimimum is defined well, this should not be a problem.


It is possible.  It is done all the time.  But you should not expect getting any tenured or tenure-track job to be easy.  Advice:  Don't resign your current job until you get the new one.
added
My experience:
Perhaps the usual would be hiring an associate professor with a one-year probationary period, after which tenure would be determined.  Our university was reluctant to grant tenure immediately, so if we wanted it our chairman would have to make a special plea to the dean or even the provost.  On the other hand, I never saw the tenure denied after the one-year period.


Should I require a student to acknowledge or change a color scheme from a common paper?

Unless I totally misunderstand what kind of colours we are talking about, your student did what I would consider best practice. Using a consistent colour scheme for all figures in a publication or presentation is a good thing for the following reasons:

It is aesthetically pleasing, in particular on posters and presentations.
If two plots have colour axis for the same variable or measure, it facilitates comparing them.
If colours encode the same things across plots (e.g., red is always species A, blue is always species B), it increases readability, as the reader does not always have to check the encoding for each figure.

This also holds across publications, if they are about the same topic.

  this makes it harder to see which figures are cited from the paper and which are his own

Citations should suffice to indicate this. You cannot rely on stylistic mismatches to detect images from other sources anyway.

  I put some effort into it

As Jakebeal already noted, developing a colour scheme is rarely a scientific achievement. And even if you consider it to be one, your student can cite it and reuse it. After all, being reused is what scientific results are for. Remember that many scientists use plotting and typesetting programs developed by other scientists.

An acknowledgement does not hurt though, but I would probably not be very insistent on it.


How can one find journals paying authors or reviewers?

Write for almost anything else than scientific journals and you can get paid.
Also, if you are not doing research / don't have a PhD in a topic, something else than scientific publishing is much more easier.


Is it reasonable to start a PhD during the Master's dissertation semester?

I think it's an extremely attractive proposition, but not necessarily realistic. For a start, your master's degree/dissertation result most likely won't have come in by the time the PhD term starts (and your master's dissertation will give your institution a good idea of what your PhD performance will be). For my own institution, I submitted my dissertation mid Sept and my mark came in early December. There's no way I could have started a PhD a week after submitting my dissertation! But your deadlines may well be different.

Secondly, how you would have time to do a well-thought out PhD proposal while you are doing your master's dissertation is beyond me. Don't do too many things at once. Bear in mind that when your master's dissertation finishes it's a good idea to start thinking about your PhD topic pretty soon afterwards anyway. Work through the proposal carefully and thoughtfully during the Autumn and submit before Xmas/Jan - especially if you are going for funding. Then you will have to work on your supporting statement.

Thirdly, it may be a good idea to collect yourself and have a year between master's and PhD. I'm currently at that point and while I do miss academic responsibilities, I do have a couple of things to involve myself with in my field. Join your library, do some reading. You may also appreciate a year [well, it's less than a year] to have a little time out before your full-on PhD.

Summary: while it's extremely attractive as an idea to do PhD straight after master's I don't think it's practical. You need mental and physical space to do things well and to commit to both properly. Don't push yourself too hard and don't be scared of your year in between the two. As you must know from your time in master's, it's better to pace yourself rather than to rush things.


The practice of preparing a piece of work for publication is, itself, worth the effort. I suggest that you write up your work as best you can. Once you have a really solid draft, ask your professor, again, for advice on it.

However, you can still submit it to an appropriate venue, independent of the support of your professor, and that experience is also worth having. If you are lacking in any way, the editors and reviewers of the paper will give you additional advice that is independent of what you can get locally. This can help you evaluate a lot of things about both your work and your approach to it.

If you want a career in academia, then publishing early and often is definitely a plus. The review you get helps you improve for the next time.

But make sure you have also done a literature review to avoid embarrassment of submitting something already known. That is another valuable skill, of course. (literature review, not embarrassment).


What does competitiveness of a journal mean?

Based on the percentages, I would guess that "competitiveness" here means how many articles are accepted out of those that are submitted. Elsevier sees a much lower acceptance percentage, which makes sense, because the people who submit the worst papers that get desk rejected don't likely report what happened to the database. In the same way Elsevier reports a much shorter average review duration compared to the user-reported ones.


Is there any paper submission deadline timezone convention?

Primarily, you should really try to find out what time zone a conference uses rather than assume a specific one. As ff524 says, even if it is not on the web site, the submission site will often tell you.

That being said, at least in my discipline, there are two conventions that are common:

Local time at the conference location
AOE (anywhere on earth), more formally known as Howland Island time.

The latter is probably the more common one.

(Howland Island time is called "Anywhere on Earth" because it is the last time zone. That is, if you say that a deadline is friday, 24:00 AOE, the real deadline will nowhere be earlier than friday, 24:00, reducing the possibility of feel-bad moments when paper writers forgot about time zones and assumed their own time zone.)


What is the name for "section topics" printed in the margins

Although many marginal notes are made by hand, the term marginalia is also often used for printed ones. There is even a book about "printed marginalia". A definition of marginalia given here states

The term "marginalia" generally refers to handwritten or printed text situated at the borders of the page.

Depending on the textual content, words like gloss, annotation or side note can also apply (although the latter also has a more metaphorical meaning).


Can presented papers at conferences be listed in the reference section of Research Statements?

The references for a research statement follow the same customs as references in other academic documents.  So yes, you can cite conferences.
Is it common to cite conference papers in a PhD?


How to reference studies mentioned in a paper without having to read the original papers?

Let us assume, for example, you read Doe (2011) and find Smith (1966) referenced therein. Technically, you can say something like "Smith (1966, cited in Doe, 2011)", or alternatively "(Smith 1966, cited in Doe, 2011)." The exact format depends on the format of the journal (it is also possible to phrase it "cited by" instead of "cited in").

That said, however, it is very dangerous to provide such quotes since you do not know if the person(s) citing the paper has understood it correctly. It is not unheard of that people cite for very odd reasons and not double-checking works cited may just propagate such errors.

So, it is possible but not recommended.


About awaiting assignment status of manuscript

You can certainly withdraw the paper. But note that this is a busy time for academics, some of whom are the editors and certainly the reviewers. It might be good to wait, especially if the journal is somewhere that you really want to publish.

The one month is more problematic than the few days without email, I think. But that might be explained if your paper is a bit esoteric in any way and it may be unclear which editor to assign the paper to.

But withdrawal is a possibility. I'd recommend it only if you have an alternate plan that is better than patience.


Is it necessary to have big paper during PhD?

In every place that I know of, and likewise in every field that I know of, you have to please your advisor in order to complete your degree. I don't know of any situation in which it can be done otherwise short of litigation.

In some places the advisor signs the dissertation. In some s/he signs a form indicating the candidate has successfully completed the degree. There can be variations, such as assigning a grade.

So, the answer to the question here can be yes or no, but that depends on the individual advisor, so in the case at hand, it seems to be yes. Having a good relationship to your advisor is essential. Perhaps "big" can be negotiated, but the advisor needs to be sufficiently happy.

I should also note that in some fields, publishing before completion of the degree is the norm. In other fields it isn't expected and can be quite rare.


Must I admit having started (but not finished) an MS when applying for a competitive PhD position?

You will need to disclose your enrollment in this unfinished master's and provide whatever transcripts or other documentation might go with that.  It's up to the scholarship committee to decide whether this disqualifies you.  If it's later discovered and they decide it was disqualifying and should have been disclosed, you're not going to want to try defending that since the whole point of not telling them is so they wouldn't know.

It's possible they may consider you to be still within their definition of holding a bachelor's only.  Lots of people start things, then don't finish for lots of reasons.  If you only have a bachelor's, there's a good argument that that's all you have and that you should meet their definition.  The committee may also be a lot more interested in what you did instead of finishing the master's.

Good luck.  But you will need to disclose.


How to take notes during lecture properly?

I answered a similar question at CSEducators a few years ago.
I agree that taking notes with pencil/pen and paper is superior to doing it by typing into a laptop (see the reference). But to be truly effective you need to do more than just take the notes. I suggest that you re-read and annotate them as soon as possible after a lecture, adding questions as well as notes/corrections. The second pass will help firm up the ideas. This is best done immediately, but certainly within a few hours if classes are taken back to back.
Another trick is to capture, from the notes, the most important ideas given in the lecture. The instructor will possibly point them out, but most of us would go in to a lecture wanting to especially make one or two points. It is good if you capture them.
But a single pass over anything is unlikely to lead to deep learning. And utilizing the information (exercises) is even better for firming up the ideas.
As to taking transcripts of video lectures, the same can apply. When you finish such a video, re-read and annotate the notes, marking or extracting the key ideas and making sure you understand what is being presented.
For situations in which you have access to the lecturer, write out any questions you still have and try to ask them at the start of the next lecture, or using some other communication channel.

There is a joke that the "purpose" of a lecture is to get the teacher's notes into the student's notes without going through the mind of either. Don't let that become a reality.
I once took a "course" in which that was literally true. Two of us had an independent study with a professor who gave us the task of literally copying his written notes (no lectures) but gave no real opportunity for questions, exercises or feedback. It was among my worst educational experiences ever.

Also note that learning requires reinforcement. The review of the notes, with annotations, provides the start of that. See The Art of Changing the Brain by James E Zull for some of the science behind that. A search of this site for "Zull" will turn up some further mentions of these ideas.


Proceed with extreme caution.
What you are describing is known as a stapler thesis or sandwich thesis. This is a common practice for submitting theses, if the advisor, department, and university permit it.
However, such theses are submitted by students who are already enrolled at a university. Virtually all reputable universities will require you to enroll as a student for a period of time before you are eligible to submit your theses, and you generally have to show that you have made contributions to your field during your period of enrollment. Taking a bunch of previously submitted papers and submitting them as a thesis at a school you have never attended, particularly for a large fee, reeks of a school being a diploma mill, a plain old scam, or just desperate for cash.
While the UK offers such programs, they are normally for their own alumni and employees, and it can be a very time-consuming and frustrating process. Moreover, such programs are not well regarded by many employers, and you will be at a disadvantage for many jobs if you have to compete with recipients of standard research PhD’s.


How to describe computer skills in an application form? (Master's degree)

Computer skills can be divided into several area such as Basic Skills (Windows, Office), Business skills (Mail, Internet, Communication) to more professional skills Programming, Administration, Database, Network, Consulting, but these are really big areas. There is also Academic Computer Skills where should be software regarded to academic world (Latex, Open Source....)

It is a really wide field, so maybe you should give more specific information about study programme for more information.


Making an appointment regarding letters of recommendation

This may vary between departments, countries (I'm in the U.S.), etc., but I'd say:

When making an appointment, it's almost always a good idea to specify what it will be about.  When someone doesn't have a lot of time, this helps them figure out how soon the meeting needs to be scheduled, and it gives them a chance to prepare for it.  The one exception I can think of is very delicate topics.  For example, if you are meeting with someone to discuss an ethical matter, there might not be a short description you can give that wouldn't risk be misleading or omitting important context.
I'm not aware of a belief that asking for a letter of recommendation via e-mail is rude or problematic (although of course this may depend on the local culture).  In fact, I would prefer to be asked by e-mail.  Partly it's just because I generally prefer e-mail for things that can be handled that way, since it's less disruptive.  Partly it's because awkward situations are a little easier for me to handle by e-mail.  For example, if a student didn't do well in my course, I may point this out and ask whether there's someone else who could write a more compelling letter.  It's easier for me to find the right words in writing, rather than on the fly in a conversation.


Article got accepted into PRL -- do I pay the costs?

What are your options? You can pay or delete the email.

If you pay, your group will have $765 less. That's the only difference in outcomes. These charges are completely voluntary and have no effect on anything if you choose not to pay. In my experience, you'll never hear about this again. You will not have to justify your decision.

What do most people do? From my observations, the majority of groups simply don't pay voluntary charges, regardless of available funds.

What should you do? This is a matter of opinion. You (or the PI with the money) should decide whether APS deserves a $765 donation for the purposes they state, or whether it can be put to better use at your institution.


How are DOIs managed for ongoing time-series?

There does not seem to be an absolute rule, though "new DOI for a new version" seems most common. Speak to whoever's hosting your data in case they have a different preference.

The California Digital Library summarises various approaches here. Some require registering a new DOI for each new tranche of the data; some will reuse the DOI but use a new version number or date to help you identify the relevant bit; some distinguish between major and minor additions.

It's worth noting that the "generate a new DOI for a new version" approach assumes that you're adding, say, a new month's data to the set with each version. If it's being updated on a daily or hourly basis, this approach breaks down; you don't want to generate dozens of DOIs for only marginally different versions! Here, the "snapshot" approach recommended by the Digital Curation Centre is much more efficient - produce a static copy of the dataset as it currently stands, on an as-needed basis or at standard intervals, and cite that.

Update: the new STM Report on scholarly publishing, out today, notes that the "The RDA Data Citation Working Group is investigating possible
technical solutions [for dynamic data]" without giving much more detail (p. 140); the most recent material to come out of that group seems to be this workshop report from last year.


Can I instigate collaboration outside of my current research team, or is that bad etiquette?

You should not start working on an independent project without telling your current supervisor. After all, he acquired the funding which pays your salary, so he needs to be on board with everything you do that takes up a significant amount of time. (Of course, I am not talking about asking for his permission every time you review a paper.)

Then again, as a postdoc (as compared to Ph.D. students), you are expected to start spreading your wings and collaborating with people outside your supervisor's immediate group. So chances are that your supervisor will be supportive, especially since you write that you have some time to kill.

But ask first; it's possible that your supervisor knows something that needs to be done before your project "really" starts.

This question is related (full disclosure: I answered there): Should postdocs work only on the projects they are hired for, or can they work with other people in the same research group on other projects?


Does it make sense to "pause" an academic career so that I can pursue financial independence and self-fund my research?

It seems implausible that your plan can work: You can't hope to draw more than 5% off an investment per year, so even a moderate income of $50k (or equivalent in your country) will require you to accumulate about a million dollars. It seems improbable that you will be able to sock away this much money in 5-6 years, post-taxes, unless you have a pre-tax salary on the order of half a million dollars.
So what that means for your current situation is then that you'll have to save for far more than just 5-6 years -- and that you'll miss some of the best years of your life where you can establish a career, a family. In other words, I think that the premise in the title of your question is flawed and that you'll miss out on some of the best parts of your life.
(As a side note: In your 30s, you probably will want to have a partner and family at some point. It's conceivable that you could live of less than $50k per year if you're living by yourself frugally. But you can't do that if you have a family and children: They have needs that may exceed your own, and what's acceptable as a living abode for you may no longer be for your family.)


Is using the description of an award as-is in a CV considered plagiarism?

Definitely not.

Plagiarism is the use, in an academic, creative or intellectual context, of someone else's ideas or distinctive language, without proper attribution.  It follows from this that in some forms of writing it is not possible to plagiarize: for instance, you cannot plagiarize in a lease or customer service agreement or in wedding thank you cards.

A CV is an academic document, but it is not the kind of academic document having a blanket premise of originality in regard to its writing.  For instance, the formatting of a CV is usually taken from someone else's template...and that's completely okay because no one is expecting your CV to be formatted in a new, original way -- on the contrary, the formatting of a CV should largely conform to agreed upon academic cultural norms.

There is some small amount of room for "creative writing" in a CV, but it does not lie in the description of awards you've won.  Anyone reading your CV would expect that you have attempted to describe the awards in a very standard way.  If that means copying the official text of the awards: no problem at all.


What happens if my code teacher doesn't know how to code?

From your comments, I infer that the teacher is unable/unwilling to change his style. Therefore, I only see to options:

Complain (to someone in charge). However, be sure to do your research beforehand (maybe talk to your student organisation): is it possible to complain anonymously/as a group? Is usually something done when complaints come? Can someone invoke disciplinary actions against this prof? (Maybe not if he is tenured)  Be careful with this as complaining might hurt your grade.
Note that complaining will most likely not make the situation better for you, only for the next generation.

Learn the stuff by yourselves. I am sure you should, want and need to learn Java. "Introduction to Java" is not an exotic topic. There are plenty of courses online. Maybe you could listen to a course in a neighboring university. Read a script/book. Maybe someone from your student organisation can organize a Java course for your class. Be sure to coordinate with your class — maybe you can find a solution which helps the whole class. Exchange good links etc.

As I see it, (1) is optional (and maybe dangerous), (2) is not.


How to assess the impact of an academic paper in the industry

This answer deals primarily with engineering products, I'm not sure if it applies to say, the software industry. Most research papers will present some results, but not industry-ready solutions. Most industries will not have full fledged research teams to scan scientific literature and work on translating it into products. So there is a gap that an interested industry needs you to bridge. Therefore, when an industry finds something interesting, they will contact you, as has already happened with you. The chances of many companies using your research without your knowledge is slim.

If you are interested in application-oriented research, you can increase the chances of this happening by attending certain conferences which have industry delegates, and proactively interacting with them. This can lead to collaborations, sponsored projects and a general understanding of their requirements. As you said, there is not much of a public paper trail, so human interaction is the only way.

To know what impact other people's research has on industry, you could search for papers sponsored by those particular industries (acknowledgement section for example).


Can I post a pre-print of my paper on ArXiv knowing the paper will go through major changes? Alternatives?

If you only want people who use your code to read the paper in its present form, then post it on Github with the code.  If you want a broader audience of researchers to read it in its present form, post it on arXiv.

Updating it with substantial changes later is not a problem.  Contrary to what one of the other posted answers says, the update feature on arXiv is most commonly used to post the author's final version after peer review, which frequently contains major revisions.

I wouldn't post things to ResearchGate; to many (myself included) it is viewed mainly as a source of spam.


Can I write two separate Resumes to apply for two different graduate programs in same university?

I don't think the resumes will be compared. Because all the applications along with its documents always go directly to the respective departments. Moreover, in any case the materials of your CV will never vary greatly. So you can make two different resumes for two different programs as they fit to the program.


Is there such a thing as listing too many areas of future work in a thesis conclusion?

I do not think that the number of areas of future work (let’s call them prospects) is a problem per se. Rather, your prospects should be good, i.e., they should be substantiated by the thesis and by possible additional arguments and not be too speculative. This should give you a natural limit, as a given thesis should can only allow for so many good prospects.

Of course, it can always happen that a careless examinor is put off by the plain number of prospects in your thesis, but that’s a risk you have to estimate yourself. This applies to too many prospects as well as to few. An often quoted rule of thumb is that a good thesis raises more questions than it answers.

If you frequently communicated your research progress to your supervisor, they should already know how productive you were without looking into your thesis. Moreover, if your research was comparably unproductive for some reason, writing what could have been done can mitigate this to some extent. This in particular holds if the unproductiveness is not your fault (e.g., if the particle accelerator you were supposed to be working with was unexpectedly out of order for a year).

As always, you should probably talk to your advisor regarding the specific expectations for your field and type of thesis, the pecularities of particular referees as well as whether individual prospects are good or bad.


How to deal with repeated resubmissions of a bad paper (as a reviewer)?

This type of repeated submission of junk is something that I truly hate, but also don't know any good way of dealing with.  The problem is that the same freedom that supports novel science also leaves room for this type of "publication-shopping."  In essence: any more unified method of "disapproving" junk papers, to prevent them from wasting everybody's time, will also work against highly novel papers that are meeting resistance from entrenched communities---see, for example, the decades-long fight Barbara McClintock faced in getting her work on gene regulation accepted.

We are thus left with the current and default system, in which each publication judges independently, and in which reviewers face frustrating situations like the one you describe.  My recommendation, then, is simply to judge the paper on its merits, of which it has little.  The biggest key strike is the self-plagiarism: once you've discovered that, the rest doesn't really matter, because self-plagiarism is an offense worth rejecting a paper over in and of itself.

I would recommend informing the editor, along with informing the editor about the history of the paper.  They may then either judge whether to speedily reject the paper (and possibly initiate proceedings against the authors for the self-plagiarism), or whether to ask you to formally write this assessment as a review.


How to highlight the text changes to the supervisor?

In Word, you can use the 'track changes' function.

It depends a bit on the amount of changes you're making though. Track changes will mark every cut and paste, every comma and deletion of every double space. This can make it too difficult to read. Personally, I've resorted to just underlining the most important changes so that my supervisor can see them easily, and adding the occasional comment bubble.