It is possible in theory and has happened in practice.  (As I have reported elsewhere on this site, my own former thesis advisor attended but did not graduate from Bronx Science and attended but did not graduate from MIT, and this did not stop him from being admitted to the PhD program at Princeton, where he received his PhD at the age of 22.)

However in recent years university systems have gotten increasingly formalized. Especially at public universities, many bureaucratic requirements are taken seriously and are difficult or impossible to waive.  For instance at my state university (UGA), one needs a bachelor's degree to be eligible to enroll in our graduate program.  Speaking as the Graduate Coordinator of the math department at UGA, we would almost certainly not seriously consider an application from a student who could not meet this requirement.  On the one hand, it would be an uphill battle to get such a student enrolled.  On the other hand -- why won't they arrange to get an undergraduate degree?  Because they "don't feel like graduating"?  It is hard to understand why we should go out on a limb for an apparently feckless student when we have so many other applicants who really give a feck...so to speak.  Berkeley, UCLA and Ohio State are all state institutions, and I would expect (though I am not completely sure) their views to be similar to mine.

In my opinion the strategy of trying to bypass your undergraduate degree could only work if you are a student who is so exceptionally strong that it is clear to the very top schools that they want to have you.  Having said that...I got my PhD in math at Harvard, a perennially top-ranked program.  All of my fellow graduate students had (at least) undergraduate degrees.  On the other hand, more than one or two of them were under 21 when they arrived.  So in trying this maneuver you may be competing with absolutely brilliant 18 or 19 year-olds who were nevertheless feckfull enough to acquire undergraduate degrees.  I really don't like your chances.

Finally:

  and a professor at a university agrees to take me as a pure math PhD student,

That's not how it works at all.  You have to get admitted by the department and the graduate school.  In pure math in the US, it is very rare for admissions decisions to be made by any one faculty member: they have to be made by the committee as a whole.


Does FERPA require parental notification of disability assessment?

Students who are over 18 or attending college (often times 17 year olds) have control of their educational records under FERPA.  The individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is consistent with FERPA so that the student controls access to this information too.

Students can waive their FERPA rights and often do so.  Since parents are typically paying some or all of the cost of college, they can effectively force the student to waive their FERPA rights.  Many parents do this so that they can monitor their child's grades.

Another issue is that in order to get disability accomodations a student will normally need a medical diagnosis.  Students who have reached the age of majority (18 in most states) can see a provider and get a diagnosis without parental consent or notification. By default, this is confidential under the HIPAA (the federal law on privacy of medical records.)

However, there's also the issue of how the student could pay for this medical diagnosis.  Since there's a potential conflict of interest for the college to provide the diagnosis (because of the costs of accommodation they might want to avoid diagnosing a disability) or just because it costs money, colleges often won't provide this service to students through their clinics.  The student would have to see an outside provider. The parents' insurance might pay for this, but then the parents would know that the child was getting medical care (but not the specific medical information which still is protected under HIPAA.)


Publishing PhD Student's Provisional Report

No, I don't think it's a good idea, for reasons that vary with the student's status.

Current students: by releasing information about  a student's work in progress, you make it easier for some other researcher to pick up the same project, and complete and publish it before your student ("scooping" them). This will make it more difficult, or impossible, for your student to publish their work, as it will no longer be novel - a potentially serious career impediment. Even experienced researchers tend to avoid publicly discussing their work before it is ready to publish, and for grad students the risk is greater, as they probably work more slowly than the average researcher and are less likely to win a race.
Former students who graduated: the provisional report is redundant, as a more complete and polished version of the same information is in their dissertation. They would probably prefer that this higher-quality version be the only one publicly available.
Former students who did not graduate: would probably prefer not to publicize the fact that they were a student in your department but did not receive a degree.

In principle, if a student is aware of these issues and freely consents, without pressure from you,  to posting the preliminary report, it might be okay. But it's still questionable in my view, as a graduate student may not have enough experience in academia to fully comprehend the issues involved and accurately evaluate the risks. I'd err on the side of paternalism and not even suggest it.

I think it would be okay to make the reports accessible within your department, so that faculty know what students are working on, and so that students currently writing such reports have access to examples. But I would not share them with the outside world.


The perception of plagiarism has evolved significantly along the years, and practices that are not tolerated nowadays were instead not unheard of in the recent past. I recall seeing several papers from the 1980s and 90s replicated almost identically in different venues, without any cross-citation or copyright notice.

Moreover, bibliographic searches in the past were not so easy, and the authors of the most recent work may have found the same result independently and missed the older work.

Since almost thirty years have now passed from the publication of the second article, I'd ignore the matter: nothing really useful would come out by bringing it up.


'Awaiting recommendation' on Scholar One before any review process

The status that authors see is fully customizable, and depends on the actual workflow employed by the journal. What you are seeing generally indicates that there is at least 1 review task pending, and also a recommendation task pending. This is possible! For instance, let's say the journal assigned 3 reviewers, but only requires 2 to move on to the recommendation task. Since they are both now "pending", you could see both status's at the same time. Without specific information on the journal you are working with, I can't give you exact details on your situation. There are other possible scenario's.
Note: I am an employee of ScholarOne, but my posts and answers are strictly my own.


Should I hold back criticism in an anonymous survey for fear of identification by the professor?

First, a couple of remarks for those not familiar with the Italian educational system, to provide more context (the OP studies in Italy according to his user profile):

In Italy, there are really no final exams: exams are distributed along the year in 3-4 sessions, and students can decide to take an exam much later than the end of the course. Thus, professors always receive students' comments before the exams (there's no "after").
The kind of survey described by the OP was common in my university up to a few years ago (now, it's managed through a learning management system), and -- yes -- professors received handwritten forms (e.g. I read the You must die remark described here on a handwritten form). The survey should be typically handed back in class, so students can't hand it back after the exam as suggested in one of the comments. In the edit below I explain in more detail the mechanism.

  Should a student mitigate his/her judgment in the survey for fear of a harsher revision of his exam?

From my experience, I've never seen anyone wasting time in trying to pair the calligraphy of the remarks with that of the exam papers (I surely didn't), and I'd consider retribution extremely rare (though jerks exist). Therefore, I wouldn't bother mitigating your judgment, but be polite and keep it at a professional level.

Note: How evaluations used to work in my university before the introduction of a learning management system
(and how they still probably work in the OP's case)

Teaching evaluations are managed by a university office (not a departmental level). In the paper era, toward the end of the courses, a professor would receive two sets of forms: one contained a questionnaire prepared by the competent office; the other could be filled with free comments.

During one of the lectures, the professor would hand the forms to the students and would give a (20-30) min break to fill them in. At the end, a volunteer among the students would collect the two sets and put them in two different envelopes.  The envelope with the questionnaires would be closed, signed and delivered to the office by the volunteer; the other envelope with the free, handwritten comments would be handed to the professor in class.

So, the professor could read the comments before the end of the course and before any exam.

Nowadays, we can still read the comments before the exams (as I said in the first remark, there's no way out for this), but they are no longer handwritten.


Salutation for a letter of recommendation to be uploaded to mathjobs

Most of my math recommendation letters do not have an opening salutation.  They have the date at the top right, and the first sentence orients the reader with something like "I write to recommend Dr. X to you for..." If I recall correctly, this is fairly typical for such letters.  I am more confident in saying it doesn't matter: in general, the format for these letters is all over the place, and no one cares.


Improve letter of recommendation after graduation?

First of all, although in all cases it would have been better for you to talk to your professors outside of class and cultivate further intellectual/professional relationships with them, how much better depends a lot on the situation.  For instance, in my academic field of mathematics, a student at a strong program who quietly does superior work in the most challenging courses available to her is going to get strong to very strong letters irrespective of the personal contact.   In other academic fields, the most promising undergraduates will likely have some engagement with the research interests of the faculty, perhaps even to the extent of coauthorship on papers, and missing out on that may be missing out on a lot.

  I am asking myself whether there are ways to improve a potential recommendation after having graduated.

It becomes a lot harder to improve your professors' opinions of you after you leave, for the obvious reasons: you have no more necessary points of contact with them, and they are no longer getting paid to teach and interact with you.  Some faculty members are very generous with their time, but many faculty members
have packed their professional life with so many other activities that they literally don't have the time for more than casual interactions with former undergraduates.

  Like, for example, through email correspondence, or sending the professor a paper I wrote, etc.?

You can try both of those things.  Sending a paper you wrote that has some connection to the research interests of the professor in question sounds more promising to me than simply trying to raise their esteem via the enthusiasm and erudition of your epistles.  (Sorry, I got a little carried away with the alliteration.) As above, a faculty member may not have time to do more than briefly glance at your paper...but even the brief glance of a professional can convince them that you're onto something and improve your letter.

  Or should this ideally not influence the professor anymore?

No, you're fully entitled to take further steps to get a better letter.  That may be hard to do, but the attempt is fully appropriate.  Faculty will probably realize what you're doing (which is also okay...).


Asking the primary professor of your target grad school to review your statement of purpose

Your hunch is correct.  It would not be ethical.

However, if you have a mentor in your current institution, you can certainly send this person a link to the primary professor's home page, and your essay, asking for feedback.

But before you do, here's a pretty effective exercise.  Imagine that the trusted mentor is reading your essay and jotting down comments in the margin, slashing here, asking for more detail there.


Should I review a paper that violates the maximum length limitation?

There is only one possible answer: Ask the Program Committee chair. It is an almost-one-line mail:

  Hello Jeffy,

  one of the papers I've got to review for the ABC Congress doesn't fit in the page limit given, it's: John Doe et al.: Study of DEF in context of XYZ, link:
  http://sciencesconf..../link-to-the-paper-in-the-review-system

  Should I still review it or is exceeding the length itself a reason for rejection?

  Cheers, Tom

It saves troubles in the thing I think. It may be fine in some conferences (when the page limit is taken loosely) and may be a problem elsewhere (when it's strict for instance because the proceedings publisher is strict about it, or for whatever reason). You can't know this, there's the PC chair to know this.


Listing in reference section, but not quoting

Many journals require you to reference every entry in your list of references somewhere in the paper. That is probably also a good rule of thumb for a thesis.

The reason for this rule is that people do not typically just read through the list of references by itself. They read through the text, and in places where another publication is referenced, they will look it up in the list of references at the end. If the list of references contains entries that are not in fact referenced anywhere in the text, nobody is likely to ever look at that entry.

In practice, if you think that a paper is relevant for your thesis, then there ought to be a place in your text where you should cite it. If you cannot find a place where it would be worthwhile to cite it, then the paper is likely not relevant.


Certainly it is theoretically possible, but it may not be possible in practice. There are two issues to consider, even beyond your unknown performance in the online degree.

The first is that the probability of any single candidate getting in to a "top ten" program is effectively zero. There are too few slots and too many well qualified candidates. The competition for entry is intense. Most of those candidates will have near perfect academic records. You will need some "edge" that will appeal to any admissions committee. An online degree may not be that edge.

Second, an online degree usually gives you little personal relationship to professors and, probably, very little feedback on your work. If the online degree is largely "passive" (videos, readings, and exams), then no one really has an idea of your potential since you interact with them so little. There are a few programs that are different, of course, such as Open University UK, which does provide tutors for the students, but even there, little interaction with professors.

That doesn't mean the an online degree is bad for you and may be one of your only options. But if you set your sights on a very narrow target for it, then it will be very difficult to hit that target. Think about how you can widen your goals or, alternatively, choose a more effective path to them. Say a path that lets qualified people see your potential and give you great letters of recommendation.


Who all are considered authors of papers written on behalf of a research group?

In particle physics (and we have some very long author lists) they are.

Authorship rules are generally set out in the collaboration's Memorandum of Understanding (whatever it is called) and can sometimes call for odd things such as a paper being credited to someone who didn't even know it was being written but whose work calibrating some systematic effect of a minor subsystem a decade ago was used in the paper. That happened to me once, I checked inSPIRE and discovered I had a new paper out. Turned out to be a nice one, too.

To avoid that many of these documents have a "recent membership" type of clause so that you have to have been an active member of the collaboration in the last (typically) year to be credited. "Active" is defined by things like sitting shifts, attending collaboration meetings, contributing institutional funds to the general pool or hardware to the experiment and so on.


Is it OK to publish research that was in someone else's future work?

There is no "calling dibs" in academic science.
In some cases, it may be risky/unwise to start a research program that is very similar to what someone else is working on, especially if they've already published in the area and you have not, but that is simply because they likely have a head start and you are at high risk of being scooped if they publish before you.
Otherwise, if you've completed work relevant to someone's suggestion for future work, that's great. They may have chosen not to pursue it for numerous reasons, so it would be a big problem if simply mentioning it barred others from pursuing a particular avenue. It's probably appropriate to cite their suggestion if you are aware of it, even if it wasn't initially motivated by that source.


How to get objective advice on my CV and career progress in detail?

Your university might have a career services office that can help.  Otherwise, hire a private career coach or consultant.


REU
I cannot speak for all REUs, but the ones that I have experience with usually look for a few things:

Good statement of purpose with a clear research objective. Even if this statement of purpose is a bit broad, it is important to show that you are able to ask good questions in relation to mathematics.
Good letters of recommend.
Specific coursework requested by the REU. I always found it odd that the REU at my university would specifically say a student needed understanding of Galois Theory OR Complex Analysis OR Graph Theory, and we would have students with none of these applying.

Internships
Data science (DS) internships are not scarce, as long as you are willing to go anywhere in the US. They are, however, often times competitive. I would suggest that you look very broadly at many fields for data science opportunities. (I, for example, got a DS internship one time working for a company that makes marine engines). Places like Google, Amazon, Apple, will be insanely competitive. Others, perhaps will be more tractable. If you have a background in chemistry, places like pharmaceuticals (Pfizer, Eli Lilly, etc) and chemical companies (Dow, DuPont, etc.) may be of particular interest.
Data Science as a Field
I cannot address every possible career path for math. I know people in law, medicine, engineering, academia, data science, psychometrics, business, athletics with math degrees. Given ten people with an undergrad in mathematics, chances are high that they will work in ten different fields.
I will specifically address data science as a career. DS relies on a trident of core topics:

Mathematics
Statistics
Computer Science

You need to be good in all of these. I would hear (and was given) advice to math students such as

A math degree teaches you to think & people will hire you for you ability to think and problem solve.

While this is true, it takes much more than a BS in mathematics (especially pure maths) to get a job in DS. You need to be competent in the trident of fields I mentioned above.
I would suggest becoming as expert as you can in PyTorch or TensorFlow, pandas, numpy, SKLearn (all in Python). I have never seen a job reject me for knowing those skills. Learning an object oriented language (Java, C++) is also helpful.
If you are also interested in chemistry, I would suggest getting a minor in it (or something else crosscutting). Read up on GANs and drug/molecule discovery. (See for example https://thischemicaldoesnotexist.com/) And, as I mentioned, fields like law and medicine (chemistry) are on the table.
Always willing to chat if you start a private chat and what to know more.


Response article to a flawed paper you reviewed

Wait. The authors have seen your review, they should know that they have a problem. There's nothing to be done until the flawed article appears in another journal (if it ever does). You might write a draft response article and sit on it until the unchanged article appears. If it does, you can update your draft based on any changes and submit it to the same journal in response. If they fix it before resubmitting it, then you have nothing to do, and your review will have been successful.


What is the expectation that one should have from reading a published paper?

I think there are two uses of the word "expectation" relevant to your question:

1) Expectation as in "standards": this would be the type of "expectations" a teacher might have of students: that they show up to class, complete assignments, read course materials, etc. This is the aspirational sense of the word.

2) Expectation as in "predictions of what is going to happen": a more realistic, perhaps Bayesian understanding of what publications are like in your field as you read more papers.

I don't think you are wrong to have high expectations in the first sense, especially from work published in high tier journals in your field. You should expect results to be presented clearly, empirical and statistical methodology to be detailed, and conclusions drawn to be clearly connected to the actual results and not just the predictions and world view of the authors.

In reality, your expectations in the second sense should not be as lofty. You should expect abstracts to not really tell you what limited scope the paper actually addresses You should expect to need to dig into not just the paper in hand but previous papers by the same authors and others they reference obliquely to figure out their methodology. You should expect to find conclusions that are suggested by but not shown convincingly by the data at hand. You should expect to find statistical approaches that are naive, inappropriate, or misleading.

In my personal experience, you will find authors in your field whose work you really cherish because they meet your Expectations. These won't necessarily be the most famous papers, but you will enjoy and learn from most of the publications they write. The other papers that instead conform to your expectations might be just as important, you will be held just as responsible to understand them and incorporate them into your work, but they won't be as fun, you will wonder how they ever got past peer review, and you might even start to doubt your field in general.

Don't fret! All you can really do is try to meet your own expectations.


In citations, how to find out if it's a compound name?

The convention, inasmuch as one exists, is:

  Write the name the way the individual wants it to be written.

For example, one of my co-authors has four names:

  (First Name) (Middle Name) (Adopted Married Name) (Given Last Name)

but chooses to use

  (First Initial). (Middle Name) (Adopted Initial). (Last Name)

as his "formal" academic name.

As a more concrete example of this phenomenon, this is a significant issue with a lot of British folks, who eschew the hyphen in a "double-barreled" last name. For instance, you'd cite:

  Vaughan Williams, Ralph. The Lark Ascending. London: Oxford University Press (2005).

and not

  Williams, Ralph V. The Lark Ascending. London: Oxford University Press (2005).

In such cases, you just need to look up exactly how the author writes his or her name, and follow that trend. Google Scholar can be a good source of such information; Web of Science and other citation-tracking sites are often better.

The most useful method of all would be to find "self-citations": works where the author cites his or her own work. How the name is written under those circumstances should be the most unambiguous statement.


Has anyone here tried this alternative peer review platform 'Peerage of Science'?

Peerage of Science received 102 submissions in 2017. Some submissions get zero reviews, but those that are reviewed have a decent chance of getting publishing offers from participating journals: 60% received at least one publishing offer, some got 4 or 5 offers. The other submissions - probably - got negative reviews and then of course do not attract journals either.

But as an author your options are not limited to participating journals; you can always choose to decline offers, and also "export" the review to any journal of your choice (= create a link that you can give to any editor of any journal, giving them access to this one process reviews in Peerage of Science). It is then of course up to the receiving editor if and how they want to use those reviews, but Peerage of Science makes them available and trustable (it's not a PDF author gives them, but password-protected link to content on peerageofscience.org website that author can not modify).

So give it a try! I can't promise your work will get reviews, and certainly shall not promise you will get positive reviews - Peerage of Science is about doing peer review rigorously and well, not quick and easy. But there's little you can lose, as it is free, you get to stay anonymous as author, and you define the deadlines.

Full disclosure: I am the founder of Peerage of Science.


Who should I get LOR from : manager of big prestigious company where I worked 5 years back, or unknown small company where I worked recently?

The badge, of whatever worth, for having worked in a "globally well-known" company is already in your cv.

And, it is just "few months work straight out of school", begging the question "coffee anyone?" (only half-jokingly).

But chances are, in the "very small unknown company", your role was much more critical, compared. And it was for three whole years.

If I was the reader, it would be this second letter that would be more believable in my eyes if it mentioned anything about efficiency, professionalism, and dependability.


What makes the difference between "summa cum laude" and "magna cum laude"?

There is - to my knowledge - no universal guideline. But basically "magna cum laude" is the go to grade for good students, so hopefully the one most students of an institution receive.
To get a "summa cum lauda" a student needs to really show outstanding promising work, winning awards for papers can be an indicator, but is neither a necessary nor a sufficient criteria. Basically the supervisors need to believe they see a future professor/inventor/researcher in the making who has the potential to shape the research in some area.

On the other hand (where available), if the candidate does okay, but with some let-downs, there is often also the "cum laude" option.

Note that this also can vary by country and institution. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctorate or (German but way more on grades, checkout the "Bewertung" section) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_(Doktor) for a list of varying grades (again, there seems to be additional institution/area variation in addition to the country defaults).


What can I do about undergraduate students cheating?

Unless you have very weird exam regulations or are allowing people to take exams in groups, no one should be talking to anyone else except via the proctors. I would view this as an infraction of the exam regulations and stop them from proceeding with the exam, and file for the appropriate sanctions.


Should the title be changed when converting a conference article into a journal article?

According to the conference website:

  The conference proceedings are to be published in the Springer's LNAI (indexed by DBLP, EI, Scopus, and Thomson ISI).

In other words, your conference paper is already published. The journal paper will therefore be a new publication, and as such, you could use a different title, to avoid any confusion (and it will be a different paper, since you have to expand it).

EDIT
However, there are precedents, for at least one previous edition of the conference you're mentioning, of authors having the same title in the conference and in a journal edition (taken from DBLP):

Peerasak Intarapaiboon, Ekawit Nantajeewarawat, Thanaruk Theeramunkong: Extracting Chemical Reactions from Thai Text for Semantics-Based Information Retrieval. IEICE Transactions 94-D(3): 479-486 (2011)
Peerasak Intarapaiboon, Ekawit Nantajeewarawat, Thanaruk Theeramunkong: Extracting Chemical Reactions from Thai Text for Semantics-Based Information Retrieval. ACIIDS (1) 2010: 271-281
Yongli Wang, Dongxiao Niu, Ling Ji: Power load forecasting using data mining and knowledge discovery technology. IJIIDS 5(5): 452-467 (2011)
Yongli Wang, Dongxiao Niu, Yakun Wang: Power Load Forecasting Using Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery Technology. ACIIDS (1) 2010: 319-328
Moamin Ahmed, Mohd Sharifuddin Ahmad, Mohd Zaliman M. Yusoff: A Collaborative Framework for Multiagent Systems. IJATS 3(4): 1-18 (2011)
Moamin Ahmed, Mohd Sharifuddin Ahmad, Mohd Zaliman M. Yusoff: A Collaborative Framework for Multiagent Systems. ACIIDS (1) 2010: 329-338

Looking at random references from the journals in question, it seems quite frequent to have the same name for a journal paper and a conference publication the previous year. In other words, I stand corrected, and you might want to keep the same name for the journal version.

As pointed out by DavidRicherby and Mangara, it's likely to be field dependent. Hence, the best approach is probably to look at previous editions of the journals in question, and check if there are matching conference papers.


Cover letter for job application to someone I have personally met

I would lean toward the formal here, though it would be fine to remind the recipient of your past association, assuming it is professional and not personal. I doubt, however, that it is hugely important in most cases. But I also expect that you would already know if one or the other were greatly to be preferred.

In follow up contact you might change that, depending on the response to your initial inquiry. If he replies back as John, then John it is. But your letter will be seen by several others, as noted by user Anyon in comments.


Two simultaneous part time master's degrees while working full time

Better to do one or the other. What you don't want to do is to fail out of either program. Pick the better/more prestigious one and do it. Also, I don't see how stacking up masters's degrees really helps you. I can see how one masters would help, but I don't see what value the second would add.


Why don't university courses report percentiles together with absolute grades?

Actually there are many reasons that contribute to this, though as noted it isn't universal.
First, there is no real basis of comparison between courses, even in the same major, since the tests, unlike, say the GRE, aren't standardized, nor do they have enough data points for valid statistical inference. The numbers, if reported, would be essentially meaningless, though people would try to impute meaning to them.
Across disciplines the issue is even more extreme, of course. How "hard" is a Calculus class compared to one in Ethics? They can both be very hard, but it is impossible to compare them since the student activities are very different as is the basic pedagogy.
Second, and to me, vital, is the fact that introducing percentiles is a form of competitive grading that I find offensive. In my view, a student should be graded based only on their own, individual, performance. The typical A, B, ... grading scheme tries to capture this notion, even if imperfectly. If I get a C it should mean that I, individually, have some deficit, independent of what anyone else achieved or didn't. And note that the grading classifications are inherently broad and inexact as are all of the measures we use to determine grades.
One can do poorly on an exam for reasons other than lack of effort and learning. You might just have gotten too little sleep, or there is a family issue that requires your time and attention. Some instructors throw out the "lowest grade" to account for such things. Others have "fuzzy" boundaries between grade levels, giving the students the benefit of the doubt if they just "miss" a cut.
And of course, tradition plays a role. People know how to evaluate the general grades they see on transcripts from long practice. Even introducing A+ grades a few years ago caused disruption in this. Percentile grading has too much chance of being interpreted incorrectly.
Finally, implied by the above, percentile grades don't really measure "how hard" the course is, but something else. Someone has to be in the lowest percentile even if all students excel.
Don't look for completely "objective" ways to measure human performance and expect that it means exactly what the numbers seem to imply. Even Usain Bolt was sometimes slower than other runners.


In the more advanced levels, I have had subjects taught by several lecturers. Each one was teaching the part of the subject closer to their area of research and expertise.

On a more general level, there was a department of Astronomy and Atmospheric physics (climate and weather). Astrophysics subjects were taught by astrophysicists, and climate subjects by atmospheric scientists (do they have a cool specific name?). Inside Astrophysics, stellar evolution was taught by a different subset of professors than extragalatic astronomy.

It is also common for the senior professors to lecture, and the grad students to do problem solving. This is usually explained because a clear explanation of the theory requires experience and care; whereas solving exercises is a less critical task, ideal to build teaching experience. (Bad people that hate professors may say that teaching theory requires less work, and once it is done they can repeat the same for years, but solving exercises requires more work)

Edit:

Another example is the curriculum. Each subject is built upon the subjects taught before, with more or less coordination among the lecturers. Differential equations requires the knowledge obtained in Calculus, and it will in turn be used for Quantum Mechanics. If the Calculus lecturer fails miserably (for example, not covering the necessary material), the students will struggle through the following ones.


How to share credit for an award given to my advisor?

I would just write it down exactly as it is: "I co-authored one paper in the series of four papers for which my adviser got PRIZE_NAME prize". Then I would read it aloud and wouldn't find it impressive enough, so I would abstain from putting it in the CV at all, though you are welcome to make your own judgement here.

In short: Nothing that doesn't sound good in plain, crude English will fly with people who have brains (and most hiring committee members are no fools). The very first thing I do when I evaluate a CV is to translate every sentence into plain language and cross out all buzz words. The second thing is to verify all easily verifiable statements. So, either say it plainly, clearly, and precisely, or don't say it at all.


Misguided use of offensive figures in student presentations

Derail the discussion, then re-rail it afterwards.
Keeping the class on topic is useless if students are too uncomfortable to learn.  You are obligated to intervene, once you have learned how to do it.  Here's the method I was taught:

Interrupt.  Example:  "Sorry, I'm interrupting."
Question.  Example:  "Do you know what stereotype does this image represents?"

The purpose of questioning is to allow someone to indicate that they are ignorant, or to allow themselves to correct an error.  In my experience, students usually realize they did something wrong and correct themselves.

Educate.  Explain why something is offensive/discriminatory/whatever.  Example:  "This image is in a style that was used to depict [identity group] as having [trait].  It is a dishonest message and disrespectful."

Once the issue is addressed, direct students back to the usual learning activity.

without discouraging the student

Prejudice is inherently discouraging.  Your students can't learn ethical behavior without being discouraged by awareness of unethical behavior.  Hopefully, the "Question" step will at least reduce the hostility of the interaction.


What weight does a visiting assistant professorship in a different field carry in tenure track faculty applications?

It would be positive, in my experience, but my department (linguistics) went to extremes to be interdisciplinary. Decades ago,  they were more disciplinary and a question could arise if a candidate held a position in e.g. psychology. But even then, raised questions are usually answered by looking at a candidates CV and publications. In the current climate, I think it would be either neutral or positive, depending on whether there were a need to forge relations between math and philosophy.


Same problem solved in a totally different way

Yes, you can (and you should!).

And you should compare the performance of your method with the existing one.

Even if your method performs worse, this is still a valid result.


Should I wait for my professor to reply my request for recommendation letter?

Professors are really (really) busy. Most likely he simply did not have time yet to reply to your email. Or maybe he is at a conference and does not have access to the previous two letters on his office computer. He will probably reply to your message later.

To get his recommendation letter quickly the best thing you can do is make it as easy for him as possible. Because you already have two of his letters I suggest you write your own new recommendation letter based on these two, send it to him by email, and ask him to sign it. This is quite common, at least in the different labs in the UK and France where I have worked: many professors ask students to write their own letter, after which they may make a few changes and sign it. This saves them lots of time.

Also, make sure to let him know when your deadline is so he understands the urgency.


Can I mention multiple faculty members in my SOP?

I'm in a program (and went to a program) where students are admitted to the program, not a lab.

When considering students, I'm actually quite nervous about those who only mention a single professor they're interested in working with, as that's not a particularly robust "plan". What if they don't get tenure, or are recruited elsewhere? What if they have a personal emergency? What if they just don't have funding for a student right now? What if it turns out you just have wildly incompatible working habits (this happened to me)?

I'm going to echo Buffy's suggestion - don't try to write your SOP as the optimal solution to a game whose rules you don't know. Write about your interests in the program, and how that applies to one or more specific faculty members.


Is it possible to complete a Master's degree while working full-time?

A lot of people in the US do this, actually. Some places have enough evening classes at the MS/MA level that it may not disrupt normal work hours. But it takes a lot out of the rest of your life, of course.

It is easier in a field in which you can complete the degree without research, say by coursework and/or creative writing.

But if you can afford to spend three hours a night in class for a couple of nights a week and also do the required other work then it can happen on a reasonable time scale. And NYC has a lot of options.


Writing affiliation as a high school student

First of all, I'm impressed by your ambition here.  And I should warn you not to get discouraged if the math journal ends up rejecting your submission.  Do you have guidance from someone experienced in academic publishing, to help you through the process?

As @Nate-Eldridge pointed out already, you should simply state your affiliation, and the country doesn't matter.  But I will add:

If the submission is not double-blind, there is a risk that people will take you less seriously when they see the affiliation.  There's not much you can do about this, I think.
High school students do contribute to academic publications, though I was surprised to see this.  One was a coauthor of a paper in a very strong CS systems conference this year (others were at a university).

Good luck!


Publication - discovered an error in the proof of theorem which the referees have not spotted, what to do?

You absolutely have to advise the editor and referees of the error, and either correct or remove the erroneous part.  It doesn't matter how much it annoys them, or even if it leads to the rejection of your paper.  Keeping it there would be totally unacceptable and unethical.

Just tell the editor straight out:

"I discovered an error in the proof of Theorem 1.2.3.  It does not seem to be fixable, so this theorem should be removed from the paper.  The rest of the paper is unaffected [assuming that it actually is]."

The editor will probably ask the referees to re-review the paper with this information.  It might change their decision, or it might not.  But even if it gets rejected, that's something you just have to live with: fix the paper and submit it somewhere else.

You seem to be assuming that the referees noticed the error but decided not to say anything about it in their review.  I doubt that.  It's far more likely that they didn't notice it at all.  Referees are humans and not omniscient gods, and just because they overlook an error does not mean it is okay to publish it.


4th year PhD student(24 years old). I am lost

It's a common opportunity/risk of a grad program that you have the cover to spin your wheels.  I blew a quarter once.

A small piece of advice that worked for me.  I enjoyed the childish pleasure of seeing my byline on published articles.  Maybe you can use publishing to motivate you?

My advice is to write up and publish any work that you have/can.  Just literally start a computer file, name it, add the various sections as headers (abstract, intro, etc.).  Then hit save.  You're started now.  Then work on WHATEVER PART IS EASIEST.  Not in order, not in logical progression.  But whatever moves (could be conclusion first).  After all, the darned thing is in a computer...you can always edit it!  This is so much better than the typewriter era.

If you don't have any data, I suggest to write up an outline publication of what you will publish when you get data. You probably know at least enough to do a decent intro section, citing the literature.  I have found that having the paper started can actually motivate the experimentation.


What is the "initial screen" for displaying a journal's copyright?

IEEE support mentioned that the paper can be uploaded to arXiv even after submitting to IEEE as long as this information is added to the first page of the article:

“© 20XX IEEE.  Personal use of this material is permitted.  Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.”

By "initial screen" they meant for it to appear on the first page someplace. They didn't want to require it to appear "bottom of the left column" or "under the byline" because different repositories can have different displays. They just need it to be at the beginning of the article.


Do academics have any standard system for annotating text?

It's hard to prove a negative, but my experience is that there is no standard system of annotating text.


Moving from a University to a National Research Institution, career implications?

I don't think that a generic answer would be valid for every European continental country as University careers are already quite different from country to country.
As you are mentioning CSIC I am going to focus in Spain.

Short answer: Making your career at CSIC or any other Spanish research institution means that you have the opportunity of focusing on your research in a high quality institution. It also means that the possibility of changing to a University (again in Spain) decrease the longer you stay there, virtually becoming zero after some five years

Explanation: Spanish academia requires that you go through a system of pre-qualification (acreditación) for any of the four current faculty positions. Other countries such as France (Qualification) and Italy also have a similar system but I believe that the particularity of the Spanish case is that you need to fulfil a lot of different requirements in teaching, research, knowledge transfer, etc. You can check the requirements in this link (sorry, no English version). Being able to fulfil these requirements is relatively straight-forward for the first faculty position (profesor ayudante doctor) but it becomes increasingly difficult for the next ones if you are not employed at a University. It has been often quoted that a Nobel prize not previously employed at University would not be able to become tenured in Spain regardless of the quality of their research.

As you mention being currently in a research + teaching position at the UK, your previous teaching + supervising experience might allow you to become qualified (acreditado) for faculty positions. But both Spanish universities and the organism that evaluates research (ANECA) are extremely picky with the certificates that you need to bring from your home university. It is possible that some are deemed not valid because they are not signed and stamped by the right person, etc.


Professor got me involved into working with him, but the experience was poor. How can I avoid him without facing negative consequences?

I would say there is no way to totally prevent badmouthing happening. You can adopt an extremely wise strategy to get yourself out of that shet, but, you know, he can (if he wants, of course) use the fact that you quit before you should to condemn you (I hope this will not happen.). So I think what you want is to be honest to him about how you felt. Try not to talk to him in a tone that judges; try to first report or state what you saw neutrally and then tell him how these led to your decision. If you can do this in a mature, unemotional, analytical way, and if he is at least a reasonable person, then I think you guys can break up peacefully. Be careful that you don't give him an impression that you did the decision majorly out of emotion; this would lead him to consider you an unprofessional "employee" (if this is the case, who knows what implications he can come up with to harm you; you want to minimize the potential negative consequences.) .

If you did the above, then simply walk away and pay no mind to the consequences.


Translating British faculty titles into American equivalents

Usually, lecturer is the lowest open-ended position (although there are exceptions), and professor is the highest one, everything in between can be quite specific. For instance, Swansea University is considering four different grades from 2013:

Lecturer (replacing Lecturer Grade 8 and Tutor)
Senior Lecturer (replacing Lecturer Grade 9, Senior Professional Tutor and Research Fellow)
Associate Professor (replacing Senior Lecturer and Reader)
Professor (that one at least is unchanged!).

Each title comes with a set of expected criteria. In addition, a concept I've seen several times in the UK is the notion of academic pathway, which can characterise further the criteria for the positions. For instance, at Newcastle University, where I'm currently working, we have three main academic pathways, with the corresponding positions. In order to illustrate the different expectations based on the pathways, I included the expectations w.r.t. the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF). I also include the grade (positions above G are usually open-ended, although there are exceptions).

Teaching & Scholarship Pathway (the "standard" pathway):

Grade E: Teaching Assistant (encouraged to become recognised at UKPSF Descriptor 1)
Grade F: Teaching Fellow (be recognised at or be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 2)
Grade G: Lecturer (likely to be working commensurate with the achievement of Descriptor 3 and are encouraged to work towards it)
Grade H: Senior Lecturer (expected to be recognised at or be working towards UK PSF Descriptor 3)
Grade H: Reader (be recognised at or be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 3 or 4)
Grade I: Professor (be recognised at or be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 3 or 4)

Teaching & Research Pathway:

Grade F: Lecturer (should be recognised at UKPSF Descriptor 1 and be working towards Descriptor 2)
Grade G: Lecturer (should be recognised at UKPSF Descriptor 1 and be working towards Descriptor 2)
Grade H: Senior Lecturer (should be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 2 or 3)
Grade H: Reader (should be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 3)
Grade I: Professor (should be working towards UKPSF Descriptor 3)

Research & Innovation Pathway (since there is no teaching expected, UKPSF is not relevant):

Grade E: Research Assistant
Grade F: Research Associate
Grade G: Senior Research Associate
Grade H: Principal Research Associate & Reader
Grade I: Professor.

In other words, you should not try to translate the title, but instead understand where do you fit within the academic pathways of the university offering the positions. When it comes to teaching, it can be particularly useful to understand where one fits within the UKPSF, in order to match the corresponding title with the scheme used at the university. For instance, showing that you are working towards obtaining Descriptor 4 could be helpful to get a Reader position instead of a Senior Lecturer.


Can people refer to me as an MD in my recommendation letter if I have already passed my professional exam but my degree is still in process?

I am struggling to understand exactly the position you are applying for and don't know much about the medical field, but would expect your references to refer to you on a first name basis in the letter. This seems even more likely in the case where the degree status is in flux/unclear. At some point in the letter it should probably say something like

  Luis has completed their MPSS at University of Mexico, completed the internship year, and passed their professional exam. They have completed all the requirements for their doctorate in medicine and will be receiving the MD degree at the graduation ceremony in May.


Applying for PHD programs in FLORIDA. I have a question about legal questions?

A traffic offense would typically be something that resulted in a ticket (e.g. speeding) that you pay or, perhaps, go to traffic court. A DUI is decidedly a criminal offense that you can be prosecuted for in real (non-traffic) court.

As an aside, when you have a security clearance you absolutely must report arrests, but usually they will also explicitly mention a dollar value for traffic tickets, above which you must also report.

Good luck to your friend. They will need to be able to clearly explain the situation and the resolution.


Are the number of citations and number of published articles the most important criteria for a tenure promotion?

I've chaired numerous tenure review panels in my department. (These are the panels that evaluate candidates for promotion to tenure and make recommendations to the department executive committee and to the department's tenured faculty.) I don't recall citation counts ever being seriously considered in these panels' discussions. The number of a candidate's publications may come up if it's unusually high or unusually low; the journals in which the papers are published is likely to matter more than the number. But more important than any of these things are experts' opinions of the candidate's work. The experts here can include people in our own department but will also include external reviewers, i.e, researchers at other universities (or occasionally in industry) whom we consider highly qualified to evaluate the candidate's work.


Asking professors in other Universities for comments on research

It would be best to involve your advisor. I would advise against requesting comments from other professors without discussing it first.

It may be useful to approach your advisor and show them the work of the other professor to get their thoughts on the matter. They may agree, but they may also not wish to; mailing a copy without discussion would probably be interpreted as being disrespectful.

One thing to consider however is that the other professor may not offer comments on your paper. It may be that they struggle to find the time to peer review journal articles (which is pretty much a work obligation), so they may simply not have the time to offer comments on your work.

If you are hoping that mailing your paper may lead to the possibility of landing a PhD place, then you should consider sending your paper. However only do this following a discussion with your advisor, or after you have completed your thesis and received the award.


Are Assistant professorships with no starting packages/benefits and high teaching load considered normal?

I am a fairly fresh tenure-track Assistant Professor in Sweden. Before that I have worked in Switzerland and Austria, and I also know the state of affairs in Germany fairly well.

  The official teaching/research load is 50-50 which sounds OK. This translates to 3 courses (minimum) per year + bachelor + master student supervision + some administrative tasks.

In my current university, 50-50 is indeed normal, but only for tenured faculty. For tenure-trackers, a reduced teaching load of 20% or 25% seems more normal, but it depends on the position and, presumably, on the negotiation skill of the candidate. Note that 50-50 should indeed be understood as 50% teaching, 50% everything else.

Note that it is likely possible to buy out of teaching with grants - that is, if you bring in sufficient grants, it can be possible to fund yourself to a certain degree and consequently reduce your teaching percentage. You can ask about this during negotiations, but keep in mind that it is a risky business, as there is no guarantee of winning certain grants at the right time.

  On the other side of the spectrum, they do not offer any starting package: no PhD students, not even equipment, only a relatively good (for EU standards) salary with no additional benefits (married/child, whatever).

This is again the standard also in my university - ok, you get some equipment and an informal travel allowance, but no PhD students and no real start-up package. In some cases you may be able to negotiate, but how successful this can be is limited.

  Is this considered a normal offer?

Assuming we are talking about a junior professorship, and not a chaired W2/W3 professorship in Germany, then yes, this sounds fairly normal. Not great, mind you, but also not exceptionally bad. The only thing that sounds fairly high to me is the 50% teaching load.

That said, in my experience your fear of this being the end of your research career may be unwarranted. In my institution, people still regularly build up good research careers, by winning one or two grants and working intensely with a small but strong group of PhD students.

One good way to estimate this is by looking at senior assistant professors and freshly-tenured associate professors. How many students do they have? What have the published recently? If none publishes actively or was able to win significant grants, assume that they get side-tracked too much to get strong research done. If they do, assume that you will also be able to make it work.

Edit:
I will add some more information on what a X% teaching load actually means, at least in my department.

Basically, there is a standard number of yearly work hours that is assumed for a full-time employee. If you take your X% from this total work hours, you end up with the number of hours that you are assumed to spend on bachelor- and master-level teaching. Every supervised bachelor or master's thesis, every capstone project, etc., is valued at a fixed, in our case fairly generous, supervision rate of "work hours".

For courses, one person in the department is managing the distribution, and this person basically attempts to calculate "real", or at least realistic, effort hours per course, which also includes prep time. For already established courses this coordinator will basically talk to the teachers and ask them how much time they really spent in the past, and what they spent it on (we are a fairly tight-knit division, so people tend to not lie too outrageously here, although most people probably "overestimate" a little bit). For new courses, an estimation will be made, also taking into account how much material can be reused and what really needs to be done from scratch.

All of this data goes into a big Excel sheet, with the goal that over multiple years each person should end up somewhere close to their expected number of teaching hours, including course teaching and supervision.

I said above that in practice a 50-50 teaching load means 50% teaching, 50% everything else - this is simply because the teaching hours are realistically the only thing we even attempt to track. Service and research are not really tracked in any meaningful way (large department service roles get a reduced teaching load, though). This also means that, obviously, if you work until deep into the night on your research, you are not suddenly expected to teach more because your total work hours are higher.


Software to use for creating posters for academic conferences?

I would recommend Inkscape:

vector graphics
powerful
free
intuitive
cross platform


Very few places look at certificates when looking at applications.  Certified transcripts are considered the authoritative source.  If it's correct in the transcript, then that will be fine for the application.  If they wish to validate the transcripts, they will contact the institution directly whose records will match the transcript, not the certificate (almost certainly).

As for correcting the certificate, some institutions allow you to contact their registrar's office and request a re-printing of the certificate.  If it has been many years, the biggest problem is often that the Provost/Chancellor, etc. of the institution may have changed, so the signatures may not be the same as when you were issued your degree.  The specifics depend on institution.  There's no harm in calling or emailing them and inquiring.


Have there been studies of differences between journal paper authors and conference paper authors?

My relatively quick Google and Google Advanced searches didn’t identify empirical studies that address the question you ask. However, a search using the terms [scientific conference presentation] and [diversity] yielded this article discussing the need for actively working to increase diversity among conference presenters:
https://physicsworld.com/a/fifteen-tips-to-make-scientific-conferences-more-welcoming-for-everyone/
This article does not address your question directly, but it makes me think that framing your question in terms of a comparison between authors of published papers and authors of conference papers may not be the most productive approach to finding relevant literature.
The majority of researchers who have published in peer-reviewed journals have also presented their work (sometimes the same work) at conferences. By making the author/presenter the unit of analysis, one risks substantial overlap in the two groups—-very likely washing out any real differences that exist. “Noisy” data are problematic in their potential to overlook effects as well as to suggest them erroneously.
I think that a reasonable answer to your question would be more likely to come from separate examination of the two avenues (journals vs presentations)for the diversity of their authors.
In 20+ years’ experience with both conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications, I note barriers to diversity in both venues. It is certainly true that attending a conference takes time and money that many researchers lack. However, research of sufficiently high quality to obtain inclusion in peer-reviewed journals typically comes from well-funded labs to which only a small percentage of the academic world has access. Biases in admitting students into graduate programs, biases in hiring academic/research personnel, and biases in the awarding of research grants guarantee that both journal and conference avenues will have less than optimal diversity. I think that separate investigations of the two would be very interesting.


What is a "provisional transcript, stating your provisional grades"?

Provisional transcript: The school's current best indication of your classes and grades, subject to correction if necessary.


How do good students in medical school distinguish themselves?

Gone are the days when course marks are the only metric against which medical students are assessed. This is one of the reasons for the institution of pass/fail modules of instruction. This issue is difficult for medical students to understand, given that entry into medical school is contingent on tough criteria involving grade-based metrics. All these questions you've asked are tied to this old way of thinking.

  how do good students distinguish themselves?

Medical students distinguish themselves in ways other than course marks. They show compassion towards patients. They show creativity in their approach to problem solving. They demonstrate the ability to communicate effectively. They work well with their peers. They lead and follow, as is appropriate to achieve the best outcome for the patient.

It's not all about the marks. It's all about the patient.

  same question in terms of getting into top specialties as indication of how good of a student someone is

I believe that you're looking at the question ass backwards. In logic terms, your applying the fallacy called confirming the consequent.

Competitive people get into dermatology.
Sally got into dermatology.
Therefore, Sally is competitive.

I suggest that you refrain from judging the "competitiveness" of a doctor on the basis of his or her specialty.

The choice of specialty has been long studied and the motivation to pursue a particular medical specialty is based on a number of factors, not the least of which is personal preference. I can think of no one in my professional life as a medical doctor -- professors, peers, students -- who've pursued a clinical specialty simply because it was the most competitive thing to get into.

The "competitive" label of some specialties is a function of supply of training posts against demand for the profession. There are relatively few positions available for dermatology compared to the need of the population. I promise you, if dermatology places were to triple overnight, the "competitive" label would be lost. The same is true at the other end. There are many places for family medicine, some not able to be filled.

  So how can you tell how good a student is in medical school if there is no GPA and if getting into a specialty also don't indicate that?

There is no single metric. Rather, I suggest that you understand the mechanics against which you will be assessed. These will differ as you progress through your medical training. At each stage, the everyone resets to zero, any you start from scratch. There is no carry over of grades. Let me give you an example. In the program I head, we receive 400 applications for the 12 training places we possess. Once we select our trainees, everyone is treated the same. Effectively, the utility of your GPA, your medical school award for perfect attendance, your three letters of recommendation -- all of these have served their purpose and we chuck them out. We don't care whether you were top of your class or bottom of your class. You're now in our class and our rules apply. Do you know who has the hardest time figuring this out? Well, it's the people who are fixated about class and status.

Anyway, good luck to you.


Are there any PhD scholarships for 3.5 CGPAs?

I think a 3.5GPA for graduate school is not bad at all. Though it really depends on where you are applying from. International applicants usually are scrutinized further, especially due to the shear number of international applicants and fewer funding sources for non citizens. I think it would be best to talk with professors from your university or alumni who have pursued graduate school about locating funding and which universities/programs will already have funds for students.

The other thing is the professor may not actually be that interested in you. Professors often will take almost anyone if they are free, but once they have to use their research funds, the standards increase.


Increasing the number of authors in the research article after uploading it on arxiv

I imagine that there is no problem from the side of arXiv: submissions there are versioned, so you can always update a preprint there. arXiv also explicitly allows you to submit the same work to a different venue later on.

The problem with your process is that you do not seem to have a trust relationship with your second author. If your second author does not want your joint paper uploaded to arXiv and (i) you do it anyway, and (ii) do not even make him an author even though he was part of the research, then what does this say about the relationship the two of you already have? And what does it say about the kind of relationship you hope to have with him in the future? If I were that second author, I would consider uploading a joint paper over my objections a major breach of trust. I would not ever want to work with you again.


How much does one explain on a PhD application if an MA took 3 years instead of two?

From what I have been told, no one cares if it took you a little longer.

Especially if you don't have multi-year gaps in employment + education then there really isn't anything to explain. You could spend some words in your Statement of Purpose on explaining the good things that you did during that time (fieldwork and working with profs).


With your research plan, you need to convince a recruitment committee that you have a viable plan from which to launch your career.

Your plan will need to show the committee

that it is scientifically sound
that you have the skill set to carry it out (or know how you will acquire it)
that you understand what resources you need to carry it out
that you understand your funding streams
that there is something that gives you competitive advantage among the dozens of other people in the field vying for money from the same pool as you.

The weight of each of these considerations will be a function of your complete package.

So, the generic answer to all of your questions is "do what you need to do to accomplish the list above"

I suggest you work on your plan and carefully review it with some mentors.

As to the level of specificity, you shouldn't have to lay out complete experimental protocols, but you should be prepared to discuss each proposed line of experiments at that level.  In your statement, though, it would be quite useful to have specific hypotheses for each research path.

You should also be prepared to prioritize.  When asked about how you would spend the next five years, you should know the answer, and pretty specifically.


This is actually quite common in some fields, for both conference and journal submission, particularly when you have coordinated submission from a number of different participants in a complex project.

The way that I have handled this when I've done so is to have the citations initially as "submitted" and either bundle the other submissions as supplementary information for reviewers (when possible), or with a note saying "available on request" when the venue doesn't support supplementary information.  Another option is to make use of pre-print services like arXiv, though that can violate double-blind review.

Once the papers are accepted, you just change the camera-ready to the final information and the circular reference enters the literature without issue.  It gets more awkward if one paper is accepted and the other is not, but this can be resolved with the help of a pre-print service.


One of my professors made a rape joke. What should I do?

Speak with the professor, and give them the benefit of the doubt. Ask for an appointment, and bring another student if you feel uncomfortable doing it one-on-one. Most professors (hopefully) would not intentionally make such jokes -- give them the benefit of the doubt, allow them to explain themselves or apologize, and go from there. Following Hanlon's razor, my guess is that they were trying to make an inoffensive (or at least less-offensive) comment and botched it.

If this doesn't go well, you can escalate. The department chair, a trusted professor, or your university's Title IX office (in the US) are good starting places. In general, they will be looking for a pattern of behavior.

Edit: I'm surprised how much controversy this has generated. College students are adults, and the professor's (possible) transgression was an off-color joke in public -- not fondling or propositioning. I agree there is no place for such jokes in the classroom, so - what is the desired outcome here? Presumably, that he will explain or apologize, and not do it again. This was months ago, and he (apparently) hasn't done it again, so maybe no action is needed. If OP wants to make sure, and to get the explanation/apology, that's admirable - ask for it adult-to-adult. If they don't give it, escalate. But for something like this, it is my view that running to the ombudsman, without first raising your concerns directly with the professor, would be downright cowardly.


Is my professor allowed to change the day the class meets and mark us absent if we don't show?

Policies regarding what an instructor can, and cannot do, in a course tend to vary largely by institution, and even by department. It sounds to me like your best course of action is to politely raise your concerns to your professor, and see how she responds. It's possible that she's not aware of how her policies are inconveniencing her students, and if you explain why the policy is making it difficult for you to succeed and get the most out of the course, she may adjust accordingly. Note that if multiple students are being inconvenienced by this, it may be a good idea to discuss your concerns with the professor together (note that I didn't say you should tell the professor that other students agree with you, but rather that you should raise your concerns to her with your peers).

If you feel as though your concerns are not being heeded, then you may have to just deal with it as best you can until the semester ends. In my experience, professors tend to have a great deal of liberty in how they administer their policies, and there typically isn't much a student can do to challenge them. If it really becomes a problem, you could always discuss (again, politely) your concerns with your advisor, the department chair, or your school's ombudsman.


Academic Gowns and Hood Colours for Overseas Students Where the University Does Not Have One

Ask the university. There will be administrative offices and a secretariat of some kind, and they will be delighted to be able to help. It is a lot more interesting than most of the stuff they find themselves having to do.

The general rule is to wear the gown and hood corresponding to this university's equivalent degree if there is one, so if you are a masters student then presumably you will have a bachelor's degree and so the B.A. dress would be appropriate. But ask them, and they will happily tell you.


How to stay calm when receiving review notifications?

I've been in Stack Exchange for roughly 5 years now. Wrote quite a few questions and answers. Still, my heart pumps each time there's a notification of a comment for one of my posts.

No, I don't think you can escape from the fear of being rejected for something you emotionally invest into it. As long as it doesn't affect your health, you may want to feel relax when it's come.

Acknowledge your fear, and tell yourself that that fear is not scary may reduce the stress of not being able to control your fear. The fear from the notification is unavoidable, but the stress from not being able to control your fear is a secondary stress that you can control. Take a breath. Accept the fear.

If anything, I suggest you to practice mindfulness. It's a technique to not being overwhelmed by our emotions, and has been recognized as an effective way to reduce stress. It has been used in many programs and therapies for stressful people.

Source:
• Germer, C.K., R.D. Siegel, and P.R. Fulton, Mindfulness and Psychotherapy (Guilford Publications, 2005)
• Hofmann, S.G., An Introduction to Modern CBT: Psychological Solutions to Mental Health Problems (Wiley, 2011)


How to get funding as a third year PhD student for conferences and thesis write-up?

Everyone wants funding. This is not something you can just decide you want and achieve it within a few weeks. It is extremely competitive.

Generally, at least in the US and portions of Europe, professors obtain the funding and they pay the student. If your advisor or department doesn't want to fund you, you should strongly consider finding another one.

I have never heard of a student obtaining industry funding without substantial evidence of their success (and usually near the end of their PhD) and even then, it is in the form of a fellowship (e.g., IBM Fellowship). You could certainly apply to these but from what I have seen, you usually need to have done internships there and have a strong internal recommendation.

On the other hand, I have known a few students that drop to part-time near the end of their PhD and they start a full-time job somewhere. Then their company reimburses them for their tuition until they finish.

If you look at it from the perspective of a company, why would they want to fund a random student full-time? They are usually looking for late-stage students who are already successful and that they can trust, or they are looking for collaborations with faculty members.

Note: I was funded by a large tech company after a successful internship, however, the money went to my advisor rather than me directly because they said it was "too risky" to interact with a student directly, and preferred to work with a professor (and thus all the benefits and accountability of a universities's research support and legal team).


Moving between universities for PhD studies

It seems that you've got lots of great options available to you - kudos to you!  Given the situation you described, I don't think returning to university A will likely have a detrimental impact on your future.  If your work is good and you get several papers published at competitive journals/conferences/etc., that should matter much more.

The exception here might be if university C is considered far more rigorous than university A.  For example, switching from a state school to MIT or CalTech (though even this isn't a perfect analogy - it's largely field-dependent).  Outside of that though, the university itself will likely matter less than the research you're doing.

And as always - follow the funding :)


Does it make sense to translate my bachelor's thesis?

Yes I would translate it.
Some pros:

It helps you demonstrate your capabilities in research;
It may help you demonstrate your knowledge of the subject matter in your field if relevant;
It demonstrates that you are oriented toward communicating the findings of your research, which is a graduate capability they are looking to develop anyway; and
It shows initiative.

Some cons:

Its too expensive to translate;
Its too technical to translate;
You think your application would be stronger without it!

These are the only cons I can think of...and my guess is based on what you have said that the pros definitely outweigh the cons :-)


There are at least three basic author order schemes:

1) Alphabetical

2) In decreasing order of contribution

3) Split into junior and senior contributors, with juniors coming first in decreasing order of contribution, and then seniors in increasing order of contribution. [Often with just one senior spot]

In Computer Science, I've predominantly seen 1) and 2). An undergrad being at the end of an author list that is clearly not alphabetically ordered is a dead give-away for order type 2), and hence does not require particularly explanation.


How to explore/identify similar works in one's own field?

Scholar.Google.com, IEEE, and ACM
After every major conference in your field.
See 1, find a paper, then follow its references and the papers that cite it. Repeat.


Citing original publication date vs publication of the specific copy I'm reading

The year in the note citation needs to align with the year in the bibliography, so they have to be the same. Use the publication date for the translation you are quoting in the bibliography, as you have it now. You can follow CMS guidelines for citing a reprinted work, which allows you to include the original date of publication, but since you are working with a translation, it won't be 1867. It will be the date the translation was first published.

That said, you can include 1867 in the text of your article if its relevant to your argument.


Does the related work section need to be strictly about other's work only?

The objective of related works is to, well, show how other work is related to yours. It’s not only reasonable, but also expected that you say how other works are positioned with respect to yours. When I read the related work section I also want to understand exactly that “why” of relatedness. Doing so explicitly would really help your readers.


Math postdoc: 'endowed' postdoc vs. ordinary postdoc

I hope it is not true that most mathjobs postdoc ads are for "named postdocs", because these exist mostly at very elite places: I am not aware of more than a dozen of them altogether.  Generally there are on the order of 100 postdocs you can apply for at mathjobs.

Anyway, mathjobs is quite good at separating out various kinds of positions.  At my institution we currently have four different mathjobs ads including two different kinds of postdocs.  Of course you need to read carefully and understand the differences among all these positions (not all of our applicants do so).

I can go in and look if you insist (really; it's not a problem), but I strongly suspect that if you are only finding "named postdocs" then you are not reading carefully enough and missing the other postdocs offered by the same departments.  The vast majority of math postdocs really are available on mathjobs; I can't even think of another place that advertises these positions in any quantity.
It is possible, but I wouldn't assume so.  Again, mathjobs allows you to tailor your application to multiple positions at the same place.  For instance you may use the same recommendation letters but submit different cover letters, and you might submit a teaching statement for one position and not another.

If you have any questions about this, feel free to ask at the department of interest.

Added: Thanks to Noah Snyder, who pointed out that the "dozen" above is not accurate.  In fact that is the answer to a different question, namely how many departments offer postdocs under the name "Firstname Lastname Assistant Professor".  I would be interested to know which departments offer "named postdocs" of one kind or another.  I think it is more than 12 and less than 50.

Actually, I just checked, and 36 out of the top 55 math departments have named postdocs.  So probably there are about 50 altogether.


Can we cite/use publications from other disciplines?

As I have previously said in an answer to another question on this site, research is about telling the truth about facts of reality.  You can cite any fact of reality you want, from any source.  If you want to cite sources from other disciplines that is absolutely fine.  You can cite papers from any discipline.  You can cite a published academic paper, a newspaper article, a blog post, a letter, a tweet, the conditions written on the back of a bus-pass, or the graffiti written on the wall of the faculty toilets.  Any source of information that is relevant to your paper is fine.  So long as cited information advances your work, and you specify the source, and accurately transcribe the remarks, that is okay.

Generally academics stick mostly to citing peer-reviewed research appearing in academic journals so that they are dealing with reliable information.  Cross-disciplinary research frequently cites work from across disciplinary boundaries.  The main thing you will want to do to make sure your work is acceptable is to do your literature review well, and make sure you are citing relevant work that bears on your results.  You are unlikely to get a rejection for citing work that the referee hadn't thought of.  It is more likely you will get a rejection for failing to mention relevant published work that bears on your argument that the referee wants you to add.  For that reason, cross-disciplinary research generally requires citations from multiple fields.


Does posting papers on Academia.edu count as publishing?

Since nobody wrote it in an answer, I'll do it: the answer to your question depends on the journal, but in each field most journal would have about the same policy.

In some fields (e.g. mathematics, high energy physics), the answer is 'no': posting a preprint in Academia.edu, the arXiv, or on your web page does not prevent you to have your work published by a journal. Many publishers will even allow you to update your public preprint according to the referee's comments, only keeping the publisher-formated version behind a paywall (not all of them though:  Oxford University Press has a very damaging policy in this regard).

In other fields (e.g. some humanities at least in some countries, chemistry) the answer is often 'yes': many journal would reject your paper right away on the ground that it already has been "published" in the sense of being made public. Even if they don't check, they may ask you to pledge that you did not published the material previously in that broad sense, and lying on these kind of issue may be devastating to a career.

In other circumstances, the answer may be more subtle. Some very prestigious magazines as Nature, Science, PNAS may ask for some publications that the authors keep them secret until the journals communicates about the work. This is to ensure maximum media coverage, but of course it concerns only the very small portion of academic works that is considered both as very important for the field, and of great interest of a general audience.


Is It appropriate to put code in slides for a technical presentation?

It may or may not be appropriate, depending on your audience (I also feel this way about equations). A couple things to keep in mind:

If you have non-technical people in your audience, you'll likely lose them for these slides, and there's a risk you'll lose them entirely.
Even if people are technically-inclined, they now need to read your code block, interpret it in their mind, and think about it long enough to see your point. And they'll have the distraction of you talking to them at the time. That's a pretty steep thing to ask your audience to do.

Generally, I think you'll likely be better served talking about these issues conceptually, rather than with code, which will require people to wade through it. If you must include code blocks, make sure they are clear, in a very recognizable style (no personal quirks or idioms, clear variable names, etc.) and clearly annotated as you walk through it.

But honestly, I don't think I've ever seen a talk with code-as-content (beyond "These 2 lines instead of these 15!") that I thought was aided by having it there.


If I am understanding your situation correctly, when you were hired you had a certain understanding with your department and university about your duties, which included both teaching and research.  Since you don't say otherwise, it sounds like there are "standard" such duties in your department.  Also there was a standard contract, and by some strange mistake you were given and signed a different, nonstandard contract.  After four years of fulfilling your standard duties, the nonstandard contract has been brought to your attention.  Do I have all that right?

Now you are asking whether you should "put up a fight" about the fixing the mistaken contract.  If your question is a legal one, of course get a lawyer who is an expert in the specifics of your situation.

But are you really contemplating fighting against what you verbally agreed to when you took the job and the job you have been actually doing for the last four years because a contract you signed says otherwise and the difference may work out in your favor?  To me that sounds like horrible behavior.  If your bank had noticed after four years that they had mistakenly added a zero to your account balance, would you also fight the correction of the error?  Do you not have any ethical qualms about this?

As a justification you say that you wonder that if the situation were essentially reversed, correcting the oversight would be "a real fight with HR".  First of all: is this guess grounded in any kind of history with the HR department at your university?  Have they in fact been difficult with you in the past?  If not it seems like you are simply assuming bad faith.  Here's what I think would happen if you discovered your contract was all teaching and no research and tried to change it: there would be plenty of red tape, the entire process would take an order of magnitude longer than you felt that it reasonably should and would occupy too much of your time, but the final outcome would not really be in doubt due to the essential goodwill of the various parties, including people like your department chair/head who would come out on your behalf.

Aside from being ethically highly suspect, a decision to fight the change of your contract is likely to earn you the ill will of HR and other administration in your university and -- probably more importantly -- of the department chair/head and other faculty members.  You are contemplating not doing your share of the departmental work because of some technicality that you wonder whether you might be able to get away with.  To me that sounds like you are contemplating whether to reserve the right to try to screw over your colleagues at some later time.  Unless that is your actual goal, I would steer well clear of this.


Is it appropriate to ask for more than one recommendation letter from the same person

Is there some reason to think that the professors will need to write different letters of recommendation for the different universities?  If not, then the additional incremental effort of sending the same letter to several different places is minimal.  Though I am not a professor, my role is similar, and I, at least, do not mind when somebody wants me to send the same letter to a handful of different locations.  If you were applying to 20 places, that might be a different matter...


Academic Writing other than Publication for Grad School Admission

When you apply to a Ph.D. or research-based Master's degree program, we often look to see how much prior experience you have with the academic research process. This includes successfully working on research alongside a faculty advisor, and when possible producing the oral conference presentations and co-authoring the scholarship (publications) that document the findings.

When faculty evaluate graduate school applicants, we are excited when we see someone who already has experience with the research process that is fundamental to graduate school and when our peers (applicant's former advisors) can recommend her based on her performance. Producing publications is an incredibly important part of the research process, so it is obviously best when someone has seen work through to that finish line. We also understand that this sometimes just doesn't happen for undergraduate researchers for a variety of reasons.

While it is also helpful for us to simply see examples of your writing, this is not really why we value the publications of an applicant. Don't be too worried if you have not yet worked on research leading to publications; you still may be considered a high-potential applicant. Be sure to impress with clear and cogent writing in your Statement of Purpose, on your resume, on your linked webpage/blog, etc. Good luck!


24 years of personal research which needs to be academically recorded but how?

Options that come to mind:

Publish a monograph or a book. This requires either paying or somehow getting an academic publisher interested; depends heavily on what others think of your work.
Submit article(s) to a peer reviewed journal. This option will likely not work in practice if you have no ties with the academic world.
Produce the electronic version of the book, and offer it as a pdf in your own website.
Expose the research in blog form.


Should I change my PhD advisor when I find I got not enough advising?

There are some students who don't need a lot of direction and can find and analyze their own research problems. There are others (many others) who need more direction and even suggestions about problems. Likewise there are advisors who want to give a lot of direction, sometimes too much. And their others who don't, or who prefer to work only with their most advanced students. It can be a problem if there is a mismatch.

The two ways of curing the mismatch are begging for help and hoping that the advisor responds positively, and finding a different advisor who is more helpful at the point at which you currently are.

Perhaps your advisor depends a lot on those senior students and postdocs to give direction to the newer members of the "team". If you can find and exploit that help there, you can probably be successful. Otherwise you should consider your options for another advisor.

Don't spend a lot of time hoping it will get better. If you, or someone, takes some action that seems to be moving in a positive direction then you may be able to see what happens. But if nothing does, protect your options and your future.


Science Ph.D. to a sociological post-doc?

The only issue is finding a post doc that will accept you. That is up to them, of course. You will need to sell yourself and whatever skills you have. Some department that is happy about cross-disciplinary studies would be a good place to look.

Another possibility is to use a more science-y post doc and use the time and contacts to develop more of the skills used in sociology, though I'd guess that you are pretty familiar with statistical based research already.

The next issue would be to find a liberal arts college that wants those skills. Again, one that values cross disciplinary studies would be good. Many top places will put value on that. Again, you could start heavily committed to one of your skill areas and gradually move to a wider base through your research and taking advantage of teaching opportunities.

In general, though, I'd say it is do-able, but will take both a wide search for positions and a good way to present yourself to advantage in each case.

Finally, develop a wide circle of collaborators who can help you meld and move between the areas.


MSc. Eng. thesis - Failed experiment - How to put it in the thesis?

You need a slight mental twist. Your experiment was not a failure. The purpose of an experiment is to ask the real world a question, and unexpected answers from the real world are at least as interesting as ones you expected.

The question you asked the real world was "Does this experimental set-up work for Problem X?". The short answer to the question, based on your experiments, is "No". Of course, you will go into a lot more detail in your thesis.

The early sections of your thesis will be much the same as they would have been if you had got the results you expected.

In 4:2, you describe your tests of your experimental set-up. To the extent that you got results at all, you do compare them to the model.

In 4:3 you discuss what you learned from building and testing your experimental equipment. If you are getting different results from model and experiment, you need to discuss why the model is more reliable than the experiment. One learns more from unexpected results than from expected ones, so this section will be richer and more interesting than it would have been if you had got the results you expected.

Your question contains the outline for "Conclusion and future work", easily identified through the keyword "concluded":

  I've concluded the experimental equipment must be rebuilt using
  different components

The conclusion is that the equipment you built is not suitable for your problem. The future work is to rebuild it using different components. Again, you need to go into a lot more detail. What aspects of your set-up were unsuitable? Why do you think particular changes might improve it?


There are two, as I see it very different questions you pose. as for the aptness of the sources, the Shea and Morgan paper is a publication that can be referenced because it is traceable and likely to be remaining for a long time in unaltered state. It is also published by a formal body.

When it comes to citing prices the question is perhaps trickier. Not knowing the market for helium-3 I do not know where the prices are determined but usually there is some form of exchange that determines prices based on the market and this makes prices shift quickly. In such cases, one needs to find a source where the market swings are documented and stored so that one can cite a price at a specific time in a time series that people can revisit if they wish to check the correctness of your assessments. This type of referencing is common in economics when discussing price variations, trends etc.


What to expect, prepare, bring to a short-noticed meeting solicited by a University Press editor?

It is unlikely that any editor is going to make any commitment to you about publishing your work, other than a book idea. You should come to the meeting with the same attitude. Don't make commitments or sounds that seem like commitments. Take a draft of your work (or an abstract) and be prepared to (a) listen and (b) sound interested.

Get and give business cards.


According to Section 7.08 (page 210) of the 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the APA,

  Do not italicize the names of software, programs, or languages.

Furthermore,

  Reference entries are not necessary for standard software and programming languages, such as Microsoft Word or Excel, Java, Adobe Photoshop, and even SAS and SPSS.  In text, give the proper name of the software, along with the version number.  Do provide reference entries for specialized software or computer programs with limited distribution.

An example of a reference entry:

  Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (Version 2) [Computer software]. Englewood, NJ: Biostat.


Is getting into MSc programs in Europe easier than PhD in US?

Master's education in Europe is largely considered an "undergraduate" degree that follows the bachelor's degree, rather than being the prerequisite for the PhD. Thus, admission to a European master's program tends to be much less competitive than PhD admissions in the US. Now, if you're applying to a top program in Europe, it can be as difficult and competitive as in the US. But the average master's program in Europe has a lower bar to admission, so long as you've done the necessary undergraduate studies considered a prerequisite of the bachelor's degree program.

The rules about what is considered acceptable varies, but a few rules of thumb apply:

In a “consecutive” master’s, which requires a bachelor’s in the same discipline, you need to be able to catch up with coursework in less than one year (sometimes one semester, if the program is competitive).
In a non-consecutive master’s, you just need to have a suitable bachelor’s degree to enroll.