Does Pop-Science involvement hurt one's reputation?

If certain fields of academia do in fact frown upon "popularizing" science, then they are shooting themselves in the foot.

One of the most important ways of securing funding in different disciplines is through getting support by the federal governments in which they are working. Convincing politician X that you should fund research on doohickey X and widget Y to solve problem Z rather than funding their new shopping mall or football stadium requires convincing them that your research is important and worthwhile. The key to doing this is having a message to sell—something that the lobbyists and staff persons working for the government officials can take to them and say "this is what you need to know about why this is important."

An excellent way of doing this is to take part in writing columns, producing features for television, and other "popular" methods of outreach. You'll have to figure out how to distill your message in a way that's exciting for the viewer or reader, and that will help no only you but your peers as well.


Writing a master thesis in a totally new field?

It might be different from country to country, but where I did my Masters project (Denmark) your judged on what is expected to be learned (with of course a basic-level start knowledge) within the allocated time for the project. Hence, I would not advise to take a year out to get acquainted.

However, it should also be noted that in Denmark you get money to study and so a year of would mean you would need another income. Opposite to other places (like US) where it cost you money to study.


Finding authors who published in a certain journal

You can do this in Web of Science and Scopus - just search by "Publication name" and  "Source title" respectively.


I reported plagiarism to a questionable journal. How long should I give them to amend?

The responses that you received from the journal show that it is not just questionable but clearly predatory and rubbish. No sane scientific publication venue would say 1) wholesale plagiarism doesn't count in the introduction and 2) it can be addressed just by adding a reference.

The journal clearly has no interest or intention toward rectifying the situation, and it's almost a pure waste of your time to interact with the journal more at this point.

At this point, there are two actions that make sense for you to do:

If it's a "pay-to-publish" open access journal, make sure it gets included in the predatory publisher list by contacting Jeffrey Beall
Report to Wikipedia, who can decide whether they care enough to pursue.

After that, let it drop: the internet is filled with vast sewers of low quality junk, both scientific and otherwise, and you've got better things to do with your time.


Should I cite the interviewer or the interviewee when citing a news article?

A standard MLA method for citing a published interview is described here:

  [Interviewer]. Interview with [Interviewee]. [venue] (year): [pages]. [medium].

e.g.,

  Lois Lane.  Interview with Superman. Daily Planet (1963): 12-13. Print.

As noted in the comments, you would then refer to it in text using per the style with whatever prose is most clear and lucid, e.g., "In an interview with Lois Lane (Lane, 1963), Superman claimed that his only weakness was kryptonite."

Citing in the APA style appears to be similar, and all other styles should have an equivalent as well.


How to handle ego clashes within an academic department

The best advice anyone can give you, in my opinion, is: Don't get involved.

You're entering a new environment and it's in your best interests to just get along with everybody, as you already suggest you are trying.

If the issue pops up in any discussions, just avoid it. The last thing you want to do is get caught-up in a territorial dispute of which you probably don't want to know the origins, and that serves no purpose to anybody, least of all to you.

I would only advise discussing things with the Chair if these divisions start negatively affecting your work, and only discuss it in terms of how it affects your work. As you've pointed out yourself, chances are he/she can't do anything about it, or worse, he/she may be involved.

Things like this can happen even in the best departments, and the best thing that can happen in such a case is that new staff bridge whatever divide may be there by ignoring it completely.


That is pretty normal. That does not mean it is good, but it is not worse than your average university. Two things play a role here:

First, universities are just large organizations with all the bureaucracy and inefficiency that comes with that.

Second, universities are often self organizing, that is, the professors take a large part of the management duties. That is a good thing, in the sense that decisions are made by people who know what they are talking about. But it also means that a large part of those tasks are performed by people who are not primarily managers and have competing priorities (research, teaching).


What percent of assistant professors generally receive tenure, and how does this percent vary depending on both school and field?

This is actually quite a difficult question to answer specifically. Here is a brief paper reviewing some of the reasons why good data is unavailable on even very basic questions, together with some references to what is available. In the U.S. case, everyone agrees that, in general, the higher-ranked one's university, the more difficult it is to get tenure. Departments at some elite schools are notorious for their unwillingness or inability to grant tenure to their junior faculty over a very long period—in some cases, decades. (Just last year in my own field, for example, one of the leading departments tenured one of its junior faculty for the first time in more than twenty years. This is an extreme example, but you get the point.)

Beyond the well-known general patterns and the (sometimes widely-reported) particular horror stories, though, many very interesting questions remain difficult to address systematically—including your one about expanding versus stable fields. The question is complicated by the fact that the institution of tenure itself is changing, as is its role within the university. As Wikipedia notes, in the United States "The period since 1972 has seen a steady decline in the percentage of college and university teaching positions in the US that are either tenured or tenure-track. United States Department of Education statistics put the combined tenured/tenure-track rate at 56% for 1975, 46.8% for 1989, and 31.9% for 2005. That is to say, by the year 2005, 68.1% of US college teachers were neither tenured nor eligible for tenure; a full 48% of teachers that year were part-time employees.


Asking math PhD admissions for a decision sooner, given that I have received an offer from a good school

You can ask, but the most likely answer is that no information can be given. Decisions may not be finalized until near the deadline. There may be regulations that prohibit giving out information to individuals prior to agreed-on dates.

Mentioning the other problem does you no good and might possibly do harm. The admissions committee isn't going to disrupt its procedures because of such information.

I'd suggest that you just make a decision.

Another possibility, of course, is to ask the program that accepted you to let you delay your acceptance for a bit - a short period. They may be willing or not, but if you are a really good candidate the chances for success here are a bit better than for the other option. (My opinion, only)


On writing critical review: is there any threat?

Have you tried talking to the authors directly?

Reach out to the authors before you publish.  Don't phrase it as a criticism.  Try something like.

  I'm confused by how your paper used X, Y, and Z.  The normal interpretation is W.


How should "et al." be used for parenthetical versus non-parenthetical citations using the APA citation style?

I think that the form

  Smith, Jones, and Roberts (2012) write that bla bla bla bla. Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla (Smith, Jones & Roberts, 2012).

does not follow the recommended APA style.  That is, I think the correct way to write it is

  Smith, Jones, and Roberts (2012) write that bla bla bla bla. Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla (Smith et al., 2012).

where the first citation is the first citation "in text" and the second citation is the first citation of this work "in a parenthetical format."

Look at page 43 (figure 2.1) of the 6th edition of the APA manual.  Lines 2 and 3 of page 6 of the sample paper has the first citation of "Hahn, Carlson, Singer, & Gronlund, 2006" in parenthetical form

  (consistent with Hahn, Carlson, Singer, & Gronlund, 2006; Mather & Knight, 2006)

and on lines 17 and 18, a citation of the same work in text is given as Hahn, et al. (2006)

  Similarly, Hahn et al. (2006) also found no age differences [...]

Now, it is not certain that the latter citation is the first citation in text of this work (because some text in the sample paper is obscured).  But looking at other papers in journals that follow the APA format seems to confirm my answer.

For example, a paper in the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education (vol. 43, no. 2, p. 133) (which explicitly states that manuscripts submitted to it "should conform to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.)") has a first citation in text

  In their article in Mathematics Teacher, Cirillo, Drake, and Herbel-Eisenmann (2009) situated their work on curriculum vision as described below.

Then a block quotation from this work ends in the first citation in parenthetical form

  (Cirillo et al., 2009, p. 71)


Conflict of interest/collusion in academic scenario

If this is a real, rather than a hypothetical, then yes, Joe has been unethical and probably criminal, though it might be hard to make the case.

In theory you should bring it to the attention of the authorities, but you will be creating a painful situation for yourself, conceivably being charged with slander. An anonymous letter to authorities would be safe, but easy to ignore.

A group of accusers would be more likely to be heard than an individual. A complaint transmitted by a trusted authority such as a lawyer would be relatively safe and the lawyer could advise you on your potential liability.

But the charge is a serious one.


My work is being used without acknowledgement

If as you report, it is a clear ethical breach. It should be mentioned to his professor. But you will want proof of the case, such as your old codes or emails via which you corresponded.

The reasons for not doing this are largely political, if you need a relationship with this prof (or the student) and think this will jeopardize it.

But if  you want acknowledgement only, perhaps telling the other student that you plans to make a class for plagiarism with his professor may be enough to get him to behave better - at least this time. You could even send him the paragraph of acknowledgement that you would expect him to include.

However, be careful here to avoid any claim that might be construed as slander. In making the case talk/write about what you contributed without characterizing his behavior. Just the facts, not accusations. If he refuses to do the right thing you could, perhaps, simultaneously send a case file to him and the professor.


Do I need to include page numbers when citing indirectly in the text?

It depends on the context, of course.

I am a reviewer on an academic journal and there, we ask authors for the page.

I've also been told by a prof that, for a homework essay, he only spot checks a few cites because he "knows the author's voice," (may be more applicable to certain fields than to others) and if the quote is suspect then he will check more thoroughly. If I were you, I'd include the page cite just to be safe. I'm assuming this is for a class - has your prof said anything about how stringent the cites need to be? That would be more determinative than SE's speculation.


I would recommend blogging. This seems like the standard procedure for explaining your papers both to the lay audience and to other mathematicians (potentially ones that don't work on your specific problem). The blog format is preferable over arXiv or journal publications for reaching the lay audience because it is more accessible. Links to blogs are easier to share and faster to read than journals (which might be behind paywall!) or pdfs from arXiv. A blog setting also allows you to interact with your audience through the comments, this is the best way to help guide them through any confusion.

A blog setting can also be used to provide casual tours through proofs for experts and graduate students. This has recently started in TCS. Since this is aimed at the slightly technical audience, it is more appropriate to put on the ArXiv, although I would still advocate blogs.


How many points should a journal paper have?

I'm going to take a fairly strong opinion here and say that every paper, no matter how large or how small, should have precisely one core point.

That one core point may have as many or as few lines of evidence in support of it as are needed given the research context: that will be very dependent on the particulars of the paper and the community to which it is addressed.  Everything, however, should support the one core point, whatever that may be.  If you organize a paper otherwise, then in my experience both as writer, reviewer, and editor, it will tend to result in a paper that is poorly focused and scientifically weak.

So if you find yourself wanting to make multiple points with a paper, I would recommend considering the following two questions:

Are these different points really different aspects of the same core point?
Should this really be more than one paper, with different papers focusing on different core points that require different lines of evidence?

In the case of a new language, for example, there must be some key motivator for building the language, which is what you want to highlight.  At the same time, a new language will be much less mature and well-developed than many existing languages, and so there are certain to be aspects of comparison where it will show up poorly---but which may not matter.  The question then is this: what is the important thing to be learned, relative to existing pieces of work, and how do you provide evidence supporting the notion that you've done this better than existing languages and yet not introduced fatal flaws in other aspects.


How to deal with presentation time running out in a scientific conference?

First, some conferences have really strict timing and you will be given no extra time.
Second, if there is important slide or two, just do it. But make sure that you only slightly extend your time (e.g. 10%). If you are going to extend it by 50%, or 200% (I saw that, and I was pissed at both the speaker and even more - the chair for allowing that) - please, don't.
Side note: as a chair I am an ass. And while I give something like 1 min grace time (for 15 min talks), then after that:

speaker: "But there is an important slide afterwards!"
me: "But not as important as other participants' time."

EDIT: By all means I recommend rehearsing and finishing on, or before, time. I only answer the question - whether to use extra 40 sec for 2 unfinished slides or not. "You should prepare to avoid such situation" is as on-topic as "you should go fishing instead of attending a conference".
(If the question is "Given X, should I do A or B?" all legitimate answers should assume "X", even if it is a suboptimal/nasty/unprofessional/embarrassing situation.)


Accepting a PhD offer from my tutor's/adviser's "rival"?

I think that the correct answer is: it depends.

Theoretically, you should be able to accept the offer and tell your current adviser right away. However, practice and theory do not always agree. I know of a case where a student received a lower (but still good) grade for her master thesis than originally was intended, after she turned down the offer to do a PhD thesis with the her master thesis adviser.

So, you will need to assess whether your adviser's ego would be able to deal with you performing a PhD at his rival's group. When you think that this is not the case, or when you are not certain, then it is better to inform him after your master thesis grade has been determined.

Things are a bit different when you actually would prefer to perform a PhD thesis under the guidance of your current adviser. Then, I would suggest that you inquire about such possibilities. You do not need to mention that you have an offer from his rival.

Finally, I would like to stress that it is your life and academic career, so it is in your own best interest to choose the path that suits you best (and not necessarily your adviser's).


Is it possible to get perfect score in TOEFL's Speaking Question Type 1 (Personal preference) without using examples?

I'm not sure about the relevancy of TOEFL prep questions on the Academia Stack Exchange (you're probably better off using a forum like this one) but to answer your question: The official guide to the TOEFL published by ETS states:

  This question will always ask you both to describe something (for example, an  important event, a favorite activity, an influential person) and to give reasons-to  explain why the event was important, why the activity is one of your favorites,  how the person influenced you, and so on. Be sure to respond to all parts of the  question. Your response should include specific details and/or examples because they will make your description informative and your reasons comprehensible.

If you think you can make your description informative and your reasons clear without concrete examples, do so. In my opinion, it is better to stick the official guide's recommendation. However, it does not specify any specific number of reasons and examples. I got a full score and I only gave one reason but elaborated on it with a specific example and a detailed argument.


How to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak while organizing a conference?

Regarding remote conferences, these have been successful. Often the motivating factor has been mitigating climate impact. For example, Yale Climate Connections wrote an article giving advice for running virtual conferences. Author Sara Peach presents three kinds of virtual conferencing, all of which have been done successfully:

remote presentations in a traditional conference format. If people choose to not travel, they can still remote in or follow the session on social media. (Example: AGU)
hub-based conference, where people gather in regional clusters. Each hub has some of its own content but are able to watch each other's presentations. (Example: International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition)
an entirely remote conference, where people record and upload videos of presentations and conferencegoers have weeks to ask questions and interact. (Example: A Nearly Carbon-Neutral Conference Model)

I'll add that an entirely virtual synchronous conference has also been done successfully. One example is NACADA, the Global Community for Academic Advising, which ran a 24-hour live-streaming virtual conference.

The mixed-conference or hub models may or may not be feasible, since they would still involve people gathering in some models, and you aren't sure yet whether that will be feasible on any scale. Also, developing regional hubs would take time you don't have.  Thus, if you decide to go entirely virtual, a synchronous-with-live-streaming conference and a asynchronous recorded approach have been done, and the resources linked should provide a way to start researching or planning that model. I also advise contacting your own IT department about the possibility.


Would it annoy a professor if a student does not reply their email concerning the career development of the student?

If you find a productive path then the professors will be happy to know.
They probably don’t keep a list of reference leters with “got a job” or “not got a job”... At least I don’t...
Just nice to get an email from a student from 2, 5 or more years ago with an update.


Aren't professionals from different countries the same?

Since the treatment of professionals of all kinds is highly variable by country and partly determined by long lived cultural factors, there is no place to get a definitive answer unless someone has done some research on it.

In some cultures, parts of India come to mind, professors are very highly regarded as they can provide a boos upwards in a stratified country. I've had students literally kneeling at my feet (just for lack of chairs) in my office. When I expressed discomfort at that, some students from India said that, no, it feel perfectly natural to be kneeling at the feet of their guru.

In some other places, professors get spat upon.

However, to say things are equal is a mistake. Often a good education depends on an institution having a lot of money for, say, laboratories, as you note. It is harder to get qualified to a certain standard in poorer places than in richer ones, just because of available resources. I suspect there is a positive correlation between the quality of education in a country and the economic well being there. It isn't perfect, of course. Even in the US, the quality of pre-college education is suffering from want of resources in spite of the US being a fairly rich country.

But cultural differences can also lead to bad effects such as discrimination. Some well qualified medical doctors, moving to the US, find that they aren't allowed to practice medicine and the path to a license is very arduous.


PhD consisting mainly of programming work

What you are describing is a common situation in applied computer science.

There are many academic sub-fields where a good chunk of the work is a bit menial. For example, in robotics, testing a new approach may involve several months of work in the lab even if the new approach can be concisely described on one page. This is because roboticists care about stuff actually working - it does not suffice to construct new algorithms that work well in theory, you have to demonstrate that they really do - and a video taken in the lab is one of the best ways to do so. A lot of code needs to be written for getting all parts of the robot working together, and often research groups develop software frameworks to support their work. The frameworks themselves are normally scientifically not so interesting, but they prepare the actual scientific work. The situation in your research group seems to be similar.

So how does scientific work in such an applied field? (1) First of all, once the framework is done, the interesting scientific questions can be tackled not only theoretically, but also experimentally. Also (2), when you try to put together something that just works, you often realize that the current state of the art is insufficient in some aspects. You improve them to get your example running, and then you check if your improvement is sufficient for publication.

You seem to have been told that case (2) is how things are supposed to work in your case. But you may also want to ask your advisor about her/his plans on research work of kind (1). Often, these frameworks are built with a question of part (1) in mind. Note that it may also be that during the research work, a lot of technical debt has accumulated in the framework of your research group. Often, Ph.D. students are the only ones who are working on that as BSc or MSc students are not experienced enough, and postdocs and professors are too busy for this. That is often seen to be OK as long as there is sufficient interaction in the group such that Ph.D. students working on the technical debt can still participate in the scientifically interesting work of the research group at the same time.


Hiding my first GRE scores from university

There's basically no reason to do this unless the first test marks you as having cheated on the exam or something exceptional in that direction.

Reasons to support what I'm saying:
1. At most (all?) institutions, GRE scores compose only one small piece of a large part of your graduate admissions application.

Unlike the LSAT, the standard practice is to just use the highest score rather than average them.
For some institutions, the value of GRE scores is to filter out exceptionally bad applicants (though others don't do this at all). And this is generally done on the basis of just a single score.
For other institutions, it's more about getting you funding from the graduate school at larger than any particular interest of the department.

Since having had previously a lower score is not meaningful in most graduate applications, it's best just to include it. Conversely, engaging in shenanigans to hide your previous scores might draw unwelcome attention to you as someone who is trying to hide something.


You are clearly in a tricky situation that the usual customs of academic publishing are ill-prepared to deal with. There definitely doesn't seem to be a standard, off-the-shelf solution to your problem like some kind of registry for anonymous authors. However, with a bit of creativity there might be a path forward. I suggest the following:

Agree to collaborate with the researcher from country C, but make clear to him/her that you would like your identity to be kept secret for an indefinite period. Make sure that the collaborator is okay with mentioning you as an anonymous coauthor not just in the paper you end up publishing but also in talks, presentations, posters etc. Make sure this is a person reliable enough to trust on such a serious matter, and keep in mind that as with any secret, there is always an unavoidable risk that the truth will come out and somehow make itself known to officials in your country.
If/when you write a paper on the project, have the collaborator submit it to a journal, asking the journal to list you as an anonymous coauthor, under a name such as "John Doe", with a note explaining that this author chooses to remain anonymous due to fear of political persecution. I cannot be sure, but this strikes me as a request that a reasonable journal is likely to agree to. The journal may ask to have your identity disclosed to them so that they can at least have it on record for legal reasons. It may be okay to reveal your identity to them (which could actually help later on in your career when you wish to get the credit for the work), but keep in mind that this again increases the risk that the secret will come out before you intended it to or will become known to the wrong people.
If/when you ever wish to claim credit for the work in connection with job applications or other career-related reasons, make sure you have a reliable promise from your collaborator to vouch that you are indeed the coauthor, as well as some supporting evidence like email records, files, notes, etc. E.g., you and the collaborator can plan to have him/her send a letter of recommendation explaining the situation if and when you need it. Or, you can have the collaborator publicly disclose your authorship, e.g. in a signed letter he/she will send to you that you can post on your website. If the journal knows your identity you can ask for similar confirmations of your authorship from the journal.

Keep in mind that it may be good to have a backup plan in case something goes wrong, e.g., the collaborator dies or turns out to be unreliable, or is worried about political repercussions for him/herself in country C. Having supporting evidence as I mentioned above, and having a few other people you trust know about your authorship, will all make it easier for you to confirm your authorship if and when you want to. Of course, the more people know your secret, again the higher the risk that the truth will come out in an unintended way.

The thing to remember in this analysis is that there is no approach that is entirely without risk. Given that political persecution is no joking matter, you would be well-advised to give very serious thought to the risk you are taking versus the possible reward. I don't know which countries you're referring to in the question, but I can think of examples where if your actions became known you could easily be accused of espionage and thrown in jail for many years.


How to subscribe to journals so that I regularly receive only the Titles and Abstracts without necessarily the full content of the papers?

For a full-fledged subscription with access to all articles, look for the 'Subscription' section of the website: https://www.nature.com/nrd/subscribe. Usually, researchers are affiliated at a research institution so that they can get access to the journals through their institutional subscriptions (usually through university libraries).
However, it seems that you would be content with the headlines and abstracts of the latest articles of that journal. I see at least five possibilities for you to stay up-to-date with that journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery:

Regularly visit the journal's website.
Register for their e-mail
alerts (through this link).
Make use of their RSS feed
(here - use a RSS reader for this purpose, such as Feedly, which you can also use on your mobile phone).
Follow the journal on Twitter (here is their account).
Program your own
app to stay up-to-date with that journal by using the
(machine-readable) CrossRef API (access it with the ISSN of that journal - the
link would be this one).


Offering Authorship Prospects To Professors For MSc Thesis

Since you are tentative about whether this would be acceptable, I suggest that you put that idea off for a while, at least. Talk to your advisor about the issue. It might be that co-authorship of any kind might not get you to your degree. You need to find out about that.

But the best option might be if you could work with someone with more math experience, even a professor, who could teach you the techniques you need. At a minimum they could offer advice about how the original paper was done so that you can reproduce the results. They might just be able to point you to a source for learning the needed technique.

This might be considered different than helping you with your own paper and might not result in co-authorship, depending on the questions you ask and the help you get. An acknowledgement would be appropriate, of course. But if co-authorship is ok at your institution, then a local one might be better than one with the original authors.


Why does a US/Canadian STEM PhD 'almost' always comes with monetary assistance while a British PhD doesn't?

It does, supervisors in the UK can support PhD candidates with funding - based on the research projects they are recruited to...

Some PhD's have funding through external companies especially those in some engineering disciplines - usually found in universities that have strong links with industry such as research involving stress & structures (I remember some funded by Westland...)


Sadly enough it is pretty common. Not universal, but more common in certain fields than others. You can fight it, but I recommend that you don't.

The reasons for letting it go is that you have finished and have a position (I assume). Over the course of your career, this sharing of first authorship on one paper will mean little, even if it is based on your dissertation. But the good will of your advisor, and possibly the other student can pay dividends in the future.

Your dissertation work is your first work, but, hopefully, not your best ever. And having the old professor being willing to work with you to advance your career and so breaking ties now is probably a sub-optimal move.

Yes, fairly normal. Questionable ethics. But optimize a path for yourself, and a single paper is only a small part of it. Yes, I know it is disheartening. But the long view is worth considering.

And, I've assumed you are A, here, hence the wording.


What research explains political attitudes of academics?

I really do not think we are going to get to any causal relationship here. One thing you might want to consider is the link between IQ and politics.

Smart people (generally) tend to be more liberal:
https://theconversation.com/do-smart-people-tend-to-be-more-liberal-yes-but-it-doesnt-mean-all-conservatives-are-stupid-57713

Childhood IQ in Britain, for a 1970s cohort, predicts voting for more liberal parties (Greens and Lib Dems):
https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/8896159/childhood_intelligence_predicts_voter.pdf

This answer is only meant as a starting point. You would need to consider all of the evidence from across the world (perhaps the reverse is true, in general, for example. And perhaps other variables come into play).


How likely is that a high school student has a paper published in a peer reviewed journal without any help from a professor?

It's unlikely but not impossible.

To use an example, I once had a colleague reviewing a paper where a high school student produced some results from a commonly used mathematical model in epidemiology. While not duplicative, they weren't exactly novel. Yes, no one had published for this model and this disease in this population, but these results were very much of a "Yes...and?" variety.

But the journal in question was pushing the "Papers should be technically correct, and excitement or novelty is less important."

I don't know the final outcome of that paper, but it's conceivable that it could have been published.


Can I use one job offer to speed up another offer (on my dream job)?

I recently applied for this position, and I think I'd be a great fit, but I have another offer in hand. I'd much rather be a part of University B's project, however. When might you know what candidates you are interested in?"

That is almost perfect. Instead of asking when they will know, tell them when you need to know by. With two weeks notice it is not clear what they can do, but they probably could tell you if you are ridiculously strong (think an associate professor who is ready to be promoted to full professor applying for an assistant professor position), a reasonable candidate, or not in the running. You may want to talk to the university that made the offer and see if the deadline can be extended.

For an extremely qualified candidate with an application that stands out, and I find that a dubious statement, a university could move you to the top of the short list, interview you, and make an offer in under a week. That said, it is extremely unlikely that a search committee would be so impressed that it decides to move that fast.


What is the purpose of an e-book with random verbatim abstracts pulled from journals?

I don't know if it's legal (it could depend on what counts as fair use, for example), but I wouldn't be concerned.  I don't see any likelihood that this will harm you.

It's possible that they asked the journal for permission to reprint the abstract, but I'd guess they just grabbed it from the web.  The "journalists obtained a quote" stuff may be intended to make it look like a press release or news article, rather than a reprinted abstract.  One positive side effect is that this makes it clear that the publisher is quoting you describing your work, rather than that you chose to publish an abstract in this venue.

I don't know why the publisher would compile these volumes.  They have no academic value whatsoever, but it's easy to speculate about motives:

If these volumes are assembled by programs scraping the web, then the publisher only needs to sell a handful of them to make a profit.  With thousands of volumes available, they can presumably find a few suckers who will pay for one, or perhaps even careless librarians they can sell subscriptions to.
Maybe the volumes are used for content farming, to try to mimic genuine content and thereby attract web searchers (so the publisher can sell ads or otherwise exploit these visits).
They might also be used to create the illusion of academic respectability for the publisher, by creating a big catalog full of books that look reasonable at first glance (but not at second glance).
It could be someone who is genuinely trying to perform a useful service and simply doesn't recognize how useless this is.

If this bothers you, you could bring it to the attention of your publisher.  If they didn't authorize the use of the abstract, then they'll decide whether they can or should do anything about it.


Should I inform other project's members about my work on an idea which they are not initially interested in

Congratulations on publishing a paper in the face of a lack of initial interest from Team B and your supervisor. That shows valuable tenacity.

I think, however, that you should have informed Team B as your work progressed, and certainly before publication. It is quite likely that you would have convinced members of Team B of the value of your work over time, and perhaps been able to involve one or more of Team B in your research.

From Team B's perspective, you have encroached on their territory, and published a paper which perhaps they feel they should have had a hand in (read: been co-authors of). Keeping all your team members informed of your work is good practice. Whether they should have been included as co-authors on your paper is a matter of your own publication policies.

Did Team A know about your work?


To what extent is reviewing work beneficial for young researcher's career?

I judge my review opportunities based on the venue: if it is a known good venue, or if it is a little-known venue but there are good people organizing, then it is a good place to give service.  You might end up with all bad papers (after all, in a selective conference most papers are rejected), but you'll still learn things about the process and the way that other people are thinking about the field, and you'll give service that will help a venue or people that you like (and it's not bad on your CV).

Don't waste your time on junk venues: if a venue is not serious, you are only degrading yourself by associating with it.  Note, however, that "junk" is completely different than "low impact" or "high acceptance rate"---in many areas of computer science, a lot of the really interesting new work and research discussion originates in workshops or symposia that have very low impact and high acceptance rates (consider, for example, the AAAI Symposia).  What is important is whether the people and organizations involved are credible and likely to attract interesting work.


Should I do handover of tools and methodologies I have developed?

Yes, I'm afraid you do need to hand over all work product that you created while employed. You were part of a team and if you try to subvert the team by withholding things that arise from your employment on the team you are trying to blackmail them into keeping you employed. I smell a lawsuit here.

But you should cooperate fully just as a way to boost your own future career. How do you want to be spoken of in this field? Do you hope that people will want to collaborate with you in the future? What value will your tools have if no one wants to come near you in the future.

And without you or your contribution, the team will find someone who can provide an equivalent service. You may feel indispensable, but you are not.

Sorry to be so harsh.


Can I use images from my published papers in my thesis without copyright infringment?

You will have to read the copyright transfer form that YOU have signed. Sometimes, there are several options on whether you keep the right to reuse your work.
In my personal experience, you often have some limitations on how you can reuse your material. Sometimes, you will have to place a reference on where this paper has been published first.

However, this entirely depends on what you have signed.


What happens if a conference doesn't get enough submissions?

For a conference without integrity, it can of course simply accept whatever washes up on the shore.

For a conference with integrity, however, there is generally a good deal of flexibility in the structure of a conference program.  Putting together a program is always a delicate balance of talk length vs. number of tracks vs. plenary events like keynotes and panels vs. breaks, lunches, etc.  Thus, if the number of submissions is low, but still enough for a viable meeting, the organizers will simply end up with less papers and a more relaxed meeting pace.  You can easily flex the number of talks up or down by 50% in even a single track conference by playing with the schedule structure.  For a multi-track conference, it's even easier to scale the number of tracks.

If the submissions are very low, to the point where it is impossible to fill even a very relaxed schedule with reasonable talks, that's a different story. It's unlikely to happen all at once, because it would take a remarkable collapse to be down by 50% in a single year. In any case, societies like IEEE or ACM provide a conference with financial insurance, so that it will not be a complete disaster on a fiscal level, at least.  The next year, however, the society may no longer be willing to sponsor the conference...


Is there a site where I can look for potential collaborators on an academic project that I'm pursuing all by myself?

I know you're looking for a web site, but I think you're unlikely to find one. With typical web anonymity it's hard to build trust and have open conversations. The number of people qualified and interested in working on a certain problems is often quite small, and the chance of them all being on the same web site is then even smaller.
So, this is typically one role of conferences and workshops, although this can really depend on the field. Luckily, these days (this may change back in two years) most of these are happening online in very accessible formats, so it might be much easier than normal to participate.
Workshops tend to be a slightly less formal presentations of work - if you can find a workshop where you can present you might find others who are interested. Similarly, if you find others presenting at a workshop or conference, you might be able to discuss collaboration opportunities.
A few weeks ago ICML included online socials where people could meet up and talk about proposed topics. This sort of thing could have worked really well for your purposes, and I'm sure future ML conferences will continue to have these types of meetups.
Of course, typical social interaction rules apply - not everyone will be willing and/or interested in collaborating.


Can an article published in a non-peer reviewed venue later undergo peer review?

I haven't heard of this happening, but I suspect what would happen in your example is that the author would write an "extended" version of the article, perhaps including a few additional results or more details.  They could submit it to Science or wherever, which would review it like any other paper.  It's not duplicate publication because it's a different paper, and Science would likely still consider it "novel" because it hasn't been published in an academic journal.

They should certainly inform Science of the previous publication, but I don't think it'd be a barrier to republication if the paper really was good, and if the additional content was substantial.

In practice, it'd be necessary to rewrite the paper anyway, because the audiences and the expectations of the outlets would be completely different.  The New York Times wouldn't want a paper full of technical details, and Science would insist on having the technical details.

If there were copyright issues (e.g. the Times held the copyright and wouldn't give permission to publish an adapted version in Science), then the author could rewrite the text of the paper.  This makes it a different work for copyright purposes even if they both describe the same results.

I've never heard of any system of "certifying" a previously published article as peer reviewed, like you suggest.  However, there is the somewhat related concept of an overlay journal, in which the journal effectively "certifies" a preprint.  The journal provides the peer review, while arXiv provides the hosting.


Cold emailing another grad student at your institution to ask a question

Nope, this would be totally appropriate.
If they don't respond, your advisor could escalate to their advisor.


Inability to develop myself when working with strong co-author

In order to develop your personal skills, you need to invest time, and the time that your coauthor spends on solving "your problems" doesn't count. The best way to use your coauthor to improve your skills  is to analyze everything they do and ask questions when you don't understand something. It's like having a free tutor (well, the price being having a coauthor)...


Would it be unwise to ask about the prospects of a publication for an undergraduate research position?

It depends on the framing of the question.

Asking "Will I get a publication out of this?" would make me uncomfortable. I don't know you. I don't actually know your work. I don't know if you can write well. I've had promising undergraduate researchers who elected to spend the summer playing XBox and phoning it in. Or just getting tangled up in some sufficiently oddball idea that I can't get them out of in time for them to have done anything productive. I'm not going to promise those people there's a paper waiting for them at the end.

On the other hand, I actively encourage students to think about the potential for publication. Is that something they're interested in? Could this be turned into an undergraduate thesis project? etc.

Part of this is understanding where your project fits in the greater context of the lab's work - it might be a relatively small part of a larger project, at which point it's probably not going to get a paper all of its own. But there are also other avenues - for example, my current institution has undergraduate research showcases that include a poster competition.

So I wouldn't head straight for asking about publications in and of themselves, but rather consider framing it as how your research fits into labs work, what can be done with the output, etc.


Responding to a reviewer who misunderstood key concepts of a paper

This comment completely misrepresent the methodology described in the paper.

While it may be technically correct, it is unnecessarily undiplomatic (at least all by itself), as it implicitly places blame on the reviewer for not correctly understanding your paper. Again, if the respective points were made unmistakably clear in the paper (which is something that you can easily overestimate), this blame may be justified, but still you risk unnecessarily disgruntling the reviewer.

I would suggest to assume in good faith that the reviewer did not fail to understand your paper due to incompetence or laziness, but because you failed to clarify a certain aspects. Try to improve your paper regarding the explanation of everything that the reviewer misunderstood and reply with something along the lines of:

  This comment seems to be based on the assumption that we were proposing a method to transmogrify apples. However, the goal of our method is the transmogrification of bananas – an aspect, which we have failed to make sufficiently clear. We have amended our manuscript accordingly and now write: […]

Do not worry, if the respective revision turns out to be only minor.

To be prepared if the reviewer insists on his or her misunderstandings, I suggest to explicitly state in your response letter that something different is the case. This way you hopefully have some good argument for the editor in this case.

I once had a similar experience with a reviewer who criticised that we made several claims which were not supported by our studies. However, we never made any of these claims. In a first revision we reformulated a few sentences that the reviewer had presumably misunderstood and explicitly stated in the response letter that we did not make those claims. The reviewer criticised again that some of the same claims were unsupported. We responded again that we never made those claims and reformulated a handful of sentences. Then either the reviewer finally understood or the editor was fed up with this and the paper was accepted. In both cases, major revisions were requested.


How to format for a useful journal club?

This is based on my experience being in some highly unsuccessful journals clubs, and some very successful ones - at least in my mind.

You must have faculty involvement. I've seen more than one journal club that either didn't have faculty members, or had a faculty member or two who just kind of sat back and didn't say anything. That's bad. Faculty members who can contribute, answer questions, and generally provide some context for papers are excellent. They're good for pointed questions we might have missed - I've had faculty members ask a question about a figure that got into an interesting discussion of research ethics, one that led insight into some politics ("The reason that commentary appeared in this journal is Y"), etc.
I prefer to have them separate from lab meetings, and drawing from a wider audience than my specific research group. I find the breadth of experience, diversity of papers, and keeping up with things taking place beyond my narrow little laser-like focus to be both refreshing and more useful than going over a paper half of us already read.
Giving the journal club a greater context. Yes, keeping track of the literature is important. But its importance seems to slide if you know your analysis should be done soon, or something needs to come out of the water bath, or midterms need to be graded. One semester we framed ours as qualifying exam preparation, and another as professional development - the people presenting wrote their critiques like responses to requests for peer review.

Overall, I've found journal clubs to be most useful for mid-level graduate students - they need enough experience to have thoughts, insights and feelings about the paper, but if a JC succeeds, eventually they should need it less and less.


An example of a researcher being 'scooped' as a result of working openly?

The Kuiper belt object Haumea was perhaps discovered by a second group through looking at observation logs - it was very controversial.

The controversy has a wikipedia article


Would a masters in maths at a much lower ranked university be a good preparation for a masters course at a very top university?

They said that if your first degree is not up to scratch then you may take the second and third year at Cambridge to bring yourself up to the right level.

Are you talking about Körner's unofficial guide to Part III?  He says "If you are a very able student whose first degree course is not up to the standard required for Part III, it may make sense to apply to become an 'Affiliated Student' taking the second and third year of the Cambridge mathematics course to obtain the Cambridge first degree."  This is closest statement I'm aware of to what you mention, but it means something different.  It's talking about repeating undergraduate studies (when the applicant did very well in courses that are insufficient preparation for Part III), rather than repeating a master's program.  Furthermore, admission as an affiliated student at Cambridge requires first or upper second class honours.

I'm not at Cambridge and can't offer definitive guidance about what they will or will not allow.  However, I'm skeptical about the idea of studying for a second master's degree.  You shouldn't plan on this unless you have a clear indication that Cambridge will consider it.  I'd bet that the chances are low.


I'm a first year student in math Ph.D. program. I'm taking 3 courses (all qualifying exams preparation course) and do TA work about 10 hours a week.

What are some tips for managing my time in grad-school?

a. Start doing homework the day you receive it, not the day before it is due.

b. When you're not sure what to do, study/do math.

Is it better to focus on learning material for one class per day, or allocate a little bit of time each day for each class?

I go for the first approach because I feel it's easier to focus on one of them than to switch back and forth among subjects within a day.

How to grade or teach time efficiently?

a. Before you finish your own exam requirements, choose an easy course to TA (like single variable calculus).

b. Remember unlike you most undergraduate students in lower division courses are not interested in math. They care little except exam/hw scores. Most students who can easily get an A+/A/D/F do not care about you. In discussion section do examples highly related to their HW, Sample Exam, Past Exam and little to nothing else.

c. Set up a good grading rubric that allows you to grade fast. Give  full credit to correct answer with some reasonable justifications (even if it's not perfectly written). When it's boarder line give 1 additional point instead of explaining why the answer doesn't deserve an additional point.


Am I receiving "good" higher education for graphic design?

Spend some time exploring Active Learning(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_learning). It sounds a lot like this is what you are seeing. Whether it is good or bad might depend a lot on how much feedback you get from what you do. But doing is a good thing.
If the focus of the program is on creativity, not technology, then this might be a great program. I think that for someone to become a poet they need to spend a lot of time writing poetry, not listening to lectures about it.
But you might want to explore the philosophy behind your program with some trusted faculty member. You might also want to look at the sort of positions that graduates of you program wind up with.
A friend of mine once led an education program that was focused around "studio learning" in which the students did almost nothing be work on projects - from real clients. The faculty was there to guide. It was incredibly innovative.


Chances of academically publishing a book without professional degree

As someone who has served as referee for math textbook proposals for reputed academic publishers, I can tell you that if your proposal were sent to me, I could not care less about whether you have a degree or what your title is. I would care about the content of your proposal and whether it convinced me that you can write a high quality, correct, and interesting book that serves a need for students and researchers of mathematics.
However. You should have no illusions that convincing me of such a thing is an easy standard to meet. It’s not. It wouldn’t be easy even for a professional mathematician with many publications under their belt, and I would expect that it would be doubly difficult for someone who doesn’t have formal training in mathematics at a level equivalent to at least a PhD, let alone an undergraduate degree.
But as I said, the lack of a degree by itself would not be a problem for me.


Patents and papers out of my field of research

In each case, you need to verify that your ideas are novel and useful in the context of their own fields, and express them in the languages of those fields. It may be better, rather than going independent, to explain the situation to your advisor, and ask for recommendations and introductions to researchers in the relevant areas.

I have some experience of the patent process, fortunately as an employee with my employer paying all the costs. It has its own language. Converting an idea to a properly constructed series of claims is a specialized skill. I have had trouble reviewing a patent application to check that it correctly reflected an invention I completely understood. I have no idea how much it costs to get a patent written up and filed, but it is definitely not free.

If the original work were done "on the job" as a supported researcher, you need to check into the university's intellectual property rules and your own contracts.


Why do academic journals usually have continuous page numbering?

One of the reasons, if not the only one, is that each year journal issues are typically collected by libraries in bound volumes, which, in this way, have a continuous numbering. At the end of the year, journals would also publish indexes for relatively quick reference.

Or, at least, that is what is used to be.

Below, there is an example of bound volumes (picture source).


What is the correct way of writing two MSc degrees on a business card?

How about

  John Doe, MSc (Comp. Sci.), MSc (Sci. Comm.)

? (Then again, this could look pretentious. Proceed with caution.)

Unfortunately, the relevant Wikipedia article is not highly informative, and anyway it is flagged as "citations required" and specific to the UK:

  Where two different postgraduate qualifications with the same name
  have been obtained (for example two different postgraduate MAs from
  King's College London and University of Sussex), this can be indicated
  by using one degree postnominal, and the abbreviations of the two
  awarding bodies in parentheses, sometimes joined by the Latin "et" (or
  with an ampersand), e.g. "Jane Smith MA (KCL et Sussex)", and not
  "Jane Smith MA MA". However, when qualifications with the same name
  have been gained through different routes (for example an MA from
  Oxford University converted from a Bachelor of Arts, and a studied and
  examined postgraduate degree from King's College London these are
  listed separately with the institution only listed after the
  non-examined qualification (e.g. "Jane Smith MA(Oxf) MA", and not
  "Jane Smith MA (Oxf et KCL)").


In Mathematics, what is the standing of the journal Proc. AMS?

Scimago is a clearly false, possibly semi-fake ranking. It is very easy to check this: for instance when I clicked on your link I got the following amusing result:

Vital and health statistics. Series 2, Data evaluation and methods research   is considered of higher ranking for mathematicians (!) than the Annals of Mathematics.

There is no need to elaborate more.


The answer really depends on the university you're in and the kind of agreement that you have. In most cases any intellectual property developed during your studies at an academic institution would entail signing off some rights to them. From my experience this is not a significant amount (less than 15%) but YMMV. You have to be aware that if you have any coauthors from other institutions this may complicate things - those coauthors have rights to the idea as well and that needs to be negotiated. Note that even coauthors that express no interest in joining your venture may have rights to some of the IP, and as a result to the potential profits. There are also funding agencies that may want a piece of the action (if you were supported by an industry grant for example).

In any case, your first step is to talk to your advisor/coauthors. Step two would be to contact the legal department of your university. They may ask that you remove any code you have made public (say on GitHub), and that you patent your work, a long and annoying process. I would not contact anyone about commercializing your software before a long discussion with the legal department.

This could get you in trouble, and most likely any company with a semi-competent legal team would not allow this anyway without you going through the proper channels.

Good luck!


Aftermath of rightfully submitting a solo paper without my advisor's name

I don't think your problem is with your advisor. Your real problem is with teachers in classes who say things like:

  No matter what you do, you have to enlist your advisor's name in your
  papers because unless it would considered as a work with no supervisor
  and it can not be trusted."
  "In interview we have for PhD students, if the person who is applying
  hasn't written the name of his suprevisor we doubt him. Either he is a
  genius or he is hiding something or he is too active in his field."
  "In some companies and research labs everyone add the name of their
  fundraiser to show him their gratitude, so should we.".

In light of all the recent debate about whether we are too idealized and rosy in our views of academia, let me at least say this:

Whether or not this is common practice in the areas you work in, the problem here is the rationale being used to justify author inclusion. In no way is the decision being made based on some notion of contribution by the advisor (either financial or moral, or in any form). It's being based purely on a notion of patronage or bias.

The person making these claims has either a very distorted view of how authorship works, or is misleading new students in a terrible way.


How to mark/cite text that you only translated?

If this section of the thesis contains only the translated passage, then it is silly to use one of the quotation notifiers. As I said in my comment, preface the whole section with a notice about the origin of the passage. Then, present the passage unaltered (except for the translation). The contents of that notice will depend on which of the following categories the original passage falls into:

Public domain

The original passage is in the public domain (for example if it was written by a government employee in the course of their normal duties or if the author released into the public domain or if the passage is old enough that any possible copyright has expired) - then say something like

  The following section is was translated by (your initials) and is reproduced without any further alterations from (original source). This passage is in the public domain (rationale if possible).

Fair Use

Since a thesis is a document created in the course of obtaining an education, you can claim fair use for educational purposes. The passage represents less than the fair use maximum set for the original document (typically around 5% or less of the original work), then you can state something like

  The following section is was translated by (your initials) and is reproduced without permission and without any further alterations from (original source). Since this passage represents a minimal part of the original document, it constitutes fair use.

Public License

The creator of the document could have released the document under a license that allows reuse for non-profit purposes with appropriate attribution. See Creative Commons Licenses and GNU General Public Licenses. Licenses like these generally allow you to reproduce the work if you include the appropriate statement. Make sure the license allows derivative works (because that is what your translation is).

  The following section is was translated by (your initials). It is reproduced from (original source) under the  Creative Cmmons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) License. The original copyright is held by, and all other rights are reserved by, (original copyright holder).

Express permission

If you have obtained written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the work in your thesis, then you would state something like the following. You should include the evidence of written permission in your appendix.

  The following section is was translated by (your initials). It is reproduced from (original source) with permission of the copyright holder. The original copyright is held by, and all other rights are reserved by, (original copyright holder).

None of the above

Without permission, a license, fair use, or public domain, you are violating copyright by reproducing the passage, even if you translated it (translations count as derivative works, which are still a no-no). Get the appropriate permissions or reduce the length of the passage so that it becomes fair use and see above.

US Copyright

Note that this answer primarily to US Copyright Law, with which I am most familiar. The copyright laws in other nations, as well as international copyright law, will vary, but many have similar provisions. However, some parts of my answer will be inapplicable in some countries. In these cases, behave as if the material is copyrighted. The concepts of public domain, copyright, and license are fairly similar in most places. Generally, the existence of a license supersedes copyright, with the exception that a license cannot supersede the public domain status of a work. Fair use may not exist in all jurisdictions. If you are unsure whether your nation has a fair use or similar exception in its copyright law, act as if it doesn't. Better safe than sorry.


I regret publishing a sloppy conference paper

There is one very easy answer to your problem.

Relax. Do nothing. It's fine.

Really. Your data is good, your results are interesting, people are reading your work, and you haven't found anything particularly wrong with your science. This is more than most of us can say about our first forays into publishing.

That being said, maybe you should work on how much you let small problems get to you if you want to survive in academia. If grammar errors and awkward formulations in a published paper already make you be unable to sleep, I worry that the real setbacks that characterise academic work (experiments that are not working out, unjustly rejected papers, dozens and dozens of faculty applications that you never hear back on, ...) will do to you.


Is it okay/possible to quit a PhD program in the 4th year and apply someplace else?

Yes, it is is a bad idea.  (I will give you a definite answer.)

You need to finish up.  You are too far down the road.

It is very natural to be close to the end and look at your Ph.D. and think you could have done more ("I coulda been a contender.")  But you need to resist the impulse.  The first 3 years are sunk. You can't go back.
You have the rest of your life to do useful science.  Just collect the sheepskin (even if your advisor wasn't that smart or your project that momentous.)  You can go after good future work just as easily with a Ph.D. as without one.  In many ways easier and at at least marginally higher pay.
Your goal is to be an independent researcher.  It is normal for grad students to transition to this during their career.  Some of them lag and still need supervision as postdocs, but some are basically great indepedent scientists halfway through the Ph.D.  Do NOT hang out in the comfortable quasi-adolescent world of studentdom.  Get that Ph.D. to show you are an independent thinker (it is the credential for that) and move on.
There are a LOT of ways that a new Ph.D. could go wrong. (bad advisor, money, experiments not working, etc.) Yeah, this guy is a nebish.  But at least you are not working with a jerk (and there are plenty of tin pot dictators in academia).  Count your lucky stars and just move on and do your own thing.  Sure he wasn't the perfect father figure mentor. But you need to do your own thing.  Maybe you can be a better mentor for others when it is your turn or you can be a better scientist/engineer.
It WILL look bad that you made this switch, especially at this stage in your career.

Net/net:  let the dissatisfaction (very common, I had it too) to be motivation to finish early.  Not to try to recreate a better experience and stay longer.

Anecdote:  I had same feelings during my Ph.D.  Was basically done with my work 2 years in but dissatisfied...advisor was nice but not a cutting edge scientist.  We got along mostly but clashed at times since I really didn't need him for anything.  He gave me one fair piece of advice (graduate early), but I failed to take it.  Hung out for 4 years and did an extra project when I really could have been out in 3 (or faster).  And I had money saved from previous work.  And it is a nice lifestyle in some ways to be a grad student (beats working).  But same time, it was a waste...should have moved on faster.

You are actually putting yourself in way more danger by moving to something new and having some 7 year plus of Ph.D. time.  Even from a personal perspective you are not getting any younger and you won't have the same fire in your belly at 50 as at 30.  Move on and don't spend your whole youth in student-dom.


How desperate is too desperate when it comes to contacting supervisor?

Keeping in touch with a former supervisor is hardly a negative, particularly since you are collaborating with him on a paper.

At a rate of an email every couple of months, this frequency of your communications doesn't make you appear desperate or pushy. Whether these qualities come across in what you write to your former supervisor, or how you express yourself, is impossible to determine.

Maintaining good links with your former supervisors and collaborators is excellent practice, so long as you remain pleasant, polite, and on topic.

Deciding what the best thing to do regarding internships and applications is always tricky. Gaining the advice of your past supervisors is a good idea, and most supervisors would see it as part of their ongoing pastoral care to provide their opinion on your career progress. Don't, however, expect anyone to make a decision for you.


Protections for writers of recommend letters

On mathjobs.org letter writers can give an expiration date for their letters.
I have no idea what would happen if a disgruntled applicant took some sort of legal action to obtain a copy of those letters.
To the best of my understanding (I'm not a lawyer, etc.), in the U.S., in academic settings, there are no genuine protections for letter-writers. Rather, if/when everyone behaves civilly, there's simply no issue.
This is why I try to demur when asked to write letters in situations that make me uneasy, especially when I feel compelled to say "I'm sorry, I'm not confident that I can write you a helpful letter. Perhaps someone else can do better."


If you know the field you want to study and have read some good papers, contact the authors and ask them what mailing lists are good for their field.

You might also state your motivation: they are generally good at knowing who has funding and may even be looking!


When is the ideal time to contact potential PhD advisors?

Assuming you’re talking about the US, the summer would be a good time to start contacting faculty about your interest, although the exact amount of funding and the availability of open positions more than a year ahead of time is murky at best. So you’re not likely to get a commitment at this time, but you will make yourself known to the research group, which could be of benefit in getting an admissions offer.


As you say, there are numerous possible reasons you may not have heard back yet.  I have been on both sides of this equation, waiting for a response and waiting for all the applications or letters of interest to come in, and although two weeks is a long time for you, it is not excessive for the employer/PI.

It is totally appropriate for you to politely contact this person and briefly reiterate your interest in the position, and say you want to be sure she received your answer/solution to the problem she posed.  This will also allow you to request information as to when to expect to hear back with a decision or next steps, and see if there is anything else she needs from you now.

It would be best not to go into the details of your Visa situation again at this time.  She's already answered that question.  If she responds positively to you and requests further information or an interview, you will be able to discuss the Visa at that time.  You don't want to sound pushy or needy at this point, but you do want to be assured she received your response and knows of your interest.

Good luck, I wish you the best.


How do I justify dropping out of a Ph.D. program in my personal statement?

Just give them the reasons you stopped. If they think your reasons are good they might even consider your choice as positive instead of negative - but as usual everything depends on the person you are dealing with.


Author states that he is owner of his photographs but they have been published in various journals

The responsibility of certifying and negotiating copyright issues is typically the responsibility of specialized staff at a publishing organization, not that of the scientific editor of a work.

The responsibility of an editor here is just to make sure that the authors follow the process the publishing organization asks the editor to have them follow, which typically includes making copyright assertions or providing contact information to the people who will actually ask them to make copyright assertions.

Thus, if you have concerns, you can convey them to your contacts at the publisher to be sure that they are aware of these concerns and can sort them out. If you aren't the legal personnel responsible for sorting out the details, however, you shouldn't be trying to make any arrangements yourself: that is likely to create more problems than it solves.


German perspective:
Master theses are short (duration-wise), PhD theses are long. How short and how long depends on details, but the relative difference is there regardless.
Master theses consist of one problem, while in STEM, PhD theses are often a collection of works which are not necessarily very closely related.
Both should contain original results. A 6-12 month master thesis which does not contain any original results has significant shortcomings.
From a supervisor's perspective: A master thesis which leads to one paper in a reputable journal is a good (top 1/3 or so) master thesis. A PhD thesis which only gives rise to one paper is a below average (lower 1/3) PhD thesis.


Will not having a publication affect my PhD chances even though I have research experience?

This is a difficult question to answer and I know little about the intersection of CS and neuroscience. I do know a little bit about the intersection of CS and social sciences (i.e. HCI/information sciences) so I will write about that. In addition, I am the student representative on the admissions committee of our department so I have some limited experience with that process as well.

You do not need a publication to apply for PhD in the US. For other countries, it might be different and I do not have that information. Potentially, you will be more competitive if you have a publication. But remember, that all publications are not created equal. If you have a first author paper (or otherwise depending upon the publication standards in your field) in a top ranked journal/conference in your field, then you are competitive (assuming that other parts of your application pass muster).

If that publication is in a lesser known journal/conference, you still have displayed some knowledge about how to conduct and publish research - which in the end is better than nothing.

However, in my experience, I have seen that detailed letters of recommendation from authors known to members of the admissions committee are usually given way more weight than any published research.

Also, take my words with a pinch of salt. Everything varies from field to field and from year to year.


Statement of Purpose: How much detail in describing one's research

Two equally successful statements of purpose can look very different from one another. Some graduate students enter with broad interests and others enter already knowing a specific question they want to work on. Both types of students can be good applicants and will have very different personal statements, potentially with very different levels detail when describing past research. Your advisor will give you much better, and more specific advise than the general advice you would get from academia.stackexchange.

Write a draft of your Personal Statement and then show it to your advisor [or other math professor who knows you well] to get feedback. After editing it based on this feedback, it is also a good idea to ask for feedback from professor(s) you intend on asking for a letter of recommendation. This serves two purposes (1) likely these letter writers will be less knowledgeable of your research area and give you a different perspective than your advisor (one that may mimic the academic diversity, to some degree, on an admissions committee) (2) Them giving you feedback on your Personal Statement will allow them to get to know you better and hence write you a better reference letter.

Generally speaking, if you can go into some detail, this is a good thing, and will set you apart from other applicants. In pure math, it is quite rare for students to have a very specific research direction before graduate school. Of course don't go so far into detail that only specialists can understand it.


How to respond to an unofficial PhD offer?

If they are still "seriously interested" in you, then that is not an offer on their side.

If you are still "seriously interested" in them, then that is not a firm commitment from your side.

Decisions are not binding until the ink is dry.


Papers from thesis - short term postdoc?

While I'm not in Physics, my experience and knowledge (Comp Sci) would suggest that:

Finding such a grant would generally be difficult.
Your best bet would have been some kind of late-PhD-research-assistant/short-term-PostDoc employment with your PhD advisor or at your lab; if that's still an option, try it;
Maybe it's possible to get a part-time short-term teaching/teaching assistance position instead of a proper research grant; it "eats away" some of your paper-writing time, but it might be better than no job at all


Collaborations during Mental Health Duress

That's a pretty big "if" @YemonChoi has there.

Yes, ideally there should not be a stigma. But realistically, even if your collaborators are professional enough not to stigmatize you, are they also professional enough not to mention such a communication to others?

What has been said cannot be unsaid.

I would recommend to let sleeping dogs lie. As long as nobody has complained, you don't need to explain yourself. (Maybe people not only didn't complain, but also didn't even notice lower productivity on your part - your productivity may have been just fine for your collaborators. Consider the "impostor syndrome".) It's better to work on your issues than to explain them.

Good luck!


How far back do Chinese universities go?

Western Style Chinese Academy

From Tongwen Guan 同文舘 wiki page

  Tongwen Guan (Chinese: 同文舘), or the School of Combined Learning was a government school for teaching Western languages (and later scientific subjects), founded at Beijing, China in 1862 during the late-Qing dynasty ... It became part of the Imperial Capital University (now Peking University) since 1902. ...

Government sponsored Chinese style academy

From Shang Xiang 上庠 wiki page

  Shang Xiang (Chinese: 上庠; pinyin: shàng xiáng; Wade–Giles: Shang Hsiang), was a school founded in the Yu Shun (虞舜) era in China. Shun (2257 BCE–2208 BCE), the Emperor of the Kingdom of Yu (虞, or 有虞/Youyu), founded two schools. One was Shang Xiang (shang (上), means up, high), and the other one was Xia Xiang (下庠, xia (下) means down, low).[1][2] Shang Xiang was a place to educate noble youth. Teachers at Shang Xiang were generally erudite, elder and noble persons.

From Taixue (太学) wiki page

  Taixue ... was the highest rank of educational establishment in Ancient China between the Han Dynasty and Sui Dynasty ... The first nationwide government school system in China was established in 3 CE under Emperor Ping of Han ...

Privately owned Chinese style academy

From Academies (Shuyuan書院) wiki page

  ... shuyuan were usually private establishments, ... The shuyuan originated in 725 ...

From China’s Ancient Academies-Academies Tours to China

  ... According to “Records of All Officials,” a volume of The New Chronicles of the Tang Dynasty, “in the sixth year of the Kaiyan Reign (AD 718) Qianyuan Academy changed its name to Lizheng Academy (Academy of Elegance and Rectitude), the newly created positions of supervisors and copy editors were filled and compiler-academicians became auxiliary-academician ...


How to structure the personal statement?

Your personal statement or statement of purpose has a huge impact on your chances of securing a place at the university of your choice. The best way to structure it is to break it down as follows:

1) The Hook - this is the all-important first paragraph that grabs the admission committee members’ attention and makes you stand out from the rest. Don't be afraid to get creative with your writing here, you need to construct a narrative that stands out.

2) Are you telling a story? Admissions officers are human too! Don't relay your life story in a dull rote fashion.You need to communicate how you have got to where you are today and where you are going and why!

3) Support your story with data and facts - back up your narrative with actual data to support your claims. be careful not to go overboard and make the statement a list of facts and figures only.

4) Avoid the use of clichés - pretty straight forward, instead of a lame clichés, give an example of something you have actually done and back it up with hard facts.

5) Tailor your admission essay to the university you are applying for - every college is different and every course is different so make sure you do not just talk about how great you are, but what is great about the institution you are applying for.

6) Appropriate language and tone - You are not drafting the constitution or bill of rights, strike a balance between making sure your application is taken seriously and communicating a little of your personality.

7) Be Truthful - avoid the temptation to completely make things up.

8) Are you convincing - ask yourself if this is really the course you want to study and the place you want to study it? If you cannot convince yourself, then you will not stand much chance with an admissions committee.

9) Is your statement logical and coherent?  The statement should tell you personal story.  There is no set format, but be methodical as you progress though your key points, building a portrait of yourself.

10) Is the language perfect? Speak in plain English and always proofread your finished piece. Better yet, have a professional proofreading service give your statement the once over.

This answer is based on an awesome guide to writing a killer Statement of Purpose from Vappingo.com. There is also a free handy checklist to download.


Extracurricular activities in cover letter

Your extracurricular activities are certainly relevant here, so you can just say what they have been.  You've done so quite clearly here:

  In the past few years I worked part time as a reporter.

Now just add a sentence that notes how this connects to your interest in the workshop, and you should be fine.


What can you get from submitting an abstract?

You submit an abstract to a conference if you would like to give a talk there. The abstract is then used to determine whether or not you get that chance (based on how interesting/relevant/sound the abstract is judged for that particular conference). So for the conference, this lets them filter (a bit) the talks that get presented there, for the author, this is the prerequisite for being allowed to give a talk.

Giving a talk at a conference is a means for a researcher to disseminate their research ideas and to advertise themselves. Discussions following a talk can lead to future collaborations, and giving the right talk at the right time can lead to eg a postdoc position.

"Talks given" is also a typical category on a CV, so even beyond the immediate talk, the fact that you gave the talk can be beneficial in competing for jobs.


How to find free data sets from the internet for independent research?

First - looking for already published research projects that contain and/or utilize datasets similar to what your project requires might be a good start.
There are some researchers and research groups that wouldn't have any issues sharing their dataset with you if you provide them with a good enough reason as to why you need it and what you're going to use it for.

That being said, because of privacy and data protection laws; it greatly depends on how they acquired the data in the first place and whether or not there is personally identifiable information within the dataset. If you don't do this right, you can get into quite a lot of trouble.

There are also a number of sites that supply anything from large national and international gov datasets to the more modest limited access sites.

Most U.S. government agencies provide open access to a large portion of their data.

The FBI's web services
Data.gov
The CDC
The US Census Bureau
... the list goes on.

Kaggle is often talked about
BuzzFeed, surprisingly, provides a vast array of open information
data.world
... to name a few.

You may also wish to contact universities and college departments. The often work with massive datasets and are quite liberal when it comes to sharing.

Good luck :)


Can't prepare lesson material. Should I cancel class?

I would like to add on top of the answers of @aparente001 and @Anonymous Mathematician.

So, first thing, in 5 hours it would be very hard to come up with something solid that you would be comfortable lecturing about; thus I second the suggestion of doing some review and exercises for now.

My opinion is: you can do it.

If you have been teaching calculus so far, chances are that you are a very competent student. You can learn almost at the same time as you will be teaching. And this does not have to be a stressful experience, I would say you can be upfront with your students and let them know that you are learning at the same time as them (they already know that you are a student too).

Actually, this can be beneficial for both parts: you) are learning a new topic and because of that you better understand the difficulties that students may come upon; they) have a TA that understands their difficulties and that is able to explain things in a way that a student would learn (it may not be the best way, but I would say that is OK).

In the case they make you questions you do not know how to answer, again, be upfront: say that it is a good question, you will think and research about it, and you will explain it later, either in the class, e-mail directly to the student, whatever you prefer.

In order for this to work, like mentioned in the other answers, you have to talk to your supervisor and let him know that you were not prepared to lecture this topic. Ask him for help about learning those concepts, or a reference to whom could provide such guidance.


Associate adjunct professor to Assistant adjunct professor in USA

This is likely much more common than for non-adjuncts. The protections for adjuncts are pretty weak generally. However, there are situations in which adjuncts are unionized and then the union rules would apply.

Also, the typical adjunct position is a fixed term contract that might be renewed or not. The nominal rank would be part of the contract.

But possible? Certainly. Not common, though.


Publicly available extended summary of PhD thesis and manuscript submission

If you submit the summary (or a substantially similar paper), you should ask the relevant people at the journal beforehand. We can't give an authoritative answer for any particular journal, let alone all of them.


Why do conferences and other academic events still mostly happen offline?

Conferences are not organised for the talks alone. They are more like the academic equivalent of a pool party or a weekend football league. Although on the face of it the purpose might look like spending time in the pool or playing football, people really go there to meet other people.

As a PhD student it took me a while to realise this. Most people attend conferences to get face to face time with other people in thier field, and often the talks act as adverts for collaboration. You'll notice that there are often conference dinners and mixers designed precisely for meeting others.

Every time I've heard someone talk in earnest about what they liked about a conference, it's always that they managed to catch up with a colleague or similar.


Can I use an independent research to get a master degree?

There is the possiblitity to get a research-oriented Master, which is the thing closest to what you asked for. Here is the link to one example course that I found during a quick search:

http://www.findamasters.com/search/masters-degree.aspx?course=15956

You didn't state which field of study you are interested in and in which area of the world, so this is probably not precisely what you are looking for. However, as Nate Eldredge already wrote, you can't expect to spend only a single day at your Master's University. They will want to make sure that you meet their standards, and typically, this involves at least a moderate course load for a Master's degree. Also, the degree of independence in research that you are asking for is probably not the same than the one that you get there.


Re-did my experiment, how to properly mention it?

This is something to discuss with your advisor, but I can make a suggestion.
Some research that is based on constructed models turns out to be questionable if the model lacks stability and resiliency (robustness). There is a branch of science/math called catastrophe theory in which small changes to a system can produce dramatic, non-continuous, results. One way to guarantee that this is not the case is to tweak the model in small ways and determine if the outputs are also similarly small. If not, the model is too sensitive and may not give usable results.
So, what you have done, can be considered a validity check on your model and can be presented as such in a separate section. You have gained some evidence that the model is stable in some dimension. This could come after section 4 and before section 7, depending on how you want to write it up.
But your advisor's advice would be valuable.


IEEE Referencing: Same source, different page numbers

No, you include a source only once in the reference list. If you have to refer to a specific part of a source, you do it in the in-text citation, not the reference list, as in one of these examples:

  [3, Th. 1]; [3, Lemma 2]; [3, pp. 5-10]; [3, eq. (2)]; [3, Fig. 1]; [3, Appendix I]; [3, Sec. 4.5]; [3, Ch. 2, pp. 5-10];
  [3, Algorithm 5].

Source: IEEE Editorial Style Manual (Wayback Machine)


How does publication month and number of citations to a paper correlate?

It doesn't appear to be a major factor. On the subject of citation behavior, I recommend reading this very rich article:

Lutz Bornmann and Hans-Dieter Daniel What do citation counts measure? A review of studies on citing behavior Journal of Documentation Vol. 64 No. 1, 2008 pp. 45-80

Generally, it confirms your point 1. Previous citation count is a good predictor of future citation.

It seems to contradict your point 2. There are more citation to recent article mainly because there are much more recent articles, not because they are preferably cited over older articles.

I can only address your question and point 3 by default: the month of publication is not listed among the potential factors influencing citation in this study nor in several other quantitative studies (1) (2) (3), although it was not formally excluded.

  Note that an effective data analysis would likely need to exclude very
  highly cited papers that might introduce a bias.

Yes, most likely the effect of the publication month, if there is one, will be masked by a variety of other stronger factors.


Do large number of attended conferences favour application to postdoctoral or tenured positions?

The purpose of attending conferences when you are at the PhD level and post-doc level is not for padding your CV, although people still want to see you have presented at some international recognized conferences. The main purpose is to advertise yourself and your research and to network for what could be your next position. In fact it is possible to walk out of a conference with some kind of contact or verbal agreement that sets you up for your future job.

For professorship application I don't think just attending conferences will help you, rather they will want to see that you have been keynote or plenary.


Advisor miscalculated the personnel budget for research grant

Is it possible for them to “demote” me to a lower level, part time, or similar?

In my experience, it is much less complicated (legally and bureaucratically) to transfer the required money from other sections of the grant such as travel or publication costs.

  How should I go about dealing with this?

There are usually many culprits in such a situation (and you are not amongst them):

The funding organisation should have noticed that the alloted personal costs do not suffice for a PhD student (assuming that 100 % is the standard for PhDs in your field).

In fact, I have heard that some funding agencies explicitly fund a PhD position with a certain part-time level or full-time (depending on the field) for a certain period of time – as opposed to funding a certain amount of money that exactly suffices for this.
This way, the detailed sums (which not only depend on your level, but on many other factors such as location and similar) are left to the bureaucrats to determine and to move and scientific personnel (such as your supervisor) should never have to worry about this.
When issuing your contract, your university’s administration should have checked that they have the required funds to pay your salary for the duration of your contract.
Your supervisor may or may not have had the responsibility to check this.

So, even if your supervisor made a mistake, so did the others.
However in contrast to your supervisor, those are trained bureaucrats whose job only exist to do things like these and who do this on a daily basis. Hence, I suggest to try to unite against these with your supervisor. Not only do they have no real power over you (not being members of your “boys’ club”), but they also have access to general funds to cover for such mistakes¹.

¹ I witnessed a case where a PhD student got paid too much over a year due to being assigned to the wrong level (i.e., a situation similar to yours) and they did not have to pay back more than legally required (the past few months) nor was this money deduced from the grant that paid them.


Publishing an idea that came up on a conference?

You should definitely get in touch with Prof B, but don't propose a collaboration immediately (that would indeed be a little bit presumptuous).

Thank him for his idea during the conference, and tell him some outline of your results (you may want to share the paper if you feel comfortable). And then end the email with something like "given that the origin of the idea was initially yours, I was wondering how you felt about a possible co-authorship? If you feel that this is not possible, would you mind if I put forward your name in the acknowledgments section?"

That way you leave the choice up to him, and he can have an easy way out if he doesn't feel like being a co-author for any reason.

(EDIT: Regarding Prof A, it might be good etiquette to get in touch with him to make sure he's not working on the same stuff, but I don't think it's strictly necessary)


Is it unreasonable to expect students to read the lecture notes before attending the first class?

In my opinion,  yes it is unreasonable.

Disclaimer: I am a student in the Netherlands, different universities and countries might work differently.

In all the courses I've followed I can't remember a single one that expected me to prepare for the first class. Usually the first half of the first lecture of a course is dedicated to explaining how the course works, what is expected of you, and anything else related to organization. Most students, including myself, usually don't even register in the online environment where the teaching material is posted before the first lecture.

You could argue that maybe this shouldn't be the case, and that students should be more diligent. And naturally, it is up to you whether you want to take this view and potentially punish students who didn't prepare. Practically though, most students are probably just going to miss it, or skip it.

If you do decide to have students prepare for the first lecture, make sure to clearly note this in the course guide/emails/online announcements. And also note the potential consequences for students who do not prepare.


What would be the potential consequences of offering to fund your own graduate degree?

Getting funding usually stipulates that you have a project that is related to the fund that you have applied to. That being said, it is not always the case. Whether you are self-funded or funded does not necessarily mean that a particular supervisor will work with you. If your research interests are not aligned with the professor's, then it is likely that he/she will reject working with you, even if you are funded. It does not really matter if you are funded or not. It looks better on your CV, however, if you do get funding.

Furthermore, being funded does not guarantee that you will receive a master's degree. Hard work and dedication do. It is the same in any academic program.

If you want to work with a certain professor, I would suggest that you email him/her with a research proposal. That way he/she is able to 1) know that you exist and are keen to work with him/her, 2) that you have a project in mind, and 3) you are open to criticism concerning your research proposal.

Professors like working with students who want to work with them, usually, and they also like students who have similar research interests, or have stimulating proposals for new avenues of research.


Re-using a paper from one class for another?

Almost invariably, the answer to "Is it OK to submit X for a class assignment?" is "Ask the instructor.".

You do need to ask yourself whether your objective for the geochemistry class is to get a good grade, or to improve your knowledge and skills in the area of geochemistry, or both. Even if the instructor agrees with recycling the old paper, you may get more out of the class if you pick a different topic and write a new paper.


Writing a review article on a similar topic already published by other authors

If you're writing a new comprehensive review on the same subject you'll probably end up citing many of the same references. To be explicit, yes, you are allowed to, and supposed to, cite relevant literature. Suppose instead that your review article focuses on newer developments, or some specific aspect. Then you can refer the reader to the old review paper, and include references to the most important papers therein. No matter the form you choose, I would be very surprised to see two reviews in the same field with zero overlap in choice of references.

A related question is when a new review is justified. There's a nice discussion in
A systematic review already exists in the literature. When is a newer one required?