How to Cite Online .pdf Publication in Article?

The URL is required, as is the date of access and the date of creation (if it's available). I don't think the colour is really a necessity; however, what does matter is that you are consistent throughout your piece of writing. I normally use dark blue or black. I try to put it with that kind of serif-y "programming language" font, e.g. using the \url{} package in LaTeX.

The style of citation changes the way you cite electronic sources.

For MLA:

Editor, author, or compiler name (if available). Name of Site. Version
   number. Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site
   (sponsor or publisher), date of resource creation (if available).
   Medium of publication. Date of access.

for an entire website. The rules for MLA change slightly for other types of website citations.

For APA:

Author, A.A.. (Year, Month Date of Publication). Article title. Retrieved from URL

for websites with a known author. For websites without an author, and other types of electronic source citations, the rules are different.

For this website in particular, I would say it's closest to MLA-type citation but that perhaps it's missing the name of the institution that it's credited to. I haven't checked the website, so perhaps it's unavailable for some reason. Check the MLA link above to see the proper way to cite this particular PDF, as the link has multiple citation fashions which depend on the type of website / online material it is.

I think they were going for something like this (using the 'single web page' MLA):

John A. Schroeder. "System Study: Residual Heat Removal 1998–2014"
     Idaho National Laboratory. INL, Décember 2015.
     Web. 3 August 2016. URL: http://nrcoe.inel.gov/resultsdb/publicdocs/SystemStudies/rhr-SPAR-unreliability-external-2014.pdf

However the most important thing (second to making sure to cite, of course) is that the author is consistent throughout.

And finally, according to google scholar, the article is a 'tech report' and the BiBTeX citation is thus:

@techreport{schroeder2015system,
  title={System Study: Residual Heat Removal 1998-2014},
  author={Schroeder, John Alton},
  year={2015},
  institution={Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)}
}


What are some options to do over the summer that will help me in grad school?

If you want to do something that will help you get into and succeed in graduate school, I strongly recommend looking for a summer research project with a professor.  Many professors hire students over the summer to work on projects with them, and some institutions even provide internal "student research" support that makes it particularly easy for any professor to do so.

There are many advantages of doing such a project, including:

Getting a taste of research in general and also in a particular area, to see if you really like it
Summer projects let you focus on research in a way that term-time projects do not, yet can still be confined to 9-5 hours.
You will have an opportunity to learn a lot of research-specific skills.
You will get to exercise things you learned in your classes, which may significantly improve both your knowledge and your motivation to learn, since you will tangle with the realities of applying this knowledge, and may improve your future grades.
You will be able to talk about research experience and may be able to get a good recommendation letter from the professor you work with, both of which are extremely valuable for grad school applications.

Now, if you prefer to do other things, self-care, etc., there's no reason that you have to do such a project.  It can, however, be a lovely experience, and if you're choosing between working a research job and working a non-research job, I highly recommend making the research choice!


How to deal with a coauthor who introduces errors

I recommend two different approaches, depending on the other types of value contributed by your co-author:

If your co-author is not contributing technical value to the project at all, then you don't need to make a big issue of things: just simply do not invite them to collaborate with you on your next paper.
If your co-author is contributing in other areas, but inconsistently for the proofs, I would recommend using a good version control system (e.g., Subversion, mercurial, git).  Then you have an easy mechanism by which you can do explicit review of the changes that they introduce and adopt precisely the ones that you are positively comfortable with.


Why am I taught theory that I have no idea how to apply in practice?

I cannot vouch for CS, but in my field (physics) learning the theory is useful in order to construct yourself a starting basis for your future studies and research.

You can still do valuable work without knowing much theory in my field. For example, the lab technicians, in general, don't know much theory, but can still perform a measurement. To obtain an X-ray spectrum for a sample, you put in on the holder, and you tell the computer to shine the X-rays. Then you get the spectrum. You take the spectrum, you load it into the program that compares it with the computer spectrum and see if the crystal that the chemists synthesized indeed has that structure.

But, doing research is more complex that just performing a measurement. You have to be able to invent new things and to not miss something new that someone in your lab just discovered. Supposed one of your graduate students or the lab technician comes to you with some new data they say it "looks weird". Based on what you know from your research experience and from your theory background, you should be able to decide if they should do the measurement again, because the result violates some conservation laws you learned as an undergraduate, or because it really looks like they are onto something new.

As a computer scientist, you may not need all the theory you learn. It wasn't my case as a physicist. I needed more theory than I learned and I'm still learning some. Depending on what level you work, you would need more, or less theory. If you just want to develop code in a company, you won't need that much. Where I live, people become programmers by just attending boot camps. But, if you want to develop cutting edge stuff, you knowledge base has to be broad. You have to come up fast with ideas like the fast inverse square root. Without a serious theoretical background, it's doubtful you would come up with such things.


If you don’t have at least one research problem, you can’t write a plan.
That’s the core of your difficulty (based on your comment in which you explained that you don’t have a research problem). A plan is the articulation of what your objectives are and how you think you might achieve them. But you don’t actually have any concrete objectives. So the idea of writing a plan is unattainable - you’re not even in a position to get started doing this. It is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse.
Now, let’s talk about what a research problem actually is in pure mathematics. You mention proving a conjecture, that’s certainly a type of research problem and the most concrete and well-defined one. If someone asks you to come up with a research problem, stating that you want to prove someone’s conjecture is the easiest type of problem to come up with, but on the other hand it’s probably the hardest to actually solve since presumably other people are also trying and have not yet succeeded. So for a PhD project it’s perfectly acceptable (and usually advisable) to be a bit less ambitious and have slightly less concrete goals. Such goals can be along the lines of:

Improve a known result from the literature, by weakening the hypotheses and/or strengthening the conclusion.
(E.g., if Jones proved that all infinitely differentiable frombloids are magnabulous and you manage to prove that it’s enough to assume only seven times differentiability, you’ve improved on Jones’ result.)

Prove an analogue of a known result
(E.g., “all p-adic frombloids are semi-magnabulous in the Smith topology”, when you are the first to study p-adic frombloids but are guided by Jones’s ideas in the differentiable case.)

Prove a variant of a known result with stronger hypotheses and stronger conclusions, or weaker hypotheses and weaker conclusions, or hypotheses that are neither strictly stronger nor strictly weaker than the original.

Sharpen a numerical constant in a known result
(E.g., “the fractal dimension of a magnabulous frombloid is bounded by 17.781”, when Jones proved the bound 27.13)

Prove (or disprove) a converse to a known result

Etc etc.

Now, the point here is that research problems exist on a spectrum of vagueness-concreteness. It’s okay to not have a completely accurate idea of what it is that you want to prove when you get started (as someone said, that’s what makes it research). Very experienced researchers even sometimes start thinking about a research area with a completely vague goal of the type “I want to understand [research area/class of objects/etc] better” (I know that I sometimes do this myself). But there’s a strong caveat here: you are a PhD student. A goal that is suitable for an experienced (not to mention tenured) researcher is not necessarily suitable as one that a PhD student should be given to try and solve with the expectation that there will be a reasonably high likelihood of success. And specifically, for a PhD student I think it’s pretty essential that the goal should be fairly concrete. Just “I want to understand X better” is not a recipe for success at your stage, and in fact even for experienced researchers it often leads nowhere.
So what should you do? Talk to your advisor. Explain to them that you think the project should be fleshed out some more before you begin writing your exposé and that you need some actual, specific problems. It is their responsibility to help you find problems that are suitable to work on; ideally you should have not just one but at least three or four fairly concrete goals, of a more or less realistic level of difficulty for your level of training when you start out. If your advisor isn’t able to help you come up with some ideas like that and bring you to a point where you can start putting a plan on paper, sadly they are probably not a very good advisor, and you might have more serious things to worry about for the future of your project than just the current difficulties with writing the plan. Anyway, hope this helps and good luck!


PhD with a supervisor who has not published anymore since 2014

You are concerned that this professor does not publish because she/he ran out of ideas and motivation. Although this could be the case, there are other possibilities, which I want to point to you:

They are working on a very large and important textbook and don't have time to publish.
They have a lot of PhD students and allow them to publish as a single author (a bit unusual these days, but still happens)
They don't cope well with modern technology (computers, word processors, simulation tools, etc), and rely on their students to help them put their ideas into  final publication.

I suggest talking to professor and asking these questions face-to-face.


What is an Ad-Hoc Acting Editor for Journal of Finance and/or PNAS?

A special issue editor would normally be referred to as a guest editor.  Most likely the “normal” editor suddenly resigned or otherwise cannot continue her or his duties for a while, and someone stepped in until a permanent editor is found or the regular editor returns.


If you do research based Masters and/or PhD, you could probably find a specific research that combines elements of both - quite often (not always), these types of projects turn out to be the better ones, as they force the researcher to establish, rationalise and justify the links between them.

Even though my research has not been in linguistics, rather in the applied physical sciences field, my research combined a few subjects together - in my case: atmospheric physics, programming and signal processing.

So, it is very possible to do, in your case, relevant elements of both English and German in a single research postgraduate degree.


Using sentences verbatim from a referee report without attribution

If you are the reviewer, just let the editor know the plagiarism problem.  Hopefully this is prior to the paper getting out.

A reasonable outcome would be for the text to be paraphrased AND a more specific acknowledgment made "one reviewer for specific content in section 3".  I would gently suggest such to the editor.  "Please go ahead and take whatever action you feel best as editor, but I suggest modify the text and make a more specific acknowledgment".

An alternate outcome is to leave the text as is and become a co-author,  (If the contribution meets the threshold.  Perhaps it might on a review or theory paper.)  But I would not be seen as pushing for such an outcome and it comes with issues of its own (now you are tied to the rest of the paper).

If the paper was already published, I would still let the editor know, but I would copy the editor in charge (since the subeditor let the plagiarism of the reviewer text get by).  It's not the end of the world for the subeditor but he needs to be mildly held to account also.

All this assumes it is not some junky journal.  If it is and they don't take action, you should obviously stop reviewing for them (and shouldn't review for junky journals regardless).  If it is a conference proceedings the issue is a little trickier since they don't really have all the same systems and editorial strengths, but I would still notify both subeditor and editor of the problem.


How are citations used to fairly compare researchers: fewer publications and fewer co-authors versus more publications with many co-authors

A general rule of bibliometrics is that they shouldn't be used to compare people (or projects, or papers, or research projects) across different fields, because publication culture can vary wildly even within disciplines and between closely allied fields. To begin with, the size of the field - the number of papers published per year, for example - has a direct impact on how many citations each paper gets.

Your quandary is an example of this. In certain fields such as high-energy physics, astronomy, or parts of biology, a lot of the science is concentrated in very large collaborations, which produce papers with many citations and many authors. It is indeed unfair to use citation counts to compare such a CV with, say, a mathematician's, since papers there tend to have few authors and, in many specialized fields, be read by very few people indeed, even for high-quality papers.

Whether such bibliometrics are used in practice by hiring committees - well, that obviously depends on the field, the institution, and the specific people involved. If all the applicants are from similar fields then this may not be a huge problem, but the numbers need to be treated with some distance to avoid the problem you point out. If a hiring or review process places a large emphasis on citation counts (or other bibliometrics) for applicants from different fields, then that is indeed a problem.

One final thing you should keep in mind is that applicants with a high-citation-count, large-collaboration paper in their CV are likely to get asked at interview questions like

  So, what was your role in this collaboration?

in any case, as part of the interview process.


What is the difference between an explanation and an interpretation?

I think I understand what your colleague is suggesting, and I think an example might help, so let me try:

I grabbed a (roughly) random article from the most recent copy of Nature by Govero, et al.

A bolded "explanation" in the Results section:

  At day 7, we observed high levels of viral RNA in all male reproductive tract tissues (Extended Data Fig. 4a). At day 13, we observed ZIKV RNA in germ and Sertoli cells in Rag1−/− mice, and this was associated with a decrease in TRA98+ germ cells and Lin28a+ spermatogonia and breakdown of the BTB. However, interstitial Leydig cells remained in ZIKV-infected Rag1−/− mice even though the architecture of the seminiferous tubules was altered (Extended Data Fig. 4c–d). Thus, damage to the testis appears to be mediated both by ZIKV infection and adaptive immune responses.

Versus an "interpretation":

  Our experiments with mouse-adapted ZIKV-Dakar show that infection causes testicular and epididymal damage in mice that can progress to reductions in key sex hormones, destruction of germ and somatic cells in the testis, and loss of mature sperm and fertility. Sertoli cells may be a key target for ZIKV in the testis, resulting in cell dysfunction, detachment from the basement membrane and dissolution of the BTB. Infiltrating inflammatory cells may amplify destruction of the testicular architecture.

So, in some ways there is a bit of overlap, and I don't know if "explanation" vs. "interpretation" are the best words used to differentiate them. I'm also not holding up this article as some optimal way of presenting things: opinions will no doubt vary. My personal opinion is that some contextualization is necessary in the results of all but the most straightforward papers. I think "explanation" is especially needed when you are discussing the control experiments you did, and it's a matter of personal style the order in which you present this, either: "In order to make sure XXXX wasn't a problem, we did YYYY" or "When we tested YYYY, we found ZZZZ, therefore XXXX did not contribute to our previous finding MMMM."

Essentially, in the results section, they didn't only state what exactly they found (i.e., virus levels and counts of cells), but they also explained what those result means in the context of what they are studying. In the discussion, they go further, interpreting the results in the context of other discoveries in the field and future directions for study.


"Thank you" notes after giving a seminar talk

I agree that sending a paper thank-you note is a little unusual.  There's nothing wrong with it, of course.  You may come across as slightly eccentric, but academia has plenty of people like that!

A thank-you email, on the other hand, is perfectly usual.


Reasons to publish in a "Letters" journal?

While the areas covered by this journal is very broad, the journal focusses on contributions that can be explained in a concise way. They have a strict page limit that is quite low, hence the "letters" in the name.

Other non-letter journals ask for contributions from a more narrow field of research and have a much higher page number limit (if they have one at all). These journals accept papers that provide a substantial benefit to the respective research area, regardless of their length. While the papers submitted to a journal do not officially compete for acceptance (as they would in a conference), all submitted papers need to be competitive in terms of how much they bring the community forward in order to be accepted. Small isolated results often do not fare well in this regard.

A letters journal is hence attractive for contributions that can be explained in a few pages, and for which it makes no sense to embed them in a larger paper (or the author does not want to).


Presenting on a conference as a Master Student... common or unusual?

I don't have experience as for the linguistics conferences, but from my observations I can tell that while master students' papers are not common, they are not unheard of (especially, but not limited to, as coauthorship with master thesis supervisor).
There are three remarks that I can make in your situation:

If the conference has double-blind review policy you should be judged based on the merits of your work and your academic status would be irrelevant.
Did you try talking with your supervisor about the paper: maybe she can suggest a coauthorship to increase the acceptance chances?
Generally my advice would be to submit the abstract: what do you have to lose?

Good luck.


Publisher didn't make change to paper and now the paper still has the error

Send the publisher an email mentioning that an error that was detected and discussed during the revision period has crept into paper. Don't attribute blame. Ask politely that the error is fixed.

As noted by C26, errors are common. It doesn't matter if the mistake isn't fixed. But, it will probably bug you if you don't try to get it fixed. (Such issues probably won't bother you after you've published a few more mistakes ;-)


NSF two-ninths salary rule vs. NIH model

I don't know for sure if this is historically accurate, but the story I've always heard is that the two-ninths rule was an attempt to avoid the vacation issue.  If you take three months of summer salary, then that leaves no time at all for any vacation, since you can't accept summer salary for any time not spent on research.  The fear was that if three months of summer salary were allowed, lots of people would request it (since a 9% salary increase would be tough to resist), but the public would be concerned that many of them were probably cheating and going on holiday with their families for part of that time anyway.  The two-ninths rule minimizes the extent to which the NSF has to deal with this issue, since there's one month reserved for vacation or other activities.

Incidentally, this fits consistently with Bill Barth's answer: solving the vacation problem this way is probably more attractive for an agency that has less money in the first place.


How often do mathematics professors move up from mediocre schools to good ones?

I think it will be hard for anyone to answer this question in the literal terms it was posed, i.e., by giving you a numerical probability.  I don't know how to compile a list of all mathematicians meeting your requirements and/or those that went on to top 50 universities.

Let me try to answer more qualitatively.  People do move from one university to another, most commonly before they are tenured, but mobility at all levels is increasingly common: a substantial minority of all tenured math faculty move to a different tenured position at least once over the course of their careers.  (One way to try to quantify this would be to look at the Mathematics Genealogy Project; if someone has supervised more than one student at multiple institutions which are not in close proximity, it is likely that they moved after tenure.)

I don't know if you've heard, but things are very competitive now.  I am at roughly the 50th best math department in the US, and the people that we've hired in the last decade are doing a lot better than "solid work"; most of our recent hires are internationally renowned in their fields.  If you're going to hire someone more senior, then you'll have to pay them more and you worry that they will not stick around as long, so in most cases they have to be better than the stellar younger hires.  Exceptions include departments who want to found entire research groups; for this you really need a senior person, and that person's leadership / mentorship / overall activity and connections in the field may be more important than the excellence of their work.

So to be taken seriously as a senior hire, someone needs to have excellent work beyond even the impressive going rate for a younger hire.  These are the parameters independently of how long they spent away from academia: hiring committees will look at the best work a candidate has ever done and compare it to their work in recent years.  You don't need some minimum number of total papers, and you don't get credit for time served.  If you've done several really great things in the last few years, the last millennium portion of your CV is not really relevant.

Let me also say that although I am painting a picture that transitioning to a top university is a hard road, it is certainly not an impossible one.  I can think of at least one person in my field who took several years off to work in his family business far away from any academic epicenter.  When I knew him he was back in academia with a pretty decent position that I, if I'm honest, kind of wondered how he'd landed.  Ten years later he is at one of the world's top universities and has won many awards.  How did he do it?  By doing great work.  Really great work: as in, resolving major pieces of very famous conjectures.  It's just that easy...and it's just that hard.


Improving motivation in qualitative research motivation

Let me try to make two points, one about you and the other about Grounded Theory. First, though, I don't know you and so am extrapolating and I'm not involved with grounded theory other than having evaluated a thesis and a tenure decision.

About you: Many students reach a point in their research at which they start to doubt the value of it. This happens in many fields. But one of the reasons for the doubt is that the student begins to know and understand the theory and so it starts to seem somewhat simple and maybe inconsequential. But that is a sign of growing expertise. What seemed hard at the beginning, now seems less hard and maybe more obvious, so, what's the point. This is the sort of thing you just need to power through, hopefully with the help of advisors. If the advisors are good enough, and actually involved in grounded theory, rather than just external observers of students, then you should be able to trust their advice.

About Grounded Theory: I'd never heard the term until I was asked to serve on the tenure committee of a new faculty member. I reviewed her work and was astounded at the depth of understanding she brought. I became one of her chief advocates through her attaining a Full Professorship. Why?

I was trained in mathematics and later switched to computer science. They are similar to each other in some ways. I've written here in response to other questions about what is required to be a mathematician. It isn't just deep knowledge of mathematics, but requires insight into how a field of study works. It is one thing to be able to follow or reproduce the proof of a known theorem, but it is a completely different level task to be able to propose what might be true with enough confidence that it is worth spending time and effort evaluating the truth. It is easy to make random statements in math and easy to extend things trivially, but much harder to even conceptualize something over the horizon.

But it is just this sort of thing that grounded theory attempts to do. It is very difficult. But, when done well, it will come up with questions worth studying. Integrating the various threads of thought what are unfocused and incomplete into something that can be rigorously studied is a big deal. The world is a messy place. Grounded theory attempts to make some sense of it.

But, and you have pointed it out in the question, it has to be done carefully and rigorously so that you don't just put a stamp of "science" on shoddy thoughts and preconceptions. It is very difficult to look into messy data, even contradictory data, and discern the inner workings. Even to discern what might be the inner workings is very hard. You need to rigorously question every assumption as those may lead to error. But you already know this, and, I suspect, that since you recognize it, are well placed to follow through on the required rigor.

You've chosen a hard path, actually. I wish you well along the way.


Would this kind of paraphrasing be called "plagiarism"?

Assuming that (Gedik, 2010) is the source of the original, I don't think you have a problem since, (a) you give the citation and (b) the ways to express the needed ideas here are very limited.
You are clearly making reference to the original work. And it is clear you are describing the work of another.
The essential elements describing the questionnaire must all be present and you have minimally done that.


Leaving PhD program with a masters (for a job). Can continue PhD later?

Through the computer science point of view, all three reasons you've listed above tells me that you are better off in the industry.

  You are at a point in your life where you need some money and its
  financially more secure to work rather than being a graduate student.

Indeed. But the point of doing research as a grad student is having less money for more time. Even though most of the PhD comics disagree with me, I find conducting research at a good university gives you a lot of time to spend for yourself.
You will have the deadlines, not the working hours. Thus, either working at your office, or at home in the night, is completely up to you.

Also, not to disagree every single thing, but you have way more financial security as a researcher compared to the industry. Unless you behave very unethical, it is an extreme case that a university cuts out your funds.

  It's a good idea to experience what the work force/industry/"real
  world" is like for a bit.

This reason speaks for itself. If you're thinking the industry is the real world and conducting research is imaginary(?) world, then your choice must be very clear by now.

  You may not be satisfied with your research topic/advisor at your PhD
  institute.

The solution to this is simply changing your research topic and advisor. This is another point in academia, that you have all the freedom in the world to work whatever you want. Opposed to industry, where usually your boss tells you what to do and what not to do.

As I've discussed this topic earlier, I believe having a PhD degree cannot be measured by how much extra money you've missed, or is it really worth it.


Job portal of US universities: when is the application status updated?

Academic jobs are a nightmare from the HR perspective. While the posting might be on the jobs portal, the files themselves initially go to the hiring department which comes up with a long and then medium list that they then do some preliminary screening before ending up with a short list for on-site interviews.  This can take several months.

The search committee then comes up with a ranked list with some candidates "above the line" and some "below the line" that the department votes on. This list -- which may have one, two, or three people that the department thinks are hireable (or in some cases, none, if the search fails).  This list then goes to the provost, equal opportunity, and numerous other sundry university committees before getting approved (or not) and sent back down the line. This can take several more months.

So we are now 4-6 (or 6-8) months into the search. The search can have several results:

A single finalist who is contacted. Maybe they
dawdle for a couple of weeks in giving a reply. If they decide not
to take the job, then the search is failed. The department may or
may not be authorized to search again next year and if they are, the
search remains open.
Two finalists. The first accepts (or not). If the first doesn't, the second is given a chance. If both decline, then it's a failed
search.
No finalists. Failed search and the slot goes back to the provost's office. It may or may not be returned to the department.
The provost hates all of the finalists and either cancels the slot or forces the department to re-run the search.

In other words, there are many reasons why a job posting might still remain open even one or two years after the initial posting. Departments are hesitant to finally close files unless they are absolutely positive that they are never, ever getting that slot back again -- or that the person who accepted the offer really is going to show up on August 1st.


What is the point of ScienceWISE annotation on arXiv?

From ScienceWISE FAQ:

  Why do you need all this if there is Wikipedia?

  The main difference of our Ontology from most existing online resources is in a possibility to have several single-authored definitions of the same concept. Unlike Wikipedia, ScienceWISE provides a mechanism for scientific community ranking (by linking against the best definitions) and provides a peer-run quality assurance system.

You may have read that already, but unless you explain what is not clear your question is either impossible to further answer or a disguised criticism.


Is it acceptable to use MS Equation 3.0 for a journal paper?

If they accept .doc probably they also accept MS Equation. However, the best you can do is ask them directly.

Anecdote: A couple of years ago I prepared the proceedings for a major CS conference. We had about 120 accepted papers and only one of those was written in MS Word.


Doing a MA / MSc in your hometown despite the fact that it's not challenging?

Something is better than nothing.

If a student, for whatever personal reason, needs the degree either now or never, he should always take the local program. If it is possible to wait a year, study, retake exams or makeup weak grades, do that and then reapply everywhere. But if it's "that" local degree or nothing, go for the degree.

Any weak degree is a bummer, but it still opens doors. It instantly creates eligibility for a new tier of jobs nationally and internationally. It makes one eligible for teaching, supervisory roles, and for PhD programs. If a student goes in knowing the program is weaker, he or she should have a self-defense plan. Supplement classes with productive personal projects. Perhaps working cross-discipline with a stronger local department. Example: my university has a weak biology department and high quality mathematics/statistics department. I recommend the bio students become experts in non-parametric tests and try to get method-specific publications to give themselves leverage.

Other ways of making the best of a bad degree is to find the one or two good quality advisors who will 'understand,' getting an internship, attending conferences, joining professional student organizations and using them to build contacts.

Admittedly, this answer could be modified in the face of age, family commitments, and financial hardship of the student in question. In the majority of cases, however, the 'weak' educational investment would still pay the greatest dividends.


I have presented powerpoint slides by:

voice call while screen sharing the window with the presentation (works quite well)
video call with slides behind me, having emailed the slides to the audience beforehand (works well for smaller audiences as long as you remember to say "next slide" or similar when you change. Sounds like it would be annoying but everyone gets used to it very quickly).

I have also seen

record the presentation offline, replay as a video and have a skype q&a afterwards (this was odd, I wouldn't recommend it).

Final tips:

Do a practice run with your supervisor/colleague over Skype
Make sure you have reliable, fast internet (at my University that still means a wire) and a quiet room


Responding to emails from strangers outside academia asking you advices

Why don't you start a blog? An FAQ and a few posts might be enough to address the vast majority of questions without costing you a ton of time.
You can then refer any inquiries to the blog. In time its popularity will grow and people might go directly to it instead of sending you emails.

You can highlight you research, grow your professional network, lead to collaborations AND save time by not having to answer the same question a million times.


Is it normal to feel impatient in lectures when a lecturer explains material that could be obtained from textbooks?

You have to take into account that many of the courses you attend are not made for you. They are probably made for people that have a lot less experience. Even though you might not have a lot of knowledge yet regarding the topic you are attending a course in, you have much more general knowledge and acquired learning skills throughout your PhD.

If you want to learn these new things through courses, I think you just have to suck it up as the focus of these courses is probably on less experienced people. Alternatively, you could pick up some text books and start learning like that.


Affiliation when submitting a revised paper

Affiliation is mostly for identification. There is no formal definition requiring it to be linked to the institution in which most of the work was done. I'd suggest that you follow the advice of your director, for political reasons if no other. It may be important to the current institution to connect itself to your work.

But there is no reason that you can't also acknowledge your former institution within the paper if they also gave you support. Add a footnote mentioning the institutions that supported the work.


Do educational programmes need to be in italics within the Harvard system of referencing?

In general, italics would not necessarily be used just to represent the name of something. You wouldn't write "the Marshall Plan", so you wouldn't write "Wellmother programme", either.

As for the government publication, that's a different matter altogether. If the document is a "stand-alone" publication, as most such works are, then it should be italicized as if it were a book. So, this could also extend to a program if it were announced as a formal document, rather than just a policy position.


Trying other PhD opportunities while accepting an offer from my master supervisor?

Should I give up the current opportunity, and try to apply other universities?

Why do you have to give up this opportunity to apply to other universities? Find out when your advisor needs your decision by; apply to other universities in the meantime; and when the time comes to give your advisor your decision, evaluate that offer as well as any other offers you have in hand at the time.

  Is it ethical or appropriate to accept the current offer first, then keep on applying other universities?

Not unless you tell your advisor that's what you're doing.

  Another worry is that will he writes a good reference for me if he wants to keep me in his group?

If your advisor is a reasonably competent advisor, then he will want what's best for you. If that means looking into other opportunities, then he should be supportive. If he isn't supportive, then either

he will make a terrible advisor. Consider yourself lucky that you found out now, and get away fast. Or,
he thinks you'll do best staying where you are. If this is the case, ask him why he thinks so. Consider his answer carefully, then make your own decision.

  The selection results of other universities span across a large time range, if I wait until all selection results are available, it would be too late to accept my current offer. Is there any way I can balance the risk?

Obviously, you'll have to commit to a choice at some point. But this is highly situation-dependent. The best person to advise you on this matter is your advisor. He can tell you when he needs your decision by, estimate your chances of getting into the programs you're interested in, and weigh the risks of each approach with your specific goals in mind.


PhD student target of crazy department head

Have you considered reaching out to your office of the Ombudsman/woman? Often times, they serve as the official/unofficial mediator when it comes to conflicts within an organization.


What are some good ways to keep students coming to lectures?

Here are my suggestions:

Make sure your lectures actually add something to their learning experience. Ask one of your coworkers or someone from the teaching support center (if you have one of those) to come watch a class every now and then and give you feedback on how to improve. (Even if you are a teaching super star, there is always something you can improve.)
Take 5 minutes to ask the students to fill in anonymous "exit tickets" with three questions: Something you should keep doing, something you should stop doing and something you should start doing. This should be done in class after a few weeks, but before the attendance starts dropping. Actually follow any reasonable suggestions.
Over the long term, create a scatter plot of number of lectures attended versus final grade. If your lectures are useful, then there will be a strong positive correlation between the two. Show students the plot during the first class every semester and tell them to make their own decision about attending or not.
If you really want to make them attend class, schedule daily quizzes that account for some not insignificant percentage of the grade. If they don't attend class, they receive a zero.
Remember that your students are adults. They are responsible for their own learning, and if they decide to sleep in rather than come to class no matter what you do, that's still their choice and their responsibility. You can't force them to attend. If your lectures add value, and they still choose not to attend, that's ultimately their problem.


Quitting a PhD program from one university to different university due to change in research interest with the current advisor

Definitely move on.  I would talk with both chemE and mechE department heads at your current university (they may have an option for you without having to move on to another place).  In parallel or series, you can apply elsewhere.  I wouldn't even dwell on the flareup with the other professor but maybe try to make it a positive that you have some previous research.

Finally, be careful what problem you pick.  Make it tractable and likely to succeed. Not building a supercollider, not waiting for a Shuttle experiment, and not relying on questionable previous work.  Oh...and pick an older, established advisor who does not have an aggressive personality.

At this point, you really should just find something and get the union card done.  Don't worry about discovering gravity.  Some research problems can really be done in a very short amount of time (I know Ph.D.s who wasted years on a flawed problem and then did something else for a year and wrote it up and got the sheepskin.)  Time is ticking for you personally so you need to look out for yourself and do something that works and quickly.


Applying to work where I said "no" in the past?

There are many reasons why people choose to go to one program over the other. While there might be some thin-skinned people, I don't think that should lead you to rule out applying. Since applying to a job at a school is minimal cost to you, you should go ahead and do it.

Much more likely is that the only person who remembers is the person who would have been your POI.  I wouldn't bring it up unless someone asks.


Asking for status of faculty position search during coronavirus pandemic

It’s certainly appropriate to ask. Virus or not, the world will move on from this crisis, hopefully in a timeframe of a few months, you will still need a job, and the university will still need faculty to teach classes and do research. Students will still need to be educated. Higher education can be affected by economic recession, put probably less so than many other sectors of the economy. So don’t panic.

So yes, it’s fine to send them an email and politely inquire about the status of the search. Keep in mind that it’s possible they are scrambling to figure out how to keep instruction going and dealing with other urgent matters around the current crisis unrelated to faculty hiring. So the most likely response you’ll get is they are still figuring things out and don’t have any news.


Career Options after PhD in Math (International)

You seem to be completely ignoring the possibility of getting a postdoc in a better school.

In addition to being a great opportunity to expand your social network, it would give you the chance to do more (hopefully good) work before applying for faculty positions.


For Applied Maths / Engineering masters and PhDs transitioning into industry, do they still get to use MATLAB?

MATLAB is absolutely used in industry, and I'm certain that's where the majority of the company's income is from.

If you like, you can think of the extremely cheap student and university usage as a "first taste is free" policy by a dealer: it is highly advantageous to MathWorks to have large numbers of students graduating with experience and comfort in MATLAB. If it's then part of the standard "tools of the trade," that's something that most companies can afford for anyone who clearly needs it to accomplish their job: if a good engineer costs you $300K/year (when salary, benefit, overhead, etc., are all included), and having them use MATLAB makes them a little more efficient, it's well worth it.

Now, if you're not in a job where that cost-benefit tradeoff is clear to the leadership, then you'll have a hard time getting ahold of MATLAB --- and that's what free and open source alternatives (in this case Octave) are for.


What is the meaning of "person specification" in a job advert?

I've seen this terminology particularly in the UK, though I don't know how widespread it is. In each of the UK jobs I've seen with this phrasing, the "person specification" was a very clearly labelled part of the advertisement for the opening, or in some cases a separate PDF document. It contained a bulleted list of items clarifying both "essential" and "desirable" qualifications for the position.
I think your contact is urging you to consult such a list. If you have not gotten your hands on this kind of document regarding the position, look carefully for it where the job was advertised. If you still can't find it, I would write back and ask for a copy or where you can find one.
If part of your written materials for the application includes a personal statement, that statement should briefly highlight specific aspects of your background which demonstrate that you fulfill the listed items. Frankly I'd reference the specific items on the list.
I have not personally done job recruiting, but it is my impression a literal checklist of whether these items appear in your application will be made.


Author contributions include statements about experiment not conducted in study

This seems like a totally reasonable statement which is perfectly clear. Unless you took raw bcl files or whichever image file comes direct off the scope the other author analyzed data. Clearly they collected the data. You don't have to do anything other than cite their work.

This is a normal statement and if you complain about it your collaborator will think you're weird.


In a 5 years PhD, is it possible to get a postdoc position with one publication? I can really use some advice

I think that any position as a post doc won't be awarded based simply on who has the highest publication count. There is more to it than that. Most positions expect you to fit into a given department or lab in some way and there can be a lot of expectations on that beyond research record. While publications may be important, and more so in some situations, it is unlikely to be the entire story very often.

Read whatever the offering institution says about the kind of skills and person who is desired and match your own skill set to that as best you can. It may be something as simple as expertise in a field, but there may be an expectation of participation in the educational process, especially of grad students. How well do you fit the expectations, however they are. Some special experience may be needed that you may have or not.

Of course, you should list your work in progress as such without overstating it. If the papers are written, then you have titles for the work and abstracts. Try to get something submitted so that the process toward publication is started, at least. Get good letters of recommendation, preferably tailored to your suitability for the specific positions you seek.


What is too obvious to explain in a scientific paper?

Symbolic notation must always be defined in a paper.  The reason is that there are not that many symbols and lots of things they can be used to represent.  Thus, even if every class you ever took used v to represent voltage, other people are using it to represent velocity, vertices, values, etc.  See, for example, this far-from-complete Wikipedia list of how Greek letters are used.

At a minimum, each symbol should be defined the first time that it is used.  It is also helpful to your readers to provide a table of important symbols and to refresh their memory on definitions of critical symbols from time to time.  This can often be done quite simply and efficiently within the sentence where the symbol is used, e.g.:

  we consider a particle traveling at velocity v through a magnetic field of strength B(x), where x is the position of the particle in space.


Is it ethical for a CS profesor to assign development of real world systems?

Implementation is ethical. It is ethical for your teacher to require implementation of a system for real-world deployment. Albeit, it would be better if the word prototype were included.

Deployment is unethical. It is unethical for your teacher to claim that any such implementation is suitable for deployment.

Side note. Your teacher cannot expect any NGO to deploy implementations.

Additional remark. It is abysmal to teach students that
"passing [source code] around in flash drives and making full copies of the different versions was a better way to do things [compared to using a repository]."


Dataset of grad admission acceptance rate based on undergrad school

The specific dataset you seek is likely unavailable because of concerns about personal identifying information and the confidentiality of the process.  The number of applicants from small colleges or to small CS programs in any given year is in many cases too low for effective anonymity.

Many good undergrad programs will tell you about where their graduates went in terms that they are comfortable with, e.g. "x% went to grad school;" some will even list exactly which graduates went where - usually with the permission of both the graduate and the department head.  I don't think anybody's gathered this into a single dataset.

However, certain aspects of your curiosity may be satisfied by graphs and compiled data from a step later down the line, about which universities hire grads from which other universities for their CS faculty.  That kind of information can be found here (compiled by Jeff Huang and his students at Brown University, analyzed by Jürgen Pfeffer at Carnegie Mellon):

(source: pfeffer.at)


How can one when not affiliated to an institution get access to very common piece of equipment for a subject?

Find someone in the institution (your approach 1), write to them, and ask.  You'll need a brief description of your experiment so the recipient knows what they're agreeing to.  If this is common equipment in your field and you're not proposing to take over the lab for hours every week, just ask.  The worst they can do is to say no.


I would construe "scientific report" here to encompass all forms of scientific publication and communication, including peer-reviewed papers as well as possibly internal technical reports. Remember that a technical report is just something that hasn't gone through peer review.

The exception would be if this were for a corporate position, where publication may be more difficult. In such cases, one would expect "grey literature" to be the primary "publication" mode.


Percentage of total scholarly literature available in open access repositories by year of publication broken down by discipline

As far as I see, to answer this question based upon a more recent data set one has to create the needed data set in advance.

An overview article (open access version) published in 2013 is the most recent work I could find. Even an article from 2016 analyses only articles published between 2010 and 2012.

Unfortunately, neither the data set behind the shown picture nor the method used to create the data set is given in the report (see footnotes 63 and 64) but I found the corresponding pre-print.

The needed data set has to include all published articles, the publication year, the information of the access state on article level (gold/green) and a consistent classification.

One could start by using google scholar or the Thomson Reuters list to collect all published articles and repositories or a web trawler to find corresponding green open access versions. One could also use a data collector as BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine). BASE offers browsing using the DDC which should help to identify the publications of the different disciplines, if one has no access to the Thomson Reuters list. Additionally, each article has an access state. The access state of an article can also be collected from oaDOI.

There are definitely several ways to get the needed information. Unfortunately, it seems that no one has done this work recently.


How can someone from a developing country study pure mathematics/theoretical physics at a university abroad?

The African Institute for Mathematics (http://www.aims.ac.za/) is an institution meant to help those in your situation. Essentially, it is supposed to offer talented budding mathematicians from Africa the fundamentals to be competitive to apply to the top places all over the world.


Is it a good idea to self-fund a postdoc for a year?

The job market is extremely competitive, and not having had an official position will not help your CV. This is not the 70s or 80s. Academia is a very different place to what it was then. You should be aware that there is a high chance you won't be able to continue in academia, whatever you do with the next year. Would you be comfortable with running down your savings and then finding you have to change course anyway? If you want to do so, I would strongly advise talking to some tenure-track and newly-tenured professors (or equivalent) about what it is really like. I know some people now are deciding that academia in its current state isn't worth the effort.

For a strategy if you do decide to self-fund:
You need your CV to show the benefit of your extra year. However, applying for maths positions, you don't actually have an extra year, because of the length of the application cycle. To some extent that will help you - you'll roughly still be applying as a new PhD. But you should be looking to have a longer list of good papers. Since getting anything published in that timeframe is basically impossible, I would suggest getting work up on the arXiv, and finding a well-respected researcher in your field as a referee, who feels able to say that they think the paper is of the standard of X journal (or words to that effect). I don't think that's massively easy though.

In addition, I would suggest getting at least one more 'thing' on your CV beyond its current state: organising a conference, writing a grant application, or some solid teaching experience.

The relative merits of going into industry instead will depend on what your field is. For pure mathematics is unlikely you'd be able to move back from industry to academia. In statistics or some applied maths, you can still be seen as a credible researcher on the basis of work in industry. The difficulty is being able to demonstrate your personal contribution to the results. Also, many potential positions will want someone who can teach as well as do research. Demonstrating that would be difficult, but I think not impossible (eg. by supporting colleagues or by tutoring as a part-time job).


What is the maximum depth of subchapters one should use in a paper?

Many, if not most, journals specify a maximum of three levels. In a book where the chapter is the top level, four may be ok considering each chapter can be as extensive as a paper. The problem of having too many levels is that the headings disrupt the reading. A good sign of this is when you end up having one heading per paragraph. If that is the case, you can probably remove the lowest level of headings and try to make the resulting segments of text flow by inserting bridges that makes paragraphs into a coherent text.

In my experience having read numerous student reports, theses and articles, three is a good goal. It is rare that a fourth level adds much in terms of structure apart from perhaps helping the writer. In fact, I often recommend students to keep a more detailed list of headings to enable them to see the structure of what they are writing but under the pretext that only a maximum of three should remain in their final version. I stand by that recommendation.


Is it appropriate to send out a manuscript under review to a professor?

You still hold all rights to your work, so yes, it is fine to send it.

I'm assuming that you don't have concerns that your work will be stolen if you show it to someone else.

Even if you sign away your copyright to the paper, no one is ever likely to object to informal sharing with colleagues.


I am looking towards getting into a good PhD program in Germany. How can I convince any professor to take me as a student?

I work in computer science, but I think it doesn't matter in this case.

Please don't think it's a stretch to say that, but how do you achieve attention of someone on an online dating site? That's right: by standing out. As a professor, I get occassional emails from prospective students. They differ a lot in terms of content, language and attitude, so they make very different impressions on me.

There is no, and there can be no universal rule: people are different, and it is not possible to give a recipe that works for everyone. Some professors are simply not interested in getting new students (it's a "load"), and thus won't reply positively regardless of the quality of your mail.

For me, "a request, a CV, and a transcript" looks like something that you send in bulk, to dozens of people. Why should I react? Basically, I treat any bulk mail as spam. Yes, I get it: as a student you might simply want to enter a certain resonable university and study a certain field you want to work in. But what should be my (professor's) motivation to support this endeavor of yours? It is a commitment both for you and for me.

What works for me is when people are genuinely interested in my research project, and they wish to support it, so they will be not just a burden, but my assistants. Fake interest ("I am very impressed by your work and want to be your student") is easy to spot, BTW. I have no interest in studying random people's CVs and transcripts; if I wished to do it, I would work in HR.

Bottom line: connect what you already studied with something that you want to study, think how to present your previous experience and obtained knowledge as a valuable asset for the prospective professor's lab. Find a person who does something that you genuinely like. Read his/her research papers (i.e., do your homework), try to propose a possible direction for your studies. Try to be a collaborator, not a burden.

I must also say that things become more complicated when you need more than just "an approval". If people just wish to come and join our lab, it's different from asking to fight together for their scholarship, for example.


How to get letters of recommendation when you work alone

I think the elephant in the room is that, in your case, your issues finding letter writers is merely a symptom of a much deeper problem. You not only fail to collaborate in your research (which, in many disciplines, would be a severe career hindrance all by itself), you appear to not even communicate what you do sufficiently. I understand that situations come up where collaboration with the faculty in your own university simply does not happen, but if literally nobody (inside or outside your institution) is aware of what you are doing and how it is going, then why are you getting paid a stipend to do it in the first place?

So to answer your question:

  This means that after one year I have no one whom I can say "knows" what I can do. Whom do I turn to for references in the case that I work entirely alone and I'm too new for anyone to be familiar with me?

Change this immediately, not primarily because you don't have somebody to turn to to write a letter, but because you will not have success on the job market anyway if nobody knows what you do. Network internally and externally. Give talks. Go to conferences. Actively look for collaboration opportunities. If you are just one year in, you have plenty of time, but now is definitely the time to start becoming more proactive.

Note that a letter writer does not necessarily need to be deeply embedded into your daily work to write an effective letter. If an experienced researcher has broadly observed what challenges you work on, how you work, what your best research contributions were, etc., they will be able to write you a letter. You don't need to meet with a letter writer multiple times a week - just seeing you give a department seminar twice a year and chatting occasionally in the hallway may already go a long way towards being able to write a letter, if no more suitable options present themselves.


Something like this is actually very common in some fields. Economics programs usually have a requirement called "Specialization Fields," "Major Fields," "Field Certification," or something like that (some example requirements).

They usually consist of a couple courses in the same area, as well as often an additional field exam covering topics from those courses. Glancing over some requirements, most programs require you to finish ~2 or these as a requirement for getting your PhD, either equally or as a major/minor setup. As you might expect, almost all students do these in fields that they are interested in and will eventually do research in.

As for purpose, I believe that they are mostly used as a signaling and filtering device for the job market. If you look at any department's list of job market candidates, you can see that the specialization fields are very prominently displayed. I think the importance of these is probably linked to some of the idiosyncrasies of the econ job market, such as its degree of centralization, but that's just my speculation.


second on campus interview for TT faculty position (3rd interview total)

I have been a department chair (math department, large US university) and nonetheless find your situation completely baffling. I have literally never heard of a TT job candidate being invited to a second on-campus interview. This is so unusual that I can’t really come up with a plausible guess for why the department that invited you thinks they need you to visit again; moreover, I think this may potentially bring the competence of the people who came up with this plan into question.

Please don’t rely on idle speculation by strangers online. My advice is to email the people who invited you and ask them to clarify what their plan is for the second visit and why they think it is needed. In my opinion, if you already had one on-campus interview, at least in a normal situation they should have all the information about you that they need in order to make a hiring decision. So I’m guessing their explanation may not be the most logical one. But at least you will have a sense of where they’re coming from.


current PhD applicant applying to another university

Yes.  If you are a student, you should say so in your application.  Otherwise, your CV will have an unexplained gap for the time you've been at your current department.  Unexplained gaps raise red flags with admissions committees.

In your statement, you also need to explain why you are applying to the new department instead of completing your PhD at your current department.  Moreover, you must do so without disparaging your current department, even if you have legitimate cause to do so; nobody likes a whiner.  Good reasons to move include a change in your own research interests, your advisor moving or retiring, following a spouse.

Above all, do everything above board.  If possible, you should also request at a recommendation letter from your current advisor; if not your advisor, some other faculty member in your department.  If you apply secretly, you risk burning all bridges with faculty in your current department.

Credit transfer is a completely orthogonal issue.


CV Gap: PhD dropout with no reliable reference

You need to fill that gap. Employers have to allow for the worst case. Currently, they have no evidence that distinguishes your PhD attempt from two years sitting around doing nothing, or even two years in prison.

First contact your former supervisor. Even if they cannot give you a good reference for your research skills etc., they may be willing to say you were a PhD student and roughly what you were doing during those two years.

If that does not work, try the department and the school. You are not looking for a recommendation as a researcher, just a statement that you were registered as a graduate student during that period.

In dealing with potential employers, you can say that you tried being a PhD student but it did not work out, and is not the right path for you.


Etiquette when a student attends a conference with his/her supervisor

There's no ethical dilemma here. You might tag along with him at first to let him introduce you to some people in the field he knows, but after awhile of that, you should feel free to introduce yourself to people who look to be more your age or status (younger looking people are more likely to be students like yourself). Also, at the dinner, you should feel free to introduce yourself to people whose talks you attended and the people at your table.

The above assumes you are comfortable in such social situations. Not everything at a conference is business. Network and enjoy the social aspects of the events if you can.


(How) can you teach a subject effectively for which you are a skeptic without biasing students?

What "skepticism" means to an academic is strongly field-dependent.  I am a mathematician, and I would have thought that true skepticism is almost impossible: after all, mathematical results are proved and any standard course would be on things that have been proved, reproved and combed over by the community several times over.  I could however be skeptical of the future trajectory of a mathematical subfield: i.e., maybe I think it is not worth the students' time to learn it.  But this is just a way of saying that I have very little interest in that subject, so...why then would I teach it?  I suppose that's one of the luxuries I have as a tenured faculty member in a reasonably large department.

So I looked at your profile, and I am interested to see that your field is...statistics.  So, hmm: again I wonder what you mean by "skepticism."  Do you mean that the course concerns a statistical technique that is mathematically valid
but whose usefulness is vastly overstated or is typically applied outside its range of validity, or a statistical practice that is actually not grounded well in theory, or...what?  I would think that "belief" has little to do with statistics, but perhaps that is a naive pure mathematician's belief.

On the face of it, if the course is in subject X, then spending some of the course covering X, then in the middle revealing that you don't believe in X, then spending the remaining portion of the course having the students decide which is right sounds, well, weird.  It is liable to leave them wondering why they took the course at all.  Indeed: why is this course being given? You said that there was one "believer" faculty member who is no longer in the department, so...who wants the course now?  Inertia is not a great defense for an academic position.  As a new tenure track professor in your department, in theory you should have some say in the programmatic offerings and also some responsibility.  In practice, the responsibility lies much more with senior people than very junior people.  I recommend that you contact faculty mentors and discuss your concerns with them in a mild way, making clear that you will do what they think is best.  One idea is to propose replacing the course with a totally different course in a subject close to your own expertise and enthusiasm: other things being equal, that sounds like a much better course.  If however the department is really committed to the course: well, you said you would do it, so I would suggest that you really do it, and not include skepticism of X as a main part of the course.  You can rest easier at night knowing that you offered the department some alternatives.  Speaking as someone who currently has an administrative role in my department: believe me, I am painfully aware that on a wide range of topics, "the buck stops with me."  That is my problem; as someone who has not even started the tenure track job, it is not yet yours.


What would be the most appropriate measure I should take if I feel that I am failing to submit my MSc thesis within deadline?

The key question that you need to answer is "why".

If there are serious, unforeseeable circumstances that have effected your ability to progress with your research and/or submit on time (such as illness),  then you should refer to your institution's policy and guidance on applying for an extension, mitigating circumstances etc.  Hopefully these will be considered and you will be granted an extension or a late submission will be accepted without penalty.

Some institutions also accept work-related circumstances as mitigating.

If it's down to poor planning, failing to adhere to your supervisor's advice or meet key milestones, bad luck etc, then, alas, it's unlikely that you will be granted any kind of dispensation to submit late.  Nonetheless, I'd advise you contact your supervisor to let them know the situation in the hope that they will help you unpick the situation.

In all circumstances, I'd suggest you talk to your supervisor as soon as possible or another adviser who might be able to help.

EDIT: Let this be a lesson to future readers - always ask for help sooner rather than later if you find yourself running into trouble and fear missing a deadline.  Two weeks before due date isn't going to cut it.


Is it legal (USA) and ethical to use international edition textbooks? When I pay for a textbook, where does the money go?

The US Supreme Court ruled that it is legal to buy and sell international editions of textbooks. As for the ethics, it clearly goes against the wishes of the publisher, so one might conclude that despite being legal that it is unethical. As for where the money is going, I believe most big publishers are publicly held, so the profits in general go to the share holders. Of course the costs include the salaries of the executives, royalties to authors, and the salaries of the individuals running the printing press.


I have never seen a photo on CV to be a requirement (although the fact that is included in parenthesis might implicitly mean that is optional?)

My interaction with colleagues in Europe (especially Germany) seems to suggest that this is a relatively common requirement, or at least a default expectation for what is a "complete" CV that they may feel the need to specify due to an international applicant base.

  Assuming that its is indeed a requirement, what is the rationale behind this? What are the benefits (for the person advertising the position) of doing so?

I imagine many of the rationales boil down to "This is how it's done". Every justification I've ever seen is about making a "personal connection" and evaluating some soft factors based on the photo.

Whether this is a good idea or not is left as an exercise to the reader.


How common is it for a paper to be wrong?

I'll try to give a general answer from a non-CS perspective.

tl; dr: yes, there are errors out there. A lot of errors, clerical and not, even in oft-cited papers and books, from any field. It's inevitable: though they do their best to avoid errors, authors are human after all, and reviewers are humans too (I know, you never find a damn robot when you need one). Thus, whenever you read a paper, maintain critical thinking.

EXAMPLES

I'll start the too long section with an anecdote. When I was working at my master's thesis, some twenty years ago, I needed a result published in a much cited paper from a renowned author in the field of electromagnetics. At the time, (almost) young and inexperienced, I thought that papers were always absolutely right, especially when written by recognized authorities. To practice the technique of the paper, I decided to rederive the results: after a week spent redoing the calculations over and over again, I couldn't find the same final equation. I was able to discover the correct equation – the one I was finding – in a book published later by the same author. Indeed, it was a clerical error that absolutely didn't change anything in the paper, but it was annoying and taught me an important lesson: papers and books contain errors. And, of course, I later published papers with mistakes in equations (not for revenge!) [*].

After that first experience, I've discovered that you can find more fundamental errors, even in well known books and papers. I'll give you here a few examples, taken from different fields, to underline how broad the phenomenon is (in bold, the mistaken claim; within parentheses, the field):

(Classical mechanics) In Newtonian mechanics, the correct equation of motion in case of variable mass is F = dp/dt. This statement can be found in many classical books about newtonian mechanics, but it is plainly wrong, because that equation, when the mass is variable, is not invariant under Galilean transformations as it is expected in Newtonian mechanics (actually, the concept of variable mass in Newtonian mechanics can be misleading if not properly handled). For a deeper discussion see, e.g., Plastino (1990), Pinheiro (2004) and Spivak's book Physics for Mathematicians, Mechanics I. As a curiosity, that wrong equation is used by L. O. Chua in this speech (14:50 min) as an example to introduce the memristor.
(Circuit analysis) Superposition can't be applied directly to controlled sources. It was just a few years ago when I came across this statement for the first time, and I was stunned: hey, I've applied superposition to controlled sources since I was in high school, and I've always get the right result. How it possibly can't be used? In fact, it can be applied, the important thing is to apply it correctly, but there are really many professors (I have several examples from Italy and US) who don't understand this point and fail to notice that the proofs of several theorems in circuit analysis are actually based on the applicability of superposition to controlled sources. For more on this, see e.g. Damper (2010), Marshall Leach (2009) and Rathore et al. (2012).
(Thermodynamics) The Seebeck effect is a consequence of the contact potential. This false statement can be frequently read in technical books and application notes about thermocouples.

À propos of my own errors, a couple of weeks after having written this answer I discovered an error in an equation of a published conference paper which I co-authored. A fraction that should have been something like -A/B became B/A. Hey – I told one of the other authors – how could we possibly have written this? And how did it get past the reviewers? The fact is, that that equation was associated to a simple, well-known, example given in the introduction, an example so simple that probably neither us authors nor the reviewers gave a second look at the equation (of course, how can anyone write this wrongly?). I feel that many clerical errors like this one happen because of last-minute changes to notation: you have almost finished the paper and you realize that you could have employed a better notation... so, let's change it on the fly! And here is where certain errors sneak-in. Avoid last-minute changes, if you can.


Can I be admitted into a grad school program at a different university if I quit my current program?

With poor grades, it will be very difficult to get accepted at another program unless they are in in different fields (i.e., you could argue that during the course of the MS in psych, that you discovered that you have no talent for psych and that you want to go into a PhD for architecture or astrophysics). But that isn't the case for you.

However, you should know that you do not have to withdraw from your MS in order to apply to PhD programs. You can stay in your MS and apply to PhDs. You should note this in your application and state your intention to withdraw from the MS if you get into the PhD.

It will help your application TREMENDOUSLY if you can get a faculty member at your current institution to speak to why your performance was poor but that you have a latent talent that isn't reflected in your grades.

I should note that the likelihood that PhD programs will accept you given the poor grades will be pretty slight so I would not get your hopes up too much (or spend too much time and money applying to other programs).

Most "transfer" type students that we accept at the PhD level tend to want to transfer because of: 1) their original program is dissolving; 2) their adviser has left (either physically or mentally); 3) other issues about the original program that was not apparent when they applied.


Lack of motivation to carry out research or search for positions post PhD. How to address this feeling?

Give yourself some time

You just finished an important step in your career, which has presumably taken you between 3 and 7 years. Congratulations! For a while, it is normal to feel like celebrating your achievement instead of going on with everyday research and making important decisions. It is even more normal to have doubts about the next step.

Try to find out why you are not motivated

The good news is that you have an offer for a postdoc position, so (assuming you do not have to give an amswer now) you have some time to reflect on why you are not motivated. Is it just a temporary feeling? Do you really want to continue in academia? Do you want to do research at all? The answers to these questions should become clearer after a while.

Talk to people

Your advisor might have some suggestions about other options you might have after your PhD that motivate you more. You can also ask other colleagues/people in the field that you trust. Maybe they have had a similar experience and can tell you how they overcame it.


List with 2018 JCR impact factors, categories and quartiles

Here is a PDF uploaded to ResearchGate, which seems to be the most recent list.


How to highlight the projects I was involved during my postdoc in CV?

I would suggest a section entitled "Research Highlights". Then, point-wise, a single sentence describing the main research result of each highlight. Maximum impact would be firsts and records set, e.g. "First to measure the effect of X upon Y"; "Discovery of correlation between W and Z"; "Tightest limits set on parameter R", etc.


Cultivating relationships with professors beyond your advisor

Take classes with them. Go to their seminar talks and ask questions. Attend any social gatherings and chat with anyone you're interested in. Read their papers and drop by their office with a couple of questions.


Are contributions to conference proceedings considered to be "archival" publications?

Unfortunately, the reason you can't find a clear statement on this issue is because there isn't one.  The answer depends heavily on the field and the particular conference, and there isn't necessarily an absolute answer even in a specific case.  It may depend on why you care:

You may care yourself, because you want your paper to be carefully archived and made available in perpetuity.  In that case, it depends on whether a long-lasting, trustworthy organization has committed to providing access forever (and whether they have archiving contingency plans in case they go out of business).
You may need to make this distinction to assist in evaluating your CV.  In that case, the evaluators probably care primarily whether the papers are carefully refereed and in their final form, but the only way to know for sure is to ask them what their criteria are.
You may be wondering whether you can publish an updated version of your conference paper in a journal.  This depends on the customs in your field, and it requires agreement from both the conference and the journal.  The publishing agreement for the conference should specify what sorts of further publication are allowable (if it does not, then you should be sure to ask, since saying nothing suggests they do not expect any further publication at all), and the submission instructions for the journal may also address this issue.  If your submission is a revision of a conference paper, you should always specify this fact clearly and give a precise reference somewhere on the first page and in the cover letter, to make sure nobody could accuse you of hiding the previous publication.

The answers to these questions can vary.  For example, major theoretical CS conferences are archival in sense 1 (permanent archiving and availability) but not 2 or 3 (papers are not necessarily intended to be in their final form and definitive versions may be published elsewhere).


All of my final exams are cumulative, for a couple reasons:

1) I've always felt odd about non-cumulative exams. It seems to send a message I'd rather not send: “It's okay to forget about what you learned earlier in the course – you won't need that any more.”

2) Often, what gets taught later in the course builds on earlier concepts. If A lays the foundation for B, and B lays the foundation for C, it can be rather challenging to test on C without testing on A and B also.

That said, I try very hard to test on higher-level concepts rather than on minutia, so a cumulative final fits my teaching style. I expect my students to be able to speak intelligently to the main themes of the course. I've told students many times: “Come to class ready to learn, and be ready to engage with the material via the in-class discussions. That's the best way to prep for the exams.”

My goal is to structure my exams so that students who have paid attention in class and learned the material through other assignments should do quite well on the test – without the need to cram or commit the material to short-term memory. “By the last week of the term, you either know this stuff, or you don't,” I tell them. Many of my exam questions are essay questions that require students to analyze a scenario, and synthesize material from different parts of the course.

That might not always work, depending on the nature of the material; some material doesn't lend itself well to such questions. This approach may not be scalable, either. (It's not uncommon for me to have six or seven pages of essay questions per exam. Most of the time, I have between 15 and 30 students per course, which keeps grading manageable. If I had 50 or 60 students, however, I might have to rethink this approach.)

As a footnote, most of my courses are 400/600-level courses. I don't know if the style I've outlined would be a good fit for freshmen and 100-level material.


How should I handle a paper with incorrect experimental results?

In my opinion, the right thing to do is to publish a paper to clarify what could have been wrong in the previous work. This adds to the knowledge and invalidating previous results/beliefs is part of the science.

It is a good practice to inform the authors of your findings if you want to make sure as you said:

  We also don't have any reason to believe that the unreproducible
  portion of their results is incorrect as well

By informing the authors, they might provide you with more information that might invalidate your conclusions.

Assume good faith and accept that humans do mistakes.


Are spelling and/or grammar mistakes a cause for submitting Errata?

Let’s be utilitaristic and do a rough, optimistic calculation:

First, how much time does correcting a spelling mistake cost?

First of all, it costs you some time to find a way to contact somebody from the journal. I ran an experiment with a random journal and it took me three minutes to find a way to contact the chief editor and to ensure that there is no easy way to contact somebody closer to actual typesetting.
It costs you about one minute to write the mail.
It costs the chief editor (in our example) at least one minute to read the mail and redirect it to typesetting.
It costs the head of typesetting at least one minute to delegate the work.
Whoever is actually doing the work, has to find the source of the paper, correct the mistake, check whether the whole paper is still neatly arranged (even if the correction did not alter the number of lines in the paragraph, the linebreaking algorithm or the font might have slightly changed) and every sentence is still on the same page (in fields, where references to pages happen). Again, I ran an experiment on one of my own papers and it took me two minutes (as the correction had no major effects) – and I operate my computer mainly via keyboard and consider myself a fast typer and well organized, not to forget that I do not have so many papers. Additionally, let’s consider one minute for uploading or similar.

So, all in all, mankind has spent nine minutes on correcting the mistake.

Now, At the end of the day, the reason why we bother with spelling is that it speeds up reading texts, i.e., saves the reader some time. Let’s say a small spelling mistake (like turbulance) costs every reader a second. Thus to break even with our nine minutes, the respective word has to be read about 500 times. I do not have any direct numbers on this, but as papers are mainly read by the same people who write papers, this would mean that I have to read (every word of) 500 papers for every paper I write – which is very far from reality.

Thus even under the above optimistic conditions you are likely wasting more time than you are saving.

Also, from another point of view and my own experience: The involved people do not care. I can tell a story of how much trouble it was to make a typesetter change the way one of my tables was formatted such that it was any readable even if that would make it deviate from the journal guidelines – and that was a severe issue.

Finally, it’s likely that you only need to read a few papers to spot a terminus technicus with confusingly wrong hyphenation. My favorite example is »generalized onset seizure«, which denotes seizures with a generalised onset and not onset seizures, which are generalised.


How can one's career as a reviewer be ended?

No, the answer is simply that @buffy is wrong.  In reality, editors work hard to find anyone willing to review a paper.  They will be hesitant to exclude anyone.  In most fields reviewers are anonymous, so only one publisher will know if a reviewer does a bad job.


What are the process and practices of requesting for pre-submission peer review from field experts?

If you are an undergraduate and this is most likely one of your first papers, then yes, it is a good idea to have someone check it.

Even if none of the professors or colleagues you work with are familiar with your specific topic, they might still be able to give you advice regarding style and dos and don'ts in your field.

I would suggest to ask around, ask your advisor, ask others from your lab. That should have a higher chance to succeed than contacting a random professor who doesn't know you; they tend to focus their energy more on their own students.


Do we have to make any changes to a Springer LaTeX template before submission?

No. I don't recommend changes to the template. That is because the journal can easily update the template to the style they prefer for publication. Your changes to the template won't affect the eventual look of the manuscript.


Difference between good and not so good university?

This post is far too broad to be answered, but I can give some anecdotes.

In my experience, there are no "bad" universities provided that you go to a university that has some kind of national standing.  Sure, you can go to the Back Alley University of Cat Medicine and Mathematics, but I don't think that's what you're getting at.  More likely you're talking about whether you should go to a university that has national or international standing (like MIT) compared to one that might have decent regional standing but that isn't a national research powerhouse in your field.

Where you do your grad studies should depend on many things.  The status of the university is perhaps one of those things but is certainly not at the top of the list, especially for PhD.  You should instead be looking at individual researchers.  Do they do the research you are interested in?  Do they regularly publish? Regularly attend conferences?  Then go and meet with them or speak to them via email about mutually relevant research opportunities.  Determine if this is someone who can teach you to become a good researcher in the field.

Your research credibility depends on the problems you solve and the contributions you make.  An excellent school does not make an excellent researcher just by virtue of having them attend the school.

So, what does a top tier university really offer?  First, it tends to attract top tier talent and lots of funding to go along with it. Second, it is highly competitive, so you will be surrounded by other students of presumably high quality.  Third, yes, you get a bit of the brand to go with it.

What does a smaller university really offer?  Assuming you chose your advisor right (hard problem!) then you will probably get the same quality or higher training to become a researcher yourself, compared to going to a big school.  The problems you are working on might not be ground breaking but will always be interesting and relevant - research doesn't care where you study, it cares what you do.

Finally, it depends so strongly on your field which university is the best.  Speaking about my home province of Ontario, Canada, we certainly have some universities that are considered to be top-tier, probably world class, but only in certain fields.  There is a smaller (but still highly regarded) university whose past is rooted in agricultural research and, despite being a smaller university is extremely highly regarded in that field, probably best in the province for it.  However, it is certainly not a world class hub in, say, human computer interaction.  They wouldn't compete with MIT's media lab there, but that's not to say that someone interested in HCI couldn't make a huge impact going there.


Can we earn money through a research publication?

can we earn money through a research publication?

Certainly Yes.

Good publications make you a stronger candidate when apply to grants. It also help you in securing a job; if you do not have one. Also, collaborating with industry could be another way for earning money. Selling publication is something I never heard in my field (computer science). I do not even think it is possible in other fields.

If you are looking only for money then doing research is one of the bad choices you have.


Changing major after BS and MS in CS and double major in Physics for PhD in Mathematics

What are my chances if I apply for PhD in Number Theory?

Every PhD program has different requirements and the admission's committee evaluates different aspects of a candidates application. So there is no real answer to your "chances" of be admitted if you apply for a PhD program in Number Theory. However, with that said, if you can show rudimentary course work and experience in Number Theory, that can work in your favor. I do have close friends who majored in Business, Political Science, etc. who took the minimum requirements for medical school admissions (basic bio, chem, physics) and were admitted because they were able to distinguish themselves from the rest of the applicants. The same situation applies here. You may not have an extensive background in Number Theory, but that's not to say you won't be admitted to a PhD program and be great at it!

Do you recommend changing the field? Can you share other people's experiences in similar cases?

You need to follow your passions for where you want to take your career. I have had friends who pursued what they thought was their "dream" career, only to recognize that it was not at all what they had imagined - and wasted all that time thinking that it would change, that if they put in more effort than it would be exactly what they imagined it. On the other hand, I've also had friends who took a job that wasn't what they had wanted/dreamed and it turned into a great career and they absolutely love it! It all depends on what you want your future to be.


Is material produced for a course considered property of the department?

This is a question that really depends on local custom and policy.  At my institution, there's a clear policy that I own the copyright to materials that I produce for my teaching unless those materials were produced with extra institutional support (e.g. I'm paid extra to develop the course or the institution provides an instructional designer to help in developing a course.)
I'm aware that at many other institutions in the US, instructional content (course syllabi, lecture slides, assignments, etc.) are considered to be work for hire and owned by the institution.  This is very helpful when a course is frequently taught by contingent faculty.


Should an instructor tell his/her students before the exam that there are multiple versions of the exam?

Why would knowing in advance matter to anyone except cheaters?  This information will not help honest students prepare for the exam or change how they approach it, so for them announcing it afterwards seems just as good as in advance.  One argument for announcing it in advance is that some potential cheaters might decide not to try to cheat (and spend more time studying or become a little more honest), but the counterargument is that it might just encourage them to find more effective methods of cheating.  I don't consider either of these arguments especially compelling, and I'm not convinced it really matters much whether the announcement is before or after the exam.  This issue tends to come up in large courses, which are often pretty standardized.  I'd bet the students who care whether there are multiple versions of the exam can easily find out what this professor has done in other large classes, so there usually won't be much of an element of surprise.


How to make data management plans machine readable?

I think that one of the optimal solutions to the problem of "achieving machine readability for data management plans" could be as simple as specifying procedures of data conversion from source formats (human-readable or semi-machine-readable) into desired machine-readable formats for further data analysis. Those procedures might be coded in natural language instructions or, alternatively and preferably, via algorithms for benefits of automation and reproducible research.

Conversion from machine-readable formats to human-readable is an optional step, based on projects' requirements (while optional, this is a typical step for most projects, implemented in their reporting phase). The types and details of data conversion functionality IMHO obviously depend on projects' specifics and, therefore, should be determined and specified on a project by project basis.


can I cite personal communication from a co-author?

You should not provide information from one co-author as e.g. personal communication since any author on the manuscript is expected to contribute to the manuscript. If there is need to state that a specific author has come up with a particular point you could do that by stating that e.g. "one of us (initials) discovered that..." or something equivalent.

In the end, just remmeber that any fact presented in a manuscript is either due to the authors or to other (referenced) sources. It is rare, but not unheard of, that a co-author may have specific contributions that require, or perhaps deserve, special mention. I would deem this quite rare. Becoming an author on a manuscript means you contribute intellectually to the end product and that includes sharing your ideas.

So to sum up, tred carefully and objectively.

By including a reviewer as co-author, you should follow regular authorship "rules". I fully realise that the question whether or not you should include the person as an author is a different question entirely so I will only focus on the situation at hand.


What to do about students who miss my lectures and then want me to repeat entire material?

Is it reasonable for them to ask me to teach everything from scratch because they couldn't attend the class?

No, it's not.

If a student wants to engage in extra-curricular activities during lecture hours, they had better be able to keep up with the course material independently.


How do I get over these (possibly sexist) feelings regarding an underqualified labmate?

It seems as if you have two major issues.
1) This person doesn't know how to code
2) This person asks a lot of questions.

First, it would benefit you to remember that there are many skills required to be a good researcher. Examples include the ability to come up with good research problems, to develop theory, to read results in a way that makes connections/insights. This person may have been admitted because they are highly skilled at one of these other areas. The committee may believe that the person can pick up on the skills they lack. I myself started my PhD with horrendous gaps in my knowledge (my friends tell me that they were horrified by the questions I asked first year), but my letter writers were able to assure the committee that I was a quick study (and I was).

Second, you should remember that learning styles vary, and some people learn best by asking questions. It may not be your learning style, but one of the reasons study groups exist is that many people learn well by walking through problems and questions with others. This is the sort of thing that the askees seem to either love or hate. I had faculty tell me that I was their favorite student because I asked great clarifying questions during their courses/departmental seminars. I had other faculty tell me that I would never succeed in academia because "no one likes people who ask questions." If you are in group two, the best thing you can do is put in some headphones so you don't appear to be available for questions.