text:
Should I correct a mistake on an arXiv manuscript, that I found while refereeing it?
I recently received a request to referee a manuscript for a journal and, while doing so, I pointed out a crucial mistake undermining most of the calculations. After two unsuccessful answers on the part of the authors (where they addressed other concerns of mine, but basically ignored the mistake I was pointing out), I recommended the journal reject the paper and they did so.
Very recently, and within a couple of weeks after this rejection, the authors have openly posted their article on arXiv, without correcting their mistake. While I understand that manuscripts from arXiv should be taken with a grain of salt, as it is not peer reviewed, making a clearly incorrect result public seems wrong to me, both from an ethical standpoint and from a practical one as it might mislead researchers.
I am unsure how to proceed. Should I ignore it or take some measures such as publishing a reply/correction? If the latter, is there any way to do it for arXiv submissions? Is it possible to do it anonymously?

I think it is commendable of you to care, but it would be best for you to keep anonymity with respect to the authors.
A good middle ground would be writing someone who knows your identity already, and is known by the authors: for example the editor in charge of the paper for the journal you reviewed for. Typically this editor is known to the authors, and they could pass on your comments without disclosing your identity.
In any case, the editor should be able to at least give you a qualified opinion on how to proceed.

@corey979 Because they are a scientist? Of course, they could just ignore it, but science is a collective effort, and some people are nice.

Why do you think the OP should hide their identity? IMO there's no reason reviews should be anonymous in the first place.

In theory, everyone should be nice and accept other people's judgement. In practice, some people are bad and may retaliate against OP for the negative judgement, e.g., by being adversarial next time they review a paper by OP.

@spacetyper There are plenty of reasons for reviews to be anonymous. If you want to know what they are, post a question.

@DavidRicherby I know what they are, but I think the bad parts of anonymous reviews far outweigh the good. Anonymous reviewers are much more likely to make ridiculous requests or to be uncivil in their reviews. They can tell you to cite their own papers and you wouldn't know if there was bias in that decision. Readers don't know what bias there was when a paper was accepted using a sample size of two (or if you're lucky three) when they don't know the reviewers.

@spacetyper If a reviewer asks you to do something ridiculous or to cite an irrelevant paper, then don't do it. Explain why you didn't do it in your response to the editor.

You're completely correct that what they've done is wrong and you're right to be upset about it, but that doesn't mean there's anything you can or should do about it now.  You already did your duty as a referee by pointing out the error.  If you ever have a role evaluating these people (as an editor, on a hiring committee, as a tenure letter writer, etc.) you can remember that they don't care about the accuracy of their papers or about their reputation as a scientist.  But currently you don't have any power here and it's not your responsibility.  If this were a major result in the field, then perhaps it would be appropriate, after further consultation with experts and with the authors, to post something explaining why the result is incorrect.  But assuming this is a minor result that people aren't really paying attention to, posting a rebuttal would be an overreaction.  Hopefully future referees will also be careful and reject the paper, and if not you can consider contacting the journal where it's published down the line to try to get it retracted (though this can be difficult).  I don't think the arxiv has the time or the resources to investigate technical errors in papers like this, so I wouldn't be inclined to try to get it taken down from the arxiv.

I do not believe OP is trying to get this removed from arXiv, just making sure that his work finding this issue is not wasted: even if it is just an arXiv, people may take the result for correct as-is and use it in their research, propagating the error.
So it would be suitable for the authors to at least acknowledge the presence of "possible issues" in the concerned part of the work

There’s lots of things that the authors should do.  But if they wouldn’t listen to a referee they’re not going to do anything.  The question is whether there’s anything OP should do, and unfortunately there’s nothing reasonable to do.

Unless the paper could do real harm (e.g., public health policy), I wouldn't encourage you to moralize over the the ethics of someone posting a paper to the arXiv that wasn't accepted by you for publication. Spend your time on something constructive.
If you are certain that the paper is flawed and certain that explaining the fault would shed light on important issues in the field, it could be worthwhile to write a comment on the topic.
If, on the other hand, highlighting the fault in the paper doesn't lead to any greater conceptual understanding of the issue, reverse any widely-held approaches or attitudes to the issue, or prevent an erroneous result becoming important in the field, I see no real benefit of any further action. In fact, most colleagues won't have time to examine the details, and may just be left with the impression that you are argumentative, and like telling other people that they're wrong and you're right. So it's probably not a good move.
Lastly, for completion, let me address your questions about the arXiv. I don't think there is an 'official way to submit comments on the other papers to the arXiv - they are just ordinary submissions. Anonymous submissions are not allowed on the arXiv - see https://arxiv.org/help/registerhelp and this question. The relevant part of the arXiv registration policy is that:

It is a violation of our policies to misrepresent your identity or
  organizational affiliation. Claimed affiliation should be current in
  the conventional sense: e.g., physical presence, funding, e-mail
  address, etc. Misrepresentation of identity or affiliation, for any
  reason, is possible grounds for immediate and permanent suspension.

My understanding is that if you put something on arxiv and never publish it, it has minimal impact on the scientific community (with some well-known exceptions), especially if it is wrong. I would wait to see if it gets published somewhere else. If it does, then submit a comment on the paper. If it doesn't, it is hard to see what else you can do.

I don't think this is really true. My understanding is that, for example, in theoretical physics, ArXiv publications are very frequently cited, and formal publication can lag years behind. In a field like that, an incorrect ArXiv paper could lead to multiple publications before anybody realises "Hey, how come that one hasn't been published, yet?" Also, not every field has mechanisms for publishing comments on papers, though one could always write a short paper in that case.

@DavidRicherby Thanks for the comment, I removed the controversial statement

@DavidRicherby years would be uncommon, and suggest that problems were uncovered during review. 3 - 6 months is normal. arXiv preprints of papers can indeed be well-cited before publication

When something gets published in a journal and you have some disagreement over the contents, it's common to publish a rebuttal. Why not put a rebuttal on the arXiv if the authors won't respond to your contact with them?


text:
zotero: can I manually change a citation style
I'm in the humanities, and I'm currently using zotero to cite primary and secondary materials in my dissertation. I apply the Chicago Manual Style, and don't have any issues with secondary sources.
I do have problems with primary documents. I use archival materials, so the standard practice in my field goes something like this:
"name document", archive, x, y, z, page.
However, zotero puts the archive at the end:
"name", x, y, z, page, archive.
Is there a way to change the citation code in zotero to correct it(while keeping the CM style)?
Or do I change everything manually (and risk messing up the footnotes)?
Thanks!

Yes, you can. Zotero stores citation style information in a file format that is called Citation Style Language (CSL). You can download and adapt style files in this format from several repositories, such as this one, or create your own style files form scratch.
In order to add a CSL file to Zotero, follow these instructions from the Zotero wiki:

CSL styles (with a “.csl” extension) can also be added through the Style Manager, found under the “Styles” tab of the “Cite” pane in the Zotero preferences panel. It shows you which styles are already installed, and also allows you to add (by clicking the + button) and delete (by pressing the - button) styles. Another installation option is to drag-and-drop a CSL style file onto an open Firefox browser window.

On changing available citation styles within Zotero, the manual says:

When you click the “Insert Citation” button for the first time in a document, Zotero opens the Document Preferences, where you can select the citation style you want to use in your document. You can change the citation style at any point later by clicking the “Set Document Preferences” button.

I'm not familiar enough with the CSL syntax to explain which changes you would have to make in order for primary documents to appear the way you want. However, you may be able to find an adapted version of the Chicago style that suits your needs on a repository; or you can use the online CSL editor to tweak an existing Chicago style CSL file without having to deal with the syntax.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


text:
"Withdrawn" grade from an undergraduate class vital to my Master's application
I am applying for a Master's in Computer Science for the program of artificial intelligence. I already took a class in A.I. but I got a "W" on it. I wasn't doing very well and wanted to drop the class, I was also taking 20 credits at the time and didn't had the time to put the extra effort.
How will this be evaluated during my application for a Masters? Should I mention it or defend it anywhere in my application?
Some more background:
I am not really into excuses, but if it helps to better understand why I dropped it. About half the class, dropped the class because the professor was not very good. His grading was unfair, and also for me it felt he had a personal nemesis, because he was also my academic advisor and very often I would disagree in a respectful manner as to what I want to pursue in my degree. I didn't want my GPA to be affected by a C or even F. Also he was not a very effective teacher, but he seems to be very respected in the academia (he has some of his research cited 800+ times). Which I am sure he deserves.
EDIT: I already graduated and recently been working and had to use AI.

You have a W on AI. Now you want to pursue AI? Do you still have time to re-take it?

The reason I suggest you to re-take it is because I think it's better for you to make sure you'll like it. You need to at least take one semester class to find out what it is.

I already graduated

@user2789433: Does your institution allow one to take courses in post-baccalaureate status?  Ask them!

Apparently you are not currently enrolled in AI in fall semester.  Bummer.
The options I see for you are:
1) Hold off with submitting your applications until after you have some documentation of spring enrollment or pre-enrollment in AI.  Supplement your application by later (one or two months into the spring semester) submitting a letter from your AI professor to support your performance to date.  Visit office hours so your professor can get to know you quicker.
2) Diversify.  In your application(s), indicate a strong interest in some other branch of computer science as your primary subfield in your essay.  You may speak of your interest in AI as well.  Once you are admitted and enrolled, it should not be difficult to switch streams.
A letter explaining the W should not be necessary and would just come across as defensive.
I personally would lean toward option (2).
Edit:

"I already graduated and recently been working and had to use AI."

If this work experience with AI is strong enough, and you can get this well documented through a strong letter of recommendation from a work supervisor, then you may just go ahead and apply.  No explanation of the W would be needed in this case.

sorry if it was not clear. I already graduated some years ago.

@user2789433 - Thank you for the clarification.  Please add an "update" or "edit" to the question.  If you have any relevant work experience or self-study in AI please include that information.  // Is there any particular reason for not enrolling in an AI class in your area ASAP?

Yes I have some experience in AI. But not formal education on it or something beyond the norm.

I would not worry about the 'W' if you have a strong transcript.  Admission committees understand a 'W', even in a field of interest if your overall transcript shows you as a strong student.
Be sure to explain why you are interested in AI in your essay.
If someone brings it up, I would just say

I had too many credit hours, and dropping that class caused the fewest problems with my graduation plan.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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Should I include a patent in my cumulative PhD thesis?
I am writing my thesis as a cumulative PhD, meaning that instead of describing the outcome of my project in a standard book format I write a short introduction to the compilation of publications. My thesis consists of five articles (two of which are first-author) and a manuscript in press. During my PhD studies I also co-authored a patent application that is now internationally published.
Should I incorporate the patent as a core part of my thesis, similarly to other publications? Other options include putting it in the appendix, alongside with the supplementary information to publications, or leaving it out completely.

Is the patent written in terms that will be readily understood by most readers of your thesis? Personally, once the patent lawyers have done their thing, I have trouble understanding even patents I helped invent.

It is certainly written in the patent-specific language that makes it hard to read for ones used to scientific slang used in research publications. But I would not call it unreadable and at some points it might make a better job of introducing key concepts to the general public than the publications themselves.

This is something you really need to discuss with your advisor. Personally I think it may be very reasonable to include the patent application as an appendix (and the fact that you are a named inventor on a patent application is by itself quite impressive and likely to add some cachet to your thesis), but that's just my highly uninformed opinion. I don't think anyone not familiar with specific details of the patent application and how it relates to the rest of your work could give you very authoritative advice on such a question.
Another thing to keep in mind is that most patent applications are not really "authored" by the inventor. Large parts (if not the entire thing) are usually written by lawyers. So (except in the unlikely event where you actually wrote the whole thing yourself) there would be an interesting question of how to properly present/credit the patent application, and whether it would be covered by any copyright laws (I suspect patent applications are considered to belong to the public domain once they are made public, but that's just a guess). These sorts of issues are some of the reasons why inclusion as an appendix seems more appropriate to me than in the main body of the thesis.


text:
Can I use informal sources (particularly online sources)?
I know that typically, unpublished references (i.e. references not published in some journal, especially online resources) are highly discouraged. I'm working on a paper regarding Bluetooth LE implementations, and most of the materials relevant to my paper are either online (i.e. on mailing lists discussing implementation of Bluetooth LE on Linux, or manufacturers documenting limitations of their Bluetooth LE chips) or in the Bluetooth 4.0 standard itself.
Is it appropriate to use these online references? They're pretty much my only source of information, as my paper is mostly on real-world implementations of Bluetooth LE.

The real question is not, "Can I reference this source?" If you use it, of course you must reference it. The question is "Can I use this as a source of information?"

@ff524: Yeah, that's a more correct wording of the question. I'll update it.

If your paper is on "real-world implementations of Bluetooth LE" then mailing lists on implementations of Bluetooth LE and manufacturers' documentation of Bluetooth LE products are your primary sources.  This is akin to e.g., a historian using Napoleon's informal personal correspondence as a source for information on his world.
Of course, you should consider where these sources come from in how you use them. If you read on a mailing list or forum,

Bluetooth LE is the worst thing ever. Mine never works!

you would not use it as a factual source to conclude that Bluetooth LE is terrible. You certainly could use it as a source to indicate that some users have experienced frustration with early implementations of Bluetooth LE. (I cite bug tickets often in my own papers.)
Bad use of informal source:

Bluetooth LE is not a good technology [1].

[1] "Let's all complain about Bluetooth LE here," Bluetooth User Forum, posted April 1 2104, http:/bluetoothforum/lets-complain, retrieved April 25 2014.
Good use of informal source as a primary source:

Bluetooth LE users have expressed frustration with the technology [1].

[1] "Let's all complain about Bluetooth LE here," Bluetooth User Forum, posted April 1 2104, http:/bluetoothforum/lets-complain, retrieved April 25 2014.

Is it appropriate to refer to these online references? They're pretty much my only source of information, as my paper is mostly on real-world implementations of Bluetooth LE.

Referencing web-pages whose content can change (and that are not explicitly versioned) is far from ideal. What you are citing the web-page for may disappear today, tomorrow, the next day: you don't know. Furthermore, you may not know who authored the content, or how reliable the claims made in the content are.
However, particularly in applied areas of Computer Science, it can often be necessary to reference online material.
My personal rules for this are as follows:

If the web-page refers to a versioned standard of some sort (e.g., a W3C or ISO standard), with a clear author and/or editor list, use a bibliographic citation. (You can always use Google Scholar to check for precedent of the page in question having been previously cited; Bluetooth 4.0 has been cited 20 times)
For other web-pages (whose authorship is not clear or that may not be versioned), reference it with a footnote and the date you accessed it.

I have seen papers use the bibliography for URLs without explicit authors, but for me, it's poor style (as well as being incompatible with a lot of citation systems).
The second option should be used sparingly in my opinion.


text:
How to handle a bib source with no author?
I am writing a paper in English and have a couple of sources that have no author. In German there would be the abbreviation o.V. standing for ohne Verfasser which translates to no author in those cases.
How is this handled in English papers? Would an appropriate translation be n.a. standing for no author? Is there a way in Latex to automatically put something in place by just providing a bib entry without an author?
Instead of:
@online{cloud-ide04,
    author = {n.a.},
    title = {codeanywhere},
    publisher = {Codeanywhere, Inc.},
    urldate = {2018-03-26},
    url = {https://codeanywhere.com/}
}

Rather do:
@online{cloud-ide04,
    title = {codeanywhere},
    publisher = {Codeanywhere, Inc.},
    urldate = {2018-03-26},
    url = {https://codeanywhere.com/}
}

How about Anon. or Anonymous?

@astronat Well, I personally wouldn't mind doing that, but is there an existing APA rule or something?

As far as APA goes I have no idea. However, if you want to omit the author field in the Bibtex entry entirely I think you can use the @misc citation instead of @online as you have posted here (have a look for similar on TeX SE if that is really what you want to do). Also n/a is usually taken to stand for "not applicable" so I would avoid using that.

Nothing changed visually when changing from @online to @misc.

But anyway, seems in English there is no real placeholder for a not existing person within a bibliography. Instead the first thing might just be the title of the source instead.

Modern Language Association (8) dictates that when one piece of information is missing from a citation, one simply skips that piece of information within the citation.
For example, if I published a book called "Dogs", the final citation would start:

Fey, Mercurial. Dogs.

If I had published it without an authors name, the citation would instead start:

Dogs.

Both citations would then continue with editors, volumes, and publishers.

If doing this with a bib file, it can be good to provide a sorting key to avoid warnings about missing fields.


text:
Attending a conference dinner
I have registered for a conference, but there is additional registration fee for a conference dinner. Since I am from developing country and I haven't got a refund source, I find it expensive. Can I go to the restaurant and order something cheaper for myself?

Conference dinners that I can remember are usually catered, or have a set menu at a restaurant. In those cases you likely can't do what you suggest. You might ask the organizers if you could get a discount, or not attend that event.

Do you have to go to the conference dinner, or is it a special event?

There's likely to be a number of other attendees who find the dinner too expensive, or just aren't interested in highly organized events like that.  So you can probably find some other people who want to go somewhere else, and have dinner with them.  Perhaps you can find someone local who knows where to find good food that's cheap.  It can be a nice way to meet people.

In every conference I have attended, the cost of participating to the "social banquet" is included in the registration fees. You only pay extra if you want to pay for an additional place, say if you want to bring your partner (who might not be registered to the conference).

Some of the best dinners I've had at conferences have been with the other people not going to the conference dinner.

@TheWanderer For my field, it's almost always extra, because it's more of either a social/fundraising event than a "Do you want to eat food with people at the conference?" event.

@TheWanderer There are conferences where the banquet is not included on the 1-day registration, only the full registration. Which is obvious because you may not be there on that day. On the other hand, the OP might try asking around at the conference if anybody has an extra ticket, if they have to leave early or decided to go somewhere else that night...

You’d have to check with the conference organizers. However, usually when such dinners are organized, the conference has already contracted a reduced price per attendee in exchange for a volume order with a fairly limited menu selected in advance. You usually don’t get to order à la carte off the restaurant’s menu.


text:
When/whether to do pre-submission inquiry at high impact journals
I'm curious to hear whether there is general guidance on when and whether to submit a pre-submission inquiry to a high impact journal (field: biology). Our goal is to identify a journal that will send our paper out for review. I understand pre-submissions are best when there really is a question of appropriateness, e.g., you are submitting a software-oriented manuscript to an experimental biology journal.
I am less clear on whether the current situation will benefit from a pre-submission inquiry. Consulting with my PI, and other faculty on the floor, there seems to be wide disagreements about the utility of pre-submission. Some argue these inquiries are more efficient than full submissions, since formatting a paper for each journal is usually time intensive. Others say they've had pre-submissions meet strong approval, then get editorially rejected. Any general thoughts on this?
Edit 6.27.15.
I'd like to specifically highlight bitwise' comment below as that has proven to be the most useful advice. In the last 9 months I've submitted multiple articles not fulfilling the exact formatting requirements, length limits, supplement guidelines, and even figure guidelines, and this has not seemed to affect whether we get reviewed. One paper is currently under review at Molecular Cell that is 4000 characters over limit and has a wildly incorrectly formatted supplement, and 1 figure over the limit.

I have never found a pre-submission inquiry to be useful, and was always advised against it. The main argument is that it does not increase your chances of acceptance and just adds another hurdle to pass. Additionally, assuming you use a reference manager the difference in formatting between journals is usually minimal (or you can ignore some of the rules on your first submission).
However, I always submitted to journals that I know and read before, so I knew that the topic is generally appropriate. I would only consider a pre-submission inquiry if I am not sure whether the general topic is appropriate for the journal.

We agree on the latter point. In my experience, switching journals is rarely as easy as reformatting references. There are wildly different length requirements among journals we apply to. There are also topic considerations.. at a high impact journal, the focus (at least in intro/conclusion) should be on broad implications. At a subject journal, less general background is needed.

@vector07 From my experience (biology journals), in the first round of reviews format is largely ignored by the reviewers and editor. If you are invited to make a revision, the editor then will also tell you to make sure you follow the formatting guidelines. Also, many journals have multiple formats (e.g. Article, Letter, Brief Correspondence) and manuscripts may be directed by the editor into a specific format.

Interesting about them not caring about formatting exactly the first submission. Will take that into consideration. I should add -- PNAS is one journal that does not allow that; on submission, the full manuscript has to be at most a 7 page pdf, no exceptions.

I do not know about your field (I'm in Computer Science), but from my recent attempts in submitting, I have found one situation where pre-submission is required by some journals: submission of a survey or overview article.
Some examples:

Authors interested in submitting overview articles are required to consult first with the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of their Transactions of choice before submitting a white paper proposal. White papers are limited to 2-pages and should motivate the topic, justify the proposal, and include a list of relevant bibliography including any available tutorial or overview articles related to the subject matter. (...) White paper proposals should be submitted directly to the EiC.
(taken from IEEE Transactions on Image Processing)

Also:

Individuals interested in submitting a survey/tutorial article (not part of a Special Issue) should submit a white paper outlining the content of the proposed article to the Area Editor for Feature Articles (refer to the Editorial page) via the Manuscript Central Web submission system. A white paper is usually no more than five (5) pages long
(taken from IEEE Signal Processing Magazine)

Additionally, when we were considering where to submit (and, in which order, in case of rejection) (among 2-3 journals with the appropriate topic) , we opted for the journal pre-submission first, since, well, in a real review process, the paper can always get rejected. Pre-submission allows a chance of getting some kind of response sooner -- if it is a reject, we can re-submit sooner, and if it is an accept, it is a good sign even tho we know the reviewing is a standalone process.
One last point my supervisors pointed out: even if it is a journal that you read, and you think your submission fits the topic -- the "journal" might not think so, so it is a good thing to check how the EiC and the Editorial Board "breathes" (e.g. my subfield has a hard time getting rid of reputation as using very slow methods, because they were slow in the past but have gotten much more efficient lately, so there is sometimes difficulties publishing in main-stream, general, non-subfield-specific venues).
So, bottom line: while the first part of my answer is dealing with a specific case, I think the second part is applicable generally. Yes, it is possible to get rejected by the reviewers after the EiC accepts your pre-submission, but it is also possible to speed up the process in case of rejection. Ultimately, it is yours and your supervisors decision as which approach is best and most efficient for you.

An interesting opinion here by Dr. Leslie Citrome, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Clinical Practice.
TLDR: a pre-submission never hurts the author.

The link might go bad over time, so you should pull out the key portion of your source and include it in your answer.

I've sent query letters almost every time I've submitted to a journal.  Especially if you've never submitted to a journal, it is a good way to make sure that it's potentially a good fit.  For example, one journal wrote me back to say they had no reviewers in my subject area and suggesting I find a different journal.  So that probably saved several months of them trying to find a reviewer, and I was able to submit somewhere else instead.  Another journal wrote back a snarky remark, I submitted anyway, and they wrote back a scathing review.  So if the reply to the query isn't so positive, maybe better not to submit.  A third wrote back really positively, and I submitted and that piece is now published.  So in my experience it does not hurt, and sometimes it can prevent submitting something to some place that is clearly wrong for your piece.


text:
Commission an animation to explain a scientific concept?
I have a particularly difficult scientific concept, which, with the use of an animation, I think I could make very clear. I have some experience making little movies from piecing together figure snapshots, but in this case I lack the skills (and time) to assemble a quality animation. Is anyone aware of a website, resource, or company that will assemble movies for academic purposes? I've looked around but haven't found anything reasonable (in price, or with experience producing scientific-quality movies).
An example: an animation showing an EKG trace, and a diagram of a beating heart. Each beat moves the heart and shows up on the EKG, so you can see how the two are related.

Interesting idea. What price range do you have in mind?

Depends. If my PI goes for it, probably up to a few hundred dollars. If it's out of pocket, probably 100 max. But I was really hoping someone would point me to a project bid type place where interested people could assess what it might cost, and how much they'd pay to do it. Something like freelancer.com or getacoder.com.

You could find some explanatory videos on YouTube that use animations, try to find out who did the animation, and contact the animator.

@vector07 I am not expert, but that seems very low for professional animation.

Isn't this what PhD students are for? (only half-joking). For such little money, I suspect your best option is to run a competition with your few hundred dollars as prize.

@EnergyNumbers - I'm not joking when I say the following - please turn your comment into an answer! The last sentence is a great advice.

My immediate thought is PHD comics ;)

With such a small budget (less than 1000 US dollars), you're unlikely to be able to commission professional work.
You have three options that I can see.

You might be able to find someone who's just trying to get established as a provider of such services, who might be willing to do the work in exchange for publicity which you'd have to drum up. Your project, and your department, would have to be seen as endorsing this person's services. That can all be rather tricky. If you're lucky, one of your recently-finishing students might be trying to build their business in this area.
You might be able to learn the skills yourself, or get someone in your team to do so. Some data analysis packages do have the means to create animations from sequences of charts - Matlab has this, and I'd expect its peers such as Mathematica to be able to do that too.
The sort of thing that's been done in a department closely related to the one I work in, is to hold a competition, with the prize being the funds you've got available. It can be open to anyone, or to staff and students, or just to students: that choice may not make a big difference - most of your submissions might come from students anyway. Be careful with the competition terms and conditions: pay close attention to the ownership of the intellectual property of submissions (to ensure you can use submissions without restriction); and with how the prize is described (because of potential tax implications). Your library staff may be able to help with the first of those two issues, and the finance team should be able to help with the second.

What you're after - the skill of creating high-quality data visualisations - is just the sort of skill that we look to encourage and develop in our students, so I'd have no qualms in running this as a competition for the students. The tricky question is around extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation: should they be doing it for money, or for the intrinsic reward of developing excellent data visualisation. You might want to discuss that with the tutor who takes lead responsibility for the students' academic development. It will depend, to an extent, on how close your subject matter is to their areas of study.

This is the kind of thing, if I weren't defending in 4 weeks, I'd definitely try to do myself. I've made toy animations in Matlab and I've played with flash before. But I know it would take me a week or two to make this--and even then, it wouldn't be as slick! I'm just a little surprised there isn't a service, say, to link undergraduate students in the arts to poor academics in need of quality figures (or animations).

Why do you think that those undergraduate arts students who are able to produce quality work should be willing to work for a week or two for a couple hundred dollars, i.e., less than minimum wage?

Surely if they're talented, they could get a real job, but they're in school... I suspect the opportunity to apply that talent in a discrete project that will actually get used and seen by others is rare.


text:
I have to present a poster in two weeks and data analysis is going nowhere
I am a first year PhD student in Psychology and I messed up. I submitted an abstract for a poster presentation before I had results in my hand thinking I will have it all done in time for the actual presentation. My advisor was very encouraging. I started analyzing the data a week ago and I feel very lost. I have made some minor progress, but I don't have a real "story" to say about my research, and I am worried its a dead end. I'm not sure what to do. How intense do poster presentations get? What does a bad poster presentation look like? Should I back out of the poster presentation? Or should I go ahead with it in the hopes that I find some minor interesting thing to say?

Welcome to the poster/talk conference experience that, well, everybody has had at some point or another. At the worst, the poster will be about your planned experiment, data gathered, and preliminary results (good or not) with a bit on what is next. A pretty standard poster by an early PhD student. Chat with people, own up to where you are, ask for advice, relax and have fun.

Have you spoken to your adviser about how the analysis is going and your concerns about the poster?

Don't worry. Poster presentations often showcase early work that needs further development. Think of it as a beta test to get some feedback, in order to develop a complete product. Negative results are also results, and they help deciding future directions of work.
You could mention what you attempted to do/prove, and why that would be important. List out what approach/analysis worked and didn't work,. You could spend time understanding why those things worked/didn't work, and put those on your poster. Based on these learnings, you could chalk out some directions for future work.

+1 At the poster session people walk around with a glass of wine in their hand, chatting here and chatting there. If I would see such a poster on a conference, especially from a beginning PhD student, I chat with the presenter to see if we could figure out what can be done to move your project forward. Getting stuck is normal, especially at the beginning of your PhD, but publicly admitting it takes courage. So I would not see such a poster as a sign of weakness. People differ, but at the conferences I attend there are enough constructive people around to make such a poster worth while.


text:
What should be the right format for dates in CV?
I saw that most of the formats for month & year is like "September 2017"; however it is kind of cluttered. I'm wondering if the following formats are OK:

Sept. 2017
09/2017
9/2017

Are you talking about publication? or what else? Why do you need so many dates such that it is making it cluttered. Why do you think Sept. 2017 won't make it cluttered, if September does? Chose the once which best describe the purpose. It is user dependent. Don't overthink on such minute details. Nobody cares.

There's no right or wrong choice here because there are no formal standards at most universities for what a CV should look like. Just pick one you like and use it throughout the CV.

To be fair, there is a formalized international standard for dates. It is not often used among humans, and many would consider weird a couple of its features (such as the T between date and time), but there is one.

@Axel: CV's are not normally covered by the corporate design of a university. They are personal documents, not institutional ones.


text:
Should a fellowship application justify why the fellowship would be more advantageous than a permanent position?
TLDR: Is it normal that an applicant for a limited term fellowship should have to justify why that fellowship would be more advantageous than a permanent academic position? If so, why?
The details of my specific situation:
I recently applied for a 5-year research fellowship in the UK. The fellowship is quite competitive and prestigious. If approved it would provide funding for me to set up my own research group at a UK university.
I just received the referee reports. There are four reports, of which three are very positive. The fourth is generally positive about the research content and my track record, but identifies what the reviewer believes are some "clear weaknesses" in the application. Given the competitive nature of these grants this last not-so-positive review likely kills my chances of getting the fellowship, although I do have a chance to respond to the reports.
One of the "weaknesses" identified by this reviewer, was that I had not sufficiently justified why receiving the fellowship would be more beneficial to me than simply being appointed as a lecturer at a UK university. I found this comment frankly unreasonable and nonsensical, but maybe I am simply responding emotionally, and so my question whether this is generally considered a legitimate reason to criticise a grant proposal and what the reasoning behind this is?
Bear in mind that in the UK a position as Lecturer, is generally a long term academic post with both research and teaching responsibilities. Being appointed as a lecturer in the UK is broadly equivalent to getting a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in the US. So the reviewer is essentially saying "you shouldn't get the 5 year fellowship because it would be better if you had a permanent position".
The true (and in my opinion blindingly obvious) response to this is: "of course I would like to have a Lecturer position, but such positions at good universities with research strength in my area, are extremely rare". I can't really write that in the response, because it would sound like I wasn't taking the reviewer seriously, but that's the truth. It seems to me unreasonable that I have to justify why the fellowship would be better than an alternative that barely exists.

I suspect that the referee wasn't trying to say:

"you shouldn't get the 5 year fellowship because it would be better if
you had a permanent position"

I suspect they were suggesting that the proposal did not make sufficiently clear how you would use the opportunity provided by this 5-year fellowship to supercharge your career in a way that you wouldn't be able to do if you "just" got a simple lecturer position. So their point is probably more:

The research council should not fund this person if they are just going to use this fellowship as a temporary lectureship.

Whether this is a fair criticism depends on what the stated evaluation criteria are for the grant. These often do contain something about "career development potential".

The exact phrasing here sounds a bit unusual, but it does tie in to a common criteria in many fellowship evaluation guidelines. Many of them want evidence that the fellowship is enabling something which isn't possible through other routes. The particular comparison this reviewer made is a bit unusual though, since as you say in many fields it's not like a lectureship is an easy option.
But if you are responding to that, I'd suggest not getting into why lectureships are hard to get, and instead focus on features of the fellowship which would make it superior to a standard lectureship for your research. For such large fellowships, this usually includes protected research time, the duration of funding enabling projects of a scope not feasible under smaller research grants, the scale being much bigger than possible with the (usually meager) startup and new lecturer grants in the UK, prestige, etc. Exact phrasing will depend on your proposal, but focusing on the fellowship's benefits is the way to go.
And, one angle is 'Why not both'? Many fellowships are compatible with holding a lectureship at the same time, or universities can commit to a permanent post at the completion of the fellowship (I leveraged a past fellowship into a lectureship, and my current UKRI FLF into advancement to Reader). If you can say this fellowship gives you a route to a permanent lectureship in a high-quality institute ideally suited to build your career (etc), all the better. It may be a little late to negotiate that at this stage, but something to bear in mind.

"I'd suggest not getting into why lectureships are hard to get" — why not? It seems pertinent. Assuming, of course, that OP is also considering such options.

Probably because it sounds like the OP will be "settling" for the fellowship because they could not (or will not) get a lectureship

Which would be a crazy point to make because lectureships might be rare, but 5-year fellowships are often rarer; and fellowships allow you to focus 100% (well, often more like 80%, but still) on research, when a lectuership is 50% teaching. If you are a research oriented person (and presumably thats the impression you want to give if applying for a fellowship), then why would a job that is 80% research be settling when the alternative would be a job that was only 40% research.

"Obvious" is becoming my least favourite word. "Blindingly obvious" does not help.
I agree to the general advice in Stephen McMahon's answer, and would like to add a couple of more specific considerations about a typical Lecturer position:

While a lot of Unis mention an adjusted teaching load for starting Lecturers, many can't actually afford it. The teaching load can be quite high. And even with a reduced teaching load, you'll likely spend much more time preparing teaching materials in your first year then after a few years of teaching the same course/module.
One of the core criteria for advancing in an academic career beyond Lecturer level is the amount research income won for the Uni through grant applications.
(But a good publication record is the best evidence in grant applications).
Many Unis don't really have a start-up package (PhD student/postdoc funding) for newly-started Lecturers.
As a consequence, during your first couple of years as a Lecturer, your publication output will fall (unless you have a lot of pending publications with your previous institution), and submitting even your first bid might take a while if you have a lot of teaching obligations.
Generally Lectureships seem to get off to a "slow start", where your profile is likely to fall in desirability and hireability before it bounces back (after your first successful grant, a secured PhD studentships, or a few accidental pairings with exceptional MSc students)

On the other hand, after a few years of Fellowship:

You can already demonstrate success in successful grant applications -- the Fellowship itself was one.
The Fellowship provides funding from the start, so you will have the opportunity to hire postdocs who can keep the practical work running and publications coming under your guidance.
You will be able to dedicate as much of your time as needed to writing further grant applications.
Your profile will almost certainly improve if you use the Fellowship resources well.

All in all, a Fellowship actually gives you an excellent opportunity to build your profile from the "single-project" orientation expected of a postdoc, to a "5-year research vision" expected of an academic, all without having to mark hundreds of student papers and answer e-mails asking "will this be in the exam".
To answer your reviewer, I would mention the benefits of having 80+% of your workload dedicated to research, and start-up funds allowing you to form a research team to work on your research ideas from the start of your appointment. Imagine how your research work would develop if you instead had only ~40% of research time, and wait for a year or two before your successfully secured (funds for) a postdoc/PhD position -- and talk about how much more you will achieve with the research freedom and funding support provided by the fellowship.
Source: I started a Lectureship in the UK nearly 2 years ago, in a setting that is more akin to a fellowship (no teaching for first 3 years, and a startup fund more modest than that of a fellowship but certainly better than the standard at the Uni where I am). I am comparing with other colleagues starting more "standard" Lectureship positions at my Uni (and other UK locations).

One of the "weaknesses" identified by this reviewer, was that I had not sufficiently justified why receiving the fellowship would be more beneficial to me than simply being appointed as a lecturer at a UK university.

I think this is a miscommunication.  The reviewer thinks you are a lecturer with teaching and research duties.  They think you should continue to have teaching duties.  They think you should only get a research fellowship without teaching duties if you have justified why your research is more important than your teaching.

tl;dr:
Yes, you are responding emotionally.

If approved it would provide funding for me to set up my own research
group at a UK university.

versus

"of course I would like to have a Lecturer position [...]"

The reviewer is seeing you as a person that is applying to the fellowship because other positions are not available at the time.
While a lecturer has both teaching and researching duties, with the fellowship (if it is the fellowship I have in mind) you will be in charge of research funds at a scale much larger than the researching duties of a lecturer. Even more, these will be your funds.
I think the reviewer is saying you are not ambitious enough for the fellowship: please keep in mind that such fellowships implies a workload similar to the one of a lecturer plus at least an equivalent workload of managing duties (managing funds themselves, hiring processes of the PhD&PostDoc funded by the fellowhship ...).
Without enough ambition/motivation, it is quite likely to fail in bringing these fellowships to a fruitful conclusion (disclaimer: I am against such kind of fellowships).

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How can an assistant professor have a much higher salary than an associate professor in the same department?
Is it possible for a young assistant professor to receive a higher salary than an associate professor in the same department with many more papers, citations, etc?
Why would this happen?
What determines the salary of a faculty member, if not papers and citations?

UPDATE
Although there is overlap, my question is not duplicate. The (realistic but maybe erroneous) example is edited away, so it changes the context of my question. In the situation I want to ask, the associate professor not only stays longer, but also has much more reputation than the assistant professor.

I would advise even a member with 1 million rep said that you can post the names, please do not do that. It does not add to the discussion.

Now I'm wondering if B is me :)

If B is me, the number is wrong :)

@Suresh: so the number on this page is not correct? if so, I will delete the question.

it's not correct.

@Suresh: I see. Could you help me to delete the question?

The phenomenon is real -- and common. See my answer. Thus there is no cause to delete the question.

I have boldly edited the question to ask about the general phenomenon, instead of the specific example which was shown to be erroneous.  Feel free to edit further.

Related question: Why is salary inversion a problem?

@Suresh are you saying that in some cases the FOIA data are wrong. Is there no way to make the listed number and your salary agree (include/exclude summer salary or grant funding)?

Not sure. would take more effort than I care to put in

The phenomenon you describe is known as compression and, in the case where salaries are actually reversed, inversion. Unfortunately these are very common especially at state universities. The principal cause is that faculty get hired as assistant professors at market rates, but the university salary structure fails to keep up with inflation and any other sources of increases. Given the severe funding cuts, salary freezes, and so forth that have plagued public higher education over the past few decades, this situation has been almost inevitable. The result is a salary structure such as you describe.
The only ways to fix this are either explicit allocation of funds to correct compression, or for individual faculty to obtain raises via retention packages to fight off outside offers.
In general, salaries are basically set by market rate at hiring (which for assistant professors is largely independent of citations and papers, conditional on getting the job in the first place) and by outside offers received later during the career. Both the availability of outside offers and their magnitude will depend on stature in the field. Even if one does not actually take an outside offer, receiving one or more such offers can prompt the home institution to put together a retention package. The willingness of the home institution to put together a top package will also depend on stature, and similarly the magnitude of the retention package depends on the outside offer and is thus also based on stature.
In principle, regular merit raises could also reward faculty in accordance with their productivity and impact. But for whatever reason (I blame self-governance, but that's another discussion), merit raises and such tend to be allocated in relatively egalitarian form, rather than proportional to differential merit and productivity.
Other answers provide additional important information. Some salaries are 9 month, some 12 month. Some faculty on 9 month appointments can cover summer salary off of grants; others spread 9 months salary across 12 months. Public databases often list total salary received rather than 9 month salary; this considerably increases the variation among faculty.

I think merit-based raises for professors are actually just very hard to implement. Given that a prof. does not really have a "supervisor" who follows the progress of the faculty closely at all times, you would basically need a specific committee (like a tenure committee) per professor to fairly decide each year whether he was doing great, good, or just ok. It may seem tempting to task department heads or deans with this, but that would in practice lead to way too powerful heads and very bad blood in the faculty.

Anecdotally, I have recently learned that in Singapore they do this via a "point system", where each publication is assigned points per a ranking that is renegotiated periodically, and per place in the author list (first author counts more etc.). Raises are given out strictly following how many "points" a faculty has at the end of the year. Apparently, the system works about as well as you would expect.

This earlier question is related to @xLeitix' point: What is a good scheme to determine percentage contributions to a paper

There are very many reasons. For starters, some faculty have 12 month appointments, others have 9 month, and some have less than 100% for however many months. Some specializations within a department are very competitive and faculty in that area can get high salaries compared to areas that are less in-demand. Some faculty get university awards which translate into a salary bump. Som faculty are very research productive and some are not; and some deans have a policy requiring e.g. 75% of the raise money to go to 25% of the faculty (i.e. prohibitiving splitting the pot evenly).

I can think of some reasons such as

It is not uncommon that new hires get higher salaries, even in industry.
Faculty A could have more grants than B. Publications and citations don't matter much if a faculty doesn't bring money to the school.
Faculty A could graduated from a top school.
For new hires, their salary could include summer salary for first few years.

I have never seen one faculty member get a higher salary than another just because the first one graduated from a top school.  At least not directly: all salaries are positively correlated to one's stature in the community, with starting salaries being much more precisely correlated.  If the person who graduated from the top school is perceived as being a present or future star that they need to give an especially high salary to in order to attract: OK.  But no one would say it the way you did, and I honestly  don't think they think that way either.

I think that your first point is really the key one.  If one were comparing two associate professors with the same seniority and with a large salary disparity, justifying it by saying that the one with demonstrably less research activity had gone to a top school would be rather outrageous.


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What makes one fail a PhD viva?
I do not ask about special cases, e.g. supervisor does not approve the thesis, there is rivalry between the supervisor and the examiners and so on.
Is there any general standard for viva, e.g. one needs to be able to answer 2/3 of the questions, etc.
I'm waiting for my viva, and I'm only worried about questions about related work. For example, my thesis only addresses a problem on deterministic programs, do I need to know all approaches to the same problem on probabilistic programs? (at the moment I don't).

UPDATE
I would like to emphasize again that I do not ask about special cases, e.g. plagiarism, wrong methodology etc. I believe theses cases are extremely rare. I just want to ask about a normal case where one managed to publish some papers, and advisor (happily) approved the thesis.

This depends a lot on the culture, country, school etc. For instance if I want to do my state exams, I have to pass all previous 5 doctoral exams, and also pass 3 additional ones on the spot. Failing to say anything there would cause me to fail the exam quite for sure.

The problem is that your "framing" is wrong: the special cases probably comprise the majority of cases when a doctoral defense "fails." If the thesis advisor is happy, and the thesis is acceptable, it is extremely rare for someone to fail.

Perhaps you should ask your institution or adviser about how you are expected to prepare?

Related: How would one fail a master thesis defense?

Given your caveats about special cases, I think the most accurate answer to the title question is "nothing".

No, there are no general worldwide standards, other than "the examiners should be satisfied".
Your advisor is probably the best person to answer questions like this for your specific case.

Additionally, rules about what the examiners should be checking vary from institution to institution.

The following are some reasons that come to mind that might justify a failure in the viva:
For the thesis:

evidence of academic malpractice (plagiarism, etc.)
fundamental methodological flaws, such as a poorly chosen method or a misapplied method that calls into question the scientific validity of the thesis. My guess is that this is probably the most common reason for failure: that the work is just generally not a good piece of science and needs further development before it can be considered convincing.
a significant failure to engage with preexisting literature, which casts into doubt the significance and originality of the thesis' contribution to knowledge.
a general lack of academic substance such that the thesis is not of sufficient scope or novelty to merit the award of a PhD.

For the viva itself:

a general inability to answer questions about the thesis—to a such a degree that the examiners are led to question whether it is really the candidate's own work.
a significant deficiency in the candidate's knowledge of the literature, such that s/he cannot confidently be held to understand the relationship between his/her work and that literature.
a significant inability to justify the decisions made in the course of the PhD, calling into question the candidate's ability to  construct a successful research project. For example, you should be able to say why you chose the approach you did, rather than some alternative.
repeatedly giving answers that are so severely wrong that they call into question the candidate's competency in the field.

The use of the words fundamental, significant, etc. in the above is quite deliberate. Examiners will forgive basic problems with the thesis or a somewhat flakey viva performance because they understand that passing the viva marks the start (rather than the end) of one's education. The option of minor corrections exists to deal with such issues.

Most of these are usually failures of the candidate's advisor more than the candidate, as the advisor should never let an unready candidate defend...

@jakebeal yet sometimes the candidate will insist, for a number of legitimate reasons: visa issues, financial duress, change of lifestyle (pregnancy, getting married, getting divorced).  Life does get in the way.

I assume that the aim of a vivia is generally 'to establish whether the aims of the PhD program have been achieved', although I guess some will be more restricted than that (with another grouping checking the overall picture).
Therefore generally there won't be a specific question-proportion to pass, since there's no set list of questions. You need to demonstrate that you wrote your thesis, that it is right (well, close enough, since there will usually be some mistakes somewhere), and that it is of a suitable standard. You probably also need to demonstrate that you've engaged with the professional development part of the program (as a PhD student you are essentially an apprentice professor/researcher). You should know stuff about your field other than your immediate thesis question, you should know how the research community works, and you should be able to communicate your ideas (in writing, in a planned presentation, and in answering questions). Having some realistic plans for the future might also not be a bad idea.

As a former PhD student, now lecturer, it's very rare to hear of one failing a PhD viva. The most common outcome is to grant the PhD subject to minor corrections, which will be checked off by the internal examiner. Occasionally candidates will have to make major corrections for review by the external examiner, and much more rarely, candidates will be told to revise and resubmit where the process may or may not include an additional oral examination. Only the last outcome would be generally regarded as "failure".
In the first instance the student's advisor would not recommend/allow (depending on the institution) the candidate to go forward for a viva unless the work was to the standard required. In many universities, this means publishable in whole or in part, and making a non-trivial novel contribution. One way to satisfy yourself about these criteria is whether you've published anything at all to date: if you have, it answers the question that the thesis is publishable at least in part.  It's very hard to "fail" (see above) if these basic criteria are met.
About related approaches, you would probably be expected to have a rationale for choosing your own approach. This would imply that you know your chosen method well, and know enough about the others to be able to make a comparative choice. E.g. if you were working in electromagnetics and chose the Finite Element Method to solve a Partial Differential Equation, you would probably want to be able to point out why you rejected Finite Differences and/or Analytical methods. But I would not expect you to be able to discuss the intricacies of Finite Differences in any great detail. The working knowledge you already have of your own approach and that of others is probably quite sufficient, as long as you can provide a strong justification for why you chose the methods you did. It's quite OK to justify based on ease of use, local availability, expediency etc.

Further to Nate and Jessica's answers, you can get an idea as to what the risks are in your institution and your subject area by asking around for examples of people who have failed their viva.
'Failing' is also relative: the 'do not darken our doors, no option to resubmit' outcome is only likely to be a risk in case of plagiarism or moral turpitude.  The difference between acceptance pending corrections (regarded as a 'pass') and asking for a 2nd viva (often regarded as a 'fail') may not be huge in terms of the amount of effort on your part that is required to satisfy your examiners.

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text:
Using rage faces in presentation
I was asked to give a talk at a workshop. I plan to tell a short story, 5 - 7 minutes, about how my collaborator and I came up with the idea presented in the talk. This story would:

Give the motivation: I have this problem, and my collaborator had a solution for a (seemingly) unrelated problem.
Explain the contribution: I did this and he did that.
Explain the intuition of the solution: he said this and we recognized that etc

I think the story would be interesting, and as it involves two people, I wonder if I should use two rage faces representing my collaborator and I (yes, I often visit 9gag).
On one hand, I think it would be funny. On the other hand, I'm afraid people may think I am not polite/unprofessional, in particular old people. The workshop is co-located with a top tier conference, and I don't want to leave any bad impression.

Update: Thanks everyone for the answers. At first, I intended to use the avatars on our homepages, but I think it's very award to keep showing my face from slide to slide. That's why I think about rage faces, the reason is that they are very simple, but emphasize the emotions very well: struggle, then confused, then surprised...
But I understand not many people like it, so I will think of other way.

Please do not use comments for answers or discussing the latest fads in memes. Comments have been moved to chat. Please read this FAQ before you post another comment.

You could simply use each of your initials (/ first name); is it even really necessary to explicitly depict emotion (whether with avatars or whatever?) anyway? Generally it should be obvious what someone's reaction to something is from the wording of their comment.

TL;DR: If in doubt, leave it out.
In talks, avoid anything that can offend or be misunderstood, especially if you do not know your audience. It is ok to make self-deprecating jokes, but you want to keep the atmosphere somewhere between serious to light (depending), but outside the sentiment of sadness or anger if you do not have political ambitions. Your "angry faces" may be funny, but never underestimate that they may be misunderstood (including people believing that you did have a fall-out with your friend in the preliminaries of this work - you would be amazed at what people can read wrongly into a throwaway remark).
Myself, I am quite happy use caricatures in talks, but spend time choosing them carefully to help to highlight the scientific point, never on a meta-level. People are busy enough trying to understand what you are doing, do not waste their brain power on issues you think are funny, but irrelevant to the matter at hand.
But if you think something can backfire, you are probably right. If in doubt, better one caricature/clever idea less.

Please don't do it.
Look at all the cases of your audience:

People who know rage faces, and who like them (the minority)

Even if they like them in general, they might not like them in a presentation

People who don't know rage faces

For them it will seem odd

People who know rage faces, and who can't stand them

Myself included, I would judge you really hard on why you decided it was a good idea, and I will say you know little about internet culture (judging that you like 9gag, which steals content from everywhere without crediting anyone)

Memes are a shitty form of humor, from experience, and depending on your subject you should apply humor from the improvisation of your presentation (look at good humorous TED talks, or how improvisation theatre works).
I would visit this site before adding rage faces: https://www.reddit.com/r/FellowKids/

“Memes are a shitty form of humor” — that’s a pretty one-sided, and, dare I say, ignorant opinion, given what a pervasive part of culture memes are. Even if restricted to image macros, it’s probably an opinion that most of your contemporaries don’t share.

This answer starts off good; but then turns into a heavy focus on opinion that doesn't really add anything.

I just don't like memes, due to their low effort and addictive behaviors

@KonradRudolph: that's indeed a strong opinion (that I share with Loop). The problem here is that a non-negligible part of the audience may share the same opinion (or a tamed version of it), so using rage faces would be counter-productive (especially since, I assume, the ones that are more likely to be annoyed are the older academics, hence the people that are good to have in one's network - I am also assuming that the OP is quite junior in academia).

People who know rage faces, and who like them (minority) That is incredibly dependent on your target audience. If you're targeting millenials, the majority will understand them. (but then you risk coming across as overly wanting to connect with your audience). Your assertion that people who like them are somehow in the minority to people who know and hate them seems very subjective.

@Taladris You may not realise that most good presentations include memetic cultural references, sometimes inadvertently. It's really pervasive (that's kind of the point of memes), and not restricted to a generation. Here's a random example of a senior faculty member endorsing memes (that popped up on my feed just now). https://twitter.com/pastramimachine/status/1027363206526689280 — It's one of countless others.

I was against the idea till I read this answer. Now I think he should do it.

@Loop It's OK not to like them, it's not OK to state your opinion suggesting that it's objective truth.

No statement is objective truth. Including mine.

@Loop yet if you say 2 plus 2 is equal to 4 nobody would assume it's just your opinion, right? This is a statement accepted in the wide world. It's therefore different to a completely personal statement that is presented in the same light.

The problem with internet culture references is that some people might not get it and that out of those who get it, many might dislike it. This is one reason why people prefer more neutral presentation layouts. Another reason is to avoid sidetracking the core of the presentation. As an example, you don't want attendants trying to figure out how to interpret the emotions those rage faces show and thinking about how they might fit into the context of your research process.
As a rule of thumb, I gauge the level of detail of any non-technical content of my work. If it seems to invite second thoughts or even pause, let alone ambiguity, it is a serious red flag.
In your case, those rage faces ask definitely people to interpret them and put them in some context. As such, I could imagine them in a comic-like presentation, where you literally show the progress of your research as a comic, but that doesn't strike me as very professional. For other purposes, they carry too much detail and food for thought to be useful.
If you do want to include emoticons, memes, etc., I'd advise using simpler, more minimalistic ones.

<…> and I don't want to leave any bad impression.

Then definitely don't use memes, especially old memes such as rage faces. I cannot overstate how dated that format of humor is today.
There's an argument to be made in favor of using more recent memes if the audience can accept humor at all, but from your last line I think the best idea would be to avoid dubious humor entirely.

I think a middle ground between the adamant "don't do it" voices and the desire to shake things up and be unique is to use other fun images that aren't rage faces.
Spend some time finding unique images that enhance the presentation and add a touch of humor (with proper attribution, of course). Or even draw your own "rage" faces and sprinkle them throughout. Make sure that the actual content of your presentation remains the focus, though.
If you really want to add a personal touch to your presentation, I think there's room for that without recycling old internet memes. Doing a little bit of extra work will go a long way in showing your creativity and willingness to think outside the box.

Avoid the whole issue:  The fact that you have space in your talk to consider illustrating two researchers discussing their problems is a problem to begin with.  The solution to that problem will avoid the whole question of memes.
In general, 5-7 minutes of background on the primary content is too much, unless this is a 90 minute talk.  But it sounds like the genesis of this work had an interesting cross-domain component.  The interesting part is the overlap of problems leading to a novel solution, so in this background section, illustrate the problems and the crossover.  If you do a good job finding and describing this material concisely, you will not have any space left over for caricatures of two researchers.

To each their own, but in my experience, most talks are so boring and formulaic that most people don't get much out of them. In contrast, it would be refreshing and engaging for a talk to spend 5-7 minutes telling an interesting story about how their research came to be, if it was done well. The particular idea of memes doesn't sound great, but breaking away from a formulaic intro-details-conclusion format does. It's also relevant that it's at a workshop, not a conference.

It sounds like you care at least somewhat about leaving a positive professional impression, but the other answers overlook that you might have goals other than an academic career.
I went to graduate school with a student who did a lot of things like this. He enjoyed making things "his style" immensely, and planned to work in industry following graduation. Shaking up the "dry" academic environment was great fun for him, and actually served to help other like-minded folks find him at conferences. He ended up working at an industrial lab that fit his personality exactly, and I think he got this job via contacts made through his antics.
I think the other answers are right that this is a bad plan if you want to work in the academy, which is often pretty formal. Many researchers are likely to be offended by this kind of content, and it is borderline unethical to antagonize them this way. But, if you don't mind having some people think you have been immature, this might not be a problem.

It's by no means universally true that academia is more "dry" than industry; in fact, in my experience it's exactly the opposite. In addition (as other answers have mentioned) there's a problem with rage faces specifically, in that they're a 10-year-old meme (i.e. early Jurassic in meme time): there's a danger that the cool kids in the audience will be thinking not "This guy's cool just like us!", but "OMG look at this cringey academic trying to be down with the kids by referencing ancient memes! We certainly don't want him working in our cool edgy industrial lab!"

Industry is bone-dry compared to the eccentrics you get in academia.

@JamieClinton You make a good point. I think this particular kind of behavior (posting memes) was much more tolerated in the industrial labs I worked in than in the academic ones, but was just barely tolerated by my boss's boss, and the memes had to be put away entirely when senior management came to visit once a year. In academia, older eccentric behavior (like posting newspaper comics) was widely tolerated, but memes seemed not to be.


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Is it unprofessional to use graphics from Wikipedia in a poster?
Is it an acceptable practice to use simple graphics found on Wikipedia (and hence in Wikimedia Commons) in a conference poster?
From the legal point of view, this seems to be fine, as long as the image is properly attributed. Presumably it should suffice to mention the source in acknowledgements section. Or am I missing something?
How would this be perceived? Would it come across as unprofessional? The poster I am preparing is for an interdisciplinary and not too formal event, and the graphic I'd like to add is meant to illustrate a basic mathematical notion. (However, more general answers are very welcome.)

You have a whole section for acknowlegdements on a poster?

@Wrzlprmft: Why not? Especially as posters can be used to present more "hands-on" topics, e.g. the current state of implementation of a prototype for a concept rather than the very abstract conceptual view, as it would be presented in a paper, a poster is the opportunity to publicly thank the helpful students who took part in the implementation by listing their names. I usually include such a section, though you may also call it an "extended footer", given that it indeed uses a somewhat smaller font size than the rest of the poster and I would count it as "metadata".

If it's a professional-looking image, and you're attributing it, go for it. I've seen some excellent open-source images on Wikipedia.

Can you draw a better one yourself? If yes, do it. If no, for God's sake, use the one that is done by someone better with brush and computer, than you! If uncertain, do whichever way you think looks better. Posters are there to be looked at and to learn from, not to have legal and ethical disputes about them. Your audience is curious students and colleagues, not money greedy crooks and overzealous auditors.

The primary issues with using Wikipedia for academic research are that it's a tertiary source, and there's no credibility/quality assurance.
So, you should make sure that

If the image contains intellectual content that requires citation, you should cite a primary source for that content.
The image (including its factual/intellectual content) meets academic standards of quality and accuracy.

Assuming these are satisfied, reusing images from Wikimedia (or a similar source) is not inherently unprofessional. Of course, if the image is of poor quality or doesn't fit in well with your poster, it will look unprofessional - but this would also be true if you had created the image yourself.
This is, of course, assuming that the image you are using is in Wikimedia commons (not all images on Wikipedia are), and

you follow the license requirements (protects against legal/copyright problems)
you correctly attribute the source (protects against ethical/plagiarism concerns)

Is it also worth mentioning that it's unwise to rely on Wikipedia correctly identifying the image's primary source & licence, and that the OP needs to verify those themselves?

I have found in Humanities that wikicommons images can often be derived from national archive images that are in the public domain. It may not always be mentioned on Wikicommons but usually the Archive's licence does not permit you to edit the image.

If it is in the public domain, by definition there's no point to a license nor a restriction on editing. Those restrictions follow from the protections granted by copyright law, which is contrary to the public domain assumption.

@EnergyNumbers In my view, if Wikipedia states "this image is under CC-BY-SA" on their webpage and you use the image in good faith, then Wikipedia is liable if that information is false, not you.

@FedericoPoloni Even in the case that is true, your personal reputation is still at stake.

@March Ho Have you read the lines "the graphic I'd like to add is meant to illustrate a basic mathematical notion."???? What "copyright", "correctness", "attribution",... are we talking about? The issues are clarity and precision in this case, to care about anything else is just ridiculous, IMHO.

Adding some details to the previous response, I'd like to stress that many Wikipedia images come from Wikimedia Commons, and Commons is a different project than Wikipedia.
It is mainly a repository of free multimedia files

"that makes available public domain and freely-licensed educational media >content to all, and that acts as a common repository for the various projects of >the Wikimedia Foundation." The expression "educational" is to be understood >according to its broad meaning of "providing knowledge; instructional or >informative". [1]

Thus, it is possible to find great images in Commons, that come from various sources (like NASA, or other institutions like museums, galleries, libraries, academic databases, academic journals). There are great pictures on Commons.
Now, you are talking about "simple graphic", and the specific image is "meant to illustrate a basic mathematical notion". [2]
There are many professionals who use their free time to provide Commons (and hence Wikipedia articles) with illustrative, clear graphics.
I can't think of no valid reason not to use a graphic meant to illustrate the exact concept you want to illustrate, and meant to be used and shared for free, just because there would be the word "wikimedia" in the credits.
If the images suits your need and you feel it professional enough, please use it and give credit.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Commons#Policies
[2] Here's the Mathematics category.
Full disclosure: I'm a >10 years old volunteer in Wikimedia projects, and I've also been very active in movement roles like being president of a Wikimedia national chapter.

I welcome your contribution, but I think that you should disclose your affiliation with Wikimedia inside your answer.

@FedericoPoloni Hi Federico. Maybe you're right (I have no problem disclosing it, and it is already in my bio). But let me challenge you a bit :-) I'm not paid for any of my contributions to the Wikimedia movement, neither as an editor nor as president of a no profit association affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation. I'm biased (of course) towards free and open knowledge, open access, open science and Wikimedia projects, but I'm not sure all this is a COI. Should I always disclose my opinions beforehand?

I have asked for further opinions on meta.

I would think that (at the very least, here, on a site discussing academia) it would be considered courtesy to reveal possibly relevant affiliations, even if they are only tangentially related. After all, all papers I have read do it.

I replied there :-)

The answers here are excellent, but a few points. (This from the perspective of someone who knows Wikipedia policy and Creative Commons licenses well; I do not claim any special expertise in academic standards that might go above and beyond the legal requirements, though.)

The Wikipedia page or the Wikimedia Commons page will almost always have detailed information about the file's license, about its author, and about its origin. You should consult that information as a starting point, and can have a fairly high degree of confidence in its accuracy -- but to meet an academic, professional, or legal standard, you should also find ways to confirm this information for yourself. The information is intended to be helpful in that effort, but is not necessarily authoritative.
When doing that verification, be aware that some of Wikipedia's sources -- including U.S. federal agencies and major museums -- provide deceptive or incomplete information. In a comment thread above, it's been noted that images in the public domain may be marked with "licenses" or other text that indicates they are only to be used for non-profit purposes, or they are not to be modified, etc. Sadly, such cases are not uncommon. Those claims are inaccurate. If a file is truly in the public domain, no such requirement can be legally binding. (If you're in such a situation and it's important, you should check with a lawyer.)
Many (but not all) files will require attribution (the "BY" component of CC BY or CC BY-SA licenses). However, that attribution is to the copyright owner, not to Wikipedia or Wikimedia. As a practical matter, Wikimedia's Terms of Use suggest a link to the Wikimedia page as the minimal/standard way to fulfill that attribution (which is important in the case of anonymous/pseudonymous contributors, whose Wikimedia avatar is the only available method of attribution). But in many cases, a user provides their legal name; and in some, they even indicate a preference for how to write the attribution, perhaps including a business name (as I have done here, for example). If for some reason you prefer not to credit "Wikipedia" or "Wikimedia", that may be just fine. Look closely. Also, beware of the (thankfully rare) files you may find on Wikimedia Commons that are available under only the GFDL license; its attribution requirements are highly arcane and cumbersome!
The "Share-Alike" (SA) component of a license commonly used on Wikimedia has not been discussed. It's rare that it would impact a project like this, but it could. If your poster is derived from a file with such a license (which is a different standard than merely including it), then your poster must be made available with the same license.

Disclosure was brought up in a comment thread above, so a few points about myself:

I'm not a lawyer
I'm one of many co-authors of the Wikimedia/Wikipedia Terms of Use
I run a training & consulting company focused on Wikipedia
I'm the editor of the Wikipedia Signpost newsletter.

Simple: it's unprofessional if you do it unprofessionally.
The first way to be unprofessional is to not respect copyright, moral rights and verifiability. Just use what is useful, always cite your sources and the copyright license.


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Withdraw funded PhD position after accepting and enrollment but before actually starting
I know that there are already some similar questions, but mine is a little bit different, so let me ask it here:
I applied to two PhD position in mathematics in southern Europe. I just got accepted for one of them together with a full scholarship. They ask me to accept the offer within 8 days, because otherwise it is automatically declined. Now, the point is that in order to "accept" the offer, I have to officially enroll to the university through the online platform. So there I don't have to simply write an email with "I accept", but directly pay the tuition fees and get enrolled.
The point is that the position where I just received this offer, is my plan B. For the other unveristy, which is my plan A, the application procedure is still runing. More precisely, I have been invited to an interview next week, so I guess that the final decision at this university will be made in the mid of August.
My first question is the following: Obviously, I should accept my offer from university plan B, since it would be super risky to just decline it in order to hope that plan A is going to work out too. However, in case I get indeed accepted to plan A, is it then possible to withdraw the first offer? Even after the official enrollment? I would guess yes, because in the end of the day they cannot force me to start, but on the other hand, if money is involves, things are usually more complicated (e. g. Some notice periods or whatever) ...
On the other hand, I guess that many people have been in situations like this, because in the end, most people are applying to several universities/places and have there favourites among them...
(Maybe I should also add that I am not in touch with any Prof at university plan B. The choice of supervisor at this university only starts in autumn at the beginning of the semester. So, there is nobody I would have to apologize in case I withdraw.)
Second question: If I want to get sure if it is always possible to withdraw the position even after accepting/enrollment, I probably should write an email to the university of plan B. However, is this a good idea? Is this something I can ask without sounding that I am not interested in this position, or that I am hoping "to find something better"?

Why would you need to pay tuition if it includes a full scholarship?

The Scholarship is basically the loan. The tuition fees are just around 160€, so just some adminastratory costs which everyone has to pay and which for some reason are no included in the Scholarship...

Explore the possibility of an extension, if you haven't already.

What do you mean? Extension of what?

Time for a decision on your part.

I see, thanks. I don't think thats possible, but I can for sure ask the university.

Accepting an offer is, in essence, signing a contract. Contracts are legal documents which you should strive to honor, and be it only because you want to be the person who stands by a promise given.
In practice, you can break some contracts if you are reasonably sure that the other side isn't going to sue you over it, or if you never intend to enter a jurisdiction where the other party could sue you over it. It is probably true that the other university isn't going to sue you over not starting the fellowship you have accepted, simply because that's not worth their time and effort. So you will unlikely get into legal trouble if, after accepting the fellowship, you write them an email that you have changed your mind over it.
At the same time: Is this how you want to start your academic career? People are going to upset about it because they earmarked the money for you, declined other applications, and spent their time and effort on your application. They may or may not remember that when you apply to be a speaker at a conference in the future, when they review your papers or proposals, etc. Don't be that person -- if you make a promise, keep it; if you can't promise to keep a promise, don't make it.

Thanks for answer. I see your point. But in the end, the decision is uper important for my future. And as I say, if Plan A is my absolute dream position, I think it would still be bad to didn't try it.

Also, I should add that other people are on a waiting list. So, in case I withdraw other people get the chance. I mean, i won't withdraw very close to the semester, but as I soon as I get the news fromt the other, more preferred, application

Then contact university B as soon as possible and ask when is the latest you can possibly confirm your acceptance!

@B.Hueber You're trying to rationalize unethical behavior. The "other people on the waiting list" may have had other offers as well, or may simply not be able to take a late offer because they have made other arrangements when the offer deadline has passed. I get that the decision is important for your future; but so is your reputation. You will find yourself in this situation many times in life. I think the current situation is no different than when you get married: You don't want to be that person who says "Yes, I do, but I might change my mind when I find a partner I like better".

@user2705196 its next week, that I already know. Thats exacly the point.

@WolfgangBangerth Thanks for your evaluation! The point is, I don't really see who should become upset. I haven't applied for any specific Prof, not even for any specific research group. I just applied to PhD in math at the whole department. The choice of research group and supervisor comes in december. So, I really don't see why declining this offer in mid august in case I get accepted in my plan A will make anyone upset. Only the secretaries will be involved in this process and someone else gets an offer in mid August (the course starts in November).

My questions was more about the possibility of doing so, as in this specific case, accepting the offer means officially enroll to the university.

@B.Hueber If you accept an offer from University B and then pull out months later, you will very definitely seriously annoy the professors in charge of the graduate program there. (This holds whether or not you have formally enrolled.) A much better bet is to contact someone at B (the graduate tutor or graduate admissions chair?) and explain your situation to them openly. Your situation is not such an unusual one after all.

Thanks @DavidLoeffler, this is also what I thought, many must have been in this situation!  I just received the news that the ranking list of plan A will be published about one week after the acceptance deadline of plan B. So, I will write an email to B and ask about the possibility of extending the deadline by one or one and a half weeks! (This is surely a time span where one can talk about, as opposed to months)


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Are Graduate Fellowships or Research assistants in state university considered a government employees in US?
I am applying for a post which asks me
you ever part of government entity like federal/state/local government entities including publicly funded universities.
I was a research assistant with fellowship in a department under the state university.
So is this an Yes?
There is question here: Are professors at a public university in the U.S. considered to be "employed by the U.S. government"?
but it concerns federal employees. Mine includes any level of government entities. Hence the question.

university paystubs

I would assume that it is generally unlikely that students or research assistants at most US (state or private) universities would be US government employees (this could be very complex in the case of state governments and different from state to state). Competitively recruited US federal jobs typically have US citizenship requirements (Executive Order 11935 from 1976). The research positions you mention are most often open to international candidates, and hiring internationally would be difficult if citizenship requirements were involved.

And this answer chooses to make a point about the US government employment case. Highlighting that this concerns only government employment with bold face font.

It likely depends on the source of the funds. If you were paid by the department at a State university, then the likelihood is that it is a Yes. But if you were paid through a grant then the answer might be no, but might depend on some things.
I suspect you should ask the department, or, alternatively, answer Yes, but qualify it somehow/somewhere with the actual arrangement.
But, as Paul Garrett notes in a comment, things vary by state.

This must vary from state to state. In Minnesota, faculty, TA's, RA's, and some other classes of workers are definitely not state employees. Some classes of workers are (with different access to pension plans and other benefits). I do not know much further...

@paulgarrett, pretty much everything in US education varies by state, of course. But, I wonder if being a "state employee" and being a "university employee" is a real distinction, since the university is an agency of the state.

In Minnesota, at least, there legal and administrative distinctions between "being an employee of state universities" and "being a state employee" are significant and genuine, if only by statute. Here, state employees can make certain claims, including benefits and pension stuff, which other people cannot. I think at some point in the past faculty and students were cut off from this... "Being an employee of" and so on seems not to be a transitive relation... even while "being a subordinate of" may be?

I've never heard of a distinction in labor status between grants/"department" funds.

@AzorAhai-him-, some grant funding isn't actually "employment" and so different laws apply.

Can you provide more details? I'm only familiar with systems where grant funds go to the university who then pays you as a regular employee.

Not a lot of detail, but I've been paid for fellowships and grants that aren't employee contracts. The university handled the money but it isn't considered "employment". There were restrictions on use under the grant. Coming through the university was just a way to assure compliance.

If a US professor at a university wins an early career award from the department of energy and uses these funds to hire university postdocs, this will generally not make the postdocs government employees, even though the funding comes from a US government agency. How the funding is routed is generally important, and it is likely that the funds for the jobs mentioned by the OP are routed through the university.

The NSF certainly does not consider you their employee if you are on an NSF MSPRF, in particular they will not pay your payroll tax or issue you a W2.  (And if you are fully funded by NSF MSPRF and not teaching the university also does not consider you an employee.)

Fellowship income used to be untaxed, this was changed under the 1986 Tax Reform Act, but no one bothered to actually sort out how that works or change the forms and it has been utter chaos since then.  (My reading of the case law is that NSF MSPRFs are not employed by NSF or their school but also not self-employed, and that it’s income taxable but not payroll taxable, but I’m not a lawyer and this is fact-dependent and hasn’t been litigated yet so you literally can’t know.)