text:
I lost my students' quizzes due to a theft, what should I do?
I am a teacher assistant for a big course and I am expected to conduct weekly quizzes. Last week, my bag containing a week's worth of quizzes got stolen. My question is what should I tell my students and is there a fair way to make it up to them?

One piece of information that may help the users here who try to answer you is that are you the only TA of this course? Or is it a huge class that there are multiple TA sessions and you're only grading a fraction of the class's quizzes? I can see that some answers won't work well if you work in a multiple TAs system.

just to encourage you: this is not at all unprecedented issue. Talk to your professor, they have been through similar things before, and know what to do next. Do not do anything before that (call the police of course)

Do you have any reason to believe one of your students was the thief? The department should have a policy in place for missing coursework and you should confer with 'em before you release any information elsewhere.

Which country are you in? If GDPR applies to you - you may be in a much more serious mess than it looks on the surface (and have to take specific steps to ensure the correct process is followed).

I think offering students to optionally retake a very similar version of the quiz would be great.

Dumb question: How is big 1 quiz?

@Mehrdad, nope, GDPR only applies to non-EU organizations if you provide services to people/places in Europe, it has nothing to do with whether the clients/students are European.

@AndréParamés: It seems you're right, thank you for the correction! I'll delete my comment.

Have you talked to the professor for the course?  Regardless of course of what the course of action is I'd be upset if a TA took any action in this case without first consulting me.

This happened in my department once. One (local equivalent of a) TA was robbed of her bag while walking home. That morning there was one final exam, and she had some copies to grade in her bag. The exam had to be entirely redone, for every student, not just the ones whose copy was lost, much to the dismay of everyone: students, instructors, administration... In your case, it is just some quizzes, so it is not so bad.

I was instructor of the course and once my whole bag of final exams was stolen from the faculty room (turned out that he was a fellow faculty member and had to return it anonymously) but in this panic, the right thing to do was 1-) To approach the Department Head immediately 2-) Don't hit the Panic button and leak this news, and Alhamdulillah I done the both! All the best to you.

Report it to the police. Report it to the department.
You don't have anything that requires making up to the students. Of course you should be fair to them and not let this hurt them (e.g., no grade for this quiz, but allow students to take an optional alternative assignment to take its place).

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

I just studied for a quiz and aced it...  ooops do this 2 hour assignment because TA left her bag unwatched.   Let me ask this question.    What if a student lost a paper worth half their semester grade due to thievery?

@blankip I'd report it to the police (as I would with anything of mine that was stolen), get a crime report number, and apply for an extension under those extenuating circumstances.

@TEK - Anyone can file a police report.   The TA doesn't need proof that something was stolen to file a police report.   She could trash the papers, feel
bad about it and file a police report as a student could file a police report for a paper they never did.   I just don't see how this matters.     The fact is if a paper was done with a strict due date and a student said "it was stolen" they would probably get an F.    Not understanding the different logic and apathy applied to the TA.   Does it suck that it happened?   Yes.   Was it ultimately your fault?   Yes.

@blankip I don't see Austin suggesting a 2-hour assignment

@blankip You're being awfully presumptuous about the circumstances in which OP's bag was stolen. Also, there's a difference between a student saying they lost a paper and a TA saying they lost all the papers - the former would only hurt the student, while the latter would affect all the students because of the actions of one person.

@blankip I assume you would also give a student an F if they were trapped in an elevator and unable to hand in the paper on time? Extenuating circumstances are a part of life. Things happen sometimes. They need to be dealt with fairly given the circumstances instead of treating every rule as utterly immobile.

I would consider it unreasonable to require students to take an additional assignment to maintain their grades when the teaching staff had lost the documentation.

@ZachLipton - Trapped in an elevator is probably provable.   My whole point is that a teacher's issues should be dealt with on the same level a student's would be.   Accountability should go both ways.    This answer is "nice" but unrealistic as it makes the OP feel good but probably pisses off most/all students.   I look back and think how I would react to this as a student.   Basically laugh at a new assignment... give me an A or I will retake quiz.

@blankip Umm... print another copy? :-D

@blankip I mean... So the teacher should fail themselves? There isn't a really an equivalent here with switched roles. The quizzes are gone; what course of action do you suggest is "fair" to all students? If you gave everyone an A and I studied hard for my A, I'd be pretty upset. If I studied for a quiz that got pushed back 2 weeks, I'd be pretty upset over that too; that's time I spent then to study and time I'll have to spend again to review. There's no course of action here that doesn't result in time wasted for the students; an optional assignment sounds like a good way to mitigate that.

As an undergraduate I had a professor who kept a rather messy office, with papers piled everywhere. One day he came into lecture looking quite embarrassed. It was a day to turn back the graded homework from the previous week.
Well, it turns out that his desk was so messy that the only 'open' place to put the pile of graded homework to give back to us was to stack it on the edge of his office trash can. You can guess what happened - yup, the helpful janitor folk came by and took out the trash, including the stack of homework.
He took the blame (and a little ribbing), and gave us all an A for the assignment. He also cleaned up his office a bit...
In your case, it isn't your fault, but I would just punt on the quiz and give everyone either an A, or don't count it.

"it isn't your fault": it isn't entirely your fault, but maybe a fraction, well, yes. When I have exam papers in my bag, I double the precautions to avoid any theft (e.g. I never leave the bag in the car, I don't leave the bag unattended etc.).

Agree with @MassimoOrtolano, if there is any marks or grades on them it could be considered as FERPA violation in the US. I wouldn't say the OP should take heavy blame, but I wouldn't approach it with a light-hearted tone neither.

Well, the OP does not go into detail on just how the bag disappeared, beyond that it was stolen. If an armed robber took it, really there should be no blame. If he put it down on the subway and intentionally walked away leaving it there, there is full blame. We don't know, but as written it does not seem to me that too much blame is indicated.

@JonCuster That's why I wrote maybe. We don't know the circumstances of the theft, but I certainly know of cases where the theft could have been avoided with a bit more of care.

@MassimoOrtolano - Fully agreed. But, I don't think we need to start having professors chain their briefcases to their hands while walking around!

It isn’t your fault, but it is still your responsibility.

@MassimoOrtolano I've had departments make it quite clear that it is the instructor or TA's fault, as they are never supposed to take exams etc. to a non-secure space except as required for administering the exam (ie, taking them from the classroom back to a locked office).  Not very many people ever actually take such precautions, and TAs in particular routinely take material home with them in nothing more secure than a generic backpack, but the policy still puts the burden on the TA and instructor to ensure the security of (to-be-)graded work.

Why exactly would you give them an A for a stolen quiz? Genuinely interested in the rationale.

@hiergiltdiestfu - The students did their part, something happened after they turned things in. Lacking any remaining evidence, they get full benefit of the doubt.

Giving everyone an A might make a similar theft more likely in future...

@NotThatGuy - if that is really likely there are deeper issues to address than an instructor losing a quiz.

@hiergiltdiestfu I've seen something similar done when, for example, there was a problem with a question--"question 5 contained an error, so I have given everyone full points for question 5". I'm not sure why people decide to give full marks vs remove the question from the total (maybe they are too lazy to recalculate the grades out of a new point total?), but it's at least relatively common here.

@user3067860 It makes sense, say the part that was stolen was the part which you were best at. You got 70% on average but 100% on that question/paper/homework. Getting 100% for it would not cause you to do worse, removing it from the average could cause you to get a lower grade. and a student should not be harmed by the incident.

@Vality, there's no way around it, giving zero, maximum marks or the average. Assuming a large enough class there will be a case of a student that is relatively worse off compared to a peer whichever way you cook it. FWIW, and partly contradicting myself, giving everyone zero would be my choice, 'it never happened' works for me. However, those that did the hard work still get the (heretofore) motivated study that will assist them in coming exams, those that didn't won't...

Pretty cavalier to blame the victim of a theft without knowing the details. Not a single person here can honestly say that they've NEVER let an important item out of their site. It happens. When it happens, it sucks. Punishing the victim further is unnecessary and stupid.

@LamarLatrell You are correct that if your institution curves grades or ranks students by position in the class, there is no way around this. Fortunately all the universities I have experience with use an absolute grading system where ones peers do not effect how well they do.

@Vality Every absolute grading system becomes a relative grading system when they will later apply for a limited number of job opportunities

One of my professor was exactly as you describe I've been to his office only once and I had a really hard time trying to hide my look of disbelief. Piles of paper, half a meter tall were all over the place, literally everywhere: desk, floor, windows' balcony... you couldn't open the door completely due to all that paper. The monitor of his desktop PC was behind the stack of papers, and he only had a tiny space without paper were he had a 12'' netbook which apparently was all he used. He was also a big smoker and I suspect he used to smoke "outside the window"... with all that paper around.

@user3067860 The main reason I’ve heard for giving full marks for a flawed question rather than removing it entirely is that flawed questions are an inherent disadvantage to students taking the test. In a timed test, students may spend disproportionately longer trying to solve a flawed question, taking away valuable time from the other questions, and as a result perform less well on the other questions than they would have without the flawed question. Giving full marks for the flawed question makes up for that, whereas removing it would leave them with a lower overall score.

Oops - that doesn't sound good. You should definitely report it to your administration and maybe there are established procedures for such cases.
Furthermore, you should not re-use any of the questions in this test in this or later courses.
One could assume, that one of the students stole the bag to avoid a bad grade, but I would recommend to assume some random person stole it - it helps in keeping a good relationship to your students.
To come to your relevant question: Is there a fair way to make it up to them? - Maybe not. If you just don't count the test, a good result of student A would not count towards the final grade. On the other hand, if you force them to repeat the test, student A might perform worse then before, and student B might perform better - which would be unfair as well.
I would do the following: Tell the students about the situation. Tell them, if the bag returns (maybe the thief throws the exams away since they are worthless), wou will return the results as soon as possible. Otherwise, don't include the test in the final grade.
If you want to give a bonus: Offer them that they may repeat the test if they want, but if they don't, it just does not count.

@NicHartley one more good reason not to assume it was one of the students.

@NicHartley I agree that stealing is not worth the risk just for a bad quiz grade, but cheating is almost never worth the risk, and yet people do it anyway. People who cheat almost categorically fall under the "Not good at cost/benefit analysis" heading.

@GreySage the people that go to great lengths, perhaps. But in my experience most academic cheating is of the low level (peek at neighbor's quiz, copy some parts of code, etc) kind, and its rampant precisely because everyone (even the non-cheaters) knows the risk is extremely low.

Do you mean 'oops'? At first I thought you were trying to start with the positive aspects of the situation, except that didn't make sense.

@JessicaB I thought this answer was recommending one reduces risk by having the tests moved via courier...

Corrected... "Ups" is German for "oops" .

@OBu So in German the O's be U - now your username makes sense ;)

Not had a bag stolen, but lost a quiz (online system), best thing is tell the students directly that it happened and you will deal with the grades appropriately.
What is "appropriate" may need to be checked with the dept. head etc but once the students know you are on the case and are fair to all, it works out fine...

First and foremost, seek departmental advice. There is likely a procedure for this situation, either within the department or the institution as a whole.
Think about what you would want as a student, then balance that with what is fair to the people that studied hard for the quiz. A possible compromise could be to strike this test from the grading scheme, but offer students the option to complete an alternative examination on the topics covered, then mark them on the existing scheme. This would allow the students that feel that they have a strong grasp on this topic to prove it and earn a higher grade, and those that don't would be unaffected.
E.g. (Assumes 10 quizzes worth 10% each. All students have 80% on first 9 quizzes)
Student A declines optional test. 80% * 9/9 = 80% final grade
Student B accepts optional test. Aces it (100%). 80% * 9/10 + 100% * 1/10 = 82% final grade
Student C accepts optional test. Only gets 50%. 80% * 9/10 + 50% * 1/10 = 77% final grade

I would let them know the truth of what happened, give everyone an A on that assignment/quiz, but try to push your Professor/Teacher to put a question or two from that missing quiz on the midterm/final.
This provides another opportunity for the students who actually studied the material a chance to showcase their knowledge, and they won't feel like they wasted  their time learning that week's material.

Why give them an A? If I'm about to judge someone's track record from their grades I wouldn't want to see random A's just because someone was feeling generous!

@pipe You make it out to seem like stolen/missing quizzes occurs often throughout the year? Why would you assume that this is a reoccurring theme and not simply a one time event? If this happened all the time I'd say the person losing these quizzes should no longer be responsible for the quizzes. It was a one time thing, don't punish the students and move on.

I don't know what gave you the impression that I think it's common. I don't even care about the reason. I do care that someone who had his quiz lost shouldn't be getting a higher grade than the guy in the other class who wasn't lucky enough to have his quiz stolen. If you start giving the highest grade out just for participating they won't mean anything.

@pipe A teachers gives a free A to the students every time he or she loses the quizzes, which rarely ever happens (maybe once a year at the most). Knowing this as a student and knowing I'd be taking 10+ quizzes a semester, I wouldn't be expecting a free A every time I take the quiz, i'd assume that the quizzes won't get lost/stolen and i'll be given my actual grade for the quiz. If I'm in the other class I would be bummed but I wouldn't stop studying for the next quiz.

I am unsure regarding the legality of just giving out A:s in a scenario like this. I think there might be problems with handing out a grade for work you haven't corrected. I would advice against it, at least without first consulting the higher-ups in your department.

It depends on the overall worth of the work in question. If the work is 2%-5% of a student's grade, I don't believe consulting with higher-ups is required. However if the work is worth a significant portion of the student's grade then I'd say you're correct, in that giving out an A is not appropriate. I doubt, in this case, that the weekly quiz is worth a ton, therefore a free A shouldn't raise any concerns. @Phil

Report it to the department.
Show regret for what happened to the students.
Use e-learning platforms to deliver and store the quizzes in the future.

You don’t do much harm to collect one less data point on their score - unless there is a very small number of quizzes - all it does is to reduce the variability of the scores.
In other words, a bad student can make one or two very good quizzes, not ten. (Say you have ten quizzes. If you loose one the precision of your algorithm is reduced by sqrt(10/9) that is almost nothing).
Be empathetic with the students. The students pur their own time in the quiz, and will feel cheated because their effort vanished in the wind. All you can do now is to  explain what happened and apologise to them.
For the future, you should consider delivering quizzes using e-learning platform so that you can always retrieve a digital copy. Many platforms offer the ability to deliver quizzes that involve computations as well. Also, you can automate the grading, thus saving you lots of time and reducing subjective bias.

their 2-hour effort --- Since these are WEEKLY quizzes, I would imagine the effort is more along the lines of 10 minutes, unless you're counting preparation time, in which case your assessment of how long students spend preparing for a short weekly quiz is longer by a factor of 3 or 4 than has been my experience.

The size of apologies should be proportional to the time they put into it (and that does not include preparation). Mine were between one and two hours

@famargar Something that lasts an hour or more is not a quiz, it is an exam.

@JessicaB in my country teaching methods are pretty discretionary. I used to give long weekly quizzes that proved assimilation of the weekly teaching content. Subject was a hardcore STEM one. Sure teachers can deliver quizzes that can be done in 5’. It would probably not be effective in core STEM subject.

Btw, removed the 2hour phrasing, as the students will be unhappy regardless.

@famargar Actually, research has shown 5 min quizzes can be effective at keeping students engaged. Perhaps it depends on what you want the quizzes to achieve. I still wouldn't call yours quizzes though.

@JessicaB thanks for the feedback - would be great if you could share the paper. My personal experience with very short quizzes is that they are good to keep engaged but not necessarily to assimilate. But my experience is anecdotal and I would love to read a proper study on this.

Is this apologise in the sense of condolences? Or in the sense of admission of liability? No offense, if the latter, then this sounds like telling a rape victim to...

As others have commented, report it to the department/relevant authorities and seek guidance from them before making a decision or telling the students that the quizzes got stolen.
This is not your fault. Someone stole your bag. Even with extra extra precautions, there is always a chance that exams or important documents are stolen/lost.
Remember that quizzes/exams are methods to 1) Certify they have learned a given subject and (more importantly) 2) Give them feedback about their current knowledge of the subject. The first objective serves the contract between you and the university/society (you certify that students that pass know the material). The second objective serves the contract between you and your students (you help them learn). By giving them all full grades/not retesting them you are not complying with either.
If it were up to me, and the schedule allows for it, I'd definitely make the students retake the quiz or at least as @HEITZ suggested include the material in another test/quiz.
I'd explain to them that quizzes/exams are samples of their knowledge. We usually don't retest students on material they have passed for efficiency's sake, but to do so is not unfair by any means.
If a student knew the material the first time you took the quiz, he should know it the second time and have no issues retaking the quiz. If a student didn't know it and now has extra time to study he may have an advantage wrt the first quiz, but you can't know that since you lost those samples. So the only fair way to deal with this is to make them retake the test.

This isn’t the students’ fault so they shouldn’t be penalized. There are many obvious non optimal options like disregard it completely or give 100% to all (not fair to those who prepared). A different option is to include 1 or 2 extra questions to your next exam or final exam, weighted slightly differently, the content of which comes from the quiz material.

For your current problem, report it and omit it from the final grade.  Rearrange weights if necessary.
For the future: My office copier had a "scan to email" function.  I used to sometimes backup quizzes/exams to my email account.  It took very little time, and prevented this issue and other potential cheating issues.

There is a lot of information missing, therefore there is no Perfect Answer. There are way too many options what, how and why has happened to you. The level of how much did you screw this up is also very sensitive to your actual background.
Anyway, report it honestly to the professor in charge of this lecture. Report it to the department. Report it to the police.
If you act on your own and...

give all of them A you "punnish" ones that prepared for the exam and deserved the A by putting them on the very same level with a slacker that just showed up. Maybe the theft was motivated by this equalisation and get "all As" from you was the purpose.
give another test you allow them extra time to prepare compared to the ones whose test were not stolen. The extra time might be another purpose of the theft. The ones who learnt for that particullar day and forgot it a day after are also affected, because they have to re-learn it one more time. Personally I have no sentiment for such students.
write the test off you change the rules on the fly.

Without the full knowledge of the professor, who is the one reponsible for the course, you commit a misconduct no matter what action you take.
On the other hand, in cooperation with the professor you can finish the courses with limitted harm to the students. I'd vote for assigning new test, if it is the only test in the course. If it is one part, I'd change the criterion from say 70 pts of 100 to 56 pts of 80 when the lost test had 20 pts total.

I would do it like this (beyond obviously reporting etc):
Give students an extra test that repeats the quiz (with new questions obviously). Tell them this test will not hurt their grade in any case, so they may safely skip it if they don't want to do it. Then score the test accordingly:

If the missing tests don't get found: the missing test gets considered as receiving average of all other tests. So, if the student had 80% average of all other tests, the missing test is scored 80%.
Now, give them better mark of the missing and extra test (actual score on the missing test if found, said average of pt1 if not found).
For example, one student might have received 80% on the old test and 90% on the new one - he gets 90%. Another got 90% on the old and 80% on the new - he also gets 90%.

I believe this is the fairest way you can do it, because:
You aren't giving 100% score for no reason, which wouldn't be fair to good students.
You aren't requiring people to retake the test - if they felt they are doing well enough, their score won't get worse if they don't.
Yet, if students want to, they can retake the test, where you are again making sure this extra effort isn't able to hurt their grade, even if they do really poor on the test.

If you want to "make it up" to the students, that's simple: Repeat the quiz with the exact same questions.
The reason: A good student would go through the questions after the quiz was taken in order to know all the answers, since all the quiz questions are questions that they should new. A less good student won't bother. So all your dedicated students who spent extra time on learning without expecting any advantage in grading will receive a nice bonus.

I disagree with this advice. Learning old exams by heart should not be the basis of getting a good grade. I think that the only options here are to either remove the exam in question from the total grade of the course (if it was an optional exam) or to have the students retake the exam with new questions. The latter won't be popular, of course.

The OP is "a teacher assistant for a big course". I don't know the policies for the OP's department, but it would be very unusual for a TA to be in charge of deciding how to handle grades in an exceptional situation.
The first thing to do, if not already done, is to report the theft to the police.
The second thing to do is to report it to the primary instructor for the course. They should decide what to do about grades, taking into account departmental policies.
Most of the advice in other answers would be good advice for the grading decision maker.

Back in school, I had a teacher who was somehow… beyond all things.
On year, at the end of the school year, he suddenly noticed he hadn't written any quizzes or whatsoever and he had no ground to take grades on.
So he quizzed the pupils one after the other and made some (AFAIR quite fair) grades in their answers.


text:
When should a graduate student accept a peer-review request?
I have recently published my first research paper and have already received a request to review a manuscript. The journal's impact factor is low, but it is open access, and the paper's topic is relevant to my field of study. What factors should I keep in mind when deciding whether to accept or decline the request to review? What level of expertise is typically expected from a good-quality review?

Related: 1) I have been invited to peer review a manuscript for a reputable journal. This is my first so I have a few questions to the more experienced; 2) As a Ph.D. student, should I spend time reviewing papers?

Make sure it is at least a legitimate journal (discuss with your supervisor if needed).

Writing peer reviews is a vital part of academic life and you should eventually partake in such service to the community. In order to write a good review, you need

time to actually read the manuscript and write the review;
sufficient scientific expertise in the relevant field;
some idea of what constitutes a good review;
confidence in your own judgement and in your critique of (potentially much more senior) authors.

Reviewing is always much easier and pleasant if the manuscript is good. When there are problems with the manuscript, that's where it becomes tricky (unfortunately, many submitted manuscripts fall in the second category).
You should definitely discuss this with your supervisor.

Grad students can certainly review papers. Most likely there will be something like 3 reviews, and the others will be faculty or other more experienced reviewers. If you think you know the area, go for it! Need to pay forward the efforts of those reviewing your papers, after all.

It obviously depends on the field, but in no scientific field that I am familiar with can a low-impact journal reliably get three referees per paper.

True, @Buzz, I don't tend to involve myself with low-impact journals so I didn't think of that. But then, for those, it is probably less critical to have at least 2 highly qualified reviews.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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

sort: votes


text:
I need to remove all of the plagarized parts to my thesis
I am writing my thesis. How do I get rid of plagiarized parts? How do I make sure that all my references are correct?

To get rid of plagiarist parts: Delete thesis and start over, writing everything yourself this time.

The easiest way is to not plagiarize at all to begin with. Every sentence that goes into the draft thesis should either be your own words or in quote marks, with a reference. Every idea should either be your own idea, or referenced.

Please clarify what you mean by "plagiarist parts". Are you saying you plagiarized parts of your thesis (in which case, rewrite them from scratch) or are you just asking for ways to avoid plagiarism as you write new material?

+1. If there is Best Question of 2015 nomination, this will be in my top 5.

Is it really "unclear what you're asking"? I mean, it is a superbly awkward question, but I don't find it particularly unclear.

What's unclear to me is what type of "plagiarism" are we talking about? Did the OP use someone else's words, with a citation but not in quotes? (Easy to fix) Or use someone else's words without a citation or quotes? (Have to figure out where you've done it, then find a citation and add quotes or rephrase.) Or use someone else's ideas without a citation? (Surely you'd be able to remember which ideas and then find the reference.) Did the OP really plagiarise, or is he/she just confused about what is legit? Is the OP just trying to get past Turnitin?

@xLeitix I agree that the question is clear. However, "superbly awkward" barely scratches the surface of how un-grokkable it is that the question even exists. It's kind of like sitting there, repeatedly poking yourself in the ribs, and then asking The Internet why your ribs feel funny.

If you think/know that parts of your thesis are plagiates you and/or your supervisors seem to have failed. You'll have to do as Tobias Kildetoft suggests in the comments, and rewrite those parts from scratch in your own words.
To check if your references are correct: read them.

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


text:
Should I contact a PhD student or his supervisor for potential collaboration?
I found some recently published papers which are related to my research and am interested in contacting the authors for potential collaboration. However, in those papers, the first author is a Ph.D. student while the second author is his supervisor, who is a well-known professor in my field. In my field, the order of author is based on contribution, which means the Ph.D. student contributed more to the paper than his supervisor.
Hence, I don't know whether I should contact the student or his supervisor to initiate the collaboration. I can see that the advantage for contacting the student is that he should know more about the research than his supervisor. On the other hand, I also look for someone that can write a reference letter for me in the future, and the supervisor sounds better.

Any reason you can't send an email addressed to both of them?

@ff524 I also think about that but am afraid if I do that, the supervisor just simply lets the student to work with me. Hence I lose a chance to work with the supervisor, and his potential reference letter

If you email just the professor about his joint work with his student, he's likely to immediately bring the student into the conversation anyways. I doubt it will make any difference at all to the likelihood of getting a reference letter, so you might as well maximize your chance of getting any response at all by emailing both.

@ff524 if that's the case then I just send email to both of them just like you suggest. Thank you very much :)

First, check the fine print in the paper itself.  Some journals ask the authors to designate one person as the "contact author" or "corresponding author", and distinguish that author with a notation and a mark on the author list.  If that is the case, then that is the person that you should write to.
Beyond that, since the professor is well-known in your field, know that you are unlikely to end up doing much direct collaboration with them in any case, simply because they probably already have many different projects in progress.  The student is also more likely to respond at all for the same reason.
You can't know before writing, however, whether you'd mostly likely end up working with this Ph.D. student or somebody else: if the student still has some years to go, you'd likely end up collaborating with them; if they are about to defend, they might either be "taking the project" or handing it off to another student.  So if there isn't one person designated as contact author, write to both (as ff524 suggests in the comments), and let them decide how to respond.

Usually, the professor becomes the corresponding author just because he or she tends to have a more "permanent" address where writers can contact them than a grad student or postdoc would.

@aeismail Often, but not always: I have certainly seen students listed as corresponding author when it is more the students' project or when they are senior and planning to carry the project to their next post.

@aeismail: At least across all fields, I think usually is a bit strong. The meaning of the term "corresponding author" was discussed in some depth in this question.


text:
having a high score in PGRE test is enough for me to be accepted im astrophysics' graduate programs?
I am a law student. I am studying physics on my own to attend a PGRE test because Astrophysics always fascinates me. I want to have a Masters Degree in astrophysics but I have no Bachelor's Degree in astronomy or physics or math. Instead, my Bachelor's will be in law.
My question is: will having a high score on the PGRE test be enough for me to be accepted for graduate programs in astrophysics?

Have you ever taken any astronomy % physics & math course throughout you bachelor degree ?

If you didn't take calculus level mathematics, university chemistry, and or university physics you might want to start an undergraduate degree in physics or astronomy first. If you do get accepted into a program you would more than likely have to take quite a few undergrad classes to "catch up" to the level you would need for your graduate level courses.

I've taken math 2 & physics & chemistry in high school. but i've never taken such a courses while studying law.

Taking calculus in high school would help ? @leth

I have flagged this as a possible duplicate of the Ph.D. admissions program even though it's about Masters, since there seems to be a large gap in the OP's knowledge of graduate programs in general.

Does "PGRE" mean "physics GRE", i.e. the GRE Physics Subject Test?  If so, the short answer to your question is no.  GRE scores are only a small part of the admission decision; your undergraduate record and letters of recommendation are far more important.  Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like your undergraduate work has been anywhere close to sufficient to preparing you for graduate study in physics.


text:
Harvard referencing and in-text referencing for Chapters
Say in the reference list you have referenced a book: can you reference a chapter in that book in-text as such: (Doe 2011, Chapter 3)?
I don't necessarily want to go with the option of referencing each chapter in the reference list.

While advice, shared by @WBT, is valid for regular books, it is not appropriate for edited books, which contain collections of papers, authored by different sets of authors. You have to cite and reference each chapter individually. The above-mentioned statements are true, at least, for using APA Style (see this page), however, you will need to consult with your publication style guide or manual, if your selected style is different from the APA, to make sure you follow their guidelines.

After noticing your mention of Harvard Style in the title of your question, I just checked to make sure my answer is still relevant. Indeed, the Harvard Style, as I expected, has the same guidelines in regard to citing and referencing chapters of edited books, as the APA Style (i.e., see this page).

Yes, inline citations can cite subsets of texts like sections, chapters, or (more commonly) pages (e.g. when sourcing a direct quote).   Different styles might have different rules on abbreviation (e.g. "Chapter" vs. "chapter" vs. "Ch." vs. "ch.")


text:
Non-profit organization, IRB Approval, and publishing?
I'm working with a non-profit organization at the moment and we're planning to conduct a survey on ~93,000 to find certain attitudes and the correlation associated with them.
We're hoping on having our results being published in a reputable journal if possible, because we've done a lot of research and background reading to have a pretty solid study design written down.
Is it necessary for us to have IRB approval to publish in a reputable Psychology/Educational academic journal?
Additionally, even if it's not explicitly stated in the manuscript guidelines, are there "unspoken" rules about stating IRB approval before submission?

Most reputable journals in fields that involve human subjects research require that authors state (often in the article itself) that the study received approval from an IRB or the national equivalent in some other country.
As researchers that aren't affiliated with an organization that has its own IRB, you're in a bit of a bind.  There are independent Review Boards that can be contracted to provide oversight of research conducted outside of a normal institutional setting.  These are used for example in some drug company sponsored clinical trials.  You would have to contract with such an IRB to have your project reviewed and supervised.

Super thanks for the response!
I've been exploring online and found that some Independent researchers can obtain IRB approval by "borrowing" another institution's IRB?
Is that a recommended course of action, or just plane crazy complicated?
Thanks again!

Most institutions have policies that they won't handle proposals from researchers with no affiliation to the institution.  This would be a waste of institutional resources and also the IRB would have no effective way of stopping research that went beyond what the IRB approved.  The IRB couldn't effectively supervise the research.  My own institution refuses to review proposals unless some faculty or staff member (or student under faculty supervision) is conducting the research.


text:
Is it ok to list reviewing experience in a resume when you don't have a PhD?
A friend of mine is has an appointment as research staff without any postgraduate degree, let alone a PhD. However, she has years of research experience and has single-handedly reviewed impact factor 8 journals due to her extreme specialization. I told her she cannot claim any experience as her boss may have delegated it from his own refereeing work. She is looking for jobs in academia/industry. Can she claim to have reviewed for these journals on her resume/CV?

if she has reviewed papers, she has reviewing experience regardless of whether she wrote them on assignment by her boss or not.

If she has reviewed for these journals, then she has, regardless of who asked her to do it, and she can certainly put it on her CV (it's accurate and she can back it up).
One caveat would be if she wrote the reviews but they were submitted under her boss's name (with the journals' agreement) - in that case, it would be important for her to make clear that she was doing the reviews in lieu of her boss, and wasn't asked to do them in her own right. In other words, she certainly has the reviewing experience, but was asked because of her boss's expertise in the field and not her own (even if she may have that expertise as well).

Thanks Stuart, it is the caveat case you mentioned. Should I suggest this clarification to be mentioned in the CV or completely omit listing that experience? Thanks!

@DuraiArasan: I would suggest adding a small comment clarifying that - e.g. "reviewed papers for journal X on behalf of Y". It doesn't need to be an extensive explanation - just something that makes it clear what the situation was. If the experience is relevant to the jobs for which she's applying, I certainly wouldn't omit it. The key point is that you should be able to back up anything you say on your CV with evidence if asked - as long as you can do that, it's all good.


text:
How do you respond to people who say pure mathematics has less value than applied mathematics because "it doesn't have any practical application"?
I'm a Math PhD student in pure math. Many times I have encountered people who just doesn't value pure math or does not see the beauty of pure math. Most of the time these are those people who haven't done any "serious mathematics" or any advanced level mathematics. I forgive these people because I understand that their ignorance is coming from their lack of knowledge and it's going to be hard for me explain or show them the beauty of mathematics simply because they don't know advanced mathematics.
I don't know what is the impression of pure mathematics in the industry, but my guess would be they also don't care much about pure math because they don't really need it that much.
I've also had these kind of experiences with many undergrad students who take some math courses but are not math majors. I have tried to explain it to them by saying that math is not just about using formulas and applying them in the real world, but it's also about the quantitative skills, critical thinking and problem solving skills that you develop along the way, which will be useful throughout your life and you'll need it everywhere.
But the real problem is dealing with those people who insult pure mathematics and are (have) pursuing (pursued) advanced degree in applied math or who come into mathematics from engineering background or some other more applied discipline. I find it surprising that even though these people have been exposed to quite a lot of mathematics, they still say such things. How do they not understand that just because people haven't found a real world application of some of the abstract concepts in pure math at the present that doesn't make it useless, neither does that mean real world applications can't be found? There are so many instances where people have been able to use some of these abstract concepts into the real world many years after their discovery.
(I do not intend to insult or humiliate entire group of people doing applied math or are into other more applied disciplines. I'm just surprised to hear such things from some of the people in these groups)

How do you deal with ignorant people who say "literature is useless because it doesn't have any application"?

Classic responses include: "What's the use of a newborn baby?" or "I do not know what it is good for today, but in 50 years, this will be taxed."

Aren't expressions like "forgive these people" and "insult pure mathematics" a bit over the top?

Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

Why do you feel the need to “deal with” or change these people at all? If you yourself like what you do, that should be enough for you. Why care about the opinions of others?

The point of exploration is to understand and find new things. If one knew the outcome a priori there would be little point.

[Applied mathematician here.]
In truth, the argument these people make is not entirely wrong, and I don't think your us-vs-them approach to their them-vs-you argument is very useful.
I think an objective perspective on pure mathematics would probably have to include that the majority of what pure mathematicians (however you want to define that) work on is not driven by any current applications and is unlikely to ever find applications. Of course there are papers that 50 years later have found uses, but pointing to these one-in-perhaps-millions is not a good argument. Nor is that applied mathematicians have "frequently" drawn onto material created decades before in addressing current problems -- perhaps they have drawn onto some basic concepts, and use the language previously created, but more often than not, a lot of work still needed to be done to make this material useful to applications, and that's work applied mathematicians then did. (They were "applied" mathematicians by definition here: They wanted to solve an actual problem. Of course, they may previously have been pure mathematicians.)
A better argument, which I personally subscribe to, is to draw an analogy to other "pure" endeavors: Perhaps to people who study medieval literature, or music theory, or other forms of art; or astrophysicists; or those who research quarks and Higgs bosons. Humans are curious creatures, and we get pleasure out of figuring stuff out and "knowing". And humanity is better for it, knowledge is what we strive for.
Not everyone needs to appreciate every one of the endeavors mentioned above. My parents were scientifically educated people (my dad was a professor of biology) and appreciated music but could absolutely not find any kind of appreciation for music outside a very narrow range of classical music created between ~1700 and ~1850. I tried to explain to them some of the beauty behind modern rock and heavy metal music, but gave that up pretty quickly. But they would have appreciated the work of a literary scientist researching Dostoyevsky. The point is simply that some people like some things but not others; but most educated people can appreciate the diversity of what people contribute to the "humanity project", and one perspective you could take is to embed yourself as one small cog in this "humanity project" of all of us together creating knowledge whether it is useful or not, because that's just the kind of critter we are.

I agree (apart from the bit about heavy metal being beautiful). Several times I heard pure mathematics PhD students give the justification that their field sometimes finds valuable applications that nobody had predicted. But they only seemed to know a small set of examples - talking to different people almost felt like listening to a recording. And they never talked about what proportion of papers found applications or what would have happened if the pure research had not been done. It would have been better if they had talked about what motivated them and why they liked it.

Not hard to believe that results on "semi-flasque projectively-etale $\infty$-fibered cohomology of simplicial meta-abelian sheaves on locally presentable sub-schemes" are purely self-contained and not really "for" anything else.

(I write this as a "pure" mathematician disenchanted by the superior attitudes of many purists.)

@Randall seems like it might have a better chance if you could map it back to something else.

Arguably, humans can be conditioned to find almost anything "beautiful." I went through a noise-core phase, for example. Was enjoying that somehow really justified in some sense, or was it just conditioning? It's arguably more objective to enjoy classical and think of heavy metal as noise (though I still enjoy the latter). Your answer is excellent though. Similarly it's arguably more objective to value that which is directly useful or impactful on one's life over that which is theoretical or far away, even if they are connected. E.g. computers vs theory of computation.

@Randall is that a real paper title?

I'm a professor who teaches and does research in both pure math (topology) and applied math (data science + Hawkes process models). Fortunately, I've not come across the situation you're describing very often. For sure I have lots of students who are only interested in applied math and don't really see the value of "pure" math. I point out:

It's essential to understand the hypotheses under which the conclusion of a theorem holds. Point out the 2008 financial crash as a warning against relying on mathematical results when the hypotheses are not met. This also justifies the need for careful and correct proofs. Resonance is also a good example, that an engineer might appreciate.

Many applied math topics grew out of pure math, e.g., Fourier series, the use of Taylor polynomials, several programming languages, astrophysics uses of topology, Nash equilibria thanks to fixed point theory, Netflix problem and singular value decomposition, applications of representation theory to voting theory, higher categories and mathematical physics, etc.

There are many applied math problems where no one has any idea what to do next. In some cases, e.g., topological data analysis, it's clear that more pure math knowledge can help. In others, like "what is a neural network actually doing and how can I explain why it came to the answer it did" we need a richer model, and traditionally applied math draws models from pure math.

I can't be sure, but from your description it sounds plausible that the people you are talking to prefer an "us vs them" mentality that will not serve them well in life. It's better for them to befriend the pure mathematicians who might give them exactly the tool they need, when they need it, which they cannot know now. It's also plausible that they are putting down an area they find difficult and unnecessarily abstract. But, just because something is hard for you is no reason to denigrade it. I would encourage these students to approach their studies with an open mind and recognize that being challenged and struggling to make sense of the material you're studying is the norm in academia.

To summarize: instead of saying "hey, I'm doing this pure math thing because maybe it'll have an application someday" you might instead say "hey, there are tons of moments in history when applied math was stuck and then was able to draw an answer from pure math, and here's some specific applied math area that seems stuck right now, that I think my pure math might someday help."
The answers to these MO threads might help:
Unreasonable application of mathematics to the other areas
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Physics in Mathematics

The summary I got here is: "Applied math is just Pure math that has been applied to something." "Applied math is just Pure math that has found a purpose." "Pure math is a scratch ticket waiting for its future to be discovered in Applied math."

Oh, no, I definitely don't think that! Plenty of pure math is worth doing for its own sake, regardless of applicability. Just look at my publication list! But, if you are talking to an applied math student who is trying to understand why they should learn pure math, it helps to give them a reason in terms of something they care about.

I think the statement "Many applied math topics grew out of pure math" is historically not correct. I would suggest taking a look at the history of Fourier analysis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_analysis#History) for example to see that nearly every early contributor to the topic was actually solving a concrete application. These were not pure mathematical endeavors.

The more often I read "pure math" the less sense I can make of it. I then read the sentence again and leave out the word "pure" and suddenly, the sentence makes sense.

I second @wolfgangbangerth s comment. Actually, the idea of something like "pure math" is pretty recent. I learned in an interview with Lanczos that it was coined in the early 1900s (and he called it a "narcissistic endeavour for the human mind"). Before that there was only math. Good times.

The flip side of this are of course the occasional pure mathematicians who are of the mistaken belief that lower level of abstraction means that things applied people do are shallow and easy. I think that kind of arrogance in both parts of the mathematical population is damaging to both sides. My impression is that it is only a small minority of people on either side who think that way, but unfortunately they do feel like speaking up.
My view on the pure vs applied issue would be that most pure mathematics probably does not have practical applications, in the sense that the mental tools produced by pure mathematicians in most of their work are necessarily better suited to any given applications than the tools that we produce when we are trying to solve applied things. But on the other hand, it is also valid to say that any set of computational/mathematical tools that is powerful enough to do a broad amount of mathematics will be Turing-complete, which means that we can encode any applied problem we like in it, so easy dismissal of applications of something is also unjustified just because it looks like abstract nonsense.
I think one could perfectly well justify the existence of pure mathematics as an exact abstract art form, similar to games like chess or Go, which also have cultural value to an extent that probably justifies the resources poured into them.
Another point that can be made in defence of pure science in general is that science is essentially a very large system that tries to learn about the universe, and any such system has to deal with exploitation-exploration tradeoffs. Exploration always means following some of the time paths that do not lead to the desired goal. For difficult problems, the percentage of effort that an efficient agent will expend on paths leading nowhere is going to be high. In that sense, when applied research is being done well, it will also go down a lot of paths in that search tree that do not in the end prove useful. One could say therefore that applied and non-applied research are not all that different at that level.
Finally, pure research can construct versions of real problems that are much cleaner than real-world problems, and try to resolve them, and thereby either show that we have now the tools to solve these idealized problems, or that in a rigorous sense we cannot do even that. I think that kind of finding should be of direct interest for applied people. In the other direction, applied questions should also be a source of inspiration for pure research.

TLDR (Assuming the question is about your peers, not your boss/superior). Frame challenge: You can't reliably change other people's opinions. The only thing you can directly influence is yourself and your actions. Accept that others will sometimes have (frustratingly) different opinions than yourself. It is up to you to decide whether you'd like to stay friends/friendly with such a person, or distance yourself from them.

You're asking how to "deal with people who have a negative opinion of pure mathematics" (and presumably share it loudly in front of you).
May I ask, however, what do you want to achieve by "dealing with them"? You obviously seem frustrated by your peers expressing that opinion. So, is your goal to:

Convince those people that pure mathematics is useful?
Convince those people that pure mathematics eventually leads to applications?
Convince those people that pure mathematics is beautiful?
Make those people passionate about pure mathematics?
Get those people to fund you to do pure mathematics?
Become friends with those people?
Get those people to not insult pure maths in front of you?
Feel less frustrated?

Because, if your goal is any of 1.--4., that will impossible to achieve with all of your peers. While you may be able to control some aspects of this situation (e.g. the arguments you present), fundamentally, you have no direct influence on the opinions of other people. Ultimately, if your goal is to influence something externally, you will have to accept that your influence is limited. This is also true if you're trying to achieve this as an educator -- even the best lecture in the world will leave some indifferent (which doesn't mean that you shouldn't try).
There are of course some ways you can attempt to influence the people around you with your opinions (maths is useful and beautiful, art enriches people's lives, multitasking reduces overall productivity, walkable neighbourhoods are good for mental health, Thor is the god of thunder, the Earth is flat, heavy metal is the pinnacle of musical achievement, vaccines cause autism) -- posting online, preaching, writing opinion pieces, organising rallies and events, just having passionate 1-on-1 conversations. And, it doesn't matter what the opinion in question is (or even whether it is a fact rather than an opinion) -- you will never be able to convince everybody. The fact of the matter is, people really dislike changing their opinions.
It is my opinion that 5., while related, is off-topic here. (A question on how to get funding if your research is primarily theoretical obviously contains aspects of 1.--4., but is a whole other can of worms and would be better served as a separate question. That I would also like to know the answer to. A similar consideration would be true for any case where your goal is to achieve some tangible benefit -- promotion, raise, recommendation letter. But, your question seems to be focused on peer interactions.)
If your goal is 6. (become friends), but you already tried (and failed) convincing somebody that pure mathematics is useful/beautiful/eventually applied, then it is up to you to decide whether you still want to attempt a friendship. Now, this is finally something within your control. In general, if a person holds an opinion that is different than mine, I don't mind as long as they are not insisting on changing my opinion. You think pure maths is not beautiful, I can find no deeper meaning in the visual arts, but we both like nature so let's go for a hike and be friends. On the other hand, if that person is dismissive/insulting towards you because you hold differing opinions (personal example: "I just don't understand what kind of an idiot you would have to be to spend so long in education, and then choose to spend your time teaching others."), I have to ask, why do want to be friends with that kind of person? I would handle the difference in core and casual beliefs similarly (If you like metal and I like pop, I can try to be friends with you. If your opinion about the relation between vaccines and autism drastically differs from mine... we can be acquaintances, but I don't want to be your friend). Ultimately, you can't be friends with everybody, and that's just something you have to accept.
If your goal is 7. (avoid hearing any "insults" of pure maths), first I'd say to think about how you got in a conversation where somebody is insulting pure maths in front of you. Did you insist on repeatedly discussing a topic with somebody you know has opposing views to yours? (e.g. if you ask somebody for their favourite music genre and they say "pop", but you prefer metal, nobody would consider that an insult. If then you spend the next 30 minutes trying to explain the superiority of harmonies used in metal, would you really be surprised if they asked you to "stop talking about that infernal noise?"). If you're doing so, stop initiating the same topic. Or, do they bring up and insult the topic on their own (e.g. are you joining a group of flat-Earthers in their daily discussion of all the sheeple that still believe in the floating ball in the sky theory)? If so, you could try asking them politely to stop once ("Hey, guys, just because I think it's a ball and you think it's a disk, doesn't mean we can't be nice to each other"), but if they ignore your request... move away. Don't listen. Finally, if they are approaching you on a regular basis to insult you and/or try and change your opinion ("Hi bro, have you come to your senses and accepted that Thor is the embodiment of thunder? You know he will smite you down with his hammer if you don't accept him."), and they don't stop after you've asked them to; they are acting unprofessionally and there might be a bullying case somewhere in there.
Finally, if your goal is 8., then your only option is to learn how to be less bothered by other people's opinions. Surely we've all seen some variation of the meme "Ah, time to spend hours explaining to random strangers on the internet that they are wrong". And I can't imagine that makes them feel better. Since people really dislike changing their opinions, and your external influence is limited, the only thing you can really change is how it effects you. In life, you will encounter, and often have to work with or alongside many people with differing opinions. Learning how to accept differences in opinions will ultimately make it easier for you to make friends, and also make you a more pleasant person to work with professionally.

You say "you mean like art, music, and literature? Well, actually, pure math is much more useful than those, but that's not the point. Math is beautiful -- like art, music, and literature. If you are not capable of appreciating that beauty, that's fine. Some people don't like Shakespeare, or Mozart, or Dostoevsky. But they don't usually advertise that."

Mathematics is different from the arts and this is not likely to be convincing. Maybe if you gave an example of how it is beautiful, that would work.

Pure mathematics might be termed as an art, but it is just a symbolic description, pure mathematics is the language in which science is written, it is expanded vastly with tons of applications.

"Mathematics isn't a language, it's an adventure"  Paul Lockhart in A Mathematician's Lament

"pure math is much more useful than those" -- is that true? The number of people who appreciate art, music, and literature is vastly larger than the number of people who appreciate pure mathematics, to the point where many artists, musicians, and writers have become very wealthy, and support what must surely be hundreds of thousands or millions of people in these businesses. Perhaps they do not create anything that "could potentially have a use in a few decades", but I don't think that pure mathematics "is much more useful". (As I point out in my answer, this does not reduce my appreciation.)

Is "being appreciated" the same as "useful"?  I don't think so, but I can see how some people would.

This is off-putting. You imply your taste in beauty is objective, move on to calling anyone who disagrees "incapable", then imply that people who dislike a few well known artists are both rare and ashamed of their dislike, two demonstrably false statements.
If you want to end conversations or start pointless arguments, this is a path to do so. If you want to encourage useful discussion, persuade people to change their opinion, or share your love of a topic, this will fail.

Well, we can always throw in the fact that a great deal of "applied math" is not actually "useful" for anything, either. :)  That's a significant point, and, while sounding a little frivolous, for me it accurately hints at some inaccurate-but-traditional understandings of "application", and such.
For that matter, in various contexts, over the years, people solving PDE's (possibly numerically) declared that they were "doing applied math"... because the PDE's were abstractions of some physically meaningful process. And, then, not solving PDE's could not possibly be "applied mathematics". Plus, there was "turf". :)  Some years ago, trying to hire a person who had a paper in the Annals, on number theory, and also had a few patents about cryptography, and was employed by a for-profit, ... I was told that "well, he doesn't do applied math". I asked, "Ok, it's math, and it's certainly applied, so...?" (And, of course, none of my "opponents" had any patents at all, and had no affiliation with for-profits, but that was not relevant to them...)
In fact, in a similar way, although many applied mathematicians would judge me to be "pure", the mathematics that I'm interested in seems to have a bearing on human beings' understanding of the world. (Indeed, some things are just puzzles, while other things may seem/be more serious.) In my perception, human beings (some of the time...) model the world by mathematics... making some reasonable (but sometimes volatile) assumptions about "how the math will work out".
Probably by this year there is not much concern among accountants about how compound interest works... but the mathematics of signal processing (120+ years ago), and even fancier things in mathematical physics, use mathematics that, in itself is highly non-trivial to understand. Luckily, they can do experiments, which can be very persuasive.
So, I'd say that, for some people, mathematics is a main way to understand the world in human-narrative terms. This notion of "world" does include human fantasies... and, maybe like AI's?, some hallucinations? :)

I've always thought that the terms "pure" and "applied mathematics" are more often used to group different mathematical sub-disciplines, rather than describe the motivations of their practitioners. I'm pushing to use the term "motivated by applications" in our next job ad, because I think that describes more accurately the kind of person I'd like my department to hire.

Maybe just agree to disagree? I pursue math because I like it, not because I care what other people think about it.
Alternatively you could explain that differential geometry is a pure math that has found application in gravity, same with topology and abstract algebras in other areas of physics.
(See Lie Algebras or Spinors in Spin Rotations)
Im just an undergraduate student in math, but I  have started to feel like the distinction between pure/applied math is somewhat unhelpful, and not worth making, seeing how often "pure math" fields end up finding super cool applications. Just my 2¢ :)

"Agree to disagree" ... Well, OK.  But what if the person disagreeing is the Dean, and what is at stake is funding for the Math department ...

@GEdgar then you've already lost. If your Dean controls the budget and thinks academic departments should only exist if they're "useful", then you need to find a new academic institution.

@Brondahl Or maybe not the dean, but a member of parliament.

Same answer. There is no value in trying to convince someone that believes "this thing should only be funded if it's useful" that maths is useful. You'll spend the rest of your life continually arguing about whether  particularly sub-subject is useful or not. Because, fundamentally, most of the time, most of mathematics, isn't "useful" in any way that that person is going to be able to understand. That person's ancestor from 100 years ago would never have been able to understand why the Number Theory that formed the basis of modern encryption would be useful.

That person will only be able to understand that tiny slivers of the incredible universe that is mathematics, are useful. So if you engage in that argument, you'll end up losing the rest of it anyway. Just refuse to engage in the premise that you need to justify the usefulness of mathematics with them.

"How do they not understand that just because people haven't found a real world application of some of the abstract concepts in pure math at the present that doesn't make it useless, neither does that mean real world applications can't be found?"
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a much older close friend in Undergrad (he was a Math PhD student)
Me: "Man I wanna really have an impact! I want to change the world and find some wild theorem that alters our view on everything"
Him: "You're an idiot. The world needs toilets. Not math"
Obviously in the grand scheme he was right. People are dying from poor sanitation. In a more comfortable world people are worried about becoming middle class financially. In the ivory tower of academia (but not where the mathematicians live) people have problems involving REALITY (ex: how to make ___ physically possible, how to understand discrepancy ___ ) and the work that pure mathematicians do is distant. Maybe in centuries it will be applicable similar to how fermat's little theorem forms the bedrock of RSA. But the reality they live in is completely different than your reality.
I still think its fun to paint! It's fun to sculpt. Its important that society allocates some number of people to do these things. For similar reasons its important that we study math and society allocates people to do it. But if you get into a pissing contest of "no my thing is super useful in this immediate way ___" you're going to lose. The value that mathematical research brings to society is much more long term but no less than the value that physical art brings to civilization. I might even call mathematics as "logical art" just to drive the point home.

This is how I explain to my relatives and friends when they ask the same question to me:

What distinguishes human beings from other animals (at least most of them, cf. chimpanzees) is that we have the intelligence and energy to work on purely useless things to expand the boundary of our knowledge --- a creature should be proud of, rather than ashamed of, doing useless things, with pure math being one of them.

Handicap principle at work here, haha.

Simply tell them that pure mathematics is the language in which science is written and therefore pure mathematics is the foundation of all applications. This is the statement of Einstein, I guess.
Then take some names of famous mathematicians in the respective region or continent. For example, I live in India and I take the name of famous mathematician Ramanujan, when such stupid questions are asked to me. I know all Indian people are passionate about Ramanujan even who doesn't understand mathematics. As soon as I take his name, people say "oh he was a big mathematician". Then I ask in return to them "what did Ramanujan do in mathematics?", naturally they don't know the answer but they believe he did something great. I then tell them that there are numerous applications of pure mathematics which people don't know because we are ignorant. We just don't know, but it doesn't mean there is no applications. Immediately, I give the example of number-theory which has real world applications in cryptography, coding theory, and also calculus, differential equations are the backbone of chemistry and physics and engineering science etc. Also differential geometry has close relationship with relativity theory and Einstein said that without the development of foundational geometry of David Hilbert (then friend of Einstein), I couldn't have worked on relativity theory. At the end, people who asks those types of ackward questions calms down to sense.
Interestingly, the above method only takes not more than 5 minutes to convince those people successfully. I have tried the above method several times. You can try it.
Edit: There are numerous applications of mathematical formulas in physics and chemistry and respective engineering branches developed solely by pure mathematics. Without those formulas basic sciences couldn't advance so far. More interestingly, it is a reference showing applications of topology in molecular biology, describing shapes of DNA.

That absolutely works for India and Ramanujan, but that's kind of a unique circumstance? Maybe the UK and Turing or Newton would work similarly, but outside those three examples, I can't really think of any mathematicians who are iconic to the point that everyone in their home nation has heard of them. Even for incredibly influential mathematicians in Math, I'd be at least a little surprised if, for example, a random Swiss person knew Euler.

@Idran, Newton is a global figure, undeniably, it works anywhere in the world. Carl Friedrich Gauss  is a famous mathematician who has made intensive contributions in physics, e.g., the Gauss divergence theorem is known to all science students, at least. There are others as well.

Ah, I thought you meant you always made it a figure that the person knew as an icon  of their own culture. That makes sense, yeah.

@Idran, Yes, whenever it is possible to connect with some mathematician with local culture or identity, one can do that; if no such figure is available, then pick some global figures.

"Pure mathematics is the language in which science is written." Some science, not all science.

@toby544, chemistry, physics, and their engineering branches uses formulas of pure mathematics every step. Biological science is using topology today. These are the basic sciences where formulas of pure mathematics is applicable.

@toby544, it is a reference showing applications of topology in molecular biology, describing shapes of DNA

@learner I was commenting on your claim that "pure mathematics is the language in which science is written." Here is a recent paper from Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07130-8. It uses statistics, which uses pure mathematics, but it is not "written in" pure mathematics.

@toby544, doesn't "written in mathematics" mean "uses mathematics" or vice versa? For example Newton's law of cooling calculate the time taken by a hot material to reach to the room temperature. How do one gets the time? Solving the differential equation.  This is where we are using the language of pure mathematics.

@toby544, "Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe” is a quote by Galileo Galilei, I think science should follow the same law of universe

"Written in mathematics" is obviously a flowery or metaphorical phrase. But I would say it means the laws of science basically consist of equations (which is saying much more than just "uses mathematics"). This is probably true of physics but not of other sciences.

Your critic reminds me of the old lady who asked Faraday what was the use of his work on electricity: "Madam, what is the use of a newborn baby?". My advice to give people like that the attention they deserve: ignore them unless you can think of a witty put-down.
During my career (applied mathematician turned software engineer), I frequently turned to mathematics to find tools to solve problems. If someone works with new problems, they may find they need mathematics that hasn't been applied before: if a pure mathematician has already done the work because he finds it interesting, that saves the engineer doing it.
I suggest that you look at Pevzner et al(2001). We can safely assume that Euler did not think: "I really must work on this topological problem because someone will need it in 250 years to sequence DNA". Should he have worked on a problem that didn't have a practical application at the time? Does your critic have an infallible method of predicting what maths will and won't be useful at some time in the future?
Another example of maths that proves useful after the fact is Riemannian geometry, which found an application when Einstein invented General Relativity. And what is the use of General Relativity, Dr Einstein? Well, one day it will make the GPS in your smartphone work.

+3 for Faraday (yes, I mentioned that one above, but only in a comment), GPS and topology.

@Michael_1812 mentioned group theory, I want to add that finite group theory as developed in the 20th century mainly by pure mathematicians, namely the
CFSG, was used a few years ago by Lazlo Babai to anwer a longstanding problem in computer science on the computational complexity of the The Graph Isomorphism Problem. The proof gave an algorithm and has practical consequences. Also in other instances, combinatorial results, like the Sunflower Lemma, are often used in algorithms, in particular in the field of Parameterized Complexity. And mentioning computer science, I am pretty sure, should the NP vs P problem ever be solved, it will involve some interesting and new "pure" mathematics.

When complex numbers were invented/discovered, the guy who did them said something about "And these will never have any practical application for anything."  Unfortunately, an EE prof sat in on his talk, and said "This is EXACTLY what I need for AC circuit analysis."

@JohnR.Strohm That's a nice story, but it is pretty obvious that it can't be right. Complex numbers were developed long before electricity was discovered, so there were certainly no EE professors around at the time. In fact, there were probably no "professors" in the modern sense around either, since there were no modern university in existence at the time.

@WolfgangBangerth No, I looked it up. The next day the professor expanded on it and talked about having three imaginary units and quaternions. He talked how it unifies mathematical physics, but also admitted "it will never have any practical applications". (Un-)Fortunately, a computer animator sat in the audience and said "This is EXACTLY what I need to smooth out my animations."

@WolfgangBangerth But seriously, the story of the quaternions is another nice example how something that was even firstly despised as too theoretical found applications 100 years later in computer graphics.

@StefanH This can simply not be true. Look up when complex numbers were invented.

@WolfgangBangerth Of course, I know the history. I thought it was pretty obvious that my comment was meant to be a joke.

@WolfgangBangerth By the way, if you never heard about quaternions you should look their history up, as they were indeed heavily critized when Hamilton came up with them as useless and too theoretical.

@StefanH I'm sorry I didn't get the joke. I'm pretty sure the first comment above was not a joke.

You can't make someone understand something he doesn't see worth understanding (even if others claim such understanding).

I'm not sure we should see people as immutable objects - perhaps "doesn't see worth understanding" isn't always a permanent condition?

A reliable way to demonstrate the value of pure math is to refer to the ongoing flow of erstwhile-pure-math results into applied areas.
As one example, you may mention to your collocutors the method of induced representations. Devised (for finite groups) by Frobenius in 1898, it was probably regarded at that time as a highly aesthetic exercise of mind. The method had to wait for 41 years to be extended to the Poincaré group in a celebrated work by Wigner (1939) who demonstrated that the method is needed to classify species of elementary particles. And that was not the end of story. In 2018, exactly 120 years after its discovery, the method found an application in the theory of steerable group-convolutional neural networks.
Speaking of Group Theory at large:
When Galois (1829) published his prophetic work, who could imagine that his super-abstract ideas would eventually develop into tools critical for investigation of crystals, atoms, and elementary particles? (Aware of the existence of crystals, his contemporaries were still unsure about the existence of atoms, not to mention elementary particles.)
Among other examples of the kind, I would also mention Number Theory, which used to be a paragon of abstract mathematics, but eventually became the basis of cryptology.
A historian of mathematics would surely be able to offer dozens of such examples.

How do you deal with ignorant people who say X?

I believe that either wittingly or unwittingly, sometimes these things are said to get under your skin.
Other times they are said for the benefit of the sayers - to feel better about not understanding that huge (and exciting) body of knowledge and research, or not taking the time to try.
In other words, it's about them, not you. So instead of focusing on how to deal with them focus on not dealing with them, at the moment.
You could engage with "when did these feelings begin?" or "what part of pure math in particular do you feel is most useless, and how were you initially exposed to it?" or just "Well obviously there's a whole lot of people who don't see it that way." Depending on if you'd like to help them explore their thinking or just end the converstaion.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!
There may be a blogpost, and article in Quanta Magazine (or similar) a lecture, a class, or even a book in your future!
Start recording these, everything you can remember from past interactions and encourage new ones. Try to find recurring themes. Is it certain aspects of mathematics about which people feel this way most? Is it folks who are struggling with something academically? Is it social conversation or within an academic context?
That's your chapter 1, the motivation of your writing.
Then choose several wonderful examples of where what was once thought to be pure mathematics collided with the real world. Just for example:

How is stacking oranges in 24 dimensions related to receiving and decoding signals from the Voyagers?

Of course complex numbers are a good example, we use discrete mathematics in some areas of industry, and the discovery of quasicrystals actually drove advancements in basic theory. You get the idea.
Use this frustration to write up anything between a short essay or handout, to a special class curriculum, to an article in popular press, to a book.
That's how to deal with them - teach them!

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Do I ask the editor of the rejecting journal where to submit next?
I got a rejection after one review cycle, with a comment that reviewer comments are useful and will help you in submission to another journal. Can I ask the editor's opinion on which journal to target?

You can ask, but be prepared not to get an answer.  In the situations I'm familiar with, the editor won't have studied your paper in enough detail to give you a useful answer, so the best (s)he can do would be to pass the question on to the reviewer.  But, considering the reviewer has already done some unremunerated work for the editor in reviewing the paper, the editor might not feel like bothering the reviewer again.

If you are a student and have an advisor, ask her or him.

Note that there's a difference between rejecting a paper because it's out of scope or doesn't meet quality level of this journal, and rejecting a paper because it doesn't seem publishable in general. In the latter case, the editor's statement that "reviewer comments... will help you in submission to another journal" may be just a way to cushion the blow of rejection, not an indication that the editor is actually recommending that you submit the paper (in anything like its current state) to another journal.

Possible , I guess asking him to recommend a journal is one way to find out

The editor can't tell you "go away, you have wasted enough of our time already". But that might be what he/she means by "rewrite your paper, then send it some place else."

@ff524, I'd hope editors/reviewers tell me the truth, if only to stop wasting my time.

He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask
a question remains a fool forever – Chinese proverb

Being a native Chinese speaker, I can tell you this is not a Chinese proverb. You can refer to the question Is this a Chinese Proverb? on Chinese Language SE.

@scaaahu interesting, thanks! Being a person who likes to ask a lot of questions, I can tell you that it's a good proverb, whether it's Chinese or not. :-)

Great, so asking questions is, in general, important. That doesn't mean that asking a specific question to a specific journal editor who just rejected your paper is important, appropriate or useful. What specific advice do you have for the actual situation the asker is in?

The advice I have is in my answer. It is a good general principle which the OP's question reminded me of, and I thought he/she may find it helpful. Furthermore, this advice is applicable to a good number of questions on Academic SE, which often start with "is it okay to ask ...". I find it a sad commentary on the state of our society/academia when people are so afraid of offending someone by asking a simple question.

There can be varying degrees of rejection. When editors tell you to submit a paper to another journal, it means they really don't want to see it at their journal again. It doesn't mean they have a specific idea of where you should submit next.

Sometimes a referee or editor will offer an unsolicited suggestion.  When that doesn't happen, asking for suggestions would be unconventional.  As an editor, if an established professional asked me for suggestions, I'd be a little annoyed (they should be able to figure that out themselves), and I'd give a terse reply like "Sorry, I'm not sure what the best place for your paper would be."  If a beginning researcher asked me, or anyone dealing with a truly unusual situation, I would try to be more helpful.  The response you get may depend on the editor, but the worst case scenario is probably annoying the editor a little and getting no reply.  (I don't think there's any risk of dreadfully offending anyone, assuming you don't press the editor further if he/she doesn't reply or seems impatient.)  I would ask the editor only if you don't have any mentors you could ask, but in that case it could be worth a try.

They are telling you "this isn't good enough for our journal". They will be very reluctant (for professional courtesy if nothing else) to give a list of "lesser" (or "better, for that matter) journals in their area. Perhaps in a informal conversation in an aisle somewhere, never in writing.
They might suggest some if the problem is that the paper is out of scope, but that is not your case as I understand it.


text:
What is the difference between bachelor of science in engineering and bachelor of engineering in the US?
There are many different kinds of bachelor degrees. In my country, there seems to be no difference between bachelor of science in engineering and bachelor of engineering. There is only one kind of degree for undergraduate majoring in engineering. I am now applying to graduate program in the US, and I want to know which one I should choose to correctly get my background known by people in the US.

Although you are asking about the US, in Holland, a BEng and BSc in Engineering are different. A BEng degree is generally obtained at a more vocational type education, so more practical than theoretical, and that could for example mean half a year of study of theory is required before being admitted to a MSc programme at Uni.

Basic answer:
usually it does not matter for anything whatsoever.
Personal anecdote:
Sometimes such degrees differ in minutia that few (i.e. no one) would care about. At my US undergraduate institution, I took majors in philosophy and chemistry, but I made the chemistry major first on some sort of form to insure the BS rather than the BA. I did so because my school offered both BAs and BSs in chemistry that differed insofar as the BA was easier to earn. At the time, I imagined someone would care.
Longer Explanation
I went on to earn a MA and then PhD in philosophy (at different institutions), and I would say in retrospect that no one would probably have cared in the slightest unless they specifically wanted that coursework difference for some reason.
Moreover, the terms used for undergraduate degrees differ so markedly by institution that no one would depend on  the title of your degree to figure out what you did or studied.
Explanation of Degree of Interest
If I were to guess, I would venture that a BS in EE has more humanities than a BE and that the former might be in a college of arts and sciences and the latter in a college of engineering. I would be willing to venture $0.01 x 10^-6 on this.

In the United States there are a number of different types of bachelor's degrees that are essentially interchangeable, and which one a person gets depends primarily on the history of their institution.  As such, the particular name of your degree is not likely to confuse anybody, as long as it has the word "Bachelor" in it, and the correct thing for you to do is to simply name your degree as it has been given to you.


text:
Can I choose the initials I want to use when publishing a paper?
I am about to publish my first paper, but there is a little question bothering me. I have two middle names and I've noticed that most authors with two middle names choose only one to use as a initial. So their abbreviated names become "Last AB", not "Last ABC" (which apparently doesn't look so good).
However, I've read the "instructions for authors" of many journals, and none of them says anything about choosing the initials you want to use, you just have to put your full name and (I suppose) they abbreviate it by themselves.
Can someone please clarify for me how it works and how people manage to choose the way journals publish their initials?

It is only up to you. Even using a nickname is not a crime. The editors should not distate you what to do and I not aware of any journals asking for identity proof before accepting the paper. I know many female scientists who use their maiden names although these names for many years after the marriage.

"I've noticed that most authors with two middle names choose only one to use as a initial." How do you know what authors in your field have two middle names, especially when you claim they're mostly publishing with only one middle initial?

If your name is Alfred Michael Edgar Smith, I would recommend including both middle initials, because who knows how many A. M. Smiths will be publishing papers in your field. If your name is Alfred Michael Edgar Stout-Worthington, I think zero, one, or two middle initials will all work fine. (And if people call you Fred, this opens a whole nother can of worms.)

@phys_chem_prof I'd like to use my real name, with both names. I just would like exclude one middle name when my name gets abbreviated.

@DavidRicherby they actually use all their names, I'm talking about the initials when the name gets abbreviated. Here is an exemple: see the full name of the last author, now see how it gets abbreviated.

@Trp OK. First, Robson Augusto Souza Santos seems to be a Portuguese name and Portuguese names are somewhat complicated. In that case, I think the first name is Robson, the middle name is Augusto and the surnames (plural) are Souza and Santos. Second, you don't really have any control over how other people decide to abbreviate your name. It's not that he published with one middle initial: it's that the indexing service only recorded one.

I have two middle names, and have faced a similar dilemma, since there is a great deal of inconsistency not just with journals and citations but in how pretty much all bureaucratic systems choose to handle names.
In making your decision, there are three main cases to consider about how your name will be used:

How your name appears on your own papers: With pretty much any reasonable publication, you should be able to specify your name precisely as you wish it to appear.  Just be consistent from publication to publication.
How you are identified in databases: This is important because this helps guide other people's discovery of your related works, but you are at the mercy of whoever coded up the database and how many bad assumptions they made about names.  Fortunately, this is why ORCID was created, because names aren't very good unique identifiers in the first place.  An ORCID, however, provides an easy hook for programmers to organize your publications correctly.
How people write your name in citations: This is (hopefully) the most common usage, but also the one you have least control over, since people and style guides may mutilate your name in any number of creative ways, especially if your name contains non-English characters.  Even closely related languages like French, Spanish, and German often get mangled in transliteration (e.g., losing their diacritics).  Fortunately, it matters somewhat less in this case, as the citation is really just a pointer to your own paper.

My personal solution has been to simply use no middle names, since I did not want to end up with one being picked over the other.  That works for me partly because my name is relatively unusual to begin with---somebody with more common first and last names might be much more motivated to include one or both of their initials.

"you should be able to specify your name precisely as you wish it to appear" - I'd restrict this "precisely" to exclude shortening. If a venue/publisher wants to only indicate initials instead of full given names, nothing will stop them from reformatting the authors list (or bibliography items, for that matter) accordingly. Authors can, however, be reasonably certain that in the authors list, names the authors originally supply only as initials will not be expanded to the full form, and that names/initials not supplied at all will not be added.

Thanks, jakebeal! But I think I'm still not getting it right.
I am concerned about the abbreviation of my name, but I don't know precisely how it works. I see many authors that have two middle names, but have their name consistently abbreviated with only their last name plus two initials (ex: John Baker Brown Smith, Smith JB). I don't know if you have the option to choose the abbreviation when you submit the paper, but there is certainly something I am missing.

Here is an exemple: the last author of this paper is called Robson Augusto Souza Santos and always uses his full name. But when the name is abbreviated (in PubMed, for example), it always becomes Santos RA.