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In a grant proposal, should I write that I have a paper very likely to be accepted by a very prestigious journal? and how?
I am facing a problem that is new for me and I don't know to whom to ask. My current supervisor and I are very busy and we both have barely some time to discuss pressing bureaucratic issues and priorities related to students supervised by both. I will ask him, but I am not sure when we can talk in detail about this. This premise was to ask you to please avoid replying simply with: "You should ask your supervisor". I will.
I am writing a grant application for a prestigious grant (I am based in Germany) and I might have, by the time I send the application, a paper that is almost accepted by a very prestigious journal (e.g., Science or Cell). It is not officially accepted by the Editor in the system, but it has come to a stage that, by experience, most of us know it will likely be accepted. For example, the last revision:

contained only very minor suggestions
all reviewers were extremely supportive and praising the work as a new, important contribution
all correspondence with the Editor was also supportive and praising our work

This publication would highlight that I am becoming an expert in the field, that my ideas are innovative, and that I have increasingly better supervising skills. In addition, this publication would show to the funding agency also that I am being recognized as a growing prospect for academic achievements.
My questions are:

Should I acknowledge this publication in the list of publications I want to highlight? By definition it is not a publication, as it is not public.
If I should, how to do it? What do I concretely write?

it's like adding "submitted to Nature" in the CV

You will get differing advice on this, but in my field, we do often make a special note when a paper receives an R&R (Revise and resubmit) at a prestigious journal.
In my field, R&R for top journals are not given out lightly, and indicate a high probability of eventual acceptance. When the R&R is communicated, the editor would also designate the stage as "Major Revisions" or "Minor Revisions." So it would not be unusual to see a CV with an entry like

Authors, Paper Title. Revise and Resubmit (Minor Revisions) at Journal
of Awesomeness.

This is far more common for pre-tenure folks, possibly because tenured and full professors don't update their CVs very often.
I will note that most people have a section called “Works in Progress/Working Papers” for completed manuscripts like this.

+1 even though I gave different advice.

I see no reason not to follow this advice. It is possible however that whoever reads this will just ignore the not yet published manuscript when assessing the applicant. Honsestly, I think that is the most likely outcome.

R&R is the same as "major revision" or "minor revision" in your field? That's surprising. Why require the authors go through the submission process again, if the manuscript is likely to be accepted?

The choices are: desk reject, rejected after review, R&R with major revisions, R&R with minor revisions, accept. How would you respond to reviewers without resubmitting?

R&R means revise and resubmit, not reject and resubmit. There is no resubmission possible after rejection.

@Allure often "submitting" process and "resubmitting" process is quite different. Resubmitting is generally easier.

@Dawn in my experience in pure math the last two are simply "major revision" and "minor revision". "Revise and resubmit", if it is an option at all, means "problems are too serious for even a major revision". Often it is unclear whether fixing the issues is even possible, but the result would be suitable for the journal if so.

This makes a lot of sense and it suggest a practical solution that I think works well. Thanks!

I agree with this suggestion. Writing that the paper is "in revision" at a prestigious journal, putting (minor revisions) afterwards should do no harm. It is possible that some evaluators of your submission will simply neglect papers that are not accepted. However, there is nothing wrong with doing this. Just don't write "accepted" or "to appear" before having the final decision of the editor...

First of, you got work that received praise. So you can and should feel good about that.
However, as long as the editor has not accepted it than it has not been accepted. Thing with prestigious journals is that they get more very good submissions than they can accept. So they also have to reject very good submissions. You don't want to end up in the situation where you claimed to have a publication in Cell "in the bag" and that publication never materializes.

I agree with you, albeit the solution proposed by @Dawn seems a good compromise between claiming the paper too early and not acknowledging it at all. I think I will go for that one, but I'll be careful to not overstate it. Thanks.

"so they also have to reject very good submissions" true, but usually this comes in as a desk reject and/or as a reject at first review.

@EarlGrey that is discipline specific. In my field it is fairly common (and very annoying and inefficient) for a paper to be rejected in the second or even third round.

It is normal to list something as "Bloggs et al, "The cure for cancers", in review for Cell" or similar. That is objective fact, that you have a paper with that title in review for that journal.
Trying to go beyond this to express that it is "very likely to be accepted" is more difficult IMHO - while you might have good reason to believe this, you don't really have evidence that you can present to somebody else.

Side note to the good advice you received already (for future paper submissions): Preprints alleviate your concern 1). Pointing to a bioRxiv reference with a note on where it's under review / r&r enable interested grant reviewers to have a look at your great piece of work.
Also, general piece of advice, esp for the busy supervisor situation: Try to find peers ahead of you, who applied for the same programme successfully. They may be willing to give their opinion on questions such as this and ideally to share their proposal. If they know you well, they may even be up for commenting on a first  draft of yours.

Unfortunately you are not allowed to include papers under review in your list of publications. Even when the manuscript is accepted in principle (AIP) it is not formally accepted yet. Editors from big journals can and do withdraw manuscripts anytime and for any reason. If you are applying for a grant (DFG or ERC), I would encourage you to include some highlights from your paper in the  preliminary data section and cite them as "under review". Based on my experience grants are rarely accepted after the first submission. When you will receive your score and the comments from the reviewers, your paper will likely be formally accepted and you can edit your grant and publication list accordingly. Good luck.

This might be a good note if there is a very specific cv format that does not allow for a works in progress section.


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Doctorate with no affiliation submitting to a publication with an undergrad co-author
I am working on a paper to submit for publication. I hold a doctorate degree but I do not teach at a college or university and the paper has nothing to do with my current employer or job function.
My co-author has a bachelor's degree, is not in school, and is not my student however the paper is based on work she is doing for her job. Her company has approved the paper for publication as it contains no property information.
My question is how would I list the affiliation? Would I leave mine blank and her's as her company? also for bachelor's degree do you list the degree? (I have never seen that)
Would this be correct:
Philip D. Noah, D.Sc.
Jane Smith
XYZ Company

It helps to remember that one of the objective of the affiliations is to help people identify and reach you later on. Although the advent of internet has nearly made the latter obsolete, it is still helpful for identifying specially if the author has a commonly occurring name. You may as well give your home address if that is ok with you. At the least, you should at least ask your employer because they might still care even if they have no contribution to the paper as you claim.

Thanks, I notice more and more that journals want an e-mail address that they can publish. I have a .gmail account I use just for that type of contact. It is difficult, I know when I do not see an affiliation it makes me wonder about the authors credentials.

Also adding an affiliation also helps the reputation of the affiliations ever so slightly. Adding your personal address instead will not advance this cause.

Your affiliation could be "Independent Researcher" or similar, though blank might be allowed.
The other person may require permission from the company to name them, even though permission to publish has been given. It is best to check.
But your listing seems to imply that you both are affiliated with XYZ, which is not the case. You probably need to clarify that.
And yes, her degree can, and probably should, be listed. Use whatever the diploma shows: BS, BSc, ...

Listing the degree is totally dependent on the journal, I've only seen one journal ask for it (it makes author lists hella ugly) ... so maybe field-dependent if you say "should"?

@AzorAhai-him-, of course, what you put in the initial submission and what is finally published are rarely identical, and the journal can apply its own standards. But the OP has listed his degree, I note.

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Opportunities for Science Editing
I am a graduate of electrical engineering with interests in quantum computing, machine learning and science popularisation. I have been a managing editor for a local science magazine for more than a year and wish to look into some more opportunities for exposure and resume-building. LinkedIn and Google haven't been of much help. How should I look for opportunities in science editing?

Copy-editing and editing are very different things. Which are you interested in?

Related: about academic proof-reading, what to do in this situation? Although this earlier question asks about what such services are available for someone who wants to use them, it should be relevant to someone interested in employment opportunities with such services.

I think you will find that scientific editing is usually outsourced to the lowest bidder, which is often in a country with a low cost of living.

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Should I apply to schools I am not sure I would attend?
I graduated 2 years ago. I am now seeking to apply to a Master’s degree in Finance. I am currently applying to 6 universities.
My letters of recommendation are from renowned professors who are really putting time and effort to ensure i get approved in a top program.
The thing is I currently have a very good job. I love what I do, compensation is great and the company’s culture is great.
I am sure I would attend 3 of those 6 schools I am applying, but I am a bit unsure about the other 3, as my opportunity cost is high.
The most common advice is to apply for all programs and reject them afterwards if that is the case. However, I fear the scenario in which I get approved only to the schools I am not sure I would attend and decide not to do a master’s at all.
I think that this would hurt the professors who wrote letters for me. What should I do? Is this really as bad as it sounds? Should I only apply to schools I am sure ( as of today) i would attend?

For the "bad" schools, how and when would you decide whether you want to go there? Could you decide this before asking the prof?

I guess I would decide that after I got all offers in march/abril. The company’s department I am currently at is very new and by march I will have much more information about my career prospects. So I can’t decide this before applying. If I only get approved by “bad schools” my choice will mainly depend of my work opportunities here.

When you decline a school's offer, you don't have to give a detailed justification. They are unlikely to be able to distinguish someone declining because they got an offer from a better school from someone declining because they've changed their mind. Nobody cares enough to spend time on Google trying to work out where you've gone. You should therefore not be concerned about hurting your referees.

A more significant consideration is that your referees may become less willing to invest time in writing references for you if they see you getting a bunch of reasonable offers and then declining them.

If it helps, your professors typically won't be informed of the admissions decisions. So if you don't go to a particular school they won't know whether you got admitted and decided against attending or whether you simply didn't get admitted.

Another small point is that the marginal effort for recommenders of writing letters of rec for additional institutions after the first is usually fairly small, unless specific institutions have really weird formatting requirements. It usually doesn't take very long to "tweak" a letter for a new institution (if it even requires any tweaking at all).

The reason this is the “most common advice” is that it is the correct, logical, and ethical thing to do. You’re overthinking things. Asking for letters of recommendation does not imply any commitment on your part to attend a specific school, or to pursue a degree at all. The assumption the professors are making is that you are considering doing such a thing, among the various opportunities that may be available to you - nothing more.
Good luck with your applications!

Apply.
If you don't, and the "top" schools all reject you, then you have no options at all. If you have options you can decide at the point that it becomes necessary which path you should take.
The alternative is certainly sub-optimal.

You should apply to schools that you are not sure you would attend.
You should not apply to schools that you are sure you would not attend.
It may save you (and your professors) some time and effort to consider now which of these two your final 3 schools are, although as others said it is something that can be decided later.

You phrase your question as a rational consideration. But the real issue here, I suspect, is an emotional one.

It feels deceitful and opportunistic to apply for a college you are not keen to attend, just to have options. That's probably because applying for it somewhat implicates pretending that you do.
It feels ungrateful and egoistic to ask for recommendation letters for some applications and then not accepting any of the offers they have helped you get.

Also, and maybe most importantly, there is a feeling of selling yourself short in applying for colleges “you don’t really want to end up in, but maybe would be better than nothing”. You are essentially leaving open the option for an act of desperation. And in preparing for despair, you are acknowledging that you would actually maybe act on it, which might feel undignified.
Hence I suspect this question has more dimensions than the purely strategic ones, which have already been handled well in the other answers. So I will give my considerations on these other dimensions:
If I am correct, I recommend you should come to terms now whether attending a college of second choice would indeed be an act of desperation for you and whether you would – in principle – be willing to act on desperation for your current goals or rather be willing to pursue a different path in your life. Only if you here realize that it would be an act of desperation that you actually are not willing to make, I recommend that you do not apply for these colleges.
If you feel just a bit unsure about your answers, you should also consider that you may be in a different emotional state when you are actually receiving offers. In this case, you should assume that you would want to have the option, that it will not seem like an act of desperation and, even if so, that you would be willing to do it anyway. Everything else may lead you to great regret.
Finally, you should realize that applying for colleges just to have options (as long as you don't go overboard) is an acceptable thing to do. You can be absolutely be forthright about your reasons for applying to them. If anyone else involved feels like these reasons are not good enough – well let them feel this way and let them act on it too. You will not feel deceitful or ungrateful. Worst thing that will happen is that you won’t get accepted to one of your second choice colleges, which is your alternative now anyhow.
So anyway: You write that you apply for three colleges you are unsure about. I think this is a very reasonable number for options. Hence I concur with everyone else in my recommendation, just with a minor reservation: Just apply to every one of the colleges you consider which to attend you would not consider an act of desperation you are not willing to make.
(Well, that’s basically what Orntt already said, just fleshed out.)
Come to think of it, my main advice would be that you don’t put off an inner confrontation you might face in the hope of avoiding it by being accepted to a first choice college. Confront yourself now.

OK. First reply was deleted. So let me adjust.
If there are schools you absolutely would not go to, then you might ask yourself whether it is the degree you are looking at trying to get or whether it is the school you are trying to get.
More to the point, having sat on admissions committees: schools admit you if they want you, but they have little emotional or rational investment in you until you come. If you say no—which is likely, given that we know students apply to other places—that's part of the game. So you are not burning bridges because bridges are not built at this point.
If there are places you are SURE you would not go to, do not apply there, because you are wasting your own time. And frankly, again, having read apps, it often shows through that you are not interested in the "lesser" program, and they may reject you simply because they can tell that you don't want to go.
Finally, for the sake of your professors, just subscribe to a service (there are a few out there) that collect and send your letters for you in a confidential manner. Faculty have enough to do without having to submit to several different systems for each university. Such services take one letter from each faculty member and send it to all the programs you designate. And to be honest, faculty are almost all just sending the same letter over and over, changing only the address. So if you'd like to be nice to the professors writing your letters and to burn those bridges, do this to lighten their burden. Especially now when they are teaching online and lots of other stuff because of the pandemic.


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Should I add the Acknowledgement in the pre-final version of a (PhD) thesis already? Or wait after I got the feedback from my supervisor?
Should I add the Acknowledgement in the pre-final version of a (PhD) thesis for proofreading already? Or wait after I got the feedback from my supervisor?

Why do you think it matters?

Do whatever you want -- it doesn't matter unless you plan on saying something negative about anyone in there (which I would advise against :-) ) nobody cares what is or isn't in the pre-final version.
On a broader level, the fact that you worry about this sort of issue and take the time to write a StackExchange question about it means that you need to learn to separate the issues in your life that matter and those that don't. There are plenty of things that deserve your brain power. This is not one of them, but spending time and energy on it means that the things that deserve it do not receive it.

Maybe if he/she reads how thankful I am for their feedback then they maybe make less effort since they know, I am already maximum thankful ...

Maybe, maybe not. Not worth thinking too hard about.

@user3352632  You are supposed to thank your supervisor.  Quit worrying about it.  And remember, it is your supervisor's job to see that you graduate, not to cause you trouble.

thanks @WolfgangBangerth, in general you are right, I probably overthinking this. But I am not sure what is the norm and dont want to step into trouble.

@BobBrown - ok, thats right. I am thanking as much and as hard as I can!


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Admission to graduate school for physics
I am a dual major (Math+Physics) student from one of the reputed Indian University. I want to peruse PhD in physics (mainly theoretical/High Energy Physics). I have CGPA 9.6/10 in Physics but overall (Math+Physics) CGPA is 8/10.
How do I improve my CV to get into good grad school in US/Germany etc?
Any helpful comments/answer are welcome and thanks for that.

Welcome to Academia.SE. This is quite a broad question, so I'm not sure we can say any more than what has been said here: How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students?. The German system is a bit different, but many considerations will be similar.

@cag51, yes I got some broad Ideas what I need to do. Thank you!

I cannot tell you what to do, but it might be worth observing that your written documents at most give an initial impression of "who you are", and that the graduate program will be able to reflect on that initial impression if they are so fortunate as to meet you in person.  Presumably you will have reflected on what information you believe is most relevant to the admissions committee.  To some extent, this might include your perspective on physics (or science more generally), mathematics, the position or role of academia in society, and/or what sort of behavior or personal growth you believe you could sustain over the course of your graduate career, and as much evidence (or more typically a 'clue' to where evidence can be found) is needed to support your claims.  If you are familiar with the basic rules of bridge, it might help to think of your academic goals or dreams as the bid, the admissions committee as your partner, and the limits of your permanent record, ease or effectiveness of respectful collaboration, and/or extempore knowledge (that you might also have an opportunity to share, gracefully, during a visit or interview) as your "opponent".  If you want the strongest possible cross section with the interest of teleologically relevant programs, try to pack as much teleologically relevant and easily verifiable information about yourself as possible.

I appreciate your answer.


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Is there a direct relationship between response time from journal and the quality of the paper?
I have submitted a journal paper in a reputed journal. It says on their website that the normal response time is 12 weeks. I have seen in other websites that the response time from this particular journal is around 72 days. It is been 14 weeks almost and I haven't received a decision yet. Does it mean that the paper is bad in terms of content (I believe not!)?
Or, does this mean that the reviewers find it hard to go through everything? Or, there is no relation at all.

Why would it be related?

I agree with Bryan.  No relation.  (Except perhaps in cases where it is rejected immediately.  or accepted immediately.)

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/110029/17254 https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/101/17254

There is probably a relationship between 'popularity of a topic' and response time.  This is because it is easier to get reviewers if a topic is popular.

From more than a decade of editorial experience: There is no correlation. You just have to be patient, but while you are patient, there is nothing you can infer from the amount of time it takes for the paper to go through the process.

In general I will agree with the other answers that there is little correlation between paper quality and review time, once you have made it past editorial rejection. At that point, the dominant factor in time is the arbitrariness of peer reviewer responsiveness and editorial distraction, since reviewing papers is a lower-priority task for most active researchers.
In my experience as an editor, however, there is one class of manuscript that does tend to take unusually long to get responses on: not-very-good presentations of potentially interesting work.
If the work was presented well, it would be easy to provide a review based on quality. If the presentation very bad, then it would be easy to reject on the basis of presentation. In between, however, is an uncanny valley filled with work that is slow and painful to review.
Unless you are getting complaints about confusing presentation from your reviewers, however, you shouldn't guess that your work is in the uncanny valley. Instead, you should assume that you're just experiencing the arbitrariness of reviewing time.

I had a previous experience with a very delayed response time from a reputable journal. I submitted my manuscript for review and received feedback nine months later! This was significantly longer than the reported average response time for the journal, although I heard from a colleague that they experienced a similar delay at this journal. My paper was accepted with minor revisions, and moved forward to publication quickly. I was told that the delay was related to difficulties finding reviewers who could complete the review within the required timeframe, an issue which is apparently becoming more common. In any case, I would not worry that the response time is a reflection on the quality of your work!

Let me suggest that if there is a relationship then it is both weak and somewhat chaotic with many outliers. Especially bad papers may be easy to weed out. Especially good (essential) papers may be very hard to verify. It took a long time for Einstein's special relativity paper of 1905 to be accepted generally.
One reason why it probably means little in a specific case is the wide variability of the time available for reviewers. They have their own work and it has a higher priority than the reviews they've agreed to do. They might also want to seek some advice from colleagues on a good paper and kick ideas around for a bit. Some math papers are hard if the proofs are intricate. Only especially trivial results are likely to get a quick analysis (and likely rejection).
There are lots of reasons for delay, even including inefficient process at the journal itself. It is most likely to mean nothing essential about the quality of the paper.
A two week "delay" beyond "typical" is but an instant of time.

Of course, keep in mind that Einstein's paper wasn't subjected to the indignity of peer review!


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Pure mathematics PhD fellowships for international students in the US
I am an Indian student that completed both undergraduate and masters degrees outside India. I am currently looking for PhD fellowships that might fund my pure mathematics degree at US/Canadian institutions.
So far I’ve only been able to find fellowships that are open to US/Canadian citizens, respectively, or for Indian students that completed their undergraduate degrees at an Indian institution. Unfortunately I am not eligible in either case.
I was wondering if there are any fellowships that are offered to students regardless of their citizenship, or regardless of their undergraduate universities, and where I might find them?
EDIT 1: Some fellowships I did come across were only offered to humanities students. Once again I am ineligible for this.

Is there a reason you're looking specifically for fellowships rather than other sources of funding?

Fellowships (scholarships without work requirements) are fairly rare in comparison with teaching and research assistantships (in which the student works 20 hours per week in exchange for tuition and a stipend.)  Many of these assistantships are available to international students.

@BrianBorchers I understand that. I was also advised to seek scholarships in order to help me focus more time on studying and research. It is not a necessity rather a want.

@BryanKrause as I mentioned in response to Brian, I am aware of other methods of funding, I would just like to learn more about scholarships/fellowships.

@Tars Got it. I think Buffy's answer pretty much covers it. We don't allow "shopping" questions here that would include things like lists of individual fellowships; there are very few available, and even fewer for non-citizens.

If you hold a bachelors from an accredited institution, you would most likely be considered for a Teaching Assistantship or (less likely) a Research Assistantship. This includes almost all tuition and fees along with a stipend that is enough to live on (frugally).
Very few US students have fellowships with no duties. You've already noted almost all such fellowships are for citizens - and they are very rare. The occasional student might have funding from the home country.
TAs assist in the undergraduate teaching program, with grading, help sessions, and sometimes their own sections of elementary courses. Math departments, in particular, have a huge need for TAs since they teach a large number of non-major students in things like Calculus.
You don't even need a masters for US graduate admissions and in many fields almost all doctoral students have TA positions. You need to have facility with English, but, coming from India, that won't be an issue.
Note also that the entire system is set up to pace students with such assistantships through the system. You will probably still need to take a few courses (to pass comprehensive exams) and have to deal with the scheduling of those.

Thank you for that, I am aware of the TAships. I ask with the objective of possibly reducing some of the work load, once again, not as a necessity.


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How do I efficiently apply for postdoc positions when I'm completely exhausted at the end of my PhD?
I'm a last year PhD student in an engineering field in Europe applying for postdoc positions. I've got 2-3 months left to finish writing my dissertation and graduate. I've been working so intensely during my grad school experience that I now feel completely exhausted. Reading, writing and creative thinking is now really hard for me, even though I did well in all those three aspects during grad school. I feel my brain just shuts off at times. Over the last 1.5 year, I've written a few high-impact papers out of my PhD work and over the last few months I've been writing my dissertation. This intense writing period is a large factor why I'm also finding difficulties to write and revise text.
I've now sent out 3-4 postdoc applications, with possibly another 4-5 that I'd like to send. Every postdoc application requires that I read carefully at least a few most important papers of the prospective PI. I usually aim to read 3-5 most impactful, most cited papers very carefully, front to back (those are usually the ones where the prospective PI is either the first or the last author) and I skim 8-10 more papers (read the abstracts and conclusions, and take a quick glance at the results). Since I'm applying to postdocs that are not exactly within my PhD discipline, reading those papers requires gaining at least basic understanding of a new research area. This is really hard for me now, as I can't focus so well, I don't memorize well, and it generally takes me much longer to understand written text.
Even worse, some postdoc positions that I'm going to apply for require proposing a research idea, as it is not imposed in the postdoc offer. Those postdoc offers encourage the applicant to come up with their research idea as long as it's within the scope of the PI's research line. Over the last few months I noticed that I don't have much research creativity anymore in how to connect my skills and knowledge from my past research to what the prospective PI would like to develop. Only a few months ago I used to have that creativity. Now it's just gone. Thus, it's really hard for me even to write the 1-2 page cover letters. I look back at them, they seem poorly written, the research ideas seem shallow and I just don't know how to correct them. I used to be really good at editing my writing (based on the feedback my supervisors have been giving me in the past).
I feel like I'm at an impasse. Taking a break to rest my brain would probably help, but I don't have time to take a break. My defense date is already scheduled and I need to finish writing my dissertation. I also don't want to postpone applying for postdoc positions, as there are many positions open I'm really interested in and I'm scared of loosing those chances. What would you advise me to do? How do I apply for the postdocs efficiently? Can I for instance cut down on the amount of effort I make to get to know the research of a prospective PI and still be able to write a competitive cover letter?
Extra information: I plan on taking a >1 month break after I graduate. In my postdoc applications I indicate the starting date that takes account of that break.

From what you have written, it seems like you are severely burnt out. Are you sure you will be able to do your best work if you start a postdoc while you are burnt out?

@Outsider, I plan on taking a >1 month break after I graduate. In my postdoc applications I indicate the starting date that takes account of that break.

I remember feeling similarly to you by the end of a PhD: like I'd just finished a marathon, and am completely out of breath (brain-breath?). In fact, more than one medical professional that I'd seen at a time (just for my regular check-ups) had noticed stress-related health issues and had told me in no uncertain terms that I need to take a break. So, unfortunately, I think the strict answer to your question is that you are simply not able to apply for postdoc positions efficiently right now.
You seem to be suffering from a severe burnout, which is only going to get worse if you keep pushing. Burnout is a serious issue, and the longer you keep pushing, the longer you will need to recover. Your creativity, analytical skills, the ability to concentrate are all shutting down, and a magical "restart" button does not exist - the only way to recover it to take a serious break. You say you plan to take a month to recover, but (depending on the severity of the burnout, and how long you keep pushing for) a month might not be enough.
However, it is very reasonable to worry how you will financially get through this period. Instead of applying for a postdoc, here are a few alternatives that come to mind (while some of them are country- and culture-specific, and may not all apply in your situation, I list them all for any future readers):

Speak with your supervisor about a possibility for a short postdoc.
I ended up doing this at the end of my postdoc. I told my advisor that, while I knew I should have been looking for postdoc positions while preparing my viva... I simply was not able to. And I asked whether he might have any work and funding available to keep me on for a few months. They may have a specific problem to which they might want to apply the results of your PhD, and some funding for a short application-oriented position.
I was lucky, and my supervisor was kind -- and offered me a 3-month position that was fairly light-touch. I mostly just re-ran the techniques developed during my PhD on some new data.

Claim back from the social system of the country where you got your PhD.
This is obviously quite country-dependent, and how comfortable you are with this option will also partially depend on your attitude (which is possibly more related to your country of birth than the country in which you are finishing your PhD).
In France, where I did my PhD, the unemployment benefits were very generous: you were entitled to 80% of your previous salary for a number of months (and then the percentage would go down to 70% and then 50%). Finishing PhD students were able to claim this, as they were considered employees of the University, and were contributing to these benefits during their PhD from their salaries. Back in my day this option was only available to French and EU students, but after I left I heard they changed the rules so that even out-of-EU students could benefit from this for 3(?) months.
Obviously, this is not a particularly glamorous option. Personally, my upbringing (and my mother) were both very opposed to this: "Did you really emigrate to another country just to take advantage of their social system?" However, if this is an option where you are, I would strongly suggest you reconsider your prejudice towards this option (if you have them). I got a lovely letter from the French government when I applied for unemployment benefits listing the precise amount of days that I was entitled to it, and the specific amount I was entitled to. If the government says it is okay, then it is acceptable.

Consider coming back to your family and staying with them for a few months.
Again, this may not be an option for everybody, and is again certainly not a very glamorous one either. "What kind of a doctor are you, unemployed and spending time on your parents' couch?" It also comes with challenges (many people find it extremely difficult to move back in with their parents after some time of living alone).
However, if the alternative is writing sub-par postdoc applications, accepting any postdoc position that you can get your hands on because of the lack of options, or even starting your postdoc while still burnt out (and do you really think you are going to impress your new supervisor if you are struggling to come up with creative ideas, if your analytical skills are suffering, your conclusions are shallow, and your writing is poor?), again, this might be something you need to consider.

Thank you for your answer. It is tough to accept that I might need a longer break (as in: why can't I just keep being productive and doing research that I normally enjoy?), but it is probably the best path forward for me. Would you mind sharing how long it took you to recover after completing your PhD?

Unfortunately, I ended up doing a much longer break than expected due to a lengthy procedure for the immigration paperwork. Approximately tho, my timeline after completing my PhD was something like this: 2 months of mostly chilling, 4 months short postdoc with PhD advisor. During this time I secured a postdoc; however for better of for worse it took me around half a year to get the immigration paperwork sorted (ended up doing a 4-month industry position while I waited, after not working for 2-3 months).


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Listing Research Universities (Highest research activity)
Universities' rankings are misleading, because various institutes publish their ranking results by taking various factors.
I have found a classification of research universities in the USA as R1 , R2 and R3 here. How reliable is the listing?

The Carnegie Classification ranking system that you link to is fairly reliable. The details of how the rankings are calculated are here and include:

research & development (R&D) expenditures in science and engineering
R&D expenditures in non-S&E fields
S&E research staff (postdoctoral appointees and other non-faculty research staff with doctorates)
doctoral conferrals in humanities fields, in social science fields, in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, and in other fields (e.g., business, education, public policy, social work)

They then do a series of statistical manipulations on the numbers to get a final ranking. It seems that the weightings of the factors are less malleable than other rankings (e.g., US News and World Reports). The data seem to be collected from reliable sources (e.g., http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/). The choice of factors seems malleable and potentially unreliable. It seems like it is likely that if you were to replicate the process with the same factors, you would come up with a similar answer.
The real question, at least in my mind, is if the factors considered, are at all informative for your needs.

Because the criteria are somewhat subjective, so are the rankings. And they aren't uniform over all fields in any case. Pretty good, but perfection is elusive here.

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Quitting software engineering job to accept professor's assistant position
I am an undergrad software engineering student (B.Sc) and have been fortunate enough to have been offered a professor's assistant position by one of my favourite professors. My dilemma is that I am already working as a student data scientist at a startup and would likely have to quit my current job to do this one.
I am still unsure whether I would enter academia after graduating or a more standard FAANG path.
My questions are:
If I was applying for a software engineering role would they care about me having this experience?
If I wanted to progress my career in academia would this be a good idea?
My worry is that this would not be an advantage to have on my resume for either career path.
Things worth mentioning:

I have been at my current job for over a year
I would like to change my current job (stagnating a little with very repetitive responsibilities)
The professor who offered me this job came to me, I did not apply for it

Thanks all :)

Just a note, the assistant-professor tag is not relevant here (a professor's assistant is not an assistant professor)

@NAMcMahon thanks for pointing that out, removed now.

where in the world?

@EarlGrey Germany

You see yourself ‘stagnating’ after a year? That might be useful fodder for personal reflection.

If I was applying for a software engineering role would they care about me having this experience?

I haven't been on the hiring team for any software engineering roles so I can't say, but I would guess that a position working for a professor would be less interesting to them than working at a startup.

If I wanted to progress my career in academia would this be a good idea?

This kind of position would be looked on very favorably for PhD admissions. You would probably contribute to research papers and be able to get authorship on those. You would also have a professor who could write you a strong letter of recommendation and talk about how you deal with the uncertainty involved in doing academic research.

I would suggest first to think what would you like to do after the professor's assistant position, and if you see yourself working in industry instead of academia in the future.
If you would really want to work in academia then consider the difficulty to land to a tenure track position after ~10 years of work(PhD years included).
Look also in this question:
What ratio of PhD graduates in STEM fields ultimately end up as (tenured) professors?
and also in this answer:
https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/203947/103261

Since you state this refers to Germany, yes it is a good idea especially if you want to start an academic career. Otherwise, it is a good way for you to cover the gap between current repetitive job and the next one.
In Germany, it is of the uttermost importance of having a professor on your side to start an academic career, and it looks like you have one.
However, you should be proactive (with the support of your professor) in finding additional fundings to develop from professor's assistant to a paid PhD student (aim for a 75% or even 100% TVöD or whatever it is called nowadays position). You can be a PhD student without fundings, as long as a department accepts you (having a professor on your side is a sufficient but not necessary condition for this).


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Writing a letter of recommendation as a graduate student
I am a MA student who frequently works with undergraduates on projects. One student has asked me if I can write her a letter of recommendation for graduate school. Are there any risks to me submitting a letter, as opposed to her finding a faculty member (who likely would not be in the same field as her interests)? For graduate school applications how much does the position of the person writing a recommendation letter matter, as opposed to his/her academic familiarity with the student? I have already advised her to check with the programs she is applying to in case they have requirements.
Edit: I realize I left this unclear before-- she has two tenured professors willing to write letters. If I agreed to, I would be the third letter. The department is small, so there might not be too many options for an additional letter.

[H]ow much does the position of the person writing a recommendation letter matter, as opposed to his/her academic familiarity with the student?

It matters very highly.  For most graduate programs it would be better to have a letter from a very eminent and trusted person which simply says "Student X's performance in my class convinces me that she will be successful in a top master's/PhD program.  I highly recommend that you admit her." than a more personally insightful letter from a less well known faculty member, let alone someone who has not even completed the degree that the student is applying for.  If you have not yourself completed a master's degree, how can you certify that the student will be able to do so successfully?  (Well, of course it may well be that you probably can, but what degree of trust can the reader put into your letter?  Not very much.)
In general, I would recommend that even postdocs and temporary faculty should defer to more senior faculty, if possible, when writing letters, and in any case the student should make sure to get at least one letter from a senior person. If someone who has a PhD (let's say) but is otherwise very junior can say something about the student that other faculty cannot, it could be a good idea to send along a letter, but it would be better to have that be an additional letter beyond the number required.  However, for someone like you who has not even completed the degree the student is applying for, I would simply say that you should not write a letter for the student.  If you want to help, I would recommend that you find a faculty member who is senior enough but doesn't know the student very well and give them the information that you wanted to convey in your own letter.  (Don't write the letter for them!  Just give them the information.)  It helps of course to find a faculty member that you are comfortable with.
By the way, if you are in the habit of mentoring grad-school bound undergraduates, you
would be doing them a favor if you let them know as early as possible that it is in their best interest to make significant contacts with senior faculty as well as with you.

I agree with Pete above - it is important to have PhDs, esp. senior faculty members as referees. If the student needs three letters, then your will add good specifics to her case. One common problem with letters from senior profs is that they are often too generic. I am a tenured prof, and review applications with reference letters all the time. Most of them are awfully generic.
-that being said, I had one of my former students from when I was a T.A. as a Ph.D. candidate from years ago who has asked me for several reference letters over the years: two for teaching jobs, and one to get into grad school. It might have helped that my letter was stamped as a faculty -albeit very junior from a small university - at that stage, but all my comments were about my observations as a T.A.. The student (who was very good) keeps getting in to whatever she applies into.
hope this helps.
S.

Recommendation letters for graduate school tend to be generic, yes.  I am enough of a reader and writer to wish that the genre were more lively, for sure, but a strong and generic letter from the right person will get the job done.  The head of undergraduate mathematics at the University of Chicago (where I did my undergrad) had a reputation for sizing up students well and then deciding which standard letter to submit for them.  I am confident that I got the "top drawer, standard" letter.  I applied to five PhD programs including the top three in my field and got into all of them.

Also, as in my answer, I think that a minimum standard for writing an academic recommendation letter is that the writer needs to have attained the position that the candidate is applying for.  (I guess this must change at the very very top, i.e., for Nobel Prizes and the like; I wouldn't know.)  Writing about experiences that you had with a candidate before you got your PhD seems totally fine to me.  What matters is that you are testifying to the success in something that you yourself succeeded in.  Finally, some students are obviously excellent; letters matter more in more borderline cases.

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Feeling like I'm redundant on a 2-person project
I'm an undergraduate working at a lab at my university, working on a project being advised by the professor in our lab. (Context: in my field, it is not that uncommon for undergrads to publish papers & papers are usually finished in around a year; I have previous research experience.) I was initially pretty excited and spent a lot of time on my project for the first few months, but at some point I fell behind on the project because of some family issues, which are now resolved. During that period, the professor assigned a new grad student to the project. At first, I was super excited to get someone to work with, but since then I've contributed nothing new to the project, even though I spend a lot of time on it and found a couple cool ideas that aren't very necessary.
I feel like just a redundancy on this project now and it's really frustrating. Usually I feel like there's one clear next step that we discuss in the meeting, and I can do it, but I don't know how this can really be split among the two of us and I'm less good at just executing and tend to wander. Though I really wanted to stay on the project in the past, I'm considering just asking for a new project. I'm a bit reluctant since I already know a lot about this project and starting over feels like giving up. I'm really doubting myself a lot, and I'm thinking maybe it's all in my head, or that it's my fault and I'm just not cut out for this, or that maybe I shouldn't care about how it feels at the meetings so much. I'm feeling really down and demotivated.
Most of all, since I'm graduating soon, I want to get something to show for all my work within the next few months, though I know that's optimistic. I really want a career in this field. What should I do? Is my experience normal? Should I talk to the professor about this, and if so, how should I approach them?

Yes, you should talk to the professor and probably the grad student as well (joint meeting) and discuss the fact that you want to be able to contribute more and don't want to feel like a "third wheel". I think a new/different project probably isn't your best option. Time is a factor.
One option for actually doing this is to work together with the grad student on as many tasks as possible rather than trying to divide up the work. In CS we call this "pair programming" and the process has a certain defined structure. That may or may not be feasible for you, of course.
Note that the grad student probably has more experience in this than you do and is able to progress faster. That can feel like a problem, even though you need this experience to reach that level. As something of a novice researcher you are even learning from watching as well as doing. Just don't get pushed to the side.


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Quotation marks in Chicago Style but with British spelling
I'm writing a document following the Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition) guidelines but using British English spelling. British English typically uses single quotation marks, but I'm unsure whether to use single or double quotation marks in this context. Is it acceptable to use double quotation marks regardless? Also, if I use single quotation marks, should periods and commas go inside the quotation or outside as usual?

I don't know where the idea that British English uses single quotation marks comes from. A quick view of the BBC news pages shows them littered with double quotes. Single quotes are called apostrophes!

@BrianTompsett-汤莱恩 Single quotation marks has traditionally been the preferred way to show quotes in British English but double has become more common. So both can be found and seem to be mostly a matter of personal preference.

What are you writing this document for?  If it's going to be published by an organization with copy editors they are likely to override your choices with their preferred in-house style regardless.  And if not, why not just go with your personal preferences?

Personal anecdote: I co-wrote a textbook in which our rough draft used US spelling but various aspects of British-style punctuation that we preferred.  The publisher (UK-based, but aiming for a mainly US market) insisted that everything be either US-style or UK-style (according to their own internal definitions of those styles).

I'm writing a document following the Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition) guidelines but using British English spelling

If this is what you are doing, then just do this, and for punctuation follow the Chicago Manual of Style.
Double quotation marks look fine with British English. For periods and commas inside/outside the quotation, you might have some cases where it looks like a mix of British and American. If you want to avoid that, you will just have to use a consistently British or consistently American style for everything.
Incidentally there are many other minor aspects of English, in addition to spelling and punctuation, where the two versions of the language differ:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_British_English


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How to cite a chapter in an edited book with a unique translator for that chapter using Chicago Style?
I'm using Chicago Style 17th edition, author-date system. I'm trying to cite a chapter from an edited book, but every chapter has a different translator.
Chicago Manual says that for edited books, the format is:
Author Surname, First Name. Year. "Title of Chapter." In Book Title, edited by Editor First Name Surname, page range of chapter. Place of Publication: Publisher.
But where do I include the translator who is not the translator of the whole book but only that chapter?

Chicago Manual of Style Online has a Q&A addressing this question:

Q. I’m trying to complete a bibliographic entry for a chapter in a multiauthor book. The chapter was translated from Korean into English. (The rest of the chapters have many various other translators.) How would I cite it? Where do I put the translation credit in the Chicago style citation? After the article title or after the book title?
A. When you have a special instance not covered in CMOS, fish around until you see something similar and follow the pattern. You might base your citation on CMOS 14.104 (“Editor or translator in addition to author”), 14.107 (“Contribution to a multiauthor book”), and 14.122 (“Authors and editors of multivolume works”). You don’t want to imply that the translator of the chapter was the translator of the entire book, so put the translator’s name after the chapter title:

Author’s Name, “Chapter Title,” trans. Translator’s Name, in Name of Multiauthor Book, ed. Editors’ Names (Place: Publisher, Date), page numbers.

Where you place the year/date of publication might change between different editions of the style guide, but the logic of placing the translator's name next to the chapter title is unlikely to change.

So in bibliography format, it's supposed to be like this? Author Surname, First Name. Year. "Title of Chapter." Translated by Translator First Name Surname. In Book Title, edited by Editor First Name Surname, page range of chapter. Place of Publication: Publisher.

@JohnSmith That looks good to me, based on the format in your original post.


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Bad grade in thesis, because of not elaborate report , but the work graded qualitatively impressive by technical supervisor
I am in this weird dilemma , where I got a low grade on my masters thesis in robotics because of my inability to submit an elaborate report , because of approaching deadline , I was barely able to submit minimal version. One of my supervisor is from the lab and is expert in the field and I did research under him on an ambitious project. Other is to officiate the grading as a full professor from the department .The expert supervisor, has rated the work to be very impressive qualitatively at masters level  , but the 2nd supervisor(non related field ) insisted on giving a poor grade because of poor draft. My thesis grade suffered and fall to 2.7(on German grade) , what will be the advisable route for me to compensate for the poor grade and somehow, show the future employers or academics that it does not represent the qualitative aspect of my thesis work done in the lab.

Difficult to say. Do you have oral exams? The problem is that the project indicates excellent technical skills (it seems), but either bad writing or timekeeping skills. Unfortunately, the mark reflects the combination, it seems. Maybe get a reference from the positive marker.

Thanks , this is what , I intend to do. I have also asked for him, so that , we can publish .

I don't know if its the same at your university, but where I am, the bachelors thesis is marked 80% on the  written thesis itself, and 20% on the technical work of the research. You should check if this is the case for you, and if so, were you made aware of this (is it in a syllabus document you were provided with etc). If not, you should ask how the technical proficiency feeds into your grade, according the official grading rubric.

Is the 2.7 the grade for your thesis or the grade for MSc as a whole? The thesis often has surprisingly low impact on the overall grade.

2.7 in thesis , my master aggregate is 2.4

because of approaching deadline

Part of your assessment on most projects, whether in school or the rest of life, includes the ability to complete the work by a deadline or in an otherwise efficient time frame.
You make it sound like this is some mysterious deadline coming from an unknown source, but it was probably well known to you or should have been from the start.
As others have recommended, you should try to publish the best version of the work possible and rely on letters of recommendation to explain your abilities. Most importantly, though, you'll want to learn to take responsibility for completion of your work going forward.

Sure , I had done lot of self reflection , post this , along with Time scheduling , being more realistic , Latex and Inkscape are the things i need to improve from here.

There is probably little you can do unless you can convince the supportive advisor to have a conversation with the other one to change the grade, if that is even possible.
Beyond that, the record is what it is and the thesis is what it is.
To go further you have the option, of course, of choosing who writes letters of recommendation for you and the option of explaining that deadlines interfered with providing a better product. There are no guarantees, but you do what you can with what you have.
And if you need to improve your time management or writing skills you can work on that.

thanks for suggestion , this bad thesis submission have highlighted my poor scientific draft preparation skills and I need to work a lot on these moving forward.


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Is it possible to transfer university midway through the first month of university?
I'm a university student in Ontario Canada. For personal reasons, I am looking to move to another university right now (ASAP). I'm a second-year student on my 3rd day of classes. Which U I will move to idk.
Question: Is it possible to transfer to another university in Canada, at this point? If so, how?
Undergraduate

Is this undergraduate or postgraduate (coursework or research)?

@Prof.SantaClaus UnderGrad

You need to apply to another institution but you are kinda late for the Fall term since they must be nearing the date beyond which courses cannot be added and you’ve not even started the admission process.  In the short term nothing to do (unless you choose to  withdraw and get some tuition back, if possible).
You might be able to apply for a Winter term admission depending on the program, and get some transfer credits, but that would be specific to each program.

Ok, this was my hunch.


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Collaborating with professors after graduation
As I mentioned in the title, I was wondering if it's possible to collaborate with professors on any research paper if I have graduated and now working in the industry?
Here are a bit more details on why am I asking this and maybe you can provide alternatives too: While in college, I wasn't very active in academics and I also changed my stream (From Chemical Engineering to Data Science) after graduation. So needless to say that I never existed as far as the professors were concerned. But now I have done a lot more work and currently aiming for an MS/Ph.D. in the Data Science field. But one thing that keeps coming back is a recommendation letter from Professors.
I believe that if I have a few publications in my name, it'll make my profile much stronger but it'll add even more value if it's in collaboration with college professors. Not only will I get a research paper, but I'll also have a good recommendation. So I was wondering if it's even possible to collaborate with them since now I'm not a student anymore? If yes, then in what capacity, do I approach the professors?
P.S. I know that I can reach out to college professors for a recommendation without collaboration but those letters will be very generic. I have much higher aspirations and I need to have a very strong recommendation letter, and the only way to do that is to work with a professor.
Edit: I'm from India

What country is this? India? How long since you graduated?

It is absolutely possible in principle. What I wonder in your case is what do you have to make it attractive for the professor? I as the professor surely wouldn't be interested in collaborating with somebody in order to make their profile stronger or give them a better recommendation. What do you have to offer that is attractive for the professor? An idea? Access to industry money? Interesting data or an interesting problem?
I am a statistician and have been involved in projects where I was contacted by people from industry who wanted my statistical help dealing with their data, in some cases with potential to publish together, and/or pay. When I liked the problem and had some spare time for this, I did it. Actually in many places industry collaboration also can make the professor's CV stronger or give them a relevant recommendation letter applying for grant money and the like.
Edit, replying to the first comment: The situation is somewhat different if rather than having something to offer that the professor doesn't have (like data, money, or some relevant expertise in a different field or of the background of an industry project) you want to work in the professor's area on their problems. Personally I'd be rather skeptical of such a thing, because it is somewhat risky to have somebody working for me whom I don't know and who has no contractual obligation to do that, so I may invest some time but finally results/a publication may not materialise.
Note that "the professor's projects" can have various shapes. They may have money, a group and a work plan to which they may be committed (including contractual obligations), which doesn't give anybody from outside the chance to just jump in. On the other hand, they also may have some flexibility to do spontaneous projects (as I can do working on industry projects). I can imagine positive responses particularly in case that you propose something interesting enough that the professor can see your competence and expertise. The prospect of having a collaborative publication with just giving occasional input in quite limited time may be attractive for some. Also there are young researchers who need to build up a better list of publications themselves, without already having research students or a team, who may grab such an opportunity. My subjective probability for getting a positive response would be far lower than 50%, but getting one out of ten attempts or so doesn't seem unrealistic. The best way is maybe to propose something specific related to their interests, and if your letter/email looks good and competent enough for them, you may have a chance.

Okay, let me just add that "provided I come up with a relevant topic that professor is already working on and I have the skills and experience to execute it". In such cases, as you said, it should be possible in principle but my question then is that in what capacity do I approach the professor? Is there such a thing where professors allow outsiders on their projects?

This is very, very individual. The professor will have their own plans in which of course you don't feature, so why would they change that? I can imagine professors exist who'd be happy to have somebody working for free on what they'd be happy to have done anyway, and they get their name on a paper just giving a bit of input. I also know many would be very skeptical about being contacted in this way out of the blue. Because they will have to invest some time before there's any product, and there's no guarantee that the product will materialise. There are no rules.

I have edited my response to discuss this a bit more.

The reason I believe I can offer my skills is because of me having exposure to both the Chemical Engg. and Machine Learning fields. Professors are often experts in their own field but today we need interdisciplinary collaboration. I remember an instance where I had helped a professor figuring out a solution to problem using data science purely because I had a lot more experience in data science while the professor was an expert in chemical engineering. It was actually that instance that had inspired me to reach out to them because I had realised that I could really contribute to their work.

So I was just curious if such a thing is even possible or I should work on it on my own.

The general problem with "offering skills" without having a contract and an appointment procedure is that there are no guarantees. In the beginning the professor has no idea how this will turn out, and no security. It may seem quite likely that they will waste their time, whether that's true or not. This will make many skeptical, but as I wrote, you may be lucky.

PS: I should add that in such an informal collaboration you run the risk of this being dropped at some point by the professor as well.

You having an idea and be willing and able to work on it does not attract me. You working in a company can give you access to resources or data to which I don't have access. That might be attractive. If you want to get something from somebody then you have to look at it from their position. We can get cheap labor at the BA level quite easily, and they are our students so known quantities, unlike you. What you have that our students don't have are your industry contacts. So use the strengths you have.


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What can I do when someone else is literally duplicating my PhD work?
I finished my PhD last year. I published three papers and submitted another one, so 4 from my work covering most of my research so far.
this year, I am seeing another new PhD student (he started his PhD just after I finished mine) and he is doing the same work except for one parameter he changed. He's begun winning prizes (presentation prizes) with that, using the same context, the same methodology. He has not published anything yet, but it sounds cringe and annoying, why would you work on my research and replicate it almost fully and not even mention or reference my work anywhere?
This guy also tried to approach me once to get the code I've worked on for 3-4 years so that he could change it and use it for his sake. I did not give him anything. Is there anything I can do to make sure he does not replicate my work and get the credit for that?

Is this with your advisor? Why should the group not continue on with the research, changing parameters to look at? Starting a new student on extending the work seems a normal starting point, as I have observed many times. Now, not referencing the previous work is not acceptable, but you haven't seen a publication yet.

'Is there anything I can do to make sure he does not replicate my work and gets the credit for that?' Publication.

Is that person in the same group? How do you know they get presentation prizes? Also, if you have published, just continue. Plus, try to give seminar or workshop talks. In the short run, talks have impact. But, in the long run, publications count. Also, since they approach you for code - ask them if they cite you (they don't, as you say, but it's a way of telling them they should...)

BTW, did you get prizes for your work? I think this is relevant information here for some responses.

"I did not give him anything." - ....

"... so that he could change it and use it for his sake. I did not give him anything." I urge you to think about the furtherment of Science and not just your personal career goals

If we change the order of paragraphs in your post, the story becomes "This guy first approached me and asked me for help and references. I refused to give him anything. Now he's not acknowledging my work even though it's clearly similar to his."

Also, there is a bit of a contradiction between "He has not published anything yet" and "not even mention or reference my work anywhere". Presumably the main place where he can mention and reference your work is on publications, which he doesn't have yet? So it seems the best thing to do is try to maintain good relations with him and make sure he references your work when he does publish. Although he probably should also mention your work during presentations, but don't think it's necessarily malicious if he doesn't.

"Is there anything I can do to make sure he does not replicate my work" Is this a joke? Having your work replicated is the best thing that could happen to you

They are not duplicating the work, they are extending it. The OP should be happy someone is picking it up while they go off and play with new things.

Which field is this ? Not sharing your code (after publication) would make me suspect that your code doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

"He's begun winning prizes (presentation prizes)..." Is he presenting his results in a way that differs from the way you did? (clearer for example).

Awesome! Somebody is actually interested in your thesis! You are probably in the upper 10 percentile.

Talk to him (and possibly his supervisor) about proper referencing
As is pointed out by others here, it is desirable for researchers to replicate and build on each other's work, and that is fine so long as there is proper attribution of sources using citation of previous work.  Since you have already published your papers on this topic, this new student should be citing that work and explaining to his reader how his own work builds on your papers.  This is part of the standard literature review that should be present in a paper/presentation.
You note that this student has not yet published any papers on this topic.  If and when he does, he will be expected to cite your work and the journals reviewing those papers will want him to be clear about what his own research adds to that previous work (e.g., adding a new parameter in a model/analysis).  It sounds like the present problem is with his presentations, which should also cite your work.
This issue should be reasonably simple to nip in the bud.  Since this is a new PhD student, it is likely that he is a novice in academic practice and he might not be aware that presentations should also cite key work.  A reasonable first action here would be to contact this student directly and talk to him about his presentations.  Let him know that it is usual for academic presentations to include citations to relevant work and tell him that you would have expected his presentations to cite your relevant papers.  You might also suggest to him that he seek some guidance from his supervisor on citation practices.  If necessary, you could also raise this issue directly with his supervisor, who would be more than happy to give him appropriate guidance.
For these types of situations, I also recommend that you apply a variant of Hanlon's razor: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.  Assume that you are dealing with a well-meaning researcher and begin by drawing the problem to their attention.  Trust in the safeguards of academic practice but try to nip problems like this in the bud with a friendly conversation in the first instance.

Replicability is literally one of the cornerstones of science. I would consider others trying to replicate my results -- assuming of course that they properly cite my earlier work -- about as high an honor as a scientist can get from their peers. Imagine that nobody cared enough about your work to want to replicate it!

"OP: replicate it almost fully and not even mention or reference my work anywhere?" - that's why I didn't upvote this response which otherwise makes a good point. But it seems OP does neither get the credit, nor the prizes. That's a problem.

@CaptainEmacs Reference where? There aren't any publications yet in which OP's work could be referenced.

The second sentence of the question says "I published three papers and submitted another one". Presumably those four are the publications which could be referenced. (And perhaps the dissertation itself. I'm sure it varies by field, but in mine, dissertations are commonly posted on arXiv and are citable.)

@DavidZ Wolfgang's comment is saying there are no publications yet by the student which could reference the OP's three or four papers.

@DanielHatton - it is unclear if the OP was present for the presentations to determine if his work was noted or not. Seems mostly to be sour grapes...

What do you mean by your research? do you mean it is not published yet? If it is published, no one should lose the freedom to do the research in the same direction just because s/he is from your former group.
If it is not published, why/how s/he know the methods or details you are using? If you are the one creating the methods, s/he is using your code, it is likely that you should at least be a co-author.
P.S. you seems very annoyed that this guy only change one parameter but getting many credit/prize. However sometime changing one important parameter do change everything. E.g. Superconductivity


text:
Is it rude to visit a professors office during the summer if they have not responded to my email?
I understand that a somewhat similar question has been asked before, but my parameters here are slightly different. Essentially, I have been emailing a professor since early April about joining their lab. They have responded and inquired what sort of projects I would be interested in. They also remarked that they would be interested in meeting after the semester is over. Well, after final grades were input I sent an email and... no dice after two-ish weeks. This is no surprise, given that I know a student who got a response from them months after sending an email. The thing is, I am trying to join their project over the summer and well, precious summer days are about to start passing pretty fast.
In summary, I am moving close to campus next week, and I am wondering if it would be rude or brutish to go to their office location physically to follow up. Is this a bad idea? The difference between this situation and the last person who asked is that this is during summer and COVID times. I also just finished my freshman year if that matters.
EDIT: as a corollary, I could also try calling the office. Though that almost seems more incessant than showing up in my opinion. Thoughts?

It's not rude.  It quite probably is futile.

Many faculty are not in their offices very often normally.
Many faculty are in their offices less in the summer - in particular, they are unlikely to have scheduled office hours.
During a pandemic, you might not be able to go into the building anyway.

If the professor does not feel safe meeting in person during a pandemic, they'll just tell you to contact them some other way when you show up.
Do not go to a professor's office if you are sick.  Also, do not go anywhere, except for medical care.

Of course! I would never even consider this if I wasn’t vaccinated. But I suppose I just needed an extra perspective. I appreciate it, this was basically what I was thinking.

Yes the pandemic complicates this. Otherwise is a possibility. But you could perhaps call, saying that being near you would like to visit the lab/institution. In all the groups I know, something would have been arranged for, at least, touring you through facilities and people.

Given that there was a tacit agreement to have a meeting sometime in the summer, an unannounced drop-in wouldn't be unusual. But the real issue is that you don't even know if they will be in their office during the summer. COVID is still forcing several campuses to stay remote and have less than full attendance. Several professors are still conducting all business from home. So are you just going to drop by their office everyday at random hours hoping that you will catch them one of these days?
Your best bet is to email one of the professor's graduate students and ask them about their status. Depending on how big the lab is, you might be working with these people mainly anyway. I would do this before visiting the professor's office for an impromptu meeting.

This is a great idea, I think this will be my next route.

In addition to the other answers, I would suggest sending a polite follow-up email along the lines of "Professor X, I hope you are well. Would you still have time to meet to discuss summer project work, as we discussed during the semester?" It could very well be that they got distracted and just need a gentle reminder to respond.

Rude? probably, especially in these times of "the less people I meet, the better". Futile? almost certain, for the reasons given by @AnonymousPhysicist .
Professors have secretary/secretaries. Call them, set up an appointment, they know the professor agenda and can tell you exactly when you should appear to talk with him, after having agreed a time.
Professor are not super-humans, but they have a huge load of work and the same 24 hours/day as the others.
Your request is not so important in professor's eyes, so it did not get the proper attention (i.e. time). You are on the right path to understand that talking in person will be very effective, so it is time saved for both you and the professor, but you are pursuing that meeting the wrong way.
It is a good lesson to learn to show what you care for in the proper&smart manner: it is important to you, you need 15 minutes to express the importance to the professor, the professor needs 15 minutes to evaluate you and will likely allocate 15 minutes only for that, so you should prefer to have him in a good mood. Set up a proper appointment through the secretary.

Secretaries?  My entire department shares 2 staff members.

@AlexanderWoo there you go. If the professor is not there, there are 2 staff members to pester with.

As far as I know, the only professor in my department whose agenda is known to a staff member is the department chair.

It's incorrect to say that professors have secretaries.


text:
Prestige of publishing in special vs regular journal issue
Some journals bundle relevant papers on a currently hot topic into special issues. As far as I know, potential manuscripts must be specifically submitted for inclusion in special issues rather than the journal itself (or get selected from conference proceedings).
In my field, special issues tend to have shorter review periods which makes them interesting venues. I have heard that special issues tend to have lower impact than regular journal issues, though I am not sure if this is factual. Do special issues usually meet the same standards as regular issues?
Is there any difference in prestige in publishing in special issues vis-à-vis publishing in regular issues? Do hiring committees make meaningful distinctions between both types?

Related: Difference between special issues and regular ones

Which field is this? In particle physics, special issues typically contain conference proceedings, but those don't even count as real publications. So sometimes there's a large difference, and I think to get an accurate answer you would need to specify your field.

I have not been a journal editor.  But I have dealt with many journal editors, and in my experience the kind of thing they are most concerned about is maintaining and elevating their journal's standards at all times.  So I have to imagine that when they put together a special issue, they take pains to ensure that this does not result in any measurable lowering of their journal's standards.
In my branch of mathematics, special issues are not that common but not unheard of either.  I have never noticed any difference in the quality of the papers published in these special issues.  Also in my experience people may not even list on their CV that the publication has appeared in a "special issue".
I have on the other hand been on many hiring committees, and I have not heard a thing about this.  Again though in my field this sort of publication is relatively uncommon and it may even escape our notice.  I suppose that if a candidate had ten publications and they were all in "special issues" that might be curious.
All in all, in my neck of the woods there is nothing to worry about here.

In my part of CS, where like other fields of CS the conference publication is the primary delivery mechanism, a journal special issue is viewed as prestigious and is highlighted in CVs.
Typically a set of papers is accepted for publication and presentation at a conference. This conference is usually associated with a specific journal. Editors from that journal prowl the conference checking out the papers and presentations, After the conference is done they will then send out invites to selected authors inviting their paper for publication in a special issue of the journal.
This is considered prestigious because it's viewed as a 'cream of the crop' selection. It's also easy for authors because special issues normally have expedited refereeing.

" Editors from that journal prowl the conference checking out the papers and presentations, After the conference is done they will then send out invites to selected authors inviting their paper for publication in a special issue of the journal."  Interesting.  Nothing like that happens in mathematics (or at least the parts of mathematics that I have any experience with).

(Also: alas, unless you have proven the existence of bounded gaps between primes, there is little to no "expedited refereeing" in mathematics.)

@PeteL.Clark But then, the presentations at math conferences are not usually directly tied to papers like they are in other subjects (so the editors do not really have anywhere to prowl).

@Tobias: I agree.

The journal editors do not "prowl the conference" in my experience. Authors are usually invited to submit to the special issue by the program committee before the conference takes place. Also, in my experience, special issues do not have expedited reviewing or, if they do, it doesn't matter: one paper going slowly can hold up the whole issue for literally years.

in my venues, they certainly prowl :). and the invites come after. We also have hard deadlines for the journal submissions and processing.

My own experience of special issues in Computer Science journals is that they are typically considered the same as regular issues. There are two types of special issues: one is (as Suresh notes) invited extended versions of the best papers from a conference. Another is just based on open calls for guest editors to propose special issues. Indexing services do not typically note that the paper was part of a special issue. I have not highlighted special issues in my CV.
Whether or not the review process is expedited depends on the guest editors. From my own sample set of journal papers, the fastest turnaround for reviews was on a special issue (three months for acceptance after one minor revision, six months to publication). However the slowest was likewise a special issue (eighteen months for acceptance after one major revision, over two years until publication).
The risk with a special issue (timewise) is that all the papers of the special issue have to be accepted so as to be published on slices of the same dead tree. So one paper that lags behind will slow down the rest of the papers from being finally published and indexed.
In terms of acceptance rates, again it can be risky. If your paper is on topic for a special issue that does not receive many other submissions, your chances of acceptance may be slightly higher since the guest editors will be anxious to fill out the special issue. Likewise if your paper was solicited (e.g., from a conference) it would stand to reason that you would have better chances since the editors have already expressed interest in publishing the paper. On the other hand, the space for a special issue is more rigidly bounded than the more elastic regular call (which spans multiple issues). Hence if you submit an unsolicited paper to a special issue that receives lots of other submissions, the special issue could be a lot more competitive than the regular issue.

I've certainly experienced the time risk you highlight: the special issue for a conference held in early June 2010, for which we submitted our full paper in October 2010, didn't appear until late July 2013.


text:
How should a reviewer provide comments to a journal's special issue in a field he is not familiar with?
As an editorial board member for a low impact journal, I've been approached to provide comments on whether I think a proposal for a special issue is acceptable or not. I'm quite inexperienced in this role, and it seems rather different from reviewing a paper or grant proposal. I have been provided a list of guest editors as well as a justification statement, however, the special issue is not directly in my field so I can only assume credibility from prior publications (if I can find them).
Have any others been in this situation, and if so, by what criteria did they make a decision on acceptability?

I have been receiving a lot of invitations lately to review proposals for special editions -- mostly open access.  These proposals have been way outside of my area of study (and sometimes discipline).  My guess is they scrape the web for potential reviewers and use a shotgun approach -- but that is just a guess.
I ALWAYS decline serving as a reviewer if I am not sufficiently expert on the substantive or methodological issues.  I also try to highlight in my review where my expertise may fall short so the editor knows where to fill the gaps.
I suggest you decline any invitation if you are not qualified to review the topic.

It is difficult to say what would be the best way to deal with this since the way journals set up editorial boards and then use them differ. As a member of a board I would expect you have been chosen to provide expertise within your field. I assume the proposal you received was sent to you from an Chief Editor or equivalent? If you feel you do not have the insights then the simple reply is that you do not have the insights to properly evaluate the proposal.
If, on the other hand, the proposal came from the outside, the appropriate thing to do would be to pass it onto the Chief Editor for further consideration. Again, I am working under the assumption that there is one or a couple of persons in charge of the journal and that they have an editorial board associated with the journal to help the journal in different ways.
So contact the person(s) in charge and explain your standpoint.


text:
Publication process in the Communications of the ACM
Does anybody have experience publishing at the Communications of the ACM? I couldn't find any information about average duration of the review cycle or acceptance rates.

CACM isn't really a normal journal: it's sort of a magazine and sort of a journal.  If you want specific figures like that, it really depends on what you're talking about and how it links with their editorial plans and schedule.  In short: you need to talk to the editors to find out the information that you need.

How is this question opinion-based? It's asking for facts about the journal, not interpretations of these facts.


text:
How much of a maths background is necessary for a PhD in Software Engineering?
I am a third year undergraduate majoring in Software Engineering ,and hope to continue studies until a PhD.
I am from Sri Lanka.I intend to go for USA or New Zealand to do my masters and eventually my PhD
My High school subjects were Computer Science, Accounts and Economics.I didn't select Maths since I didn't like the subject at that time(although now I regret it everyday)
While doing undergraduate studies I did a maths course and scored poorly and didn't actually learn since they teach a lot of concepts in maths in a very limited time.
When I watch MIT opencourseware videos on Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence,I realized that the maths they use are Greek to me.I knew I had to do maths if I ever am going to have a career in academia after this.
Is it a smart move to take a semester break from undergraduate studies to study maths or is it possible to continue studies till a PhD without actually taking maths?

This post might be closed because the question highly depends on your specific situation. Could you specify in which subject you want to pursue a phd? Then you might rephrase your question as: "how much of a maths background is necessary for a phd in this subject"?

Where are you located? Where do you intend to do your graduate studies?

@dimpol Edited to include the above mentioned points.

@PatriciaShanahan Edited question to answer your point.

Taking even a year off might be a good idea, if you want to do a PhD, you ought to know at least the "basics". You can fill in a part of the gap year with an internship, for example.

It is a bit hard to say, because whilst you say you don't "know" math, you must know - some - from your Sofware Engineering undergrad and Comp. Sci. pre-university education. My background is AI, a very wide field that can involve all kinds of mathematical formalisms - from Tarskian Semantics to Calculus and most researchers aren't an expert in all of the areas AI makes use of, some are completely unknown to some researchers (in my experience). So your question, "do I need to know maths", depends on what you want to do - you don't need to know ALL of our current mathematics (no-one knows that anymore in any case).
So my first suggestion is to read some Software Engineering papers and see how much mathematics they use and what kind. If you want to do quantitative research you will need to know statistics. If you want to develop formalisms to support Software Engineers you will need to know some logic and basic ways to prove theorems, and so on.
My second suggestion is to think carefully about the Masters you do in order to encompass the areas you want to learn about. But, it is perfectly possible to learn much of this on your own - at first it'll seem difficult, of course.
To try and give you some encouragement, maths is often Greek to people, because of all the Greek letters, but in my view it is also possible to pick up the necessary parts. I taught (during my PhD) students coming from a wide range of backgrounds some elementary formal logic and Artificial Intelligence techniques, most of them picked it up fine and I think from there they would have been able to pursue a PhD in AI - I have also met people coming from non AI, Comp. Sci. or similar backgrounds that have pursued a PhD in AI.

Thanks for the answer!It is great to hear that non math background student get PhD in AI.My research interest lies in AI ,specifically NLP.

NLP is quite different from software engineering. I think it's best to look at what kind of mathematics the NLP papers you've had look like. From NLP work I've read you need to know the basic mathematics of: the techniques (Bayesian learning, neural networks, etc.), I say basic because you will (if anything) apply these techniques rather than extend them. You will also likely be conducting experiments, I think statistics will be the main area you'll need to focus on. In many departments there will be people with experience to help you in that area.

If you really want to continue till PhD, good math knowledge is a must have.
As iam not from the US, i wonder that you were able to even come that far without advanced math. At our university, the freshmans gets a pre university course which wrap up all high school math, as the first year is full of different (math and non math) courses that based on high school maths or even extend this kind of high school math concepts a lot.
Anyone who struggles with the high school maths in the wrap up course get the advise to improve in math.
I would suggest you to do the same.
As you already notice a lot computer science subjects relays on the mathematics concepts.
However i would suggest you to pick up a extra day the week (f. e. Sunday) and teach your self advanced math, rather than break of for one semester.
Maybe there are weekend courses for  math at your local city. (Some institues over here even paying students to hold such courses( as a free service for the undergrated) as they strongly suggest good mathematic skills)
DISCLAIMER:
Obviously it depends on your future subjects. I guess there might be a way to some how dodge advance math at all, but i wouldn't suggest it as you limit your self.

I am from Sri Lanka,and there is no strict admission requirements and the quality of education in the institute isn't that great so I didn't get any extra maths related work in my first year.

Do not despair.  Pick a couple of state institutions including a good community college, such as Montgomery College, and check what math courses are required for a degree (Associate's or Bachelor's) in computer science.  Then read the course descriptions and if they are posted, the syllabi.  Look at the college bookstore for that institution to see what the textbook for that course is.  Then preview the book in Amazon.  Your goal is to try to match up what you are already familiar with, against a particular course or textbook, or a portion thereof.  Do not hesitate to work your way back through the prerequisites as far as you need to until you find YOUR level.  This is just you, doing this, and you can be honest with yourself during this process.  It can be helpful to use a community college website for your analysis because they frequently work with students who have gaps in their previous studies.
You will see that, for example at Montgomery College, the three-course sequence of Calculus courses.  I won't get into a big explanation for why this is frequently the case, but I will say that many fields in computer science never use that kind of math.  So take that one with a grain of salt.
Once you have an idea where in the standard math sequence as taught in the U.S., update your question or write a new one, to get specific advice about filling in your gaps.
The other thing you might be able to do, is to make an appointment with the math department at your current institution, to get a placement test.
Have you heard the phrase "Knowledge is Power"?  Applied to your studies: knowledge of your current level is power.
Anyone can learn math.  As long as you don't jump in the deep end before you've learned the beginning parts of swimming.

My current institute doesn't actually have a "maths department". There is actually one lecturer who specializes in teaching maths, that's all.Thanks for the advise anyway!

@AthifShaffy - okay, so go with my first suggestion, and look carefully at some programs of study on the web.  I look forward to hearing where you place yourself.

Yeah thanks!Will do.As you said I should "take that one with a grain of salt".

@AthifShaffy What I'm saying is that you might not need three semesters of calculus.  Calculus is one path to higher order mathematical thinking, but it's not the only one.

Would upvote if the "Anyone can learn math" claim were removed.

@DanielR.Collins - Well, but I really do believe that.  I was a volunteer tutor for a year for a fifth grader with epilepsy who had a great deal of difficulty learning to even add 6 + 7.  But he learned that, and much more.  I can say that it took a great deal of patience and creativity....

For your consideration: http://matheducators.stackexchange.com/questions/11396/what-fraction-of-the-population-is-incapable-of-learning-algebra/

@DanielR.Collins - Okay, I read it.  To help you understand my point of view: I've seen children progress quickly and slowly through the Suzuki method; I've seen children achieve brilliance and competency through the method; I've seen children have to change teachers because of problems with fit.  But I do believe that "all children possess ability and that this ability can be developed and enhanced through a nurturing environment" (http://internationalsuzuki.org/method.htm).