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How would using pseudonym for an article impact career? How can I still gain credit?
I am a student in the humanities and for my Masters degree dissertation I did an ethnographic research on a rather politically sensitive topic. I would love to publish an article or two about my research but, at this point, do not feel comfortable/safe revealing my identity. Since it is a thesis, it is still on the university library—although under an embargo period. I am curious about whether using a pseudonym only for journal articles I may write for this research be a good idea? If so, would it be possible to claim credit later—say in CV or when applying to positions? What would your general advice and thoughts be?

The suggested post is not the same as I want to do this only for an article or two and it would still be published under my original name in library database eventually anyways @Sursulasupportsthestrike

So you want to hide your name and at the same time make it public (to get credit). Those seem mutually exclusive aims.

@MaartenBuis not exactly. I dont want to get credit by making it public. I only want to get credit in more private occasions such as applying for a position—sending your CV. So basically I am curious whether I can "claim" that this is my work and I wrote it under another name for safety reasons in these occasions.

The technical aspects of what you are looking for are fairly simple (providing a way for you to mark the paper in a way that would allow you to prove to others that it is yours without anyone being able to identofy you from the paper itself). Unfortunately, using this in practice takes a bit of infrastructure, which is generally not there in the situations where you need it, since it is not that common of a need.

@TobiasKildetoft I actually think that it is actually a need for many, but since many people do not want to engage with this because there is no such infrastructure, it seems that there is less need. I already know a few people in my circle who did not turn their thesis to journal articles because of the political sensitivity of it and the potential problems it may cause under more authoritarian regimes. So, I think such infrastructure would suddenly incentivize publishing and prove that it actually was a need :D just a thought


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Is "backward learning" well-documented?
I was initially in the field of pure math, but I successfully transitioned to being a researcher of machine learning with much less effort than I expected. My strategy was, instead of learning CS and ML from scratch, to read many interesting recent ML papers and, whenever I encounter with unfamiliar concepts or papers that are cited and seem to contain the information necessary for my understanding, I tried to find the relevant documents online to understand it.
While there is a vast amount of knowledge accumulated in ML, this unstructured way of pursuit strategy of knowledge turned out to be sufficient for me to cover the important information to contribute to the current state of research in a way I like, probably much more efficiently than by learning in a more structured way. I call this "backward learning strategy."
I think this may be similar to how researchers learn when they transition from an area to an area after PhD. Of course, feasibility of this learning must be dependent on the field. Even for pure mathematicians, one cannot understand an arithmetic geometry paper without at least having learned AG in textbook-level. However, it was not difficult for me to understand a paper on a certain kidney disease after reading some relevant papers, without much knowledge in medicine.
Unfortunately, I've not been able to find relevant information about this strategy online. I want some paper references for this learning.
Edit: Asking for anectodes may be not suitable for this site, so I changed it to paper references instead.

Anybody who starts a new hobby...

Request for anecdotes are shopping questions which are likely to be closed. You may want to ask for paper references instead. But perhaps you first want to find replacement terms for "backward learning", I wouldn't be surprised if this phenomenon is known, albeit under a different name.

The premise of the question that learning is normally structured and directional is incorrect.

I recommend this all the time at many levels of study.

@CaptainEmacs Totally agreed. Do you have any idea of the replacement terms of it? Maybe Google search with such terms will lead to better result.

@Math.StackExchange No, I know the phenomenon, but if I knew the terms, I would have suggested them.

The label that I use for this is "back-filling" (as opposed to pretending that there's some logical order to things).

@FedericoPoloni OK. Then, can I ask for paper references, instead?

@FedericoPoloni OK, I changed it.

Thanks! Retracting and deleting my previous comments (no longer relevant).

@paulgarrett That sounds more suitable to me.

Documentation I don't have, but anecdotes, sure.
Actually, I'd be surprised if what you describe as "backward learning" isn't pretty ubiquitous in mathematics for new researchers, say doctoral students. Another name for it might be "just in time" learning, or "just enough".
Suppose a doctoral student is trying to get going on some problem suggested by an advisor. The advisor gives the students a paper or three that might be promising for extension. Those papers might have been authored by the advisor.
But the advisor had a certain history of learning and a certain base of understanding when the papers were written that the student is very unlikely to match. Even though they have taken advanced courses in the general area, this is different and very specific. So, to understand that paper(s), the student looks, also, at the papers referenced there, or even just their abstracts. If that is enough to provide a base, then fine, but one level is not always sufficient. I'd suggest several levels is usually required. My own doctoral research required me to work through a forty year development of the topic, just to be able to state a problem.
Forty years might not be much in a sub-field that isn't very active, of course. But the student needs enough of that backward look until most of the things stated in the papers are actually captured in the typical course. Or, if not captured, derivable from them in a straightforward manner.
However, once you become thoroughly familiar with some highly specialized topic, you have gained a lot of knowledge that isn't in text books and probably isn't worth putting in text books due to its specialized nature (and appeal). So, such a person can continue to move forward without so much backing up as was first required.
And math papers are written for other math experts, not for school kids. The jumps between steps can be quite large. So, a working mathematician will fairly often ask "where did that come from" while reading a paper. They may just assume the jump is valid, but if not, then it requires a deeper look and perhaps going backward to specialized sources (i.e. the referenced papers).
So, pretty common in math, I think. With no basis for saying so, I'd guess it is similar in other technical fields as well. The basics that you find in text books can be pretty far from the research frontier in math and maybe other fields as well.

Thanks a lot for your answer :)

Yes, it's called "learning." Mathematics is highly atypical because we currently structure mathematical training as a pipeline as though this were the best or only way to go about it. (I would argue that it's not even a good way to go about it, and it certainly isn't true that it's necessary to have plodded through Hartshorne in order to begin reading papers in algebraic geometry.)
The only research on learning in the manner you describe is likely to be some learning-styles research on "holistic" vs. "sequential" learners. There seems like there might be some differences among students' comfort with these two approaches, but like all learning-styles research this needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
On the teaching side, however, it has become very voguish lately to use "backwards design" when creating courses, where an instructor starts out with a set of learning objectives and then, well, works backwards. I don't personally know of any examples of college- or grad-level mathematics courses doing this right. I know I have seen studies done on the efficacy of this approach in other fields, including STEM fields, but I don't have any references to point you to at my fingertips. Probably the best-studied examples are in foreign language instruction, where it has been well-established that an immersive approach is vastly superior to the old-fashioned vocab-and-grammar approach.

Great to know that it has become voguish in teaching. Yeah, foreign language is a good example.

To give an analogy from your own current field of ML/DL, this is the essence of transfer learning.
You train a model (~learn particular background and acquire skills) for a certain task (~a certain field). You then use this learning to solve a related, but different task (~a related, possibly applied, but not wholly different field) without re-training your model (~ learning the background/required skills from scratch).
It isn't surprising that 'learning' is common to the human and the machine, because ML is essentially mimicking human learning patterns.
If you are interested in a more neuroscience/sociological academic understanding of this, I'd refer you to researchers like VS Ramachandran. He calls it 'imitation learning' and relates it to the structure of neurons in the brain (mirror neurons to be precise) and suggests that the primary way of learning is to see something, imitate it and emulate it. The 'emulate' part is essentially what you are doing by applying skills developed somewhere to a different task/field.

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How shall I report my education and calculate my GPA?
I studied in program A, and received a master degree in A, and at the same time received a master degree in another program B by taking a certain number of courses and doing a thesis. Then I continued to study for a PhD degree in program B, but without finishing it.
In my resume for either graduate school application or job hunting,

How shall I report my education?

First master study in the two programs, and then PhD study in program B, or
master study in program A, and graduate study in program B receiving my master in B but not finishing PhD study in B.

I was wondering how to report my GPAs for my studies in program A and B?
In particular,

for my master studies, can I calculate my GPA for program A using all courses I took, and my GPA for program B using only the courses that I used to meet the master degree in B?
for my PhD study in program B, shall I calculate my GPA by including those courses that I took to meet the master degree in B or not?

How much flexibility do I have to calculate my GPAs? My university doesn't calculate GPAs for graduate students.

If your university doesn't provide a GPA, why would you invent one?

GPAs are required for graduate school application and job hunting.

As far as I understand, GPA is required if your university provides one… if you come from a different system, or an institution which doesn't have GPA (or that has a completely different grading system, or …) then you don't have it, period

My university is a standard one in the U.S.. It only calculate GPAs for undergraduate students. Applying to my university or others in the U.S. requires inputs of GPAs of past education.

If a graduate program is stupid enough to ask for your GPA without telling you what that means, you're free to use any reasonable definition you like.

@JeffE: thanks. I think the main reason is that my case is somewhat unusual.

What is required is a transcript ...

Since your university does not calculate your GPA, you should also not calculate a GPA unless you are told to. Most people do not care about your GPA from graduate level programs. As for reporting the PhD work, it really depends on what you did. Assuming you passed all the university requirements to be actually a PhD student, some universities require you to pass qualifying exams before you are actually a PhD student, you can list the PhD if you want. If you always intended to take the Masters and quit, you don't have to list the PhD if you do not want to.

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Should I use fancy paper for non-resume application materials?
I'm applying to an assistant professor position at a private institution. I bought fancy resume paper on which to print my CV/resume. There are other components of the application package that I need to include:

Official application (contact info, criminal background statements, employment records, etc.)
Teaching statement
Cover letter

Should all of these be printed on fancy paper? My feeling is that all except the official application should be, but at the same time that might make the relatively flimsy paper stand out.
The applications materials are being mailed directly to the chair of the department, and it is a very small department. There are only one or two other faculty.

What is this "paper" you speak of?

@jakebeal Added a link showing product.

I am voting to close your question because only the institution you are applying to can tell you precisely on which kind of paper they prefer to receive the required documents.

@BMS sorry, perhaps my joke was too subtle: my point was that I haven't seen a request for a physical paper CV or resume for a long time.

Agreed. All of the application's that I've seen are PDFs -- either direct from the candidate or our secretary scans them into PDFs for the search committee. I haven't touched a paper application for a job (or grad school) in many years.

These days, it's increasingly likely that your application documents will immediately be scanned and the originals discarded. In which case, nobody will be impressed by your fancy paper except possibly the office worker who does the scanning. Of course, it's also increasingly common that applications are strictly electronic, so maybe this employer is a holdout.

Above some minimum quality threshold (like, it's actually a piece of paper that is roughly a uniform white), the fanciness of the paper has had no bearing on any hiring decision that I've been a part of.

Since most people use electronic documents these days, if you're dealing with somebody who actually wants paper, it's likely they'll appreciate your fancy paper.  Print whatever you'd appreciate having on fancy paper (not worrying about expense, since it's just one packet for a long-term position) and you'll be fine.
If, on the other hand, you've got a choice or electronic or physical, you should ignore your fancy paper and send an electronic packet.  The physical submission option is only kept by many organizations as a fallback for odd exception cases.

I believe some departments require paper applications not because they like paper, but because they think the extra time and expense of preparing a paper application will ensure that they only get applications from serious applicants, thus reducing the time they have to spend reviewing them. But in such a case, they might immediately digitize applications upon receipt, and throw away the fancy paper.

Yes.
Any advantage or action that you perceive will gain you an advantage is worth doing, as long as it isn't unethical/against the law/etc. It might not impress anyone, or just the secretary who scans it, but it won't hurt either in those cases. A great application that is easy to read and on which somebody has obviously sweated the details is always a plus in my book, it shows that you care and that you pay proper attention to detail.
That said, other details are much more important than which paper you use, such as your prior experience, letters of recommendation, existing work and no spelling mistakes(!). Don't stress it too much.

It seems a lot of people disagree (that's fine, I'm not hurt), but have no further input on the discussion?

Any advantage or action that you perceive will gain you an advantage is worth doing: That is clearly not literally true.

I disagree because printing your CV on obviously "fancy" paper might actually make a negative impression. Not so bad by itself, but if the rest of the application (i.e. cover letter and CV) has similar displays of ostentatiousness... that's not a good thing. Refill paper is out, but no reasonable and logical person would care whether the applicant used standard photocopy paper or fancy paper.

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When asking for an extension to submit revisions, should I mention that I am no longer in academia?
I submitted a paper to a journal 6 months ago.
I finally heard back from them now,
and they would like revisions in 6 weeks;
for another round of review.
Since submitting that paper, I've submitted my phd thesis (which is now being examined) and am working full time in industry.
I plan to ask for an extension, for several reasons.
Including that it is the holiday season and my coauthors (supervisors) are all going on leave, as am I.
I am wondering if I should also mention that since I am in industry now, I have fairly limitted time in which I am able to work on revising my own papers.
On the one hand is is utterly true, on the other hand perhaps it is irelveant.
In general it seems like asking for an extention is probably not a big deal, since having been in review for 6 months, it doesn't seem like it would make much difference it it is finally published in 2 months vs 3 or 4 months.
Since plenty of people in academia also have limitted time to work on revising old papers (be it for teaching or for new projects).

Politely ask for an extension, keep it short, don't give reasons. Editors appreciate how hectic life can be and regularly grant extensions (without needing to know author-specific circumstances).

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Why do universities have a reappointment process before tenure?
US universities seem to have assistant professors go through a reappointment process before tenure. It seems like a similar review, complete with letters. Except unlike tenure, almost 100% of people get reappointed. In fact I do not know of a case in which a professor failed to have their contract renewed at reappointment.
Since it seems pro-forma, why do it at all?

It is not totally pro-forma; I do know of examples where the contract was not renewed, though it certainly does happen less often than a tenure denial.  I think the standard is basically "is it reasonable to hope this person gets tenure?"
I think the purpose is to try to get people ready for their tenure review by having a look at their case early, and trying point out where they are doing OK and where they could do better.  If nothing else, it focuses the minds of people in the department who might have let things slide otherwise.  It seems pretty logical to me.

As Ben Webster points out, it is not entirely pro forma (I know a couple of people who did not get their contracts renewed).  I agree with his points, but here's another aspect:
In departments where tenure denials are common, it's extremely valuable to get a preview of how strong the letters will be.  If they aren't compelling enough, the department will probably still renew your contract, but they'll warn you that tenure isn't likely.  This gives you several years to find another job, which is valuable because job hunting is more difficult after a tenure denial: universities that might have been interested when they thought they were competing with University X may not be as excited about taking what they perceive as University X's rejects.  So the information from the reappointment process may be very useful in ways that are intentionally invisible from the outside.

P.S. You might think the initial hiring would give a good preview of the letters, but it doesn't necessarily, since there are substantially fewer letters and they are all from people chosen by the applicant.


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Code/package developed by others - citation or co-authorship?
Say in one of my projects, I am using someone elses code in a published paper. The method is novel and therefore I also have some general discussion on how to apply the developed code in GitHub. Am I expected to include the developer of the code as co-author? Or would a citation be sufficient?

As a non computer scientist, this sounds to me exactly like something to cite, it isn't coauthor worthy. You are using published data and citing the source of it. It's like using anything else that's published. However, again, I'm not a computer scientist, so if the answer is any different, that will be interesting for me to see!

"apply the developed code in GitHub" What do you mean? Apply the code that you got from GitHub?

I came across a paper describing a method with a code posted in GitHub. The method is exactly what I need, and I download them to apply to my dataset

If you're just using their code, citation suffices.
It would be polite and probably appreciated for you to let them know.
If they modify or augment or configure their code in response to your needs then coauthorship might be appropriate.

It boils down to the question if the code and/or the implemented method was published before or not. If it was published, you can make use of the code like of any other published information (unless the license under which it is published does not allow it). Then, citing is sufficient. If you somehow got unpublished code, for example by private communication, you have to agree on the terms with whoever wrote the code.


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How to avoid writing a 'good but not great' reference letter
I am from Asia and I am writing a reference letter for my student for PhD applications to US universities.
Given the culture differences, I am afraid that I may write too conservative and hurt my student's chances, and it seems there are many ways that the letters looks good but may be viewed as bad in committee, or letters that are good, but not great. My question is, what are the common pitfalls for this, and can I avoid them, so that I won't write a letter that is good but not great, even if I actually want to write a great letter for the student?
I tried to be specific about my student's contribution to show that they have good research ability.
Here are some points I found, are they really true, do I have to/should follow this advice?

I saw some online material suggesting that I should write it very strong to be viewed as positive, like "they are a rising star in XXX, and it will certainly be a tremendous loss for your program if you don't admit them." Is it really true that I should write in this way so that it is a good reference letter? I feel it is really impolite to say so.

It seems some terms must be used so that the letter is strong, such as 'I support them' vs 'I wholeheartedly support them' and 'I believe they have a strong research potential' vs 'I firmly believe they have a strong research potential'. Is it really true?

I also saw some comments saying although some letters appear to be good, they actually aren't because the letter's writer clearly doesn't want to have any business with the student any more, even though the letter just states positive things about the student. I completely have no idea on how this happens.

Would the time to send the letter matter, e.g. before and after the program deadline? Will the letter be viewed weaker or even not counted if I send the letter after deadline?

I am from the US, and I think the proposed phrasing in 1 sounds pretentious and it would give me a bit of a negative impression.  What's most useful for foreign letters for me (from a school I don't know well) is if they can compare the student and/or rigor of the undergrad program to some place I do know, e.g., this student is at least as strong as my former students who have gotten PhDs at [...].

@Kimball haha yeah. Don't use #1. Only shills and magazine articles write like that.

For question #4, it is certainly the case that submitting your letter after the deadline can be damaging to a student's prospects.  You should always endeavor to submit them on time.

Writing as a comment because it's a different jurisdiction, but Germany is famous for its secret code in reference letters, partly because they must be strictly positive by law.

This doesn't merit an entire answer but for your 4th point: of course the time matters and letters sent after the deadline are not counted! That's the whole point of a deadline: things need to be done before it, and anything that happens afterwards is irrelevant. If the letter needs to come before date X and you send it after date X, then that is the same as not having sent the letter at all.

@terdon This is anecdotal, but: I was a day late with submitting all my grad admissions paperwork, and rushed to the office in a panic -- the very helpful admissions staff told me that actually, the deadline was pretty flexible, since the faculty writing letters would often find it slipped their mind to submit the materials supporting their students... so there's the "deadline" and there's the "well, we already started reviewing application packets, so nothing we can do now".

I won't deliverability do that but sometime students can send request 1-2 days before applications deadline, I will still try to handle it.

Here's a possible strategy. Acknowledge the potential difficulty recommending across cultures - something like

Rereading my letter, I am concerned that I have used too few
superlatives describing [student] for this position in the United
States. The custom here in [country] is to write less expansively. I
want you to know that this letter is the strongest recommendation I
could possibly write for a program here.

Just putting the idea out there. Not sure it's a good one.

My previous supervisor, who worked both in the US and the UK, used a similar disclaimer when writing LoRs for US groups.

Great idea. One might even put the last sentence in bold face or use some other form of emphasis, to minimize the risk of people not reading to the end.

Or... if you are worried that people may not read this at the end, put it at the beginning.

I think a good way to clearly indicate that this student is great (as opposed to just good) is to first give some ranking of how good you think they are. "In a class with X undergraduates and Y graduates, this student ranked #z". Then, you can give specific examples of how they excelled; they were inquisitive, always seeking to improve, etc.
For research it could be done similarly. "This student was (one of) the
most productive undergraduate research students I have ever had (at doing mathematics, at analyzing data, at running experiments, etc.)." Or even stronger: "this student was more productive than many graduate students I have worked with...". And then give specific examples of what they accomplished.

Out of context, I would interpret "this student was more productive than many graduate students I have worked with..." as damning with faint praise.  Saying "many" would apply even if the student was less productive than average.

Brian, I think we are to assume this person is an undergraduate so saying they are already better than many graduate students is strong.

This is a great answer. Informal rankings are very informative. It puts into perspective the tone of the rest of the letter. This is important especially if the writer is not culturally predisposed to heap on praise, which is quite common in the US. Even if the tone is reserved, but the writer notes this student was among the top 5%, then that is very useful information.

@Dawn: Thanks, that makes sense.  I missed that part of the context.  Bad reading comprehension by me.

Being from one of the Asian countries currently in the US, I hope my perspective will help. I would use plain language (not complex words and sentences) and definately use “strongly support”, “very proud to write this support letter”, “delighted to provide a reference supporting their application” or something similar to show you have strongly and positively supported the student. Besides using these languages, I suggest describing work/evidence of students that impressed you. For example, supported in research, making work efficient, talent of students that impressed you, critical thinking ability, skills, or something that impressed you to write such a compelling letter. Writing such a detailed letter with a few examples that impressed you will help without giving the impression that you are exaggerating students' abilities. I hope this helps.

I don't have a ton of experience writing letters of recommendation but I have asked for many and seen how many are received. It is true that in the US, at least at the institutions I have attended or worked at, that an "okay" letter is often taken as a poor letter. Usually because the assumption is that the writer is being polite and is offering empty platitudes instead of outright saying the student is mediocre (or worse).
"Just" good letters (or letters that are overly conservative) usually get skimmed and the box ticked - that is they neither help nor hurt anyone.
It sounds like you want to write a great letter though. That is a bit of an art (I've worked with people who wrote great letters and others who didn't despite their best efforts). The letters I have read that have stood out usually have a couple of key aspects 1) the letter writer clearly knows the student well 2) they have concrete examples of success and/or measurable comparisons to other students 3) they are written enthusiastically.
The first two should are relatively easy in the sense that when you have those things, the letter tends to write itself. Feel free to ask the student what they think their strengths are, what memorable moments in the lab/class they had, and anything they want you to highlight. These make good bullet points to weave together.
The third point is a bit of a style thing. Using stronger language is a start, but there is no need to write a cloying letter. Just be mindful that the way you normally write might need to be turned up a notch or two.
To answer your third point directly, this is what I meant by an "okay" letter. A writer may be obligated to provide something, or they may want the person gone (which requires them to be accepted elsewhere), or they may just not want to hurt any feelings by being upfront and saying they cannot write a strong letter.  Letters like this are usually generic and dry. If it reads like the writer didn't put effort into it or wasn't enthusiastic, even if the letter says nothing explicitly bad, an admissions committee will read between the lines. As long as you make an effort to do the three things above, I doubt you'll run into this issue.
As for your last question, when the letters are due is program dependant. I would just double check with the student what the program wants - it's on them to know but you also shouldn't assume. I don't really know why you would intentionally send the letter late though. It would not weaken the letter necessarily, it just might not be accepted. In fact, there is a chance the application as a whole will be tossed.

For the last question, I would not deliberately do so -- just sometime student could send a request 1-2 days before the deadline, I will still try my best to send on time.

"they may want the person gone (which requires them to be accepted elsewhere)" -- this doesn't seem applicable to OP's situation. An undergraduate completing their degree leaves the university by default, whether they have been accepted to a graduate program or not.

Here's my quick advice.

Begin by stating how you met the person.
List facts first. This can include achievements, what they did, how difficult that was, how much initiative they showed (e.g. they contacted you to discuss this long-open question, etc.). Make clear how very difficult the achievements were. This can and, if at all possible, should be kept in a factual, almost dry tone; let the facts speak. You can save your enthusiasm for the final concluding remarks.
Then list more general points and scientific personality traits. Again, keep it factual.
Some places like to compare performance in your group or with respect to given cohorts. If that helps, you can use it.  I personally do not like to do that, as I was lucky to have in my group or work with some absolutely outstanding people, which however are outstanding in different "dimensions" so to speak and thus are quite incomparable with respect to each other. However, if the candidate you have in mind is indeed a clear #1 or a
clear one percenter amongst the people you compare them with, this is an
expressive statement you could/should include.
After you made a strong case with the facts, you can do a summation and here, you can emphasize the strength of your conviction to get them. Explain what both institution and candidate would gain from each other (I find this motivation is useful for them to judge whether they would like to have this person on location). Don't write "it would be your tremendous loss", that sounds almost like a threat. Much better it is to say that (but only if it's true) you would have liked to employ the candidate yourself.
There are all kinds of codes to indicate strength of a candidate, but you need to check websites with the target country to ultimately see examples for strong recommendations are. However, starting with the factual achievements never goes amiss. It permits the committee to judge for themselves how to read your recommendation.

Write either (1) that you will yourself make an offer to the student, or (2) that you wish you could hire the student, but there is some reason (detail it!) you cannot.
If you don't do either of these, readers will wonder why you're not trying to get the student for yourself. The reason for (2) could be lack of funding, the student's desire to not stay in your country, etc.

Those are good things to write, but it’s certainly not true in my experience that “if you don’t … readers will wonder why you’re not …”  Plenty of very strong letters of rec don’t happen to use that particular phrasing.

Write objective statements.
Most of the things you are worrying about are because you are using vague language, like the difference between "support" and "wholeheartedly support". Those are subjective terms capable of differing meanings even within a single culture. Writing that you "support" them is in itself vague, as you might be supporting them for many reasons other than their skill and capability. The committee is not wanting to know if you "support" the student, they want to know if they will be good.
Write statements like the following:

This student was one of the N best in their class of M.
I believe this student has easily enough skills and ability to complete a PhD in your institution.
I believe this student is capable of an outstanding academic career.
I have no hesitation in recommending this student as a PhD candidate.

In principle, I agree with the sentiment, but it's better to also emphasize actual achievements rather than only projecting into the future.

Just to add to some other fine answers -- we get a TON of applications from international students, and it's not always easy for admissions committees to assign applicants to the category they belong in.  Your letter can help with this in ways you might find surprising.
When a US resident from a US college applies to a program, chances are very good that the school will be recognized.  If not, it's not hard to find school rankings and the like.
International applicants can't be assured that the evaluators will understand what type of school the applicant is coming from.  Is it a fantastic school?  Is it a mediocre school?  Who knows??  So, we tend to take applications from schools we know, or have heard of, or where we have colleagues who can tell us the reputation of the school.
That's an extra step, though.  If there's a whole pile of international applications from schools people know of, offers might tend to skew toward those schools.
So, while you're telling the evaluators critical stuff about how you came to know the student, how long you've known the student, how stellar the student is, how you endorse the applicant "without reservation", how you'd make the same recommendation for admission for this student at your own school, ..., try to add a sentence or two explaining the reputation of the school the applicant comes from.

You have some good answers here already, but I would simply add that you are correct to be skeptical, and that superlatives in particular tend to be a mistake, unless they are clearly genuine. But they can usually be easily amended from something like "the best" to "one of the best".

As a non-American, I also tend to write a bit more subdued letter.
Here is a method that I found works good at improving letters.
Write a letter without overthinking it. Then ask Chat-GTP to improve it. It gave me several good pointers (as in make this precise, or give an example) as well as suggesting some changes to make some statements stronger (by using better words). Sometimes, it might just be some additional vocabulary that's needed.


text:
Can students use Turnitin to view papers submitted by other students in the class?
Does the Turnitin Similarity Report show students snippets from papers submitted by other students in the same class?
For example, say John submits his paper a few days before the due date. Then Tim uploads his own paper and reviews his Similarity Report. Say Tim's paper shows a high similarity with something John wrote. Can Tim then click on the match and read parts of John's paper?

Only the parts which are common.


text:
Can free plagiarism tools cause plagiarism false positives when students upload content checked with free tools to Turnitin?
As a lecturer, I have advised many students to use a free plagiarism checker tool to verify their work is plagiarism free, when they don't have access to a widely-used paid tool like Turnitin. I encountered a questionable issue related to this in a discussion today. My question concern the following scenario:
When students do not have access to Turnitin, they can use any free plagiarism tool. Then they upload a small document (below 1000 word document) or they copy and paste the text and check for plagiarism using any free plagiarism checker. (I do not mention names here, most of the free versions allow only 1000 words.) When students upload their whole document to the university portal (UK universities Canvas or Blackboard), it will automatically check with Turnitin if the portal is supporting Turnitin access for student uploads. In this scenario, will it be shown as plagiarized or not genuine work, since part of the document or the whole document of the student has been uploaded in free tools? (In case the free plagiarism tool has stored the text - I do not know whether the free tools are capable of that or not - this work just like the way Turnitin works with student repository.)
Can the scenario I mentioned above happen?

If students really write their own stuff, why in the world should they "check for plagiarism" at all?

If it does then turnitin is seriously broken. (Which may be true anyway.)

@paulgarrett Agree with you. but incase they have missed to cite properly they will get caught for plagiarism right? (This can be identified using a free tool, correct me if I am wrong)

@Buffy is there a possibility?

I solved this problem by giving my students access to view their own Turnitin results. That was primarily a moral decision based on the premise that no evaluation of student work should be secret from the students. Of course, if they plagiarize, they'll be able to see what I see, too.

@BobBrown In my case students don't have Turnitin access from the very beginning. One week before the deadline they get Turnitin access, that's why I have asked students to check plagiarism with free plagiarism checkers till they get Turnitin access. By the time they get turnitin access, they can upload and they can view their own plagiarism report by accessing Turnitin studio. But my concern is will the students' work be shown as plagiarised content when they submit it to Turnitin as they already have uploaded those documents or parts of those documents for free plagiarism checkers.

@DanielHatton Until I read your comments, I didn't pay much attention to that. I just checked a policy of one site which the students refer to, https://plagiarismdetector.net/privacy
"User Content to Check Plagiarism

@DanielHatton Continuing from previous comment
We do not save or store the user content uploaded for checking plagiarism. Neither do we share the user content with any third party. The confidentiality of our users’ documents is a priority for us.
The files or content you upload for the detection of plagiarism is immediately removed from our system after processing.
The content or files uploaded by users are not indexed by any search engine."
If this has been implemented, there won't be any issues like I have mentioned in my post right?

Technically it would be "possible". It just depends on the systems. If the free tool has stored or published the content anywhere where it can be seen by other systems, then it's going to be a possibility. As has been said, the terms and conditions of any tools should be checked prior to using them to identify if the content is going to be used in any way.


text:
In which section to introduce control variables in thesis?
In a master's thesis in psychology, in which section should I introduce the control variables used in analyses?
The rationale for the inclusion of control variables in my study was based on prior research. But I think introducing them in state of research is too prominent and substantively, should be more methodical. Is the section of analyses plan a good choice or is referencing other studies there for the rationale of inclusion a no-go?

Before I retired I was a statistical consultant to grad students. I've seen a lot of dissertations from a lot of different universities.
Different schools and departments have different sections, but the following are kind of usual (maybe by other names):

Intro/literature review  (sometimes one section, sometimes two)  (I think this is what you are calling "state of research")
Method
Results
Discussion/conclusion (sometimes one section, sometimes two)

I think you should introduce the control variables either in the intro or certainly in the literature review. You use those sections to tell your readers a) What you are doing b) Why you are doing it and c) What others have done.
Then, in method, you should describe how these variables (and all the variables) are operationalized. That is,  you tell readers how you got values for them, in enough detail that they could, if they wanted, go out and duplicate your research.
.
I wouldn't worry about "prominence".  You can make them less prominent by writing less about them, or by making clear that they are only control variables. Also, while I am a fan of clear writing even in academia, a dissertation is not a novel. The emphasis should be on presenting the content in the approved manner.

Thank you very much, your post clarified a lot!


text:
Authorship dispute...my PhD project was published with me listed as the 3rd author
My Ph.D. study focused on the development of a screening platform (animal-based) to screen for interesting targets that show a certain disease phenotype, and based on this I also developed a drug screening pipeline, and lastly, to validate the results, I developed stable transgenic adults as validation for my screening method. I intended to submit this study as a small methodology paper, it is simple on paper but it still took my whole PhD to come up with the screening ideas, identification of the targets, and finally the development of the stable transgenic adult lines to validate my results.
However, my PI is known to postpone publication in the hope of submitting to high IF journal (He is close to retirement age and has always dreamt of publishing big)...so he wasn't letting me just publishing it in a small journal. He insisted that I need more work before this paper can be published.
At the end of my PhD due to some reasons I wasn't able to stay in that country, so I made a mutual verbal agreement with the PI that I will agree to let another new student to complete the project, but I can remain the first author and the student can be a co-first author. I thought it was fair.
Anyway, some time has passed, and I just received an email from my old team that the paper is ready to publish, but I was not even listed as a co-first but was listed as the 3rd author...
I found out that because the phenotypes from the stable lines that I developed were very obvious and consistent, so they have decided to ditch all my initial screening/ method development parts, but just focused solely on the adult lines and re-did the experiments that I have done, and also added some new experiments. So instead of a methodology paper, it became more like a functional characterization kind of paper with the transgenic adult lines that I developed.
Do I even have a case here? :(
I realize there might not be much that I can do since I have left that lab...

I think you have a case in that you've convinced me that you've gotten screwed over, but I don't know that you have a case in that there's much to be done about it.
Authorship is something that should be agreed upon among all authors on a project, so you can certainly protest your position in the list, but you don't have much to negotiate with. The "nuclear option" would be to put your foot in the ground and say that you won't agree to the paper being published without you being first author, but this is more likely to burn bridges than actually get you a first-author paper. Other options might include trading relative positions on different papers (i.e., if authors A and B have a current project and a future project, agreeing that if the order is A,B on this one it will be B,A on the second), but that doesn't really work as well if you're not still working with the people involved on other projects.
While you were promised a first authorship here, probably the new student was also promised that slot based on the work they put in, and may have spent just as many hours as you did, so while in any "battle" over authorship it should really be your advisor that loses, because they're the one making promises they can't possibly fill, instead in the event you become first author the other student loses out. They'd probably find that very unfair if they collected all the data ultimately used in the paper, anyways.
Probably you should have pushed harder to get some sort of paper out while you were actively working on things; it's really hard to do afterwards, when other people are needed to take your work across the finish. As a first author, you really need to be the one doing those steps.
I think in your position I'd suggest that you request to be made a "co first-author", as originally promised, but offer the other student that your name will be listed second. You can appropriately claim it on your CV as a (co-)first author paper, and the other student probably will be more open to that arrangement since even with the co-first statement, their name appears first anyways. Your advisor likely won't care too much as long as all the other authors (especially the two first authors) are on board.
They may deny this suggestion based on the long time in which you haven't contributed to the paper, and this really isn't fair overall, but it's also better than not having a publication at all (which likely is what would have happened if no one picked up the project after you left), and you won't really gain much by protesting further.
You certainly have my sympathy in that method development work in biology is often very underappreciated. It's difficult to publish good methods-only work at a level corresponding to the effort and intellectual quality involved. I understand your advisor's publishing strategy here, though it came at your expense. I would advise PhD students starting out that they make sure their thesis project is not limited to only method development, it can be too risky at that point in a career (not just for the reasons you've experienced, but also because it can simply fail, through no one's fault).

Thank you Bryan, I agree with everything that you said, and thank you for providing suggestions.
“I think in your position I'd suggest that you request to be made a "co first-author", as originally promised, but offer the other student that your name will be listed second.”
I came to the same conclusion here
In fact, I wrote a very long email to my PI explaining how I am grateful for the work that others have put in, and that I am happy to let the new student be the first author.

I also explained to my PI saying that the initial development of screening methods etc which came to my decision to focus on these targets and hence the development of these transgenic animal models that formed the basis of the whole manuscript that they now wish to submit, I believe I deserve at least a 2nd place co-first.
But the new student refused…I guess I am most saddened by this part. As when I handed over the project, I taught her everything without reservation, and at the time we agreed that this will be “our project”.

I think the fact that I have already left the lab and showed no intention of joining the lab again (After I moved to another country, the PI actually asked me several times whether I will go back and work for him, and I said no), while the new student is still a current lab member and is likely to stay in this lab. The PI has more incentive to keep her happy than to keep me happy. :'[

I guess there isn't much I can do without burning bridges as you have pointed out...I guess I will just have to swallow it and let it go... somehow.
Thank you for showing empathy in my situation and acknowledging how underappreciated method development is, I really appreciate this.

It sounds to me as if there are two papers. The one that you and your advisor were planning to write, and the one that got actually written after the new student got on board. That you get the third place in the list of the authors could be justified for the latter, depending on the details that I do not know and cannot judge.
The problem for your advisor and you is that the first paper can no longer be written. Your advisor could argue that after the second student came on board, a reconsideration showed lack of novelty in the work that was discarded.
You need to contact your advisor and ask them about the promised first paper. Maybe they have something in mind.

Thank you tschwarz, I agree with you, there should have been two papers.
The situation is, initially, I was happy just to publish the method development as a protocol kind of paper, but my PI insisted that I needed to create adult transgenic lines to "validate" my screening results, it took time but I did manage to create the lines eventually and also validated my screening results. So the data from these transgenic lines with the screening method development form a complete paper.

But the PI still wanted a little more, and he wanted me to pass on the project to a new student to "finish it up" after knowing that I cannot stay, we agreed on the authorship arrangement. But after I left, I have no control over the direction of the project. From what I've heard, the new student wasn't able to initiate other successful projects, and she found that the lines I created showed consistent results, so she redid my experiments but with more "n", and also did some new experiments, and also remove the majority of my data from the paper...:(

so now she is saying I haven't contributed enough to the final paper to be qualified as a co-first. I was kept in the dark about this until the manuscript submission.
So yes, now with them publishing my "validation" part, I can no longer publish my work. Becoz my whole project revolved around the development of a screening method that led to these targets, and eventually the creation of the stable lines to validate my method.


text:
CS conference paper rejected but recommended for conjunct workshop
Earlier this year my paper was rejected for conference A with 3 highly rejects, so I tried to revise it and then submitted it to conference B. This time I still got rejected with 1 weak accept and 2 rejects. However the program committee has just told me that my paper can be a candidate for one of the conjunct workshops and if I agree they will forward my paper to the workshop for review.
The thing is the deadline for conference A next year has just been extended so me and my advisor are considering resubmitting the paper to it. I have already been revising the paper before conference B contacted me. My first submission to conference A got really bad (but very helpful) reviews. This time the reviews are more positive as their main concern is only about experiments and evaluation that need to be more thorough. They hardly have problems with my design, which used to have a lot of flaws pointed out by the first review. So should I try the workshop with probably higher chance to get accepted, or should I bet my 2nd chance with conference A?  By the reviews I know that my paper is getting better, but since it’s already the 2nd rejection, I am not so confident that I can make it...

Nobody can tell you what you should do.
But I can tell you what I would do: Agree to have the paper sent to the workshop, and then make absolutely sure that my next submission to Conference A doesn't suffer from the same problems.  Get this paper out the door, learn from my mistakes, and move on.  There will always be another paper.
In my experience, a unanimous "strong reject" is an unambiguous signal that conference A does not want your paper, and even major modifications are unlikely to rescue it.
On the other hand, the meaning of review scores vary significantly between sub-fields of CS, and between conferences in the same sub-field, and even between iterations of the same conference.  So you really need to ask someone that works in your specific subfield how to interpret the narrative content of your reviews.  In particular, ask your advisor.


text:
Teaching in Germany with an MFA?
I have a BS in computer science and an MFA in Fine Art.
I am planning a move to Germany (and am in the process of learning German).  Is it possible to find work teaching at art colleges in Germany with an MFA?  I currently teach computer science and design/media at a college here in the US.
(I'm assuming I need to be fluent in German, but that might not always be the case because of the increase in international programs?)
If someone could point me to a good informational site that would be great.
Thanks.

Forget it. In German art schools being an actual well known artist can get you around the otherwise necessary doctorate.

Yes, I have an MFA in Fine Art which is considered terminal in the US.

Except that these days you can get an MFA in music, design, or dozens of other fields as well.  It's just come to mean a terminal degree in the field as opposed to an MA in the arts which is not considered terminal.

Lectures in Germany are normally given by professors, who by law need to have a PhD (and sometimes a Habilitation). There may be some wiggle room for adjuncts, but normally Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter—the research staff working under the professor—assist with teaching discussion or recitation sections as well as grading, but generally do not give lectures except in the case of absences by the professor.
Part of this is because the funding for academic groups is based on the number of exams graded by a given chair. So faculty will be reluctant to give away lectures, and thus lose out on the “credit” associated with the teaching.
There might be a room for an exception if there is a vacancy due to retirement or poaching. Otherwise, it’s probably hard to get a university lecture with just a master’s degree.

There are also pure teaching positions (Lehrkraft für besondere Aufgaben), but they are extremely rare – in my fields (maths and physics), there is roughly one vacancy per month in the entirety of Germany.

@Wrzlprmft: But are those master’s eligible?

Some are announced as such. But then, given the rarity of this positions, you might need to be the perfect candidate anyway …

The total number of open professorships in Germany is much larger than 12. When I entered Germany I thought (and still think) that the German system is weird: you only have temporary positions (PhD students and postdocs (wissenschaftliche mitarbeiter)) or professors, who have a permanent contract. There is virtually nothing in between. I always think of German universities as an army consisting only of generals. In some federal states lecuturers (Hochschuldozent) exist, but they are really rare. I have such a position, and the people have no idea how to fit me into the organization.

It's rare but not "incredibly rare" if you compare it to the number of professors hired each year, is it? – To do a rough calculation: fifty thousand professors in Germany, staying in the job for thirty years → ≈ 1600 positions per year. That’s for all fields, but it excludes people with Habilitation who are not full professors (many of which would be a professor in anglophone academia). Also keep in mind that the teaching positions in question are one of the few unlimited positions without Habilitation (or an equivalent) and thus there is much more competition.

@MaartenBuis Yes the German system is super weird that way. We have no "Akademischer Mittelbau" (people who work in science and education but are neither (phd) students nor full professors) to speak of. The union for people working in education has a campaign to improve the situation - you can read it here if you can read German: https://www.gew.de/wissenschaft/templiner-manifest/templiner-manifest-text/

@NajibIdrissi: And how many in math and physics...? – I don’t know, but I stated that “[t]hat’s for all fields”. But, to get an estimate: The university I am most familiar with has at least fifty professors and other people with Habilitiation in those fields, but not a single Lehrkraft für besondere Aufgaben.

In my field (sociology) you definitely do not want to base a career on Lehrkraft für besondere Aufgabe. They are extremely badly paid, and there is no job security. An extremely rare option would be Hochschuldozent. Though these positions are even rarer and you would still have to compete with people with a PhD.

If you have work experience outside academia you have a chance at a Fachhochschule.


text:
Rescinding or deferring admission over a break up

I have a full ride for a grad program at a good school
I've recently gone through an awful breakup with a girlfriend of 7 years
I now want to take an extra year before going to school, for many reasons. I could explain them to you all here, but that seems beside the point; assume they are compelling enough.
In my head, my justification sounded very legitimate and serious (the tale involves depression and hospitalization, an abrupt change of living situation, etc., all just before enrollment)
Now, typing out an email to the department, I feel totally immature. I try to word it more professionally, which only makes it look like I'm trying to be vague about my immaturity, which perhaps sounds even more immature.

How can I talk about personal relationship issues to people who it matters to, but for professional reasons, and not feel like I've tainted my name at the school?

I guess I'm a bit confused. Won't you enroll in the fall? How do you know you will be depressed and hospitalized between now and then?

You don't need to give them all the details. Say "Some personal issues have come up, and I'd like to know how viable an option it would be to defer beginning my program". If they want more details, they'll ask for them.

Indeed they have, hence my question

You probably should explain this is the second email on the topic as part of your question

Essentially I don’t think this will succeed.
The deferment option at many schools is intended to allow students the opportunity to take part in an experience they would not otherwise be able or likely to pursue, such as a Rhodes or Marshall fellowship. Alternatively, the use of unexpected, serious illnesses that would prevent enrollment might be granted a waiver. Changes in relationship status do not normally clear such a bar. The fact that you are struggling to explain it gives you a good indication of how it will likely be received by the admissions committee.

Alright, well, if deferral is not an option I may have to just rescind the acceptance... I've already brought it up and am in conversation with someone from the school. I just am worried that because I'm talking about a relationship issue at all, no one will respect the decision. I don't want to come off as immature or naive; my field is quite small. It's a shame that relationship issues have that stigma.

@GeoffreyBrent Yes, though it is the other party in my relationship, not me. That is why I fear judgement. If it was my spouse, people would understand, but that is not the case.

@Anonymous Ah, right - you may want to clarify that in your question.

Sounds to me like the problem isn't a relationship status change per se, but the mental health problems that it caused. If someone needed cancer treatment they wouldn't ask for a deferral due to smoking. There's good reasons people have difficulty explaining mental illness, such as lack of information and stigma.


text:
Is is inappropriate to bring a +1 to a gradate school recruiting weekend?
I have a recruiting/visit weekend coming up for one of my prospective PhD programs (to which I've already been admitted). Travel is covered, and my hotel is paid for. Food is provided the entire weekend. I had intended to bring my girlfriend. She is my SO of 6 years; we live together and moving somewhere for school would be a big decision on both of our parts and she really should be visiting the city/school before I accept anything.
She of course doesn't need specific details about every aspect of the program, as I will no doubt receive, or to meet faculty, and of course the university has no reason to pay for her weekend. My parents also were hinting that they wanted to come, but that's an even bigger stretch, it seems.
Am I overthinking this? Or is it really not appropriate to be bringing a +1 to a recruiting weekend. I can always bring my family members there soon after to show them around.

I don't really understand the question. Du you want to bring her / your family to the official events (of which you say they might not be of interest for them) or will they just be in the same town at the same point in time (with which I would see no problem)?

I only have one data point and it is perhaps not suitable as an answer, but: I brought my wife with me on my visit to the school I eventually ended up going to, and my soon-to-be PI's group were very welcoming of both of us to the various social gatherings (a few meals) that we attended.

Why don't you ask your hosts? As @Dawn suggests below, you would want to ask them about your SO's attendance at particular events anyway, and even if the hosts say they'd prefer not [for some reason, can't imagine would it would be] it's certainly not an unreasonable question.

@OBu Well the university is paying for my lodging, so they would then be paying for hers as well with her being in the same town at the same time as me.

Bringing a significant other who would be relocating with you to a recruiting weekend is acceptable. In fact, some schools/departments would encourage it. We routinely welcomed SO to our recruiting weekend and saw it as a "good sign" when prospects brought such a person.
I would not bring your parents (would make you seem juvenile, and I have never seen this in practice) and I would also hesitate to bring a significant other who would not be relocating with you.
The next question is which events the SO should attend. This is probably a good question for whoever is planning the recruiting weekend. I would expect the SO to attend social and student-only events (meals, tours, social evening), but not academic events.

Thanks for your helpful response, I will contact the department


text:
Colleague asks for feedback on a paper of which I am a reviewer
More than once, I have found myself with a curious ethical dilemma.  Due to the nature of the dilemma, however, I have waited quite some time to ask this question, in order to increase the anonymity of those involved.
Here is the dilemma: a colleague of mine sent me a copy of a paper currently under review, saying they thought it would be of interest and wanted to get my feedback, since it is a subject on which I am known to have expertise.  The only problem was that I was one of the reviewers for the journal (and indeed had already turned in my review before my colleague approached me).
There was no ethical conflict for me performing the review, and no impropriety on the part of my colleague for sharing the manuscript either: we have similar research interests but have never collaborated closely, and the circumstances of the sharing mean there is no reason to think this could be an attempt to influence a possible reviewer.  Still, I found it challenging to interact in such a way that it would not breach my anonymity as a reviewer.
What do you think is the best way to handle such a situation?

You didn't say so explicitly, but I'm inferring that your colleague is an author of the paper in question?

@NateEldredge Yes, nothing strange or inappropriate, just an ordinary private sharing of their own unpublished manuscript to get comments to strengthen it.

While I can understand sending the paper to a colleague who might be interested, it seems odd to ask for feedback at this stage, where it is too late to incorporate it into the paper.

@TobiasKildetoft It doesn't seem odd at all to me: one would only be without a chance to incorporate feedback if you assume your paper will be accepted as-is, without even minor revisions, which is very rare indeed.  Moreover, if your project isn't a dead-end one-shot, technical feedback is always useful.

What do you mean by "colleague"? In the standards of my field, being in the same institution as one of the authors is viewed as a serious enough conflict of interest to disqualify a potential reviewer.

Have you considered writing a fresh answer to the colleague without caring that you wrote (or are writing) a review? What I mean is, just write the answer on your knowledge of the paper without caring that you are also writing a review. I think this is a natural approach and does not really have a downside.
You know the paper quite in depth, and you can provide valuable feedback. You will do so (or already have done so) in a formal way through the peer-review system, but now you have the opportunity for formulate the feedback in a more casual way (compare it with writing down results for a formal publication in a journal or at a conference and a discussion of the results on your personal blog - you describe the same things in a different way of communication). The only downside I see is, that the person will get some more clues that you may be a reviewer but I am not sure if this really is a downside at all.
Another downside may be that it costs you more time and that you don't want to allocate time to provide feedback twice. In this case, you can politely answer something like "Thanks for the paper - I try to find time to read it soon and come back to you in case I have any feedback." I guess most people understand that this can also mean that they won't hear anything more from you on that matter…

It seems to me that there are several options:

You don't admit having reviewed the paper and say that you don't have time to read the paper at the moment (or make up some other excuse). It appears to me that this is unlikely to be a good option because you can expect him/her asking you about your opinion again at some point.
You don't admit having reviewed the paper, but nevertheless provide feedback to your colleague. To protect anonymity, your feedback should not be too similar to your review, especially as far as details are concerned.
You admit having reviewed the paper. Technically, you/we shouldn't do this, but I don't think much or any harm is done to the system of anonymous peer review provided this is done after the editor has made a final decision on the acceptance or rejection of the paper. Of course, you need to consider (a) whether you can stand behind your comments without the shield of anonymity, (b) how your colleague might react, and (c) how this might impact your relationship (which is likely to see a reversal of the author/reviewer roles). It might be that your colleague is open-minded and well-adjusted and can therefore take constructive criticism from a positive review well. On the other hand, it might be that even minor points in your positive review will cause him/her to become annoyed or enraged at you. Of course, if the review was mostly negative, even an open-minded and well-adjusted colleague is unlikely to be pleased.

If I were in your position, I would go for option 2 or 3 depending on how you think your colleague will react to your review.
I have been in the position that a colleague came up to me admitting that they had reviewed a paper of mine (after a final decision had been made). The review was detailed and positive, but also made some critical comments that improved the paper. Thus the peer review process worked and was not impacted by the reviewer revealing his identity. The critical comments by the reviewer were entirely reasonable and have not changed my personal opinion of him. Actually, to the contrary: My opinion of him has increased because he demonstrated excellent understanding of the subject matter and took the time to write a detailed and constructive review. I have also heard of several other cases in which anonymity was breached after a decision by the editor.

You could simply go for the half-measure: tell the colleague you are one of the reviewers, but not which one. If they are reasonable, they will be able to understand your position, and will not dig into the issue anymore. If they're not reasonable, well...why would you care then, i suppose.

"Still, I found it challenging to interact in such a way that it would not breach my anonymity as a reviewer."
Either:

Breach your anonymity as a journal reviewer (if doing so would not help deanonymize the review of the remaining journal reviewers and the journal has no policy preventing you from doing so) and share your honest opinion with your colleague
Tell you colleague that as a journal reviewer that you cannot ethically share your opinion because by doing so you would weaken the anonymity between the remaining journal reviews and their reviewers.

No, please  do not breach confidentiality.  It is not only is intended to protect the reviewer, but the process. (One assumes the reviewer and the author are not communicating or making deals behind the editors or the communities back )  Sure, you say you aren't asking for special favor from the author for now or later. But it smells. If the peer review process is open (reviewer name is public) then the community can notice if some smelly tit-for-tat happens based on who reviewed whom. But in confidential peer review we have to rely on separation beween the author and reviewer.


text:
What are the best answers to these questions appear on recommendation letter
I am unsure about the following questions:

"During which period of time have you had the most frequent contact with the appliacant?
From ___  to  ___ ."

What am i supposed to answer? Date, days, time? Anything else?

"What was the nature of your relationship?"

What does it mean?

What is family name?

Is that a name we got from father?

The first question is about time, but it can be pretty general. A range of months, or even years.
The second might be something like "I was the student's professor in three economics courses" or colleague. Professional relationships are best.
The last is culturally determined and can vary widely. Your suggestion is pretty close to accurate if it is meaningful to you. In Europe, it is usually the "last" name. In Asia, usually the "first" name (also in Hungary). Some other places it is actually the father's "given name". Perhaps it is a name you would share with your siblings. Or the name you are indexed by in scientific publications.
The fictional Kristin Lavransdatter was the daughter of Lavrans, in Scandinavia. But her brother would have been ... Lavransson. Do your best with this one if you are from a distinct culture.

If i met the applicant since 2013-2017 i write "from 2013 to 2017 " ?

That works if you had at least periodic contact through the period.


text:
Plagiarism checker for mathematics paper
I recently accepted to referee a mathematics paper. This is my first referring assignment and was wondering if there are free plagiarism checkers more suitable for math papers.
side note: Several years ago I saw a paper stating a theorem which sounded so familiar to me. I happened to have a reference book in that topic. Long story short, "their theorem" in that paper was verbatim from the book without referencing it. Unfortunately, I did not contact the publisher that was surprisingly the mathematical society of country X (I should have).

Do you have some reason to believe that ordinary plagiarism checkers won't work?  Even highly mathematically dense papers typically have a lot of prose to explain the mathematics.

@jakebeal  It might be useful to have a plagiarism checker specifically for equations (or maybe not).  That doesn't seem to be what the OP wants though.

Before checking, one should verify if the software doesn't keep a copy of the manuscript uploaded on their servers. For example, viper keep a "secure" database. However, some time ago I come across a blog/forum where a researcher had some problems publishing a paper because he checked it with Viper, and then after some time the paper was uploaded   freely on internet before the peer review ended. Unfortunately, I don't find the link to the discussion anymore today.

Avoid using a system like the one mentioned above if you don't read the fine print. Using it gives them the rights to sell your paper on their paper mill 9 months after you submit it.

Well reading the comments (in particular Kimball, Jakebeal and yours)and going through the first few pages of the paper, and the fact that I have not seen any flags for plagiarism ( English is bad, checked the most recent references  and also my own judgment ) I assume that the paper is genuine and original unless I see something blatant while reading the rest.

I'm not able to understand the usage of the word "surprising" in the last line, but I can't think what word could replace it. Possibly "supervising," but would a publisher be supervising a mathematical society?

As in jakebeal's comment, if there is actual plagiarism, it will be picked up in the text, so you could use a generic plagiarism checker.  Note the arXiv checks for text overlap and picks up quite a few things (the stated purpose is not to catch plagiarism, but it still does, though mostly "self-plagiarism" as far as I am aware).
That said, having done a fair amount of reviewing in math, this is not something that's typically done.  Ideally, as a reviewer, you should be fairly aware of what's already been done in the area, and at the least, literate enough in the area to search for what has been done.  (One tip: look at the crucial references, and check for papers citing them.)
Update (2024): I happened to look at a publisher's reviewer guidelines today, and they indicate the journal does use the iThenticate plagiarism detection system, so perhaps this and AI-detection tools are becoming more common in math.  However, using such tools is still not a concern for individual reviewers.  End update.
What is much more likely than outright plagiarism is that some or all of the main results are already published, but unknown to the author.   This may be because the results are not stated in the exact form the author is proving, or just the author wasn't aware of the appropriate papers.  (I once pointed out that one of the papers the author referenced contained stronger results than the author proved--the author just didn't realize it!)
In any case, a proper literature search in the process of reviewing will turn up plagiarism almost all the time if it happens, and moreover is important for a good review.  So my advice is don't worry about using a plagiarism checker, just do your homework.

+1: reviewer's task as an expert goes much beyond running automated plagiarism checks, which may also give you false leads: maybe it's an anecdote, but once I've heard that anti-plagiarism tool report was triggered by using the phrase "Let G be a group" too often.

From a U.S. perspective... I've never in my life thought about "plagiarism" when refereeing a paper. If it does copy previous work, that previous work would most likely be know to me (from my attempt at competent scholarship). More often, novices fail to understand prior work, etc., so the problem is not "plagiarism" but something else.
If you, as prospective reviewer/referee, do not feel confident to assess these things, you should decline...

My impression is that people in the US are among those most concerned about plagiarism.  Which is to say that in this case I'd interpret your words: From a U.S. perspective... as suggesting a sort of global upper bound on how much referees think about plagiarism in math (which I don't disagree with).

Ah, @Kimball, you may be right... but/and this is crazy... sigh... aaaaaagh...