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I haven't finished my undegraduate degree but I'm a coauthor in an article. What should I put as my college level?
I finished all my courses at my college as a math undegrad but I don't have my degree, because I haven't submitted my thesis. (It is necesarry to submit the thesis to get the degree.)
At my job, we did a research project, and I'm a coauthor. Everyone else has a master's degree or a PhD, but I don't. For example, my boss finished his courses in a math graduate program and he is writing himself as "John Smith, BMath". How should I write my scholar level?

Some PhD students who are just short of their dissertation write PhD (ABD) where ABD stands for "all but dissertation". Perhaps that's an option?  Possibly a bit strange for an undergraduate degree.

The entire title is about one-upmanship and basically devolves into appeal to authority since none of it says anything about the quality of the article.

You haven't formally graduated yet, so you can't claim to have any degree. Whether or not you have published a research paper is irrelevant. Simply write "Ms Perez" or "Valeria Perez". If there is a short bio/contact section in the publication, you can include your current educational status there, e.g., "Valeria Perez, student, XY college, department of mathematics".


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As handling editor, should you invite only female reviewers for manuscripts authored by women (eg 1st, last, and/or corresponding)?
As Chief Editor, Associate Editor, or Handling Editor of scholarly manuscripts, mainly but not solely focusing on cardiovascular disease), I have often the last say on which potential reviewers to invite.
I am becoming more and more conscious of the need to support female authors, and I am not sure whether just picking peer reviewers based on expertise, past review quality, and willingness to support the journal is enough.
Indeed, I believe that manuscripts which can be easily identified as led by female authors (eg because of a woman being 1st author, senior author, and/or corresponding author), should be sent out for peer review mainly to female peer reviewers.
Is this reasonable? Is there any evidence in favor or against this approach?

This sounds like a case of 'treating the symptoms rather than the problem'.

I don't know whether the double-blind suggestion is something you can pull off, but one thing you can do is try to get more women and underrepresented groups as editors (if it seems like they are underrepresented on your editorial board).

If the names of the authors are not allowed to be removed, might it be possible to just use the initial letter of their first name and the whole last name?

I think what you mean by "the need to support female authors" should be clarified. Are you saying you want to accept more manuscripts by female authors? Put that way it sounds crass, but then what exactly do you mean by "support"?

No, that would be ridiculous as well as wrong. Is there "female science" and "male science" and never the twain shall meet? Would you only select male reviewers for "male authored" papers? Black for black? Handicapped for handicapped?
If you think there is bias in reviews then you might consider double blind reviewing.
And, you should probably do some things to increase the number of female (and minority...) reviewers and get them involved in papers, but not by matching in some way.
And, it is also possible that you could be considered insulting if women, say, think you are selecting them only for the papers of women, and that they aren't in some way worthy to review the papers of men. Backfiring.
Select reviewers on skill and experience. Seek to have a wide range of experience and viewpoint. Ignore extraneous factors.

Caveat. In some scientific studies the population considered for sampling is not indicative of the whole population. This is a special problem in medicine if some sub-populations with special characteristics are excluded either intentionally or otherwise. That problem needs to be solved, but not like you suggest. Nor do you even give this as a reason.

Um... "That would be ridiculous as well as wrong" in the first paragraph. But "you should probably do some things" in the third paragraph. Sigh.

I will respectfully disagree with Buffy regarding the "ridiculous as well as wrong" comment. Clearly, the current system has not served women well in the sciences, so it comes over as colorblind to suggest that wanting to change something would be "ridiculous as well as wrong". I don't think that dismissing the OP's ideas as meritless is useful in addressing the very real issues women face in the sciences.

@WolfgangBangerth, do you think the OP's solution actually has merit? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The "solution" is counterproductive to the intent. I wouldn't have been as harsh with a new user here.

@Buffy No, I don't think that the suggested solution is actually particularly useful, but I don't think it is "ridiculous". I do think that thinking about the problem is useful.

There is evidence that female academics do more service work than male academics.  If you select certain manuscripts and only ask female academics to review them, you will be increasing the amount of unrewarded service work performed by female academics.  This seems likely to make it harder for female academics to succeed in their careers.

I think you've ignored essential aspects of the question. It wasn't about workload.

@Buffy The essential flaw in the "question" (which is really advocacy) is that it ignores workload.  Workload is an important part of discrimination.

That's a nice answer. But I'm wondering why is it that service work hinders one's career? I think that service work can actually promote quite heavily the career of some. This merit a question by itself I suppose.

@Dilworth as with most things in life, it is a matter of degree. There is a level of involvement in service that is healthy and has net positive effects for one’s career. But there is also an unhealthy level where people spend so much time and energy on service that it takes away from their ability to do productive research. And as this answer points out, it’s often women and underrepresented minorities who are tracked into such unhealthy levels of service by being the target of everyone’s requests to help out with service.

@DanRomik, thanks, this makes sense. Though for the record, from my own anecdotal (but extensive) experience, it was actually women who usually found very creative ways to get away with little to no service.

This sounds like a great scheme to undermine the credibility of papers authored by women, which if your policy suggestion is implemented, will now be seen as not carrying the stamp of legitimacy of having been reviewed by reviewers picked “just based on expertise and past review quality”.
In other words, this is the exact opposite of “supporting female authors”.
Of course, “past review quality” could legitimately include any knowledge you have of a specific reviewer (male or female) being biased against female authors. In such a case, it seems reasonable to avoid such a reviewer even if they are an expert in the subject matter of the paper, just like you would avoid them if they previously did a sloppy job, were bad at meeting deadlines or have any number of other issues that hurt the scientific mission of your journal. But avoiding male reviewers for female authored papers as a matter of policy does not support either female authors or science.
Also, as others have noted, to the extent that it’s possible to eliminate gender or other identity attributes as a factor from reviewing altogether through adoption of a double blind reviewing policy, this seems like an excellent device to eliminate bias. In the analogous setting of orchestra auditions, such policies have been credited with a significant increase in female representation in orchestras.

I'd say that a reviewer who has shown bias against female authors (or authors from any other demographic) has gone beyond doing a "sloppy job" and therefore fits in the category of reviewers to be avoided for any paper, regardless of the author.

@MarkMeckes I said it’s reasonable to avoid such reviewers, so yeah, this can certainly refer to any paper. And a reviewer who did a sloppy job, if it’s sloppy enough, may similarly disqualify themselves as a reviewer for any paper. Arguably an extremely high level of sloppiness can be more disqualifying than an extremely mild level of bias, so I see no reason to declare one of these types of human failings as categorically worse than the other.

If you are concerned about a bias from reviewers related to the gender (or any other issue), as an editor, why not rather push instead for a double-blind review process? That way, you kill biased reviews at the root by making it impossible to know which gender the authors of a paper actually have.

@DanielHatton from the sources I have read it seems that double blind peer review is not leading to a higher number of published manuscripts by female authors, but this is not the question here.

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Dealing with competition from inside the lab
I invited a coworker with shared expertise to collaborate on/coauthor a paper (both postdocs). The result was ultimately much better due to this input. He also had an idea for an alternative approach to 'my problem', and published a second paper with me as coauthor. While this is beneficial in the sense that it increases the quality and volume of both our output, I find the situation highly stressful. I am not aggressively competitive by nature and feel that his behaviour is arrogant and offensive. I understand that once you have published a result, any generalization thereof it is ‘up for grabs’. However, people with access to your unpublished work have an ‘unfair’ head start. Is there an unwritten understanding with respect to crossing the borders between the territory of your coworkers? How can I avoid this type of conflict/coworker in the future? Am I being overly sensitive and need to develop thicker skin/not cut out for this type of business?

I don't understand. The collaborator did invite you to be co-author on a paper whose idea is his. How this is considered arrogant and offensive. How do you "own" a problem?

This is why I put the ''-marks on 'my problem'. I realize I do not own the problem. But it is mine in the sense that I formulated it, recognized its importance and wish to solve it. 'His idea' is in some respects but a short leap from mine. He did, for example, not need to do formulate the problem or do any literature review, just 'copy' them from my paper. Yet his work completely encompasses mine since it is a generalization, making my work obsolete.

The move is aggressive and offensive in the sense that he is moving in on 'my territory'. Suppose that one coworker at any kind of workplace started taking over the work responsibilities of others on his own accord. Clearly, this would not be looked kindly upon and would be an unhealthy situation for the workplace.

It could be argued that others should be grateful that he is doing their work, but in any kind of career orientated workplace I do not think that would be the case.

"I am not aggressively competitive by nature"... well, judging by your post, you are aggressively competitive. Might be by nurture, though.

:) I will try to rephrase the question. Someone tells you about his research problem and its solution. Is your reaction along the lines a) cooperative, something along the lines of 'that is interesting, have you thought about this aspect' or b) competitive in the sense of ' I have/can find a better solution'. How does one collaborate with these two different types of people?

A person who is 'competitive by nature' may prefer collaborations of the type b) since it drives them to excel. In my case I experience stress that I would like to avoid.

I'm struggling to understand too. Your co-author is collaborating with you to produce high-quality results. What problem do you have this that?

I find your dichotomy quite strange. I would characterize “That’s cool; have you thout about X?” as mildly interested but not really cooperative, and “I think have a better solution; let’s write a followup paper” as actively cooperative. When I tell people about my research results, the second reaction is the one I really want.

Is there perhaps a typo and it should have said "without me as coauthor"?

We have probably received many questions somehow similar to this one showing that actually many PhD students and postdoc don't have a clear idea or totally misunderstand what science is really about.

To provide some more background: I first told my coworker about a problem I was working on. He proceeded to find a solution that was perceived to be more general and suggested that I abandon my approach. I wanted to go ahead and publish. This lead to some discord, but we reconciled as I offered him co-authorship on my paper and he reciprocated. He had some good input on my paper, making it stronger. I found some mistakes in his paper and suggested corrections.

It turned out that his result required an assumption that mine did not. I made that the selling point of my paper. Having learnt of this nice property of my approach, he proceeded to generalise the paper a second time. This will be the third paper. As such, our relationship is productive. However, I am afraid that the next time I approach him with an idea, his MO will be to one-up me once more. I find this aspect of our collaboration stressful and wonder how to deal with such feelings?

Asdf, ideas are a dime a dozen: the value is in making the idea work. Since you two together seem to make ideas work better than they would if you worked on your own, try to turn this in a long standing collaboration in which no one cares about whose idea is which.

Science is a collective endeavour to build and spread knowledge, improving our understanding of nature. Collaborating and building on each other's expertise with proper recognition is a must.
You collaborated with a colleague of yours, and not only did this joint effort  produce a better result, but it also produced a further result, unforeseen at the beginning (and which, for you, came almost for free).
Celebrate the successful moment, hope that all your future collaboration will work out smoothly and productive as this one, and if necessary rethink carefully at your motivation in doing science, to avoid being stressed by something that should be the normality (and that too frequently, alas, is not). That is, be competitive against yourself to improve yours and everyone's knowledge and not against someone else.

Yes, I think something like this should be the right course moving forward. I guess there are many aspects of work in academia that perhaps do not seem natural to everyone on first encounter, but over time one adjusts and become comfortable.

It is rather common for a problem or question to be generalized, that does not mean that the original problem becomes void. Furthermore, the very reason to publish a paper should be to interest others in the topic and not to just increase your paper count. He also included you as a co-author in his paper that, given your formulation, he wrote almost by himself based on your work together, so I'd think that he is more than willing to give you credit for your work.
I would suggest to communicate with the coworker and discuss future work on this field. There are three choices here:
1) You both want to continue to work together on the topic. No problem then, just do it; you only need to decide who is first author, if that is an issue in your discipline.
2) You both want to continue to work on the topic, but not together. That might cause some problems and I would suggest to agree on different aspects for you to work on if possible, otherwise you might happen to publish similar results at around the same time.
3) One of you doesn't want to work on the topic any more. Then the other is free to do as he pleases, of course giving due credit to the other author by citing your joint papers.

I talked to him. We have chosen option 1). I think the future holds more stressful moments like this one, but hopefully I learn to recover from them faster.

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Asking about possible future collaboration
Last year, a researcher produced a nice dataset that happens to be uniquely well-suited for use in a study I plan to carry out. At this time, I am in the process of applying for funds. Does it make sense to contact him asking if he would be interested in a future collaboration which, provided the project is funded, would commence in 2019? The advantage of doing this now would be to mention the potential collaboration in my proposal. Note that the data is open access, so I could just use it without contacting him. Nor is he anyone famous, but I feel that a connection would make my project appear more concrete and realizable. I wonder how all this might be perceived by him however, what would you expect?

"Y-yes?" I tried putting on the shoes of the addressee-to-be. I'd be glad to have a further collaboration, a bit flattered that you asked, and willing to know how much work I'd need to invest and if there is any funding to share. I also highly doubt anyone would forbid you to use the data.

This sounds promising. I was worried about the uncertainty involved in the request, that the project has not yet been funded, but I guess that is a pretty common scenario. Thanks.

Does this answer your question? Unsolicited request for a scientific collaboration

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Is removing variables from a public data set for non-scientific reasons a misconduct?
This question applies to both data set I generated from my own research and public data set I reproduce in teaching.
Suppose in a data intensive course, I used a publicly available data set as an example (with proper citation), and, for purely non-scientific reasons (e.g. to avoid a politically sensitive issue), I removed a variable (among many variables) from the data set. The modified copy is stored in the course management system with no explanation given as to why a variable was removed. The removal of the variable is obvious --- anyone who actually looked at the data would notice.
Strictly speaking, a data set is not faithfully reproduced. Of course, if I simply select a handful of variables that are interesting and discarded the rest, and I explained why I do that, that would certainly not be a misconduct. But I am now less certain if all but one variable are reproduced and no explanation is given. (Of course, no good explanation exist)
In this context, is the removal of a variable from public data set a misconduct?

Couldn’t you attach a notice that says “this data set is adapted from [public data set X] for pedagogical purposes” or something along those lines?

Did you comply with the terms of the license (if there is one) under which the dataset is made public?

It really depends on the content of the dataset and how it might be used.  There's a big difference between deleting the "diagnosed with cancer" variable and deleting the "liked on Twitter" variable.  Not all data is important enough to merit ethical scrutiny.

Because you don't say what the variable removed was, nor the reasons, I am left to imagine. This is a situation that reflects poorly on you becaue when I hear "political reason" my imagination runs towards non-generous regions.

I think it would only be misconduct if you tried to publish the revised data without comment and without permission. And, citation is needed, of course.
But, for purposes of teaching it is good to let the students know the original source, but sufficient to label the revision as "extracted from ..." or "revised from ...", or similar.
Some data sets can actually be artificially constructed so as to make certain insights possible and easier to gain than they would be from a more "messy" version. It depends on the goals. At some point students need to be able to deal with the world as it is, but not necessarily from the very start.
So, point to the original, and label the revision as such. Don't publish the revision outside the student's view without some form of permission.
But even in research, it is allowed to ignore certain variables if they aren't germaine to the current needs.

If you changed the dataset in any way, you should at the very least mention that you did so. And you should make sure that you are complying with the terms of any legal license under which the dataset is made public.
I don’t think you have an ethical duty to explain why you removed the variable, assuming it’s for a good faith, ethical reason. (E.g., an unethical reason would be if your intention is to mislead people into an inaccurate interpretation of what the data means.) Wanting to avoid a politically charged subject doesn’t strike me as an unethical reason, at least for the kinds of politically charged subjects I am able to imagine.
Is it misconduct if you didn’t state that you changed the dataset, and/or didn’t comply with the legal license? I don’t think so, not unless you acted out of malice or an unethical motivation, which it sounds like you didn’t. It wouldn’t be an ideal practice and would mean you made a small mistake, but not any small mistake that anyone makes is misconduct. Correct the mistake if you can, and move on.

No. It would be inaccurate to describe it as the same data set, either explicitly or implicitly.
I have taken the same putative data set from two different archival sources and found that the data sets were different. The difference was that a small number of variables were recoded as missing in one of the two data sets. There was no documentation of the difference except in the data itself. There was no explanation of why this was done.
I thought it would be more responsible to give some description of changes that were made by one of the archives.


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How to pursue an academic career in Italy
I am an early career scientist that want to pursue an academic career in Italy.
I am familiar with the usual track of an academic in Italy: Phd, "assegno di ricerca", "RTDA", "RTDB", "Professore Associato", "Professore Ordinario".
I know that open calls for such positions are published by university website and on the webpage of the Ministry of Education, University and Research.
From several conversations with researchers and professors across different fields I have been told repeatedly that the majority of such calls are not open calls but most of the times are calls explicitly designed for an internal member of the department. So unless extraordinary circumstances happens no applicants from an external institution will be awarded the promoted position (they are in fact just published because the law requires so). Furthermore I also have been told from some of these professors that mobility between universities is rare because it it more convenient financially to promote an internal member of the department rather than hire somebody external. Being myself currently not associated with an Italian University I have no way to make the department open a position for me.
My question is then: Which is the best way to purse an academic career in Italy if you are not currently affiliated with an Italian University? More specifically, is what I have been told generally true? If yes, how is better to approach a department in order to try pursue a career there (I already have a Phd)? How can I select a university that might have sufficient funds in the future to sustain a career (assuming that mobility is as hard as I have been told)? Are other ways possible?

I don't have first-hand knowledge, but my understanding is that you have to network - get to know senior academics in your field in Italian universities.  If they like you and your work, they might write a call for you.

Do you know fuga dei cervelli? It is actually that cervelli are forced not only to do the fuga, but never return.

I work at an Italian university and am German. My personal impression is that what you write is half true, maybe it's more like this than in other European countries. But for sure there are positions on which they are happy to get somebody good from outside, and there are commissions interested in having a fair competition where the person who wins is really the best. I know Italians who have changed university (after for some time complaining that this is impossible, they're now proof it isn't). Being a foreigner myself, it's hard to estimate how hard it is, but it's possible for sure.

A lot depends on the specific research field (some are more dynamic than others, and some are trying to grow more than other), but the difficulties you mention are real.
I may suggest that the first step is to invest to get known in your research field. As you already have a PhD, you probably have some publications, went to conferences, and know the names of the professors or research groups that could be of interest to you.
You may try to contact the professors/researchers working there, by mentioning your previous work and your skills/interests. Maybe they have an open position in a project. Or you may check the open calls for Erasmus "visiting scholars" or similar positions.
The first step is nearly always to find a temporary position (assegno di ricerca or similar position) and to prove your worth to the department. If successful, it will be a several-years process. Otherwise, you should look at other countries.


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Is it possible to get into a highly ranked math PhD program in the US without doing an REU or having research experience?
It seems that most students at graduate math programs in the US have participated in an REU or some sort of program where they can do some sort of research or do something outside of taking undergraduate math courses. Is it necessary to do something "extra"?

I'd like to see a reference for your first statement. Or are you guessing?

See the answer for the US to this canonical question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/176908/75368


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If I publish a lot, will I get a tenure-track job in math?
I want a tenure-track job in math. Is there anything else to know other than to publish a lot and have good teaching?

A lot of luck helps as well. The ratio of jobs to available candidates is not so wonderful.

Do you think there is a lot of randomness in hiring? One senior mathematician told me: "There was one candidate who was everything you could want in a colleague, but got nothing when he applied." Is that unusual?

My thesis adviser said something like this to me: "Did you trip and die on an escalator on your way here?" I said, "No." He said, "Well, you were lucky. That's the 'luck' you need."

@cgb5436 - sadly, that is not so unusual these days.  If you're not a Fields Medal candidate,  you're not guaranteed a job.

Do tenure-track jobs in Canada count, or is this another "implicitly USA-only" question?

Canada counts, too.

Ignore people's advice and get evidence from the CVs of people who have the type of job you want.

Of course the qualifications depend on the university.  If you do not get interviews at top universities, try less prestigious ones.  Many two-year non-research universities are now hiring only Ph.D.s

@AnonymousPhysicist: Except that the job market has gotten noticeably tighter.  I would not be hired today, so looking at my CV will give someone the wrong idea.

@AlexanderWoo Right, look at CVs of recent hires and then extrapolate.

Publishing quality papers and excellent teaching help, of course. Quantity isn't the same as quality, however, and your teaching needs to be attested to in some way, perhaps through letters of recommendation.
Nothing is guaranteed, however. There is a lot of competition. There is a personality aspect: how you come across in interviews. Lots of things.
Times are hard at the moment. I was once a good prospect for a solid position but the economy cut the prospects to zero and it took me quite a while (and a change of fields) to get a tenure track job.
Good luck.

Do you think there is a lot of randomness in hiring? One senior mathematician told me: "There was one candidate who was everything you could want in a colleague, but got nothing when he applied." Is that unusual?

@cgb5436 How can there not be some level of randomness when there are way more qualified people interested in positions than actual positions, and no objective measurement to rank candidates by?

There are intangibles, of course. That is probably a bigger factor than randomness per se.

For tenure track positions with significant research responsibilities in pure mathematics in the US, evaluation is mostly by your best two or three papers, supported by a number of other papers.  Realistically, to even be considered these days, you need two or three papers that are in either a decent general journal (e.g. at least Israel Journal, but preferably at least Advances in Math) or a top subject-specific journal (e.g. Algebra and Number Theory).  Beyond that, you also need roughly a paper per year after your PhD.
Expect this to be a moving target as the supply of jobs continues to decrease.

Academic job market is extremely competitive at the moment, and many tenure track jobs attract 100s applications per position, so the success rate is 1% or less. Hence,  knowing nothing about you personally,  I would say that, statistically speaking,  no, you won't get a job.
The rest depends on you. How much effort are you willing to put and how many sacrifices are you going to make.  How much debt are you willing to take on by doing degrees at  prestigious places and studying for your PhD? How much are you going to delay getting your first paycheck, settling down or starting a family? How many weekends and nights are you willing to spend writing papers and not having a proper rest or seeing your friends and family?
tl;dr: You can get a tenure-track job in maths by publishing a lot. However, this lot could be a lot bigger than you expect.

Actually, the last time I was on a search committee for a tenure-track job, the applicant with twice as many publications as any other applicant did not even get seriously considered.  It did not help that almost all his publications were in write-only journals, and the remaining few were in barely-ever-read journals.

That's also true. But one rarely starts by writing their first paper to Nature or Annals Maths.

My first paper (not counting the one I was part of as an undergrad) was in Advances in Math - that level of journal for a first paper is fairly common for people who end up in research positions, especially since a first paper is usually the result of work done while you still have frequent access to a PhD advisor.

@AlexanderWoo I try to insert tacit caveats/disclaimers when reading your assessments of what is needed to get a job in maths, but I have noticed that you and I got our PhDs at similar times, and my observations while in the Canadian scene are that the bar was not set as high as you keep saying it is/was.

@AlexanderWoo I am not denying that it is increasingly hard, and has been getting increasingly hard for a long time, to secure an open-ended job as a pure maths academic. I am just trying to say that there is a large amount of variability (and luck) regarding "what do I need to do to succeed".

@AlexanderWoo Advances in Maths is quite modest compared to Nature, Science or Annals Maths. Anyway, I agree that quality is also very important, but I believe my point stands as well -- quality improves with experience, which often comes with publishing more papers.

@DmitrySavostyanov: There are certainly several people about whom I have the opinion that their reputations would improve if they produced fewer, more substantial papers rather than the mass of almost trivial papers they produce.  Also, certain areas are looked down upon because they have the reputation of generating large numbers of insubstantial papers.

@AlexanderWoo Reputation is rather vague and hard to measure. Tenure/promotion criteria are much more specific and clearly affect one's academic career. And they are predominantly focused on quantity. Promotion/tenure panels often don't know how good each journal is, are too busy to get into such details, and simply count the titles. Until it changes, well, publishing more is a solid choice to promote one's career.

@DmitrySavostyanov: I get the feeling that the UK is much more bureaucratic than the US.  Here, we are still allowed to use our own collective judgement (including reading and interpreting what letters say) to decide on hiring, tenure, and promotion.


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Should startup-company founder accept peer-review requests?
I'm a relatively recent graduate putting together a startup company, and I've just received an offer to peer-review a paper for a reputable journal.
As with prior questions on SE.Academia, e.g.

As a Ph.D. student, should I spend time reviewing papers?,
Personal repercussions for those who actively ignore review requests?,
What benefits are there to peer reviewing papers?,
I have been invited to peer review a manuscript for a reputable journal. This is my first so I have a few questions to the more experienced,

I'm basically asking if it's important that I accept.  The difference in this question is that I'm not currently employed by a university, nor do I foresee that changing any time soon, so I'm less concerned with something like a faculty activity report and more concerned with maintaining professional connections.
While I believe that it's virtuous to help build the human knowledge pool, my primary concern is a bit more pragmatic in if I should be focused on building professional connections.  Realistically speaking I'm not currently too concerned with publishing papers, though I may yet need to when it's time to explain to the world exactly what technology my startup's based on.
However, a time sink's still a time sink, and I can't afford too many distractions right now.  I'm also unsure about precisely what I'd be committing to, making it harder to judge how much of a distraction it might be.
Other considerations:

The peer-review request came in on a private email address, so I assume that someone I know well recommended me.  It's a pretty safe bet that both the editor and the person who recommended me are aware of my professional situation and considered it when making the recommendation/request.
The editor has strong connections in a field where I have a patent for a technology that may yield significant royalties if it's adopted.  As a complex technology that I don't currently have time to personally champion, having other experts in the field recommend it could be the difference between investors using it vs. going with a less-effective-but-simpler solution advocated by competitors.

Questions:

Should a startup-company founder be concerned with maintaining a reputation as a peer-reviewer?
In general, is serving as a peer-reviewer important to researchers outside of academia?
Are there potential benefits/hazards to accepting/rejecting a peer-review request?

Context information (if relevant):

The peer-review subject matter isn't closely related to the startup company's core technology, though one expected basket of consumers of the company's core technology is likely to care about the peer-review subject matter.
I haven't officially done a peer-review before, though I've provided unofficially commentary upon request for those that were serving as peer-reviewers.

What's specific to your situation that isn't covered by those earlier answers?

@user2768 Primarily the business context.  As I read them, the others focused on those in academic careers.  While the peer-review process seems closely related to academia, the arguments based on the presumption of an academic-career progression didn't help me figure this out.

I should add that, in part, I recall my PhD advisor constantly telling me that I should pay close attention to professional connections, including by serving as a peer-reviewer, though I'm a little fuzzy on the causal mechanism for how serving as a peer-reviewer might impact my career.  I figure that the editor-might-think-to-recommend-my-patented-technology-more as one potential causal mechanism, though I'm not sure if it's a significant enough one to be concerned about.  Dunno about what other mechanisms might exist.

In short: I think you should peer-review if you publish or plan to. That is, if the start-up is research-based. I don't see maintaining a reputation as a peer-reviewer as important, I do see shirking your responsibilities as bad for your reputation. The same applies to peer-reviewing outside of academia, it is important if you publish. I asked for clarification because I don't see much difference between academia and industry in this respect: peer-review if you publish or plan to.

@user2768 Thanks - I'd not have expected it to be seen as an obligation that one ought to fulfill, so it's good to get that perspective!

@user2768 I don't see how doing or not doing something anonymous is going to impact your reputation either way.

@JessicaB Ditto.  I've heard that doing peer-reviews can have a significant impact on professional networking, though how that might be true seems non-obvious to me as well.

@JessicaB Participation in peer-review is not anonymous, it is public. (At least, it is in some disciplines.)

@user2768 That's true - in this case, the author and other reviewers will know who I am.  I guess it's anonymous in the sense that the public won't know that I reviewed the paper, but not-anonymous in the sense that a handful of experts in the field would.

@Nat I meant globally public, i.e., a list of reviewers is published, again this only applies to some disciplines. If you don't participate, then that's only known to the people who invited you (and whoever reads your CV, assuming you list such things).

I think you should not take up this review, based on three reasons:
(1) No longer 'peer' : As an entrepreneur, you engage with technology, products and marketability more than academic research, thus defeating the purpose of peer-review, where researchers review papers in their field of work, and ideally get reviewed equally when they publish. The exception to this is if the journal is a technology journal focusing on product development and you have been asked to review from that perspective.
(2) Resource availability : To review a paper well, you will need access to related work in the field for judging correctness/suitability, possibly you will need to follow up some references, and more importantly, you will need to have time and current knowledge of published literature in the field. Unless the start-up is research-oriented, I think these resources may not be very accessible.
(3) Potential conflict of interest : This may not apply to the present case, but if this repeats, you may find yourself in situations where your review could be biased (eg. the paper reports flaws in a competitor's technology), and this would be an avoidable ethical burden.
Finally, the overbearing message I get from the question is that you are considering review because it could potentially benefit your product (through professional network etc). IMO, this is neither good (review should have a share-and-grow ethos) nor particularly effective- your network can be built better through more conventional routes, and also publishing a paper may not reach a big chunk of your target consumers (unless you are targeting the research community, in which case many of these points are invalid.).

+1!  I'd note that, for the ethical perspective, my main concern is that the technology I'm working on has immediate life-saving applications, so I'm largely concerned that it'd be unethical for me to not work on it.  For me, there's always this concern that, if I'm not working, I'm effectively killing people through inaction; this can make me prone to burning out.  But, I guess that SE questions shouldn't be too heavily based in personal circumstance.

I disagree, especially with (1).  Anyone who is an expert on the subject of the paper is a 'peer' regardless of their job.  In this case the asker has a PhD so they should be qualified to peer review in some area.  (2) and (3) could apply to any peer reviewer with an academic job also.

@Nat - that's great to hear! Good luck to you.Work is indeed its own reward.

@AnonymousPhysicist - Appreciate your viewpoint, though I should state in response that -(1) I'm not questioning if the OP is 'qualified' to review, there is no reason to doubt ability. My point is that 'peer-review' is valid only if the reviewer is also subject to review (as would happen with someone in the academic field). If not, it ought to be called 'competent review' or something, not peer review. One wouldn't call an answersheet graded by an anonymous grader a 'peer review', after all.

@AnonymousPhysicist- (contd.) Secondly, I don't see how  (2) would apply to someone in academia- the tangible resources would (typically) be available at their university/institute. As for time and current knowledge requirements, well, that is part of the job, and the reviewer would be expected to have those if they sign up for review.

@AnonymousPhysicist - On point (3), I agree with you that bias is entirely possible and maybe not uncommon in academia. However, when a potential commercial interest is involved, it adds to the the undesirability.

Grading is not called peer review because it is not research.  It has nothing to do with who does the grading.  There is no convention that reviewers have to subject to peer review - for example, they might be retired.
Many universities cannot afford journal subscriptions.
Lots of academics do not dedicate sufficient time to peer review.  It is not really part of their job (they may get paid more if they spend their time doing other things).

@Anonymous Physicist - what would you say about grading a research assignment? Research is being done there, but the person evaluating is a teacher, not a peer. Retired academics are different from an entrepreneur starting off- they have the advantage of more time and experience. Yes, many academics may not devote enough time to peer review - but they are not the ideal models to decide peer review protocols either. You make a fair point about universities and journal subscriptions, but I do wonder how academics there are able to give substantial reviews without access.

@user153812 One does not generally grade research.  There is no GPA for a PhD.

@Anonymous Physicist- No GPA for PhD is not true, but I was actually talking about research assignments given in say, an MS programme. As part of coursework, or for separate credits.


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Chicago Style 17th edition- Footnotes and bibliography
In the Chicago style guide it mentions that you should use footnotes for unusual sources and sources with additional notes/information added and that bibliography is added for traditional sources without any notes.
An article I'm editing was done fully with footnotes references. Should I convert the items without notes to a bibliography list?

Welcome to Academia StackExchange! When you say you edit the article, is this editing for a specific journal (equivalent)? Are there instructions as to how the final article should be formatted? The answer will likely be completely dependent on such circumstanecs so please add additional information to your question. If no instructiosn exist then it seems it is up to your own discretion to come up with a solution (following perhaps  the guideline you mention)

If you have to follow Chicago style 17th edition, you have to follow Chicago style 17th edition.
Therefore, it boils down to identifying all the "unusual sources and sources with additional notes/information" that are in the footnotes. These can be left as footnotes, while all the others must be converted to a typical bibliographic list.


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How to Properly Reference Equation Steps from Source X in Your Work?
I want to avoid writing something like:

However, calculating the variable X and solving this equation requires iteration using the Newton-Raphson method [22, p. 45][15, p. 152]:
"equation"
"equation" 1
Here, a means ... and b represents...
This results in:
"equation" 2
"equation" 3
which can be used in equation X
...

I want to inform the reader that they can find the entire process in the source:

However, calculating the variable X and solving this equation requires iteration using the Newton-Raphson method, which can be found in [22, p. 45][15, p. 152].

What exactly are you trying to avoid, and why?

@BryanKrause I don't want to reproduce an entire algorithm or system of equations in my document that is already available in a book. Therefore, I want to inform the reader that the complete algorithm can be found in the book.

Okay, then why not do that?

@BryanKrause So is it correct to say it like, "which can be found in [22, p. 45][15, p. 152]," or "This process is further explained in [22, p. 45][15, p. 152]?"
Or does it need to be more detailed?

How much of the literature have you personally explored? I think it would be difficult not to have seen various ways others have handled this sort of thing. Maybe there’s part of this I don’t understand.

I second A rural reader - your best guide to writing papers is to read them. Also think of your paper from a readers perspective - you just need to make clear to them what is explained and where.

As someone who has had to create independent implementations of mathematical methods in software based on their descriptions in published papers, I highly recommend that you describe the method rigorously in a supplemental document included with the paper. I have greatly appreciated it when authors did this in their papers. In my opinion, simply pointing to some other reference and saying, "we did it like that" is rather hand-wavy and often misses key details that someone else would need to know in order to reproduce your results.

@Matt I am writing a bachelor thesis and I was planning to put the whole process in a appendix intead of telling the reader to look the same process in a book.

There are cases where a mere pointer to the algorithm in the literature suffices, and there are cases where it is better to explicitly walk the reader through the application of the algorithm, with explanations of how exactly it works in your particular case.
To figure out what makes sense for your article, think about who your readers are, what their background is, and what they are trying to get out of your paper. If applying the algorithm is a routine exercise for your readers, and most of them wouldn't actually be interested in the details, it's fine to leave them out. If you do forsee readers who really want to see how your results came about which aren't familiar with the algorithm, you should consider helping them out by spelling it out.
In either case, it is probably prudent to write out the long version, even if you don't intend to include it in the paper. This can be a good way to catch mistakes.

If it is central to your paper, make it easy to reach, either by adding it in the supplementary material or by writing it in the paper.
The fact that the algorithm can be found in a book may mean two things:

it is some kind of base knowledge in your field;
something that may be base knowledge in your field in 10 years;

It is up to you to decide which maturity level reached the algorithm. It strongly depends on the journal you are submitting to, too.
Additionally, if the algorithm can be found in only one book, please consider that it is rather unlikely that the algorithm is some basic knowledge.
I as a reader and user of peer-reviewed scientific publications I am usually disappointed when authors keep their papers short by cutting the equation solving steps.
Why?
It happened to me something along these lines:

Find an interesting algorithm in paper P pointing to an obscure book B for the demonstration;
acquiring book B;
finding the interesting algorithm and development in the book;
using the book's algorithm in subsequent work;
2 years later writing a paper X referencing only the algorithm in the book B;
3 years later getting the paper X published;
4 years later getting entangled in a publishing controversy with authors from paper P;
5 years later finding a pdf copy of the paper P in a backup of mine (please note: I changed 3 institutions and 5 homes/offices in the meanwhile) and therefore apologizing profoundly with original authors;
15 years later, the publisher did not yet update the paper references in my paper X (personally, I do not care anymore, I checked now for sake of completeness of this story, I know I have somehwere an email from the publisher stating they will update my paper X, I am done).

So my suggestion is go ahead, be "lazy" now and then spend a lot of your energies in remembering people they first read about the interesting algortihm in your paper.


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The iconic meetings conference is real or fake
I have registered for "International Conference on Lasers Optics and photonics", organised by "The Iconic meetings". Is it real or a scam? Please help if you know something about it.


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Interviewing Questions on Teaching
I've got an interview for tenure-track teaching jobs at an R1 and liberal arts college in the US. As part of the application, they've seen a cover letter, CV, teaching statement, 3 syllabi, and diversity statement.
If they've already seen all this, what kind of questions will they ask about teaching at interviews? Do I still prepare the same kinds of questions and just expand more on the materials?

Look on the university web site for some statement of philosophy of the institution. I'll note that "R1 liberal arts" colleges are pretty rare and those I know of have high standards. Harvard comes to mind. UC Berkeley doesn't. My undergrad (liberal arts) place had a very complete, though short, statement about what was expected of students. A lot could be inferred from that about what was hoped for in professors.
The questions will possibly (probably?) be about your teaching philosophy. How you approach it, how you deal with students, etc. The judgements, while individual, might be in terms of that general philosophy.
One often disfavored philosophy is "Sink or Swim". Think about your goals in teaching. What is most important? What is your responsibility? What do you expect from students? Think about that. I don't want to give you my script.

Thanks so much for this - and I'm glad it's what I suspected and have been preparing!


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My problem about writing a technical/research report/paper
I have seen several questions on this forum that have similar things and some of them have been quite satisfying for my quest. But I want to mention my specific case and want to have some useful suggestions, so I am writing this, which maybe or may not be a redundant question.
In my work as a research associate, I always have this problem which irritates me a lot.
Every time at the start I have to study something, of course related to my area but a somewhat new for me (painful, but this is what anybody has to take it to get the job done), learn it and apply it (I would say the apply part is the sweet/joyful pain).
Suddenly the next demand comes as "Write down" and it is where the pain concern ends and I start feeling as if my hands are cut and my mind is blank and "ME" can never do it.
Sometimes the demand is "Write down and make it as long as you can and we will make it short later", the torture is, for God sake I do not have even a few words to write!
Problem as I feel it:
Even after doing everything by myself, I feel that I can not describe it in writing. While if it is about describing it orally I am confident that I am much better than many.
When it comes to writing, I never know what to include and what not, especially when the demand is about as long as you can. I have had read tens of writings and have had done the things practically by myself but no idea what makes my mind blank about writing technical things.
I feel myself really good at doing technical things and love it.
Finally, I think I am missing some steps involved in that writing and I never miss the steps of doing things practically making me successful in that.
If these are steps, what are these?
If these are not the steps, what else are these?
Many times I have got my office reputation damaged because of going blank even after many days/weeks given to me for writing. I want to get rid-off this problem and want it never happen again. I would love to be the researcher who satisfies the demand of as long as you can?
A foot note: In general I do not feel myself bad at writing, though my answers to most emails and my own emails are mostly brief but satisfy the receivers. One more thing to mention that might be useful to assess/suggest me is that it took me around an hour to complete this question completely.

Perhaps try focusing on writing smaller chunks. Some people take time to perfect their writing, so emphasizing writing "as long as you can" seems like a recipe for disaster in this case.

Stop trying to write well and just spew. Let your first draft suck. Make your first draft suck. Just get words on the page, no matter how sloppy or incoherent. Then edit/rewrite to make it suck less.  Repeat.

I suspect you are finding this difficult because you are trying to write in an academic style, and are judging yourself as you are writing. I think the secret to easier writing is to spend as little time as possible "writing". Instead, spend your time jotting quick emails and editing stuff. Let me explain what I mean.

Get together with someone who knows nothing about your research, and explain it to them. Record yourself, or at least take notes on the main points that you address.
Now write your explanation down, but informally, as if you were writing an email to a friend. Better yet, make it a real email -- that will help you keep it informal.
Also gather any other emails you've written to your supervisor, or colleagues and friends. (If you're not already doing so, get into the habit of writing those emails regularly, while ideas are fresh in your mind.)
Take those emails, and paste them into an empty document. This will be the starting point of your paper.
Now rearrange the information as needed, to make it coherent. Everywhere there's a gap, stick in a message like NEED TO EXPLAIN X HERE.
At this point, you're beginning to have an idea of the structure of the paper. This would be a good time to write an outline, to see if you've left anything out. This outline goes into the document along with everything else. (You can delete it before submitting the paper.)
Now fill in the gaps. But write informally, as if you were writing an email to a friend.
Now go through your document, and make the sentences more formal. Don't overdo it, though. You don't want your writing to be stilted; you want it to sound natural.

Congratulations. You have the first draft of your paper, and you barely did any real "writing"; it was mostly just writing emails and editing.
It's much easier to make informal, but clear, writing more formal, than it is to make formal writing more clear!

+1, I wouldn't have started my answer if this was already here. :)

"Instead, spend your time jotting quick emails and editing stuff." That's the brief sentence I will keep with me :). Thanks very much.

Just some thoughts that occur to me while reading your question:

"Write down and make it as long as you can and we will make it short later"

To write well is to make every word count: to not waste a reader's time. Length should never be the goal. Say what you have to say as concisely and clearly as you can. Do not get into the habit of writing "filler".

Even after doing every thing by myself, I feel that I can not describe it in writing. While if it is about describing it orally I am confident that I am much better than many.

Writing well means keeping the reader in mind: what will capture their attention at the start of the paper, what they will need to understand before the next section starts, what are their expectations for what is going to come next. As such, a good starting point for writing is to consider that you are discussing the paper orally with an imaginary reader you meet over coffee. How do you get them interested in the topic you want to discuss? How do you convince them of the novelty of your idea? How do summarise your unique contribution? If you had a pen and paper to sketch some ideas down, what would you sketch?

If these are steps, what are these?

First you need an idea of the scope of what you want to write about.
Second you need a frame for the paper, typically the section headings, a rough idea of the goal of each section, how they will fit together, what the reader will learn from each part.
Third you may need a detailed frame for the paper. For example, I have given students headings (as comments in the file) for each paragraph. In the introduction:

"What is the setting/area?"
"What is the specific problem?"
"Why is it interesting?"
"What has been done about it before (on a high-level)?
"What is our unique perspective for solving the problem?"
"How will that be achieved concretely?"
"What are our contributions / How is the paper structured?"

Some paragraphs can later be joined together, as necessary. Having this framework for (at least) an introduction in mind, I find, helps inexperienced writers get over the "cold start" problem. (More experienced writers may not need to follow this structure.)
Then you start ... at the start (well skip the abstract ... do that last). Take it piece by piece. If you feel you don't have enough information yet to write a part, skip to a part you can write and come back later.
Write your abstract and conclusion last. Make your conclusion reflect what was promised in the introduction (but now providing concrete details, such as a summary of results).

Many times I have got my office reputation destroyed because of going blank even after many days/weeks given to me for writing. I want to get rid-off this problem and want it never happen again.

Sitting there frustrated isn't going to help. But even though I would consider myself fairly experienced at writing, I often have the same problem.
Each paper is different so if you're not sure about creating the outline, you have to talk with someone else to help you plan out the paper/report or even just to get your own thoughts straight.
Even if you're not sure what to write, just write something. Most papers will go through several drafts so the first draft doesn't need to be perfect ... each draft just needs to be an improvement. And a first draft can help you get feedback from others to point you in the right direction.

Quite useful. Thanks very much.
"But even though I would consider myself fairly experienced at writing, I often have the same problem." is the statement which has made me feel comfortable. Thanks again.

First, "Write down and make it as long as you can and we will make it short later" is probably one of the best advices you are going to get in your entire life in terms of technical writing. As you progress, writing large text is always the easy part. Writing a self-contained text with the required theorems, proofs, results to fit within a conference / journal paper page limits is the real hard part.
You say you do not know what to write. Then you must write everything. What is your input data? High level description and in detail stats. What is your output data? Again high level description and in detail stats. What do you want to do with your methods? What are your methods actually doing? And how are they doing it? Again top-to-bottom. A high level description first and then move into extensive details.
Also compare with previous methods. What do previous methods do? What are their strength and weaknesses? What are YOUR strength and weaknesses? For what datasets your method performs best etc...
Go into exhaustive detail. E.g., in a CS reports you may say "we use Java and Hibernate on a Intel i5 workstation running CentOS with 6Gb of DDR3 RAM."...  Initially do not omit anything. Write anything relevant to fill the pages. As you become more proficient in writing, you will see that you may distinguish what is really important to say and what to skip. Do not overthink. Start writing, even it initially seems not good enough. There is no need to be perfect initially. Once you have some pages written, come back and edit. Repeat the cycle with every couple of pages added. Soon, you will find that filling the pages will not be a problem. Trimming unimportant things from these pages will be the real challenge. Good luck!!

Hopefully this will help me a lot during my journey to achieve the goal. Thanks very much.

I thought of leaving this as a comment but ran out of space so moved it to answer.
As user11192 says start with smaller chunks. What I have found to work for me (engineering) is to start with the plots or the results that I want to talk about.
First I decide what results I want to present and the conclusion I want the reader to draw from them. Then write a few (2-3) sentences for each of them (usually a presentation file works better for this) stating the observation and conclusion.
Next it try to decide how to arrange the results and how to group them. This is subject to change if I later realize that some other grouping or arrangement works better. Here I am thinking of "what is the better way to convince the reader of my conclusion". At this step I also decide on a rough outline for the whole report.
Next I describe the setup. I try put in details to make sure that if I were to do it from scratch I would have all the details required. This will end up being long and needs lot of trimming depending on what kind of report I am writing.
Afterwards I go back to the results and expand on the sentences. Think of it like telling a story you want to guide the reader to your way of thinking. Tell whatever comes to your mind (imagine you are talking to someone if that helps) and decide what to cut out later.
Next to make the report complete I add in some motivation. Here again it helps to start with few key sentences and then join them together.
This forms the rough draft. I sleep on it for a day or two and the come back and edit it so that it makes sense. If I feel overwhelmed or satisfied I send a draft to someone else for a cursory review. I can then use the feedback to improve the draft.
Often times I am lost as to what to talk about. In that case I just make a list of all things that seem relevant to me. Try writing down short incomplete sentences. If you can talk about you can write it (just write down the dialogue that you thought of while talking).
You need to realize writing a report is not one time thing. I usually go through 2-3 reviews (except for online posting ;) before I am satisfied. So get the first draft out (even if it is list of disconnected sentences), afterwards it is easier to make edits because you now have a better idea of what the report should look like. Most of the time it is the lack of idea of what the final product will look like that makes one avoid doing anything.

"Most of the time it is the lack of idea of what the final product will look like that makes one avoid doing anything." Agreed 100%, this is my case too in writing.
Thanks very much.

Don't want to write?  Make a video instead.
There is actually more to it, but I am guessing that your "blank mind"
phenomenon occurs when you are making notes to yourself as well for any
project.  So as a first step, use a camera phone or tape recorder or
videocam to record your notes and impressions.
Let's back up a bit.  You are asked to write up stuff at some point,
and the horrible blankness descends upon you, and this is what you
want to avoid.  I recommend talking to the asker and find out what is
wanted.  Will a journal of notes suffice?  Is this for internal
distribution to be polished later, or are you expected to produce
publishable material?  Just how is what you write going to be used?
When that is clear, you will have a better idea of the expectations,
which my gut tells me is part of what causes the anxiety.  You might
even talk to the asker about the process, and if they are willing to
review/revise alongside you as you produce.
In any case, you will need to collect material to put into your
product.  Let me assume that you like the video idea.  Here are
some concrete suggestions.

Make a collection of short videos rather than one long video.
That way reviewing and transcribing will be less of a hassle, and
may help in the organizing process.
For each video, start by saying "This clip is going to be about ...",
so that you (sort of) embed the title into the clip.  This helps in
organizing.  Use "Take 2" or "part 3" if that helps you break a
long subject up.  Don't worry about mistakes, you can always make
a corrective clip.
For each video, end by saying "This clip was actually about ..."
so that you can record major discrepancies between content and
the embedded title at the beginning.  That way you can go to near the
end for additional and possibly more accurate metadata.
For each video, rename the file containing the clip so that it
reflects the content title, or whatever else you need for your
organizing system.  At this stage, THIS IS THE ONLY WRITING YOU
NEED TO DO.

Now, you don't have your product, but you have a bunch of material.
How do you organize it?  Make another video!
You can videotape your process of rearranging the material, making
a priority list from a directory listing, making an outline verbally
or typographically as you wish.  You can also make verbal notes as
to which stills from the video you deem worthy of inclusion.
I suggest this because you seem more comfortable at telling your
story with your voice than writing it with your hands.  This idea
does not circumvent the writing part, but relegates it to transcription,
which I hope does not trigger a mental block.  (There may even be
software to aid in transcription, but I do not feel qualified to make
recommendations.)
Also, this idea may not work for you, but you might give it a try and
(wait for it) videotape the process and your conclusions.  I wish you
every success, even if video is not the answer for you.

You might try a technique that professional book writers and harried corporate executives use: index cards.
Try carrying a set of small index cards to jot ideas as they occur to you. One idea per card, written in a complete sentence, and only on one side of the card.
Leave space at the top of the card to record data that will be (or you think might be) useful to you later. For example, on the left side of my cards I always enter the date and a note about the context in which the idea occurred to me. On the right side of the card, I note the bigger topic(s) that my idea relates to.
At random times (usually when I can't focus on anything else or I'm on a plane) I review and sort (and re-sort) the cards. When I'm reviewing, I'll find cards to throw away, to store in a "Hell, yes!" box or in a "Block Box."
"Block Box" is my term for an idea that is not immediately relevant but that I am loathe to give up ... so I just need a place to put it for easy retrieval.
I learned about the index card technique when I read "The Organized Mind" by Daniel Levitin. In addition to using the cards to empty out my "monkey mind," I use the cards when I'm feeling highly resistant to accomplishing something.
Perhaps it will work for you to unblock your mind.
P.S. Perhaps you've heard the quote "If had more time then I would have written a shorter letter." It's been attributed to Cicero, Blaise Pascal, Benjamin Franklin, Thoreau, Mark Twain, and many others.
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/
We are all in good company. 8)


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How to deal with your research results becoming obsolete?
My coworkers are pursuing a generalization of one of my (recent) results. Is it wrong of me to frown a little on this? I would prefer it if they had an original idea of their own, or that if that they had to generalize a result, it would either be one of their own or one of someone they do not know.
The way I see it, a paper has a certain lifespan in terms of being read and cited. Once it has been generalized, that lifespan is in most cases over. If someone wanted to understand a theorem, they would probably look for the most general version. Of course, this does not always apply, for example if the work represents a milestone of some kind. One consequence of obsolescence is the stream of citations to my paper is short circuited. This will, in a sense, benefit them at my expense. Of course, I realize that my paper will eventually (hopefully) be generalized and become obsolete (i.e. no longer state-of-the-art). I just rather prefer that it wasn't my coworkers who are working towards that goal (they even started while I was still drafting my paper).
Please note: I do not mean for this to be read as a rant or a complaint. I do understand how science works by expanding on previous knowledge. I just want to know how others feel about the prospect of their research becoming obsolete, and how to approach that from the perspective of someone in the beginning (and at the same time, possibly the end) of their academic career. I imagine that for a professor such a thing would not be a big deal, for a number of different reasons.

Why aren't you cooperating with them on the generalization? It seems both natural and proper.

I don't have time to focus on that now. I have to create an important deliverable for another project.

Isn't this a fairly common and natural pattern in academic research? (I'm not an academic)

@Jamie Yes, but you can still be upset when it happens. At least when it happens to you for the first time, I think. Later, I guess that you have learned to deal with it, and it also becomes less important.

Are you "frowning a little" because the fact is, you don't have any new ideas of your own to work on? In my view, if "the rest of my working life" is too short to follow up all my own research ideas, a few past projects going beyond their use-by date is no big deal - but YMMV of course.

@aleph I added the note and emotional-responses tag hoping to avoid this type of comment. But to answer your question. I have ideas. But I will be evaluated on my ability to publish papers and get a number of citations that are above the average of the journals I publish in. The pipeline looks something like: write paper (6 months), get published (1-2 years), get cited (2+ years). The last two steps are mostly passive, but they create a large delay from idea to pay-off. If your early projects fail to take off, then you can't really compensate by doing new stuff within the required time frame.

I do not understand this. Someone is reading your work and cares enough to actually try to extend it. So often you write papers and you feel like no one is reading them, and all the citations you get are meaningless, of the "oh here is some other related stuff" type. In your case, your results have been the basis of further research. I think this looks better for you than a paper that no one follows up on. Also, the notion that a paper stops being cited once it is generalized is very dubious.

@Sasho I think you make a very good point. Of course I appreciate that others take an interest in my work. However, for now, my main goal in this regard is to accumulate a high number of citations. My preference is for many 'related stuff' citations rather than few 'highly influential' citations. I am afraid that this is necessary to climb the next step on the career ladder. If I am able to that, then I will consider other aspects of being read and cited.

@Najib You are right. But I can still have a preference for how people use my results. I can also have a preference for what my close co-workers are doing and be upset if I believe that they are doing something that goes against my best interests.

@ Najib It is nowhere near similar. The fear of loss is a powerful emotion. Even greater than the joy of gain. Fantasy is not comparable to either of these things.

@Asdf Are you sure you are upset because it is your colleagues who are trying to generalise the paper? Or is really assigning blame to them because you may lose citations?  Before answering that, just ask your self the following simple question: if tomorrow some mathematician who you don't know publishes the generalisation of your work, would that make you happier than if your colleagues publish it in a year?

@ Nick S. This is an old post. But yes, I would prefer that someone I don't know generalizes it tomorrow. In that case it is not personal anymore, and I care less. It is just the natural run of things. A random event that was bound to happen. It occured sooner than I would have prefered, but that is just bad luck. If someone I work with generalizes my work then that is not a coincidence or some unforseable event. It happened because of me somehow. In that scenario I have to modify my values and my behaviour to deal with/prevent the next such occurence. That is painful.

While I sympathize with you, I find it hard to answer your question.
On the one hand, as phrased you are asking whether an emotional response is valid.  Well, it is not really for anyone other than you to determine the validity of your emotional responses, and in all of my experience, "That is not a valid emotional response" is rarely a useful piece of advice.  On the other hand, your question is pitched in a certain level of generality, but understanding why you feel the way you do seems to require knowing more particulars of your situation than you have disclosed.
But let me say what I can and what might be helpful:

The way I see it, a paper has a certain lifespan in terms of being read and cited. Once it has been generalized, that lifespan is in most cases over. If someone wanted to understand a theorem, they would probably look for the most general version. Of course, this does not always apply, for example if the work represents a milestone of some kind. One consequence of obsolescence is the stream of citations to my paper is short circuited. This will, in a sense, benefit them at my expense. Of course, I realize that my paper will eventually (hopefully) be generalized and become obsolete (i.e. no longer state-of-the-art).

Since you speak of "theorems," I gather you are working in mathematics.  (This is corroborated by one of your other questions, where you identify yourself as working in applied mathematics.)  I am also a (pure) mathematician, and the way you describe "obsolescence" is neither the way I think about mathematical results nor how I have heard other mathematicians talking about them.  Maybe it is quite different in applied mathematics, but in pure mathematics there is not any prescribed lifespan on papers being read and cited.  To try to quantify this, I just looked back over my last 10 accepted papers, and for each one identified the earliest cited paper.  Of these ten papers, the latest one was published in 1976.  (Moreover the 1976 paper came from a five page note with only a few citations.)  In other words, in all of my recent papers I have cited papers that are more than 40 years old, and in fact usually older than that.  In my department I have many colleagues who are 10-20 years older than I but who have a similar number of publications to me (publication pressures have risen in recent years).  Most of these colleagues have higher total citation numbers than I do -- I think because their papers from 10, 20, 30...years ago continue to be cited.  My most highly cited works were published in 2013, 2005, 2006, 2010 and 2003, respectively.
[Moreover, in mathematics, citation numbers are not (yet!) the ultimate metric of academic worth.  Papers written on finite graphs tend to get more citations than papers written on admissible representations of p-adic groups because there are more people working on the former and many more people who know what the former are.  I think most mathematicians realize this.]
So I have to wonder about the specific situation you are describing.  In a different question, you mention a colleague of yours who worked on the same problem as you and came up with a result that was in some but not all ways more general, and then you published at least two papers together.  I don't understand why this would "short circuit" your citations.  Now you describe a situation in which your colleagues are working on generalizing one of your results, apparently without any new ideas.  In this latter situation especially, I would expect that if they publish an improvement of your results using ideas essentially due to you, then that should augment your results in every way (including citations), not detract from it.  (You are aware that senior mathematicians do this all the time, and the work of their students is usually viewed as an extension of their own work, I trust?)
Then you say:

I just rather prefer that it wasn't my coworkers who are working towards that goal (they even started while I was still drafting my paper).

If it gets to the point of an independently published generalization of your work, then I don't see how it makes any difference whatsoever if your coworkers were involved.  However, before that happens the fact that it is your coworkers puts you in a much better situation: namely, in the worst case you have much more advance knowledge of what they are working on and can plan accordingly.  In the best case you can pursue a collaboration with them in whatever way seems best to you.
If I may take a guess -- are you perhaps most upset by the fact that your coworkers have chosen to pursue these generalizations of your work without your involvement, so that they seem to be competing with you right under your nose?  I could understand why that would be upsetting.  If you feel that way, I think you should be much more proactive about collaborating with them.

Sorry Pete, but your bibliometrics are extremely dubious, and subject to all sorts of bias. The concept of a citation half-life is a rather standard concept in bibliometrics. You can argue that it's not a factor in mathematics or that the half-life is too long to matter or make a solid bibliometric case that it doesn't exist, but the anecdotal hand-waving in this answer is not too far from arguments that climate change doesn't exist because it was cold last week.

@E.P., I'd strongly agree with Pete that, in the parts of "pure" mathematics I follow, in many cases citations peak surprisingly-later, like 20 or 30 years later. Some of my (better!) papers got close-to-zero citations for many years, but/and did "finally" get quite a few. Yes, sometimes "the original paper" gets superceded to the extent it's no longer cited at all, though I must say that I myself try to preserve that record in my bibliographies.

@paulgarrett And then results get so famous that one doesn't bother to cite them, but we still give names, e.g., "By Wedderburn's theorem, ..." (and you don't even know which Wedderburn's theorem I mean yet!)

@E.P.: In responding to "obsolescence" I spoke of the citation life rather than the half-life.   People in some other STEM fields would I think be very interested to hear that it is common to cite work that is more than 40 years old.  I don't see much resemblance to arguments about climate change, but sure, one could ask for a more systematic, quantitative analysis.  See e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220433559_Mean_Citation_Rate_per_Article_in_Mathematics_Journals_Differences_From_the_Scientific_Model.

@PeteL.Clark The core point is that your sampling is backwards. If you want to make the point that a substantial fraction of old papers have long citation lives, then you need to sample old papers and see whether their citations stay up over the years, not sample new papers, which are subject to e.g. congregating their old-paper citations on a small subset of the old-papers population. The situation is similar to the old 'paradox' that allows "most children live in large families" and "most parents have small families" to describe the same population.

Short answer, two possible approaches:

collaborate with your coworkers. From what you write, it sounds like they may have already suggested and you may have been hesitant because you wanted unique ownership. Science is collaborative and you will both benefit from this collaboration
keep being original, create new streams of research. Some academics enjoy new challenges, then get quickly bored and prefer breadth (variety of research areas one contributes to) to depth (being leading expert in a very specific subfield). There is nothing wrong with enjoying breadth in research areas.

My feeling is that you are stuck in the middle. Just pick one of two routes and you will be happy again in no time

Actually, I want to do something new or different. The lack of such ambition on their part is one of the things that frustrate me in this situation. I am in a new project now, so I would like to focus on that. However, I feel that they are pulling me back into the old project. I just have to commit to the new project and ignore what they are doing :)

@Asdf: If your coworkers' project is beneath you, how does it diminish your work?  How are they going to make your work obsolete without any new ideas?  I confess I don't really get it.

They prove the same theorem in a more general setting. The theorem is about the convergence of dynamical systems. It is interesting because it was unexpected. Now they attempt to show that the theorem applies under some weaker assumptions. This is not interesting to me, because if this type of theorem holds under the strong assumption, then someone always makes an extension under the weaker assumptions. Doing it can be hard, but the idea of doing it is super obvious. However, because this is applied math, the weaker assumptions are important for 'applications' (i.e. for motivations).

@Asdf: Thanks for your response.  I can see why you might not be interested in this kind of generalization (and also I can see why your colleagues would be interested!).  But to have other people work on technical strengthenings of your unexpected theorem is just about the most positive outcome I can think of.  Of course I have to go back to a point in my answer: you are entitled to feel the way you feel about it, and my telling you to feel differently is probably not going to be so helpful.

Ask yourself what goal you want to achieve. Do you want your colleagues to publicly apologize to you? Postpone their publications until yours gets enough citations? Abandon their work on the topic altogether? Include you in their paper as a co-author?
Unless you can define a specific goal which you deem achievable and are ethically OK with, the best advice I can give is to get yourself comforted by close friends over a beer, then get over it and move on.
If you feel that including you as a co-author could make sense, think about what you could contribute to colleagues' research (other than the paper you've already published), then speak with them about this possible collaboration as soon as possible.

Actually, I just want some peace of mind to be able to better focus on another project. I mainly wrote this post to process my feelings and get through the emotional labor of the whole thing. Co-authorship would of course be nice, but it is not something I feel I must or should have.

One consequence of obsolescence is the stream of citations to my paper is short circuited. This will, in a sense, benefit them at my expense.

Possibly the opposite.  Citations, IMO, tend to quote the base paper as well as the generalization.

This will, in a sense, benefit them at my expense. Of course, I realize that my paper will eventually (hopefully) be generalized and become obsolete (i.e. no longer state-of-the-art). I just rather prefer that it wasn't my coworkers who are working towards that goal (they even started while I was still drafting my paper).

You should look upon it as having been granted the privilege of having found some knowledge to humanity and having your work rewarded by inspiring others to extend it.
The vast majority of people will never experience discovering something like this and all too many people never have the luck to inspire others by their labors.
Historically (centuries past) it was not uncommon for scientists to deliberately keep discoveries to themselves to profit from them in some way.  For example the dispute between Cardano and Tartaglia over the solution of a type of cubic equation.  These days are (hopefully) gone and it's now a slightly better system of publishing as fast as possible and chasing citations (as they are a kind of bizarre currency).  However ultimately you should  try and look at the personal reward of discovery and sharing as your only rewards.  Those are the only rewards you can be reasonably certain to get.
You have a small (?) place in the written history of the world.  Be happy, most do not through no fault of their own.
You don't want to be part of the new project (I'd at least keep in touch with them if possible), so there's no gain in thinking about it.
Let this go and move on.

I agree that the original paper is often quoted together with the generalisation. So this should not affect you on citation side either. Typically citations drop to zero when new findings invalidate the assumptions of your paper.

I'm not an academic, but this is similar to my thinking. He should be proud that they found his work worthy of expanding on, not annoyed that they're replacing it.

@Barmar I had the similar reaction to user Asdf when I finished my first paper and somebody picked it up - They are taking my baby! The annoyance ended only after my second like of research started to be fruitful. Only then I appreciated that others picking up where I left my work was a compliment!

@famargar I agree with your sentiment. If/when I have another succesful project I would/will not think about this anymore. Fear of loss often comes from a scarcity mindset. But knowing that is perhaps not enough to defeat it, I may also need that second success.

@Asdf you will. Early success is a good predictor of having the right skill set. Now all you need is the right mindset. And recognising the problem (the emotional response) means you are already close to the solution (letting it go and start being creative again). Best of luck!

In case it wasn’t clear, having a paper that is interesting enough for your collaborators in your institution to inspire further research, at an early stage of your career, is the early success I was referring to

@ famargar Thank you for this support. I feel more optimistic now.

One consequence of obsolescence is the stream of citations to my paper is short circuited. This will, in a sense, benefit them at my expense.

Increasing the amount of knowledge not only benefits them but also the scientific community and humankind as a whole. This is very positive effect of obsolescence of scientific results.

Of course, I realize that my paper will eventually (hopefully) be generalized and become obsolete (i.e. no longer state-of-the-art). I just rather prefer that it wasn't my coworkers who are working towards that goal (they even started while I was still drafting my paper).

This sounds a bit like a missed chance for more cooperation between you and your coworkers and because of that possibly some waste of resources. Did they contact you and ask you for your further plans, maybe suggesting a further cooperation? Were they open about what they are working on? If not, your coworkers might simply have decided to leave you out of future developments. You could then try to compete with them and be faster or leave this particular field to them and do something else.
I did not experience direct competition from coworkers, but in cases of competition from other groups I always tried to be as fast as possible.
One lesson for the future could be that collaborations have a social dimension and that trust about future arrangements matters. Collaborations can be very long term and fruitful. It's probably a good idea to stick with those that worked well for you.


text:
Is a good idea to inform potential PhD Advisor that I sent my application for joining his lab?
I sent an email to a potential PhD advisor few months ago where I expressed my interest to join his lab, he replied to me the next day mentioning to me that he would be happy to apply to the program through he is currently recruiting.
Yesterday I sent my application.
Is a good idea to inform him that I sent my application? because I didn't apply directly to him but to the program of the institute he is working and I am a bit nervous.
Thanks in advance!

If that makes you feel better, sending a quick email is probably fine. Something along the lines of:

Hello Dr XXX,
I have just submitted my application to program Y, as you have advised. Looking forward to hearing back from them!
Best,
Student

Even if you don't get a reply, a quick note like this should be sufficient to remind the professor that you are still interested in his lab. Good luck!


text:
From Math to AI with Few Formal Accomplishments
Short version: How to manage a transition from a math PhD to academic AI research with few formal accomplishments in either field?
Details
Background I finished a pure math PhD at a prestigious program in 2021. In 2019 I did receive an offer for a postdoc in my specialty, however I turned it down to pursue tech startup ideas. Between 2019 and now I've continuously worked on several unsuccessful and totally unremarkable startups in AI/ML on a full-time basis.
In that time I've become familiar with the research landscape in AI, developed a perspective on open problems I find both interesting and approachable, and learned how to implement and test new algorithms; however I've not published or contributed to any open source projects. Additionally, because I intended to leave academia, I did not publish of any of the work that went into my PhD thesis.
What's Next I'd like to explore transitioning to academic research in AI with the intent to pursue tenure track down the line, however at this point I think my background is uncompetitive for academic positions either in math or AI. I've identified two possibilities for how to proceed given my situation:

There is a chance I may be able to find a position in industry as a research scientist at a large tech company or well funded AI startup. I believe I would have a higher chance of being hired as a research scientist at a smaller AI startup, however I'm concerned here that I may not be able to publish much or otherwise develop an appropriate background to improve my chances of moving to academic research.
I may be able to secure an unrelated job and in my off time pursue independent research with an intent to publish. I would aspire to establish collaborations with researchers in academia and industry.

I'm trying to figure out how to evaluate these possibilities going forward in terms of how feasible and efficacious they might be towards furthering my candidacy for academic positions. I would also love to hear any alternate ideas for how to move forward in academia.

The only way to know about your publishing prospects in industry is to ask directly during the interview process.  Expect this to vary wildly between companies and industries.

I'm not knowledgeable enough about the field to offer real advice.
My feeling is that (1) would be better for you than (2).
Now or soon your combination of a math PhD and industry experience in ML/AI would be an attractive combination in an AI postdoc application.  That could put you on track for an academic career.

Thanks Ethan, I’ll keep this mind!


text:
Follow up on an informal faculty offer?
About four weeks ago I interviewed a university (outside the U.S.) for a tenure-track assistant professor position. The head of the department scheduled a meeting with me the next day, gave me a verbal offer and talked about the package. The interview experience was great and the package is great too, but the thing is that they would not process an official letter unless I said I'll take the offer.
I emailed the head and said yes the week after. They quickly responded and cc-ed the staff who'll be working on the paperwork with me. The staff said they will prepare the documents to seek approval from the university. I was very excited and forgot to ask questions such as timeframe and other details. I also declined an interview invite from another university (these two universities are close so I thought it's not appropriate to do the interview).
Now it's been three weeks but I haven't heard anything from them. I emailed the staff yesterday to ask if there are any updates but haven't gotten any responses so far. Now I'm a bit stressed out and start worrying about the offer. Should I email the head if no response from the staff in the next few days?

(For context: US-based, former department chair here.)
Do you have the terms of the offer and the basic intent to make the offer documented in an email? If so, I think you shouldn’t worry too much. If not, then that is more concerning. Anything that isn’t documented in writing cannot safely be assumed to exist in any meaningful sense, and should not be used as a basis for any actions such as withdrawing other applications or declining job interviews.
With that said, as far as the situation of having things documented by email goes, not worrying too much doesn’t mean not worrying at all. Email documentation is not the same as an offer, it’s just evidence that the chair is acting in (more or less) good faith and that the process is in motion. In most universities a department head does not have the authority to make a formal offer — that has to come from a dean or higher level administrator — and on rare occasions recruitments have been known to get derailed even with the department wanting to hire someone. So, it’s quite reasonable to be concerned and want to know what’s going on.
It’s also reasonable and normal to contact the department head directly and ask for updates. It’s their job to communicate with you, and poor practice to leave such communications to administrative staff who are slow to reply.
Good luck! I hope things turn out all right.

Thank you for your response! In the email, I said I've decided to take the offer as an assistant professor, and then the head said "welcome on board. I'm copying this message to xxx who'll work on the paperwork with you". That's all I have.

@randomcat I see. Well, it’s possible that things will work out (perhaps even likely, I can’t say), but you should be working on a plan B in case they didn’t. If I were you I’d start looking into un-declining those interviews. You should also let the department head know that until you have a written offer in hand, you have no choice but to keep all your employment options open. This should be said as diplomatically as possible. Get a senior mentor to help you navigate this tricky situation if you can.

Thanks again for your suggestion! I'll contact the head and see what they say if no response in the next few days. In the worst case, I'll figure out a plan B.

By the way, telling a candidate you will not work on a formal offer unless they “accept” a (meaningless) verbal, undocumented “offer” is an unethical move. I have friends who had such a trick pulled on them. The correct way to respond to this is “I am excited about our phone conversation from last week. The details of the offer you outlined are promising, and I am looking forward to receiving a written offer. Please be advised that I have upcoming interviews in the next couple of weeks at universities of X, Y, Z. …

… Please be advised that while your department is my top choice in the current situation given the parameters of the offer you outlined to me during our conversation, as I’m sure you’ll understand I will be considering all my options until I have a written offer in hand.”

My advisor had the same concern when we talked about the offer. Then I asked some people at that university. The process looks like the "norm" for them so I thought it should be ok. I agree that this isn't a fair practice for candidates and I should have asked and thought more back in four weeks ago T.T

I'd say that because of this unethical way of proceeding (which seems quite common, and it is pretty much an awful leveraging of power), you should not feel at all constrained by the fact that you "accepted" the (non-existing) offer via email. Yes, you will ruin some relationships if you then don't accept it, but the power balance shifts significantly once you have the offer in hand (in many places, at least in the US, once an offer is out it may not be possible to make another one to a different candidate in the same cycle if the first is not accepted).

@randomcat it is not “the norm” at any reputable department to pressure candidates to pre-accept a not-yet-extended offer. It may be something that is done occasionally by an unscrupulous and/or inexperienced chair, but a department that does it as a matter of habit will pretty quickly develop serious reputational (and potentially, legal) troubles.

(At least, that is the situation in US academia. Not sure about other places.)

@DanRomik I received the official terms yesterday, and it actually says that I have two weeks to decide. I want to say thank you for your suggestions and for bringing up the "pre-offer" issue which I wasn't aware of.  I reflected on my mental model and admit that I could have been more confident in talking about other options and asking about the procedure. Also, I think they could have done better in communicating with the candidate such as giving a timeline or sending some updates.