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Is it appropriate to email a professor during summer for a difficult question?
Tl; dr : Does a math professor get annoyed or think of it as a waste of time if he is emailed a difficult math question from an undergraduate student whom he is fairly acquianted with? Or is he ok with it?
I am currently an undergraduate at an U.S. university. I have taken two math courses with a pretty renowned (though not world-famous, though I might be wrong) and super-nice (i.e. very kind and skillful both in teaching and in math itself) professor in the past, got A's on both, and am also decently acquianted with the professor (I went to lots of office hours while taking the course). I am self-studying a math topic (set theory) he should be very familiar with (he is a tenured logic professor, and logic and set theory often go hand in hand). I recently came across a question on the math topic that's hard to answer, and wanted to email the professor about how to solve the problem. However, I am afriad that the professor might think of my question as a nuisance  / waste of his time, especially since he might well be busy (he's tenured professor at a university that is ranked wihin top 5 in the world in mathematical logic, so he might have lots of conferences/research/meetings/etc). I don't want to be a bother for him in any way, but I think he can help me solve this rather difficult question. Should I email him or not? The last time I took a course with him was like February 2018...
In general, how do professors react to this? If you are a professor (who is not someone who doesn't care about students) please comment below. Are they annoyed, or are they ok with it/delighted? What if they are busy?
Please gear this toward summer! Lots of people may relax during summer so it might be different... Also I am not sure if this is relevant but he doesn't have a family (i.e. single) and is like age 42 or something...
I emailed a different professor once about a math question and his reaction seemed to be "I'm annoyed".. I actually wrote an email to another professor and he was like "I would be able to answer you if I am on campus but sorry I'm not and writing math via email is too much so I can't answer you"... Are these reactions generic or are they exceptional?

Why not ask this at Mathematics Stack Exchange? I see that you have other questions there.

@DaveLRenfro, actually, I don't think this is special to mathematics.

Please gear this toward SUMMER!!! That’s irrelevant. It is appropriate to email the professor, at any time of the year (especially since you have a personal relationship to him, but more generally since his email is publicly listed on his department’s website). It is also appropriate for him to ignore your email if he is on vacation or reply to say he is unable to help.

Let me try to answer some of the questions in the body of your post:

In general, how do professors react to this? If you are a professor (who is not someone who doesn't care about students) please comment below. Are they annoyed, or are they ok with it/delighted? What if they are busy?

Of course the answers are "it depends". What does it depend on? Here are a few factors:

The tone of your email: of course, people tend to respond better to polite requests than something that seems demanding or pushy. You say the professor "might well be busy". I can guarantee you that he is busy. He may or may not make the time to answer your question nevertheless, but you should make clear that you understand he is not under any obligation to do so.
The difficulty of the question: you say your question is "rather difficult", but what is rather difficult for you may not be for a professor who is expert in the subject. If your question really is something complicated that will take a long time to type an answer to, people will be less inclined to spend that time just to satisfy your curiosity.
The clarity of the question: if you choose to write and ask, you should be absolutely sure that your question makes sense and is clearly and unambiguously stated. Nothing is more vexing than putting in time to answer someone's question only to have them change what they are asking.
Personality: some people just enjoy answering questions more than others; some people guard their time more closely than others.

Speaking just for myself, if I received such a question over the summer that was clearly written, not overly complicated, and phrased in a polite way, I would be pleased (maybe not "delighted"), and if I had time, I would try to answer.

+1. I would only add that such a professor is always busy. The summertime is no different than any other time. If your question is interesting you will get a reply, but it may just be a request to see him at some future date to be determined. But, as with many things in life: don't be boring.

To be fair, if the question is too simple it may also count against your chances of receiving an answer. I frequently get questions (from students and others) that at least to me appear very boring and mundane, but where an answer takes a fair bit of time to type up. These have a much lower chance of getting answered than questions that require some thinking/research but much less time to explain or type out.

@Buffy Well, that's certainly not true for everyone. I know profs who teach a lot during the school year and it really takes a lot out of them, but they have much more time in the summer because they aren't teaching classes of 500.

@AzorAhai, I think that if you ask them you will find they are still busy. When do you suppose they develop those courses? I don't know many academics who have much down time - ever. And if they also do research ... Busy busy busy. It is part of the life, but also part of the misconception about teachers. Even elementary school teachers do quite a lot during "vacation" time.

@Buffy I didn't say they aren't busy during the summer, just that summer might not be "no different than any other time" for some professors. I'm fully aware professors continue to work throughout the summer.

@AzorAhai. I'll stand by what I said, from long experience. Maybe harder in the Summer. That may be their only chance to get "real" work done and think of the 500 person course as a bit of an easy job to run since they also have a staff of 40 to help them. See the total personnel list of Harvard's CS50 class, for example, compared to its class size. The actual ratio is close to one staff person for 20 students. In any case, the OP has to expect that the professor may be just as busy independent of season.

@Buffy It would be brilliant if people here had 40 people to help them ...

@AzorAhai, well, maybe only 25 staff, then. I don't think much actual learning can happen if the ratio of staff to students is 1 to 500. You can lecture, but that is about the least effective way to teach. When lecturing became a common practice the ratio was likely about 1 to 5 - in Medieval universities. If a teacher drew as many as 20 it would be miraculous. Most people don't learn from just hearing something once. It takes work that can't happen with 1 to 500 ratios. Open University UK has large online courses but with student support in small local groups.

@Buffy This is a bit off topic, but where I did my undergrad it was completely normal to have first year classes of 100-150 students serviced only by one professor and one TA.

Tl; dr : Does a math professor get annoyed or think of it as a waste of time if he is emailed a difficult math question from an undergraduate student whom he is fairly acquianted with? Or is he ok with it?

In the worst case, he doesn't have time to read it, will never answer, will not remember having ever seen the email if you ever ask him about it, which makes it a waste of your time, not his.  If this happens, please don't blame him and don't take it personally.
One of the essential skills to become a professor is excellent time management.  If he doesn't have time to prioritise your email, he won't.
Getting distracted in the middle of a working day answering Stack Exchange questions means that I may lack that skill. ;-)

The last line - that hurts : doing the same ... :)

You should respect that professors may be:
1) on holiday relaxing after a busy semester
2) at a conference
3) catching up on research
4) writing a paper
Or other activities, so expecting them to be online 24 / 7 to provide you with a personal online tutorial is perhaps, a bit much. I respect your motivation to further yourself during the summer break but you should respect the professor’s break as well.
Best of luck with your studies.
I have, during the summer break, written reference letters due to special situations and provided questions with completed solutions (that students failed to download during the semester) so they could catch up.


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Is it okay to work on a research project with a professor at a different university, in addition to main PhD project?
In the context of a social sciences PhD in the UK, I want to know (i) whether it is permissible to work on  another research project; and (ii) whether there are any general practices, if I choose to work on a research project with a professor in a different university, in addition to my existing PhD research project with my main supervisor. The topics of my main PhD research project and the other project are closely linked.
Not sure if this is relevant, but both my main supervisor and the other professor at a different university frequently collaborate on projects.
Edit: I asked my advisor about this, and she stated it was fine (and we had to figure out details), but I could sense that she was very hesitant about it. I am not sure if I offended her by asking at all, but I am very keen to work on this other project.

Is it possible to include your advisor in this other project? This would be a better solution.

You could do an internship with the other professor.

Where is support coming from for your current work, and how much will this complicate and delay and distract what you are doing for PhD project. I can imagine advisor not wanting to say no outright (after all, you're an adult and its your PhD and  showing initiative is great - things could work great and it could end up in your best interests ) but being rather lukewarm about something that for most students might just end up making a lot of complications and distractions from completing PhD projects.

@Carol That is a very good point, and my instinct too. I might discuss with her separately whether it is really viable to do so and decide accordingly.

In the UK the funding system is somewhat different to many other countries: PhD students are either self-funded, or receive stipends through Centers of Doctoral Training or from University funds. Since you are not funded from you professor's grant, you do not work for him/her. You work on your PhD project to become an independent researcher, and as such, you can (and sometimes expected to) make your own choice in how the project is executed.
Of course, a simple courtesy requires you to ask your supervisor first before collaborating with someone else. One obvious reason is that you probably don't fully know the relations between your professor and other colleagues and could potentially disclose some of your supervisor's research ideas to a colleague who is more of a competitor than a collaborator. Academia is a twisted world sometimes and it is although you have full right to manage your own PhD project, a bit of information and advice would never hurt.

Great answer! Thank you! This is very helpful. I am going to tread a bit carefully on this subject w/ my supervisor.

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Do people compete for self-funded studentship?
I know that any admission application is subject to review, but I was thinking that the main competitions and open calls are for funding. If someone has full funding and a reasonable resume can directly apply for PhD programs in top universities (MIT or Oxford). In other words, there is no limit in available spots for applicants if self-funded and a supervisor is interested.
I saw some call for applications: for example. UEA is not a bad university, but not a university everyone wishes to study there, then waiting for call for application. I mean, students check if Oxford has an open fellowship to apply, but if you have funding, why you should wait for UEA to announce that they have free place for PhD students?
Even for self-funded students, universities normally support with TA or RA programs, but here it is mentioned that a bench fee should be paid in addition to normal tuition fee. And it is needed to have a degree with honors to apply.
My question is: do really student compete for a PhD position even when they are self-funded?
Do they receive some applications on such calls for self-funded studentship OR it is just a tricky advertisement?

Funding is one thing. Supervision requires a lot of time and attention, and for top professors, time is more important than money.

@user8001 In my experience, they always spend their time to attract more funding.

In a situation where "there is no limit in available spots", no competition will take place. (That can be a good thing or a bad thing.)

@O.R.Mapper: Of course, there is always some limit in available spots.  And even if the limit is larger than the number of applications, some screening will still be done to make sure that only qualified applicants are accepted.

@NateEldredge: I merely quoted the OP on the assumption that there is no limit. Note, however, that "screening [for] qualified applicants" is independent of competition, and if the limit is high enough to be far away from the actual number of qualified applicants (as is, for instance, luckily usually the case for many engineering subjects in my place), the theoretical existence of a limit somewhere is practically irrelevant.

At most reputable schools, self-funding will not exempt you from the admissions process. At the best schools, admission is often completely independent of funding.

Can you elaborate a little bit? I understand why admission is independent of funding in top schools, but why not lower schools do that?

I have no knowledge of the lower tier schools and will leave that for someone else to comment upon if so inclined.

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Should an undergraduate answer a call for reviewers?
I'm currently a senior undergraduate student that has a couple publications where I've been 3rd author on conference papers. I've been conducting research in the field for around 3 years.
I got a call for reviewers from a conference that I've submitted and been accepted to before. I am unsure on whether or not I should answer the call as I don't know how much experience I should have before I can review papers.
I know it would be good experience for me to get and something I am looking forward to doing in the future. However, I don't want to take this on without knowing what is expected of me.
Some questions:

How do journals verify your expertise for review?
Can I work with someone else to conduct the review (advisor)?
Are reviewers usually faculty?

Should I tell the conference leaders that I am an undergraduate and ask if I can still review papers?

Thanks and let me know if you need any extra info!

If it came from a conference you already presented I would suggest speaking about it with your advisor. My first assumption when reading the title was that you are talking about the "spam mails" everyone with a university mail address gets. I would definitely ignore the latter.

My default advice in your situation is no, don't offer to review.
Aside from your technical expertise, an important qualification for a reviewer is that they have worked in their subfield for long enough to have a broad view of existing work and the state of the art.  When reviewing a paper, you want to be able to think about how it fits in with what's already been done, and how important an advance it represents.  You'd want to be aware of  important related work, and looking up the paper's references is not enough, because the authors themselves may not know about all the important related work.
In general, I wouldn't expect that an undergraduate would have that level of experience, and thus they wouldn't be qualified as a reviewer.
If you really feel like you do have that level of experience, then I would suggest that you next talk with your advisor and/or your coauthors, and ask for their honest opinion.  A more common way to get started would be to ask if you can help with reviews that have been assigned to them.  (They may need to ask the editor's permission for this.)  That way, you get to see what's involved, but the final responsibility for the review would stay with your advisor.
As to your specific questions:

Editors evaluate reviewers mainly by looking at their previous publications, and deciding whether they demonstrate sufficient technical knowledge and experience in the field.  However, there's also an "honor system" component: when a reviewer is invited, they're implicitly expected to honestly evaluate whether they have the qualifications to review the paper properly, and decline the invitation if they don't.
When a reviewer is sent a paper, they are expected to keep it confidential and not share it with anyone.  (Some people feel that there is implicit permission to share it with the reviewer's graduate students, if the reviewer feels they are trustworthy, but that would not apply to you.)  So if you are a reviewer, you should not work with anyone else, unless you ask the editor for permission to work with that specific person, and the editor agrees.
Yes, in most academic fields, the  majority of reviewers are faculty.  Postdocs are usually also considered qualified, and in some cases graduate students might be.  In some fields you might also get a significant number of researchers from outside academia, but they would typically have a similar educational and publication record as faculty.
Yes, I think that if you do decide to review, you ought to disclose to the editors that you are an undergraduate.  I think it's important information that the editor needs to know in order to evaluate your qualifications, especially since they probably don't get very many such offers from undergrads and wouldn't by default think of that possibility.

Normally a PhD (in my experience) will conduct their first peer-reviews with their supervisor or another academic. An undergraduate may (rarely) have the technical expertise, but reviewing is also a skill (that doesn't take long to pick up, but requires a bit of guidance). Poor reviews can waste time of committee members or, worse, harm scientific and academic output, and even harm your own reputation. On the other hand, if you contact a member of staff that would be an opportunity to learn how to do it properly and maintain or even advance your reputation at a very early stage in your career.


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How does one use a paper that's not written in a language that he can read?
For instance, if a paper is written in Russian, and a researcher wants to use this work and cite it, does he have to learn Russian?
What's the typical practice?
Does he try and use translation tools such as Google translate?
Pay a professional translator?
Or, blindly accept the results and blindly cite the paper and move on?
(The last option is problematic, if one wants to write a self-contained piece of work, using the results and proof from the original work.)

Compare: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/257095/how-to-find-suleimanovas-work-on-the-nonnegative-inverse-eigenvalue-problem.

This is at least somewhat field-dependent.  An automatic translation of a philosophy paper may be useless.  In math, reading the equations and recognizing key terms (by their Greek or Latin roots) may be enough in some cases.

It probably depends also on the field, but I tend to read the parts that are relevant with what I need to show, whenever I read a paper. And although I avoid using papers in other languages, it has happened to be able to find only a chinese relevant study, and in that case I used the available information in the abstract. In a similar manner, how do we deal with non-open-access articles?

Check with your university if they have a translation service that can help you.

You can hire a translator.

There is no general answer to your general question. It depends on a paper.
Do you have to cite it? We know that a2+b2=c2 and we don't cite Pythagoras manuscript on it. We don't cite the basic results we use.
Do you have to read it first? You probably don't read Disquisitiones Arithmeticae in Latin to quote some of Gauss results, and you don't read Théorie des mécanismes connus sous le nom de parallélogrammes to check if Chebyshev polynomials are correct.
So, if a result is already well-established, many people have seen it, checked it and built their work on it - you don't have to read the original paper, if you don't want to. If you really want to understand how some details were presented originally (for methodological or historical purposes), you can check if some colleagues in your University can read this language. If they don't, you can hire a translator, but it is not easy to find one who can also read understand math arguments.

In some cases, one mentions the relevant paper, stating explicitly that they could not read it for language reason, e.g. "related results where obtained by Author A in paper P [reference], which we were not able to consult since the article is only available in Russian". That last part can sometimes be omitted, if the knowledge that you did not read the paper itself (but, say, only a review or a translated abstract) is not useful to your reader.
This, however, cannot apply to papers you build on in a way that needs you to make sure the cited paper is correct, or in a way that needs precise statements to be understood finely. If there exist (precise) reports or survey on this research, you can use the secondary source (and mention the primary source, but making clear which one you rely on and read) or, ultimately, a translation service (but I don't know where you can find one which can be expected to be reliable for highly technical papers).


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Is there a bibliometric that weighs citations based on their number?
I wonder if the following bibliometric index exists.
If a paper cites n other papers, then give a weight of 1/n to each.
Then one can sum up these weights for each paper/person to get an index.
This would balances things in the sense that in some fields papers cite 5 other papers, while in other fields 100 - so scientists of the two fields can be better compared. It would be especially useful when someone works in two different fields, like (you would never guess!) myself - among mathematicians, my citations overrate me, but among theoretical computer scientists I'm nowhere.

But why should citing more papers be a negative factor for each of them?

@BioGeo: It is not necessarily a negative factor, but as we know all too well, there is no perfect bibliometric. My proposal aims to balance the fact that some fields have more citations in general.

If I understand you correctly, you are referring to a concept called citing-side normalization (see e.g. Waltman & vanEck 2013), where the number of references of citing papers are used as weighting factors to account for the different lenghts of reference lists in different fields (citation density). This type of normalization is relatively common within bibliometrics, so I think that the other answers are incorrect in saying that they don't exist. One well-known example of such an index is the SNIP-indicator (see Waltman et al., 2013 and Leydesdorff & Opthof, 2010), which is a journal-level indicator. Another example is the recently proposed article-level CSNCR-index (citation score normalized by cited references, see Bornmann & Haunschild, 2016), but this uses the mean number of cited references in a field to normalize citations (so not references list length in individual papers).
If you look for references to "citing-side normalization" you will find other examples of similar approaches, at journal or article levels. I'm not sure if I've seen author-level indices based on this though (but averages of article-level indicies can of course be used). In general, there are a number of bibliometric indices that control for the different citations densities in different fields (not only using citing-side normalization). These are all based on some sort of field normalization, which can be done for field classes (in e.g. Scopus or Web of Science) or other article groupings (see e.g. the cluster-based normalization used at CWTS in Leiden).

Yes, exactly what I was looking for! Are their places online where one can look these statistics up?

@domotorp Journal-level metrics (eg SNIP) can be found at both Scopus (https://journalmetrics.scopus.com/) and WoS. I don't think that article-level indices are publically avaliable, but many organizations calculate them in different forms for evaluation purposes (e.g. at CWTS, or where I'm currently working). The basic idea then is that the number of citations to papers are normalized by the number of citations in their field, but methods differ on how these fields reference values are defined. In the simplest case, the number of citations to a paper is divided by the field average.

[cnt...] In this case, field normalized values above one indicate that the paper is cited more than the average paper and a value below one indicate that it is cited less than the average paper. Methods then differ on how to define fields, or how to calculate reference values (mean, median, decentiles etc).

I would be more interested in person-level metrics, as I've explained in the motivation.

@domotorp I sort of suspected that ;) Unfortunately, from what I know, there is no publically available version. WoS and Scopus could certainly show them, but has chosen to only make them available through their extra services (against a fee). So if you have access to e.g. Thomson-reuters/Clarivate's 'Essential Science Indicators' you can get some versions of filed normalizations. Other organizations have local copies of WoS or Scopus and can therefore perform different kinds of field normalizations.

As far as I know, no such bibliometric is in use.  However, I think your question is predicated on a couple of misconceptions, which I will try to clear up.

First, your citation count doesn't "rate" you as a researcher.  Yes, it's something that people often look at in context with other things to get an idea of how much an impact your research has, but any bibliometric only captures a small aspect of this (if you want, you can think of this as a random variable which measures "impact" or "influence, but with extremely large variance).  And people know average citation counts vary a lot by fields and subfields.  Serious researchers in your field will evaluate you based on your work and the opinion of experts in the field.

I don't think your idea is a bad one, but there are also various issues with the bibliometric you propose, which you may or may not have thought about:

One obvious drawback is that this number no longer measures "scope of impact."  One person who writes a paper with a single citation, which is only a self-cite (e.g., this may happen in a corrigendum) gets a 1 for this bibliometric, which is the same value as someone who in 20 different papers with 20 references each.
The number of references a paper has is largely a function of the authors' style and type of paper being written.
When authors add gratuitous self-cites or pressure others to cite their works, that unfairly lowers this bibliometric for the other references.
Also, you might philsophically be thinking of the weight in your proposed bibliometric as a measure of how much a cited paper influenced the current one, but the reality is far different.  Some cited papers will be a lot more influential than other ones for a given work, and there is no simple bibliometric way to determine (cf. https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/62917/19607).
Not a drawback so much as pushback: this will give everyone a smaller citation number than they currently have, so I can imagine many people would be against it.

I agree with everything that you wrote, I didn't have any of these misconceptions. What I claim is simply that this index has some advantages over the simple citation count, and I don't see any disadvantages (compared to simple citation count).

@domotorp Oh, good.  Based on the question, I thought you might have misconceptions at least about the first bullet point.  I'll add a couple of things what I see as drawbacks.

I think that all your objections are just as valid for simple citation count, except for the example with the corrigendum. Maybe this can be remedied if we multiply the weight of each paper by its length? So each citation would get length of citing paper / number of citations in citing paper weight.

Of course, this new variant would give way to even greater abuse by writing a long corrigendum...

@domotorp: "I don't see any disadvantages (compared to simple citation count)" - let me repeat the disadvantage I already mentioned in the first version of your question earlier today that you have deleted meanwhile: In the CS subfields I am most acquainted with, low-quality and workshop papers are likely to have rather few references (< 10), whereas top-tier conference papers typically have rather many references (30 - 50). With simple citation count, each citation has the same weight, so citations by low-quality publications unduly increase the aggregate value. With your model, citations ...

... by low-quality publications are likely to weigh more than citations in better publications, so the distortion is made worse.

@O.R.: This is a very good point (and I haven't seen it at the first version). Then maybe we should do the opposite and each citation's weight should be the  total number of citations in the citing paper...

@domotorp... at which point,  the effect of being mentioned in a comprehensive review paper will drown out all other citation effects.

Currently, there is no standard bibliometric that fits your definition. This could be mainly due to the complexity (and biases) involved.
Your bibliometric proposal looks analogous to the PageRank algorithm. Only that you cannot directly apply it since citation graphs are DAGs by nature. There is a paper that shows how to apply weighted PageRank to author citation networks that you might want to read.

Also this one by some colleagues of mine: A combined approach for evaluating papers, authors and scientific journals http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377042710000749

I don't think these are similar because mine doesn't involve any recursion or any complicated computation - every person can easily count their own index by looking at the citation list of all the papers citing their work.

@domotorp Well in that case, it would be simple enough to code it yourself.

Rather, citation graphs are close to being DAGs.

Unfortunately, I don't code. Also, just because I'm curious about something, it doesn't necessarily mean that I want to spend several days making a program that outputs the answer. Which, or course, would be meaningless without comparison to other people's numbers.

The journal-level metrics SJR and the Eigenfactor are both inspired by and similar to Googles page-rank algorithm.


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How could a postdoc look competitive against a tenured professor?
I am a postdoc in mathematics (US) in the process of applying for tenure-track positions. The job market was very competitive and I only ended up with one interview so far. But I found out that for the position that I am being interviewed for, there are several other interviewees, and one of them is a tenured professor.
To me, the competition seems unfair because obviously the university wants the best candidate, and since the tenured professor received her PhD 10+ years before me, she has a lot more publications than me. And there is only one position for the university.
The situation looks hopeless to me. Is there anything that I can do or say during or before the interview that will make the hiring committee take me seriously? I have of course read several posts on here before asking this question. The answers seem to say that the "promise" is also taken into account. But will it actually be taken into account when the tenured professor has fifteen more papers than me? Since she also has more experience speaking in conferences and knows what to say or do during interviews (since presumably she has also served on hiring committees), I think her job talk will be better than mine, too. I just don't see how I could even be called a serious candidate when she is interviewing for this position.

Not much of an answer, but just because someone is tenured don't assume that they are great at doing interviews.

Younger candidates have some advantages too: the upper bound on their future achievements is higher, and they are cheaper.

Not a helpful comment, but one that is true anyway: the situation is not "unfair" just because you may not have a chance. If the other person was better qualified and got the job, then that is not unfair -- it is objective. But I recognize that that of course is not a productive comment for you.

You also might not be directly competing.  Just because the job posting only lists one position doesn't necessarily mean that they'll only be able to hire one person.  Departments can make various arguments to the dean to try to increase the number of positions, the administration could have extra money available for candidates underrepresented groups at the tenured level, etc.

Related-almost-a-duplicate: Why would a top department hire a less experienced researcher for a tenure-track position?

@WolfgangBangerth - in the modern post-modernist world, objective differences are considered unfair at best and evil at worst.

You are a serious candidate
You are. That is why the university is interviewing you. It would be a complete waste of time and resources otherwise. They liked your application materials and want to know more.
Candidates must have good potential
Generally, academic hires are made not on the basis of what you have done but on what you have the potential to do. This is why the job doesn't automatically go to the person with the most publications.
Search committee members know how academia works
Of course the tenured professor has more publications than you! Of course they have more teaching and advising experience, and of course they have more contacts and a wider network within the field. The search committee knows this, and they don't expect postdocs to have all of these things. But perhaps the postdoc looks like they have the potential to blossom into a better scholar than the tenured professor. Perhaps the tenured professor will just stagnate. Which brings me to my final point...
You have seriously incomplete information
You have basically no knowledge which could help you figure out your odds. Here are some possible scenarios:

The tenured professor (who I'll call P for brevity) is not actually serious about this job, but just wants an offer so that she can have a counteroffer from her current institution to get a nice raise.
P is fleeing from a toxic department; she is on bad terms with her current department chair.
P is leaving her current department because she is effectively being pushed out due to a scandal involving an affair with a student and misappropriation of research funds. This is hot gossip among the more senior members of your field but no one knows the full details.
P is applying for the position to live close to her ageing parents. She thinks that she will easily get the job because she is from a prestigious university and this job is at a mid tier school, however her arrogance poisons the interview and no one likes her.
P is the best candidate on paper, but just doesn't "click" week with the current faculty, so they vote to hire someone else.

We can go on like this for all the candidates, including you. Then we can invent scenarios of what the search committee is looking for, pet peeves of individual members, and so on. But the fact is we just don't know, and even if we did know then there's nothing you can do about it.
Get back to work
Quit worrying. Use that nervous energy to polish your talk, to practice answering questions, and to do research about the school. The job goes to the best candidate, and that could be you.

When I read the question, I wondered why a tenured professor would be applying for a tenure-track job. Thanks for giving several plausible answers for that.  (I don't think I've ever seen such a thing happen, though.)

@AndreasBlass although the position was advertised at tenure-track level, higher appointments would be considered. So it is not necessarily true that this tenured professor would necessarily be hired at the tenure-track level.

This is a good answer. i would add that there is a cost difference and a risk difference with hiring someone who already has tenure. If they are hired with tenure, and they are not a good fit at the department, the department will be stuck with them.

@AndreasBlass The tenure track is the track that includes tenure, as opposed to the teaching track or the research track.

@JeffE Interesting. In my department, "tenure track" always means "not yet tenured but eventually to be considered for tenure". We'd never describe a tenured position as tenure track.

@AndreasBlass: I know several cases, and they were not that convoluted. Prof. X gets tenure, but is unhappy at the current place. Meanwhile,  his career has taken off, and a good department that he likes is hiring.

@AndreasBlass If you just look at a random selection of ads on mathjobs, you will find lots that are mostly aimed at TT but give themselves wiggle room to make tenured offers (https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/9158, for example).

@BenWebster I completely agree that they allow wiggle room as you said. I only assert that, in the usage I'm familiar with, "tenure-track" and "tenured" are two disjoint sets of jobs.  (The former can turn into the latter when a tenure-track person is promoted to tenure.) Until Jeff's comment here,  I had not heard "tenure-track" used to include tenured. In other words, I'd describe wiggle room as "we have a tenure-track position and we might be able to upgrade it to tenure," not as "we have a tenure-track position that might be tenured".

@Andreas: You might be amused by the following anecdote: in my department, tenure_track@math... and tenured@math... are two different mass mailings.  (Perhaps with small modifications; I have to check every time.)  Once I sent out an email to tenure_track.  I too had learned that "tenure track" refers to the track that leads to tenure and thus includes tenure (take the smallest equivalence relation generated by...), so I was trying to be efficient.  Something like four months later I discovered that none of the tenured faculty had gotten the email.

@PeteL.Clark We call that list assistprof to avoid confusion.

As sometimes happens, this is a question where the literal question and subtext are a little different.  To address the subtext: Relax.  You don't really know what the situation is, and you're not going to benefit from trying to guess about it.  They wouldn't interview you if they didn't think you were competitive.  Of course, the downside of that is all the other people they'll interview are competitive as well.  The start of December is still pretty early for interview invitations, so just because you only have one invitation now doesn't mean you won't get more later.
To address the explicit question: I know from the applicant side it must feel like the market is such that schools can hire whoever they want, but it doesn't feel like from the hiring side.  The best people are highly sought after, and even if this tenured person is their top choice, they might be someone else's top choice as well.   Even the very top places, but especially everyone else, is very concerned about whether candidates will really come.
Specifically with the question of hiring junior vs. senior people.  There's a reason that schools hire the former far more often.  Senior people are more expensive in a literal sense (generally, they get a pay bump from wherever they were before) and require more work on the part of the hiring department since they need to push through the tenure case on an expedited basis.  Often even if a department wants to make such a hire, it will be forbidden by the higher administration (for example, we don't have permission to make such hires this year).  There is also a cost along many dimensions to making job offers that aren't accepted, and senior candidates are less likely to accept (since quite often, their offer will be matched by their present institution, and most people would prefer not to move, all things being equal).  There's also a psychological bias toward optimism about how a candidate will develop over the years. The senior person may have 15 papers, but they know that's all the papers she will write over that portion of her career (often the most creative); with you, they can instead imagine the great papers you will write at a comparable stage.  And they know that you'll still need to get tenure, whereas a senior person will be permanent immediately without any chance to see how they will work out in the department.
As for what you can do during the interview: the cake is mostly baked on that score, but you can concentrate on giving a good and accessible talk.  Practice it in front of a more experienced person and get their feedback. Also, do what you can to learn about the department and school and have intelligent questions.  It's a minor thing, but giving the sense that you are taking the interview seriously, and are really thinking about what life will be like there will give a positive impression.  It's also minor but I worry a little about your defeatist attitude showing, even if you don't intend it to.  People can sense confidence or lack thereof, so going into the interview thinking you're the right person for the job can also make a difference around the edges.

During the interview, everyone has a specific role. Members of the selection panel are going to hear all candidates and make their choice. Candidates should present themselves and explain how they fit to this Department.
Your interview is about you and the position you want to be in. It is not about you and other candidates. I understand it is hard, but try to forget about their existence and focus on the best way to present your skills to the panel. It does not matter if other candidate is a tenured professor or a white rabbit with a pocket watch. It absolutely has nothing to do with what  your strong sides are and how you can fit this place.
Comparing yourself with others is never too helpful, and it is particularly so for interviews. From what I see, you are concerned of not getting this post already, and you believe you will not get it before you even enter the interview room. But so many things can happen between now and then.

What if this candidate will not show up during the day? (Maybe she has got another offer elsewhere? Maybe her plans changed?)
And if she is there, why do you think she will be the first candidate? (Maybe her research is not so brilliant, as it looks to you? Maybe it is, but they are really looking for someone to do the teaching? Maybe they would need a specific expertise to start a new course, and she does not have it?)
And if she is offered a post, why do you think she will take it? (Maybe they disagree on salary? Maybe she has a two-body problem that she can't solve? Maybe she does not like the University building and hates the idea of working there?)

There are so many variables involved, on which you have zero control, that the best thing to do is to focus on the thing you can control - work on your presentation.
And good luck with the interview!

The essence of the answer to your question is very simple, and it is that your entire conception of what it means to be the "best" candidate is misguided. You seem to have taken it upon yourself to decide in advance which of the candidates being interviewed is most deserving of the position, and decided (based on very partial and superficial information) that it's someone else, not you. Hence your strong self-doubt, sense of hopelessness, and low level of confidence (all of which are bad states of mind to be in when going into an interview due to their self-fulfilling nature).
The truth is that departments take many factors into account in their analysis of who is the "best". Some of those factors were listed in the other answers, but in fact there are many others, and I feel like it is not worth the effort trying to list them all since their precise nature is mostly irrelevant. The point is that it is your job to go into the interview and do your best, and it is the department's job to evaluate you and the other candidates and decide who is best. It is unproductive and self-defeating for you to be assuming that role yourself and to make any assumptions that you are either worse or better than any of the other candidates, no matter the reason. The only sensible assumption you should be making is that you are just as serious of a candidate as any of the other ones, since the department has gone to the significant trouble and expense of inviting you for an interview.
To drive home the point, consider the metaphor of a romantic courtship. You (assuming you are male and heterosexual, otherwise make the obvious changes to this story) are courting a beautiful woman, and she has agreed to go for a walk in the park with you on Sunday. You know that on Tuesday she is meeting another of her suitors, who is an older, more experienced, and perhaps slightly more charismatic man. Should you just give up and assume that there is no way for you to be seen as a serious romantic contender? Of course not - the fact that she has agreed to the date is precisely what makes you a serious contender. Just go and do your best. Good luck!

I'm on a search committee this year. We very much do handicap or adjust for seniority. We are not legally allowed to (and don't) discriminate on the basis of biological age, but it is routine to use academic age as a factor in hiring. Applicants with more recent Ph.Ds have a better chance of having their best work in front of them as opposed to behind them. In addition, applicants with more recent Ph.Ds will be further away from retirement. A faculty hire is a long-term investment, and it costs exactly the same amount to search for a new researcher as it does to search for an experienced researcher, so purely in terms of cost per unit year of eventual employment it makes a lot of sense to hire more recent graduates.
You are not required to compete with senior applicants on equal terms. The search committee will handicap all applicants appropriately. Just do your best!

I agree with the first part of your answer, but as for the "cost per unit year of eventual employment", it is negligible unless you are hiring someone who is about to retire in 2-3 years, so I doubt anyone factors that in.

If it were negligible then everybody would be volunteering to serve on search committees! Retiring in 15 years vs. 30 years doubles search costs.

@djao The interesting number is not the expected "years until retirement" but "years until leaving this position". As shown in the question, people sometimes leave tenure-track positions for other ones.

True, but the two variables are certainly not uncorrelated!


text:
My mentor during my master's degree was a PhD student. Does this lower my chances to get a PhD position in good universities?
My master's mentor was a PhD student in my university.
I had an interview in a Dutch University for a PhD position, and the committee made me feel weird about my former mentor being a PhD student. Although the University and my supervisor have said it was okay, I am still a bit worried about my chances.
Does having a PhD student as a mentor lower my chances?

In many countries, it's quite normal for PhD students to supervise, at least informally, master's students, intern etc.

@MassimoOrtolano Thank you for your answer. But what do you mean by "informally". My mentor also is grading my thesis, so do you think that is fine as well?

I mean that, in some countries, PhD students cannot appear officially – in the university records – as supervisors, but maybe other countries can officially recognize this role.

Your title and your question say different things. If you applied for a PhD position, it is not acceptable for another PhD student to be your mentor. If you have applied for a master's, it's quite normal.

@padawan it is however acceptable (as in, common practice in the Netherlands) that senior PhD students act as co-supervisor for fresh PhD students. Of course there is a PhD-holding supervisor, and grading of the thesis is up to an examination committee. Given the last point, I suspect that OP is indeed going for a master thesis.

I’m voting to close this because it seems to largely revolve around the policies of a particular university ad should be directed to the department head, (under)graduate advisor, or similar.

@StellaBiderman I don't think a particular University was mentioned here. Anyways, thanks for anyone who tried to help out clarifying the situation.

@padawan sorry if I confused you. I was just afraid that I don't get the PhD position because I was mentored by a PhD student during master's thesis.

@StellaBiderman the question is general, about whether good universities would consider the MSc being supervised by a PhD student and we can give such advice quite easily, which will also be useful to other students.

@Roland He was like a second mentor to me, and I added his name on my thesis text (with the other PhD student), but the Uni rejected and wanted only one name to grade during the Colloquium, of course with the University supervisor.

It is important here to distinguish between what is on paper and what is the day-to-day reality.
As other have mentioned already, it is common for masters students to be supervised on a daily basis by a PhD student. However, I have never heard of a PhD student being a formal supervisor for a masters student. I very much doubt that this is your case, but stranger things have happened.
What is far more common is that you are accepted for masters work at a lab/department/research group etc and the main supervisor (at least on paper) is the group leader. Then s/he may delegate the day-to-day supervision to a PhD student who is (hopefully) knowledgeable in your field. This is especially common if the group leader has a large group with many grad students, collaborations and possibly even administrative duties. None of this is of any detrimental impact to your chances to being accepted as a PhD student later down the line.
If you are in doubt, ask yourself the following questions:

who advertised the position?
who did I have to contact to be accepted to this position?
whose name will be on the first page of the thesis as a supervisor, once the thesis is formally written?
who is paying for the direct or indirect costs of my research?

If the PhD student tutoring you is the answer to all those questions, which I again doubt very much, then it may very well be so that people look at your future application with some hesitation, probably due to how uncommon and somewhat unrealistic this is.
There is however the possibility, if you are doing your masters at a company, that your formal supervisor is a PhD student, who also happens to be doing research at the company. But even then I would probably argue that formally there is a professor at some affiliated university or research institute who's the actual supervisor, at least on paper.

Your experience has shown that it is a problem in at least one case. If you are applying to Dutch universities then, actually, having a PhD supervise a masters student is (in my experience) quite common. What might be uncommon is for a PhD student to  officially supervise a masters student.
Your solution is to put down your official supervisor if they are not a PhD student as your actual supervisor, since I suspect that on your official masters documentation you will actually have written "under the supervision of assistant/associate/full professor X". You can mention in an interview that you also worked with a PhD student.

Thanks for your answer, it's clarified some points. My supervisor was a Uni professor, which is fine to my knowledge. To elaborate things, my Uni is German, and they've said "your mentor should have at least MSc degree". That's why I thought everything is normal, until I came across that interview and they made me feel like it's a mistake, or maybe I exaggerated things a bit.

I am a bit confused about the situation, perhaps you can edit your question to clarify. Your supervisor was a Professor who was also a PhD student? I've never come across this before.

no, my thesis was done outside of the University. In the University I have to pick a supervisor, who must be a professor. Where I did my thesis, in that institute, there was a mentor who was a PhD student. I hope that could clarify things a bit.


text:
Not motivated for the second part of thesis
I am asking for a hint about the following issue. I have this particular (let's call it weakness) that I have to be motivated to do research. I have done a large portion of my thesis in PhD, but not for all cases. To put it in an example, assume that you are trying to prove a theorem in mathematics, which has two cases. You and your advisor are both convinced that in principle should not be any difference for the proofs i.e. if you proved the first case, you expect that the second case also holds. However, my advisor really wants to see the result directly for the second case as well. The issue lies exactly here: I am not convinced (motivated, etc.) to study the second case which is just more messy but she insists on this. In this case, I am asking for your suggestions: how would you motivate yourself to repeat the same process for the second case? I should emphasize that the problem itself is very interesting for me, and the issue is not this. The problem is that I am convinced that the second case is just a boring repetition of my first approach. I'd be so much thankful for your suggestions!

Sorry, but there are parts of math that are just messy. Worse, there are subtle parts that can throw you off. If you don't follow her advice you may be stepping into a mine-field.
But, it also sounds a bit like burn-out, and that you need a break. How much time can you take off without thinking much about the problem and come back to it fresh. It may still be a slog, but depending on intuition only gets you to the point where you seek the proof that validates it. Insight and intuition are good (essential), but the proof is in the proof.
Relax for a while (week, month?) and then get cracking.
But also guard against being sloppy in your thinking. If the second case really is a bit more subtle and difficult then (a) you might skip over the real issue and (b) that part might be the essence of a better paper/thesis/whatever.

I actually struggle a lot with the motivation. For every task I'd like to do, there are three that I find boring. I came to understand though, the boring stuff is also needed. Sometimes, it even helps to understand the problem or in case of writing the reports, it gives you a look back at what you've achieved.
One of the motivation techniques is to divide the task into easily accessible milestones with, if possible, achievable deadlines. Write them down, keep them in the visible place and strike them out when done. It's really satisfying. If that's not enough, you can also plan some rewards when you achieve the goal.
In your case, you could also focus on some side project for a time being, so you come back to the task you are now bored with with a fresh mind. It's good, however, to set a date by which you start to work on it again.

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text:
I'm about to graduate and enter a 1-year master's program. I don't really know any professors, and I've never done research. How can I get involved?
I'm a senior in CS and will be finishing my undergrad this coming semester at a university with a well-respected CS department. My school has a 1-year extension to our B.S. that gets you a master's, and I'm in that program. The program does not require any research, but recently I've gotten interested in the idea of doing research and possibly a PhD after my master's.
The thing is, the whole research thing being a recent interest, I have no experience whatsoever with academic research. I also have had very little contact with my professors throughout my time here, since I've been doing fine in classes and I've never really needed to talk to them. I do ask/answer questions in lecture more than the average student, but I rarely see professors outside of class. I do have a number of fairly complex projects on my resume (several that I'm still involved in), but that's complexity in terms of coding on a large code-base and not in terms of fancy theoretical stuff.
Is it too late for me to get involved in research? If not, how do I actually get started? Do I literally just send someone an email?

Is it too late for me to get involved in research?

No, your timing is excellent.

how do I actually get started?

Presumably you know what fields interests you. One of those fields should probably be your research field. If possible, opt for a master's degree with a research focus (rather than an entirely taught degree). Opt for any research focused modules. Opt for any modules in your chosen field. Conduct any coursework on research problems. Establish whether you really want to do a PhD.
In parallel, start searching for a PhD supervisor. That supervisor can be located anywhere in the world that you are willing to live. Selecting a supervisor is most likely covered elsewhere (e.g., https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/10878/22768), so I wouldn't discuss further.


text:
What percentage of applicants to Harvard (or another well known R1 university) are international?
Is there anything known about what percentage of applications to Harvard's undergraduate programs comes from international applicants? (If not about Harvard, is something known about similar US R1 universities?)
I seem to easily find information of such statistics for the admitted students but it seems hard to find information on the applicants. (I don't think the one can be easily used to deduce information about the other. I expect a strong bias towards US students in admissions.)

I don't think there would be a source for that information besides the institution itself.

@Bryan, right, so have any famous R1 universities ever published such data?

A brief remark: You may be able to pour over the various court documents for the recent Supreme Court case that Harvard lost. But it may be slow going. https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/20-1199.html

State universities may be easier to locate this information for as they are part of the government and subject to disclosure laws.

But like, yes, US universities admit more American students than international students. This isn't a secret, nor nefarious, so you're not going to uncover anything we don't know.

@AzorAhai-him-, I wasn't calling anything nefarious. I was just curious to know. Unfortunately they do seem to be hiding this in general. Let's hope that there is some famous R1 university that is more open about the process and can lend some insight (I expect that many of the students applying to one top university will also be applying to several other top university so data from one probably quite accurately approximates the others.) (Or as pointed out by user176372 perhaps some court case will help uncover these statistics.)

I'd be interested in data of State universities as well. Although I doubt they tell much about the more famous universities. They are just not that famous internationally and so I expect they get a lot less international applicants. BTW I just realized that The College Board (SAT) probably has a lot of data on this as well. Again I don't know whether they ever published any statistics on this.

@Kvothe They may get fewer, but the West Coast state schools receive plenty of Asian attention. And to be honest, probably fewer people taking "moonshots" for Harvard, MIT, etc. So the data may be more meaningful as to students that are well-suited for that institution. However, I'm still not sure about "hiding," I think it is fairly well-known they admit fewer international students than domestic.

@AzorAhai-him-, again only mean that they are "hiding it" in the sense that they are not making the data available. It might be "well known" as you say. But despite being "well known" nothing is actually known about it at the moment. It could also be that they are not biased in this regard. At the moment we don't know either way because their is no data available to analyze. I'm sure people have asked before. And I suspect a conscious choice has been made in not making this data available. But we cannot know this "fact" whether it is "well known" or not without the data.

As an example, the University of California publishes such data.  UC Berkeley and UCLA are consistently some of the highest ranked public research universities in the US, and usually ranked very high among US and world universities overall.  (For instance, in the 2022-2023 US News global university rankings, Berkeley was ranked #4 in the world, behind Harvard, MIT and Stanford, and just ahead of Oxford, so I think they meet your criteria of "well known" / "famous".  UCLA is #14 on that list, and UCSD is #20.)
For Berkeley in 2023, the numbers were:
               Total        International (%)
Applied        125,910       21,855 (17%)
Admitted       14,677        1,167 (8%)
Admit rate     11.6%         5.3%
Enrolled       6,641         615 (9%)

If you can wait a year or so: a question about applications, admits and enrolls by domestic / international status was just added to the Common Data Set for 2023-2024 (see section C1). Like many institutions, Harvard publishes their CDS data submission each year, but they probably haven't completed the 2023-2024 data yet, and that site is only up to 2022-2023 for which that question was not included.

Of note, public universities skew towards in-state (domestic) students since tuition is significantly higher otherwise. For Berkeley, it's an additional $34,200/year. Second, as a state taxpayer-funded body, they are mandated to serve state residents. Seats are guaranteed for 9% of California high school graduates in the UC system.

Perhaps you could include the domestic rates for comparison?

As another (non-US) example, the University of Cambridge publishes extensive admissions statistics. According to the report covering the 2022 admissions cycle, the breakdown was (Table 2.1)1

Applications (%)
Offers (%)
Admitted (%)2

Domestic
66.4
76.5
79.2

International
33.6
23.5
20.8

Table 3.2 in the report provides a further breakdown by country of origin.

1 The definition of domestic/international here is based on whether the applicant is liable to pay 'home' or 'international' tuition fees. The rules are complex but broadly 'home' students are those who have been resident in the UK for at least 3 years before starting the course. Table 2.1 also has information about the schools students are coming from: thus, some 'international' applicants are already at schools in the UK, while some 'domestic' applicants may be applying from abroad.
2 Most offers are made before applicants have completed school, and so they are conditional on particular grades being achieved. Only about 80% of people who are offered a place ultimately take it up - either because they fail to get the grades, or because they decide to go elsewhere.

Thanks, I have upvoted your answer. (Since there are many possible answers concerning different universities I'm not accepting an answer yet for now.)

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text:
If you were an editor-in-chief, would you appreciate to be informed that an associate editor has published sloppy information in his journal?
(Edited with thanks after the early comments helped gauge the perception of the post.)
This is the situation
I came across an article published in a reputable journal in the field of physics and engineering science.

The first author of this article is a member of the editorial board.
A handful of other co-authors follows. They are also affiliated to serious education establishments and hold positions with some standing.
Author and co-authors are associated by a grand research project. This lets me think that this article attracts and will attract attention for a while, at a minimum via legit self-citations.
Parts of the article had been copied and pasted, or slightly edited, from grey literature related to the same research project.
One of these parts is relevant for understanding the inner workings of their research outcome and, pragmatically, comparing my work and theirs. But

some terminology is plainly wrong (apples-for-pears)
some terminology is subtly wrong (community-bound misnomers)
some formulas lack
the references do not contain information integrating these lacunas

Therefore, it is impossible for me to verify the work they did and take at face value some claims of the article relevant for my investigation.
I have reached out to the research team

first asking for additional information (I had started my study from the item of grey literature of point 4)
the first author acknowledged the apples-for-pears glitch but did not provide the lacking information
I asked again for that integration I needed
radio silence
I then discovered the article, pointed out to the inconsistency with the paper, and urged the need for an integration, out of lack of alternative sources
radio silence
I moved on, carried an analysis of the topic at a considerable time overhead, and proposed to their judgement an integration for the lacking parts
radio silence

To sum up, 1-3 describe the context; 4-5 describe the problem; 6 describes what I did in search for clarifications.
Now onto the considerations
The shortcomings I have spotted must have passed several coarse filters.
The number of eyeballs (several co-authors and perhaps a couple of reviewers) that could/should have spotted at least some of these shortcomings from the outset is high.
I feel that the situation is particularly anomalous because of point 1.
That is, granted none is perfect, I would expect that associate editors are particularly strict ensuring that their own publications set a standard for the journal, or do not betray that standard.
In my view, this is surely no research misconduct, rather either a questionable research practice or a minor shortcoming, depending on judgement.
However, I feel this is not exactly OK.
I am also quite willing to wait for a few weeks for a satisfactory answer to come or for me to develop another perspective on the state of the play, also thanks to this community.
Now onto the questions
In this meantime, at any rate, I would like to gather views from this community on why

you would recommend to inform the editor-in-chief of the shortcomings in points 4-5 and motivate a request for revision?
you would rather recommend not to do this?

(I am neither an associate editor or an editor-in-chief.)

What outcome are you hoping for here?

@JonCuster A guarantee for high quality standards in the future. Kind of who watches the watchers? For the rest it is still an undefined sense that this is not OK. I do not have special "hopes".

Are you only interested how we would react in this hypothetical situation or are you having this dilemma? If the latter, talk this through with trusted collegues who know the people in question on a human level.

@user111388 This is not a hypothetical situation. I do not think it is realistic to rely on trusted intermediaries. The context is formal and neutral.

@XavierStuvw: So why do you trust the people in this forum? I think the main thing here is the human component. People will react differently. Some people are jerks on a human level -- good and bad scientists alike. Some care most for truth and quality, some for protecting friends, some are too lazy to fhange something, some will view you as a troublemaker, some will love you for that info.. you need to consider what kind of human they are to make a guess what to do.

@user111388 I want to gather different takes on the topic. Beside the dimensions you mention wisely, there could be best practices or episodes that different people may want want to bring in, for example. Hope this addresses your perplexity.

Is the article worth it? Do people read it? There is so much fluff and irrelevant work in the literature that, as long as it is not grossly misleading, wasting time of many people (e.g. claiming to have some cure to a relevant and dangerous illness), either it will disappear in the fog of the past or, if it is interesting/relevant/attracting attention, you can write a separate commentary as response on the article. You are not the employer of said scientists, so "waiting for a satisfactory answer" is positing a demand that the authors may not have the resources (time) or desire to fulfil.

@CaptainEmacs I think it is worthy, for it delineates important features of the research project. I imagine that the same research team had it in mind to use the article as a square-zero publication that could be cited in lieu of grey literature. So there is a fair chance that at least the individual authors will refer to it as look-there-if-you-want-to-know-more-how-the details-work. If I write the commentary I have to ask the editor-in-chief not to assign me to that associate editor aka first author, which is a way to inform the ed-in-chief. Why not elaborate this way forward on an answer?

@XavierStuvw It was just a question to clarify, not really an answer at this point. Yes, you may state to the editor that, because your commentary is critical that they ensure that it gets a fair review. You cannot probably prevent one of the original authors to be asked by the editor to write a review, as they will - rightly - want to have an opportunity to respond, but it depends on the editor. Unless you can state a direct conflict-of-interest, of course.

@CaptainEmacs Thanks for contributing at any rate. There is no reason to object that the editor in chief tasks the original first author with a content revision. However, the first author should not appropriate the work done by other scholars who identified the shortcomings and justified an alternative analysis of the same facts. I presume this is a guarantee (doing justice to the work done by each) that the editor-in-chief ought to seek.

@XavierStuvw: Thank you for clarifiying.

@XavierStuvw Honestly, I think this feels like one of those situations that ought to fall under the general heading of "let it go and focus on your own work". It's rarely worth spending significant time taking potshots at other people's work (unless it's in a paper you're writing and you're making a clear, evidence-based point in as polite a way as possible) - it's a needless distraction from getting your own work done.

@StuartGolodetz Thanks for bringing up this impression, it is useful to add it to the count. "One of these parts is relevant for understanding the inner workings of their research outcome and, pragmatically, comparing my work and theirs". To reassure, I am getting my work down anyway (at a significant time overhead, as far as time matters) and I am sharing my findings back with the authors to stimulate a discussion (and getting help from the clarity). The core question here is how editor-in-chiefs would tend to see an evidence-based case for review.

@XavierStuvw I guess that depends on the editor-in-chief - not all of them will react the same. However, I'd imagine that most of them would prefer you to do your talking "on the pitch" (as in, in a paper), rather than bringing them your grievances and asking them to adjudicate. I think it's fair to ping the authors initially and see if they want to address your concerns in good faith; if not, my view is that it's much better to follow up with a paper than an editor (if you follow up at all - letting it go is also fine). It's the same deal as complaining to the referee in sport.

@StuartGolodetz And thanks again. I feel you have addressed the post question, so please to convert your comment into an answer if you like. (In passing I have re-edited my post taking into account the early impressions that it had conveyed)

Reading your post, I did not understand exactly what the problem is with their article. It may be sloppily written, but your post comes across like you are looking for reasons to complain about it.
It is unfortunately common for articles to be poorly written. Of course, depending on the journal one expects varying quality, but even in top journals writing and presentation quality may not the primary concern for publication.
On the other hand, if you have comments on how an article can be improved, you have to be very careful when emailing the authors. Unsolicited criticism does not usually go over well.

A handful of other co-authors follows. They are also affiliated to serious education establishments and hold positions with some standing.

This does not seem relevant to the question.

Author and co-authors are associated by a grand research project.

Similarly, this doesn't seem to be relevant.

Parts of the article have been copied and pasted, or slightly edited, from grey literature related to the same research project.

Are you accusing them of plagiarism, or did they only copy from their own past papers? If the former, that is a major concern and you should contact the editor, but only about this particular point, not the rest. If the latter, note that attitudes on self-plagiarism vary and while it is inadvisable, it is not always considered unethical.

some terminology is plainly wrong (apples-for-pears)
some terminology is subtly wrong (community-bound misnomers)
some formulas lack
the references do not contain information integrating these lacunas

These are issues for the presentation but not issues with the work itself. It sounds like you have a lot of ideas for how to improve the article, but as you are not the author of the article, there is no direct and easy way for you to do so. If you feel strongly about presenting their work more effectively, you could consider writing a blog post or other piece of exposition putting their work in a positive light and clarifying such issues.

I asked again for that integration
radio silence

Were you polite in your emails? Did you compliment their work at all? Did you express interest?
If not, I would probably respond with radio silence too. Yes they could improve the article, but they did not ask you for your unsolicited feedback. They are not obligated to answer your email.

I then discovered the article, pointed out to the inconsistency with the paper, and urged for some integration

It sounds like you emailed the authors and just told them to change their paper. This comes across as rude. You need to be more tactful in your suggestions.

Thanks for sharing your views. The reasons to complain are already in 4-5: the original material was not edited critically before publication in a journal, and the present form impedes reproduction/verification; so no presentational issues. Points 2-3 are descriptive and provide guarantees on the authors' reputation, nominally at least. I asked clarifications as an interested person who would benefit from them; probably I haven't complimented them enough, but neither detract. I'd hold that improving the article is in the best interest of the journal, authors and readership. Hence the post.

@XavierStuvw probably I haven't complimented them enough In general, you can't just email someone and say "please edit your paper". No one responds well to this.

Of course not. I haven't written anything like that. So I concur. The core of the post is whether it is appropriate to inform editors-in-chief of such occurrences, in the net of all the communication glitches that may or may not have existed. We do not have to assume either that the counterpart is made by knights without fear and beyond reproach. Also, dealing gracefully with the rude is a mark of class and, in the name of science, one might even drop a line Thanks for spotting this; we will look into this at our earliest convenience. I hope to have reassured that I refrained from offending

It sounds like some mistakes were made, but that there is no reason for you to take more action, because I see no clear benefit to action.  I suggest you find other resources that will help you with your research more efficiently.


text:
What rights do students in the U.S. have re gender pronouns?
What federally protected legal rights does a transgender student in the U.S. have re gender pronouns used in referring to the student?
This question was inspired by the recent discussion of gender pronouns at Academia Meta.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's about the legalese of a specific geographic region and not about academia.

@CapeCode: It’s about a legal question in the academic setting, very relevant to many academics.  Similarly, it’s not universal in geographical scope, but its scope is large enough to include a very significant fraction of users here.  Browsing the [legal-issues] tag shows plenty of similar questions that were well-received and produced useful answers.

@CapeCode then we can close all the questions in the legal issues tag, because by definition they only apply to a specific geographic region (unless there are academic war crimes :) ).

@scaaahu I find it very clear. Legal rights as given by whichever jurisdiction falls into that. From the answer, it seems federal law applies here, but if it were regulated by state law, a good answer would say "this depends on the state, this is how it is in Indiana, check your state".

@Davidmh The OP did not even say it's the legal right  that is being asked here. Re: What rights does a transgender student in the U.S. ... Legal rights is my guess.

@Davidmh Agreed. I'm strongly in favor of closing all legal-related questions.

@CapeCode I have posted a meta question

I can't see that this is any more off-topic than any other legal question pertaining to academia (of which, as noted on meta, there are many here), and can't help thinking that its closing has more to do with the content :-/

If this were an ethics or normative question, of the variety "how should students be treated..." I'd upvote and argue it is absolutely on topic here and not relative to opinion. But I'm also in the camp of those who aren't comfortable with legal interpretations of specific federal laws being the primary gist of the question, especially on issues which are actively changing with every new appeal and supreme court decision - such that even legal experts have trouble with active areas like this, and proper interpretation of individual vs institutional liability.

@BrianDHall - I edited the sentence that gets at the legal ramifications.  Essentially, the power of OCR lies in the threat to cut off public funding.  Not by a percentage -- it is all or nothing.  Publicly funded educational institutions are therefore quite careful to carry out remediation measures required by OCR. ... OCR moves slowly but it is relentless and consistent in its interpretations of Title IX and 504.  Take a look at the LGBT-related case resolutions posted at http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/lgbt.html.

Here's how it works: Congress passes a law, instructs the appropriate body to flesh out the law with regulations (for a great account of the role the disabled movement played in the creation of the 504 regulations, see "A Short History of the 504 Sit-in"), and funds and mandates an agency to enforce that law and that set of regulations.  In the case of Title IX, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (which prohibits discrimination in public education on the basis of disability), that enforcing body is OCR.

The "Dear Colleague letter" guidance cited in my answer states clearly that this recently published document does not change how OCR has been enforcing Title IX, it, along with the accompanying "Examples" document, simply spells out the expectations more clearly and explicitly.

@SimonW The policy on legal question, if any, isn't consistently applied: Has the stance on questions pertaining to legal issues changed?

I think another answer here is misleading, so I am writing to clarify what federally protected rights transgender students in the U.S. can reasonably expect at this time.
As things currently stand:

The federal government is not allowed to pursue Title IX investigations that interpret Title IX's sex discrimination prohibition to include discrimination based on gender identity.
The Department of Justice and Department of Education have rescinded guidance (issued by the previous administration) that instructed schools to treat discrimination based on gender identity as a Title IX issue.
The U.S. Supreme Court may indicate later this year whether Title IX protections apply to transgender students who face discrimination based on gender identity.

Previous federal guidance in the Dear Colleague letter of May 2016 considered discrimination based on gender identity to be sex-based discrimination. According to this interpretation, Title IX protections would then apply to transgender students who are subject to discrimination because of their gender identity.  This would certainly not have required school employees to use gender-neutral language as a general rule, but that letter did support e.g.

a student's right to ask school employees and contractors to use pronouns consistent with their gender identity,
the school's Title IX responsibility to mitigate (to the degree that they can) the harassment of students due to gender identity. There is legal precedent (see footnote 9 in the document linked above) to suggest that persistent misgendering can be considered sex-based harassment if it is severe or pervasive: "Persistent failure to use the employee’s correct name and pronoun may constitute unlawful, sex-based harassment if such conduct is either severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment"

However, this interpretation - that Title IX protections apply to gender identity - was challenged in the courts in Texas v United States. An August 2016 injunction bars the federal government from enforcing the interpretation of Title IX put forth in the Dear Colleague letter:

Defendants are enjoined from enforcing the Guidelines against Plaintiffs and their respective schools, school boards, and other public, educationally-based institutions. Further, while this injunction remains in place, Defendants are enjoined from initiating, continuing, or concluding any investigation based on Defendants’ interpretation that the definition of sex includes gender identity in Title IX’s prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sex.

The U.S. Department of Justice indicated an intent to appeal that Texas decision, and in November 2016, asked for a partial stay on the injunction, arguing that the injunction should only apply to the states involved in the lawsuit. A hearing on that motion for a partial stay would have taken place in February 2017. However, the new administration's Department of Justice withdrew that motion just before the scheduled hearing, noting that the "parties are currently considering how best to proceed in this appeal."  Shortly afterwards, the Department of Justice and Department of Education issued a new Dear Colleague letter withdrawing the guidance in the May 2016 letter.
Meanwhile, in March 2017 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a related case, in which they may decide whether Title IX protections apply to gender identity. This case, too, is complicated by the withdrawal of the May 2016 letter, a move that has been communicated to the court.

I appreciate the time and effort you took to write this in a balanced and accurate way; the result is a clear and helpful answer.

I had not seen the Texas injunction.  Had I known about it I would have waited to post my question, and my answer.  It was not my intention to introduce a legal polemic here at Academia SE. ... That said, having now looked at the Texas injunction you found; I have to say it appears to be about bathrooms, not pronouns.  Also note that the injunction is apparently not having the broad, sweeping effect intended.  In some recent cases, the Texas injunction was found to be of limited relevance.

@aparente001 This isn't the right place for discussing the US legal system; if you want to learn how to correctly interpret the injunction (or the other documents you've cited in your answer), or if you think I've misstated something and want to get a second opinion, take it to [law.se].

@ff524 - I made no assertion you misstated anything.  The injunction certainly makes things more messy, and more polemical than I thought this topic would be.  I agree fine legal points have no place on this site.  I thought this was a straightforward Q & A, as I was unaware of the Texas challenge. ... The injunction order is itself complex, but judging from some cases that have been ruled on since it was released, it has not prevented parents from continuing to advocate strongly and successfully for their transgender children's right to use the bathroom of choice.  Further responses will ...

have to wait until tomorrow....  Good night.

really nice answer :)

Could this be updated with the results of that March 2017 SCOTUS case? (Not looking for a complete update, just that last bit is kind of a cliffhanger.)

As recently clarified by a "Dear Colleague" letter from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, under Title IX, in educational institutions receiving public funding, transgender students have the right to be referred to by their chosen gender pronouns.  Also, educational institutions must "take reasonable steps to protect students’ privacy related to their transgender status, including their birth name or sex assigned at birth. [...] A school may maintain records with this information, but such records should be kept confidential."
For additional clarification, also see OCR's accompanying publication, "Examples of Policies and Emerging Practices for Supporting Transgender Students".
In the referenced Meta discussion, one user asserted, "Gendered pronouns are not offensive content with respect to the Be Nice policy that all Stack Exchange users are required to follow."
That may be true -- after all, Stack Exchange sites are not subject to Title IX -- but as the above-cited guidance from OCR shows, using a non-preferred gendered pronoun in a public educational setting is not only offensive to a transgender individual, if it is done on a public campus, it could result in the institution losing public funding [bold text added 10/6/16 to be more precise].

Edit 10/5/16, response to comment

Note that Title IX [...] does not require gender neutral pronouns as a general rule.

The Dear Colleague letter recognizes that "gender transition can happen swiftly or over a long duration of time."  Recognizing that a student may feel gender fluid during the process of transition, and recognizing students' right to privacy, the take-home message that I got from the OCR documents is that when in doubt, avoidance of gendered pronouns can be the most sensitive course of action.
While the OCR documents cited do not state this explicitly, they do support it.  The "Examples of Policies and Emerging Practices" include, as positive examples, the following quotes from state and district policies:

"If you are unsure about a student’s preferred name or pronouns, it is appropriate to privately and tactfully ask the student what they prefer to be called." (DCPS)
[Faculty and staff training should include] “gender-neutral language and practices.” (Massachusetts)
“As with most other issues involved with creating a safe and supportive environment for transgender students, the best course is to engage the student, and possibly the parent, with respect to name and pronoun use, and agree on a plan to reflect the individual needs of each student to initiate that name and pronoun use within the school." (New York)
[Schools are advised to] "collect or maintain information about students’ gender only when necessary." (Massachusetts)
“When speaking with other staff members, parents, guardians, or third parties, school staff should not disclose a student’s preferred name, pronoun, or other confidential information pertaining to the student’s transgender or gender nonconforming status without the student’s permission." (Chicago)

It can be challenging to speak or write in English without gendered pronouns!  OCR demonstrates that with a little effort, it can be done without confusion, and without too much awkwardness: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/investigations/more/02131220-a.pdf

I think your final claim ("if it is done on a public campus, it is also illegal") is still an open question. The Obama administration, which is charged with executing the law, has interpreted Title IX a certain way; but unless I'm mistaken, that interpretation has been challenged, and the challenge is still making its way through the Federal courts (which are charged with interpreting the law, and whose interpretation, once available, will supersede that of the executive branch).

I find your last two paragraphs to be somewhat out of place here. If you want to make a statement about site policy, please do so in the referenced meta discussion. (Also note that Title IX, like Stack Exchange, does not require gender neutral pronouns as a general rule. Gendered pronouns are not generally "illegal" in a public educational setting - the documents you cite only suggest that intentional misgendering after being asked to use specific pronouns preferred by that individual are a potential Title IX violation.)

@ff524 I find this whole Q&A to be out of place here. This isn't law.SE, this is academia.SE.

@Seth this is a legal issue pertaining academics in the US, I don't find it out of place.

@NajibIdrissi I think you're misunderstanding the word "right". The question is whether the school has an obligation to use preferred pronouns. If there's no obligation, it's just up to the individual teacher or school to set their own rules. I think no one is even suggesting that schools are forced by law to use the pronoun of the student's assigned gender against their will.

@ruakh - Would you care to provide a link?  Would you care to provide an answer?

@NajibIdrissi I fail to see the difference. "I have the legal right to be treated with respect by you", "You have the legal obligation to treat me with respect".

@NajibIdrissi - I think if you look at the OCR letter, things will become clearer for you.  Give it a try and let me know.

I edited this answer to correct the claim that Title IX violations are "illegal". They are not illegal (you cannot be charged with a crime for this), nor in general are they even a civil cause of action; rather, they could in toto expose the institution to legal liability or issues with funding agencies.

The reference to SE seems misguided. Honestly, I cannot help but feel that there is quite some confusion about which types of problems are trying to be solved with which type of regulations.

You seem to be more intent on making a statement about site policy than actually helping transgender readers understand their rights. (To the point of implying that transgender students should expect that everyone at their institutions will use gender neutral pronouns as a general rule, or that schools will lose federal funding if they do not use gender neutral pronouns as a general rule, which is just not accurate.) I have downvoted this answer because many parts of it are misleading and potentially detrimental to transgender students who are actually trying to understand their rights.

"If you are unsure about a student’s preferred name or pronouns, it is appropriate to privately and tactfully ask the student what they prefer to be called." -- this also applies to students whose gender you can not infer from their names.

@aparente001, I have no isea why you think the OCR letter uses gender neutral language, as it refers to the student only in pronouns appropriate for the gender identification of the student.

@ScottSeidman - You are right.  The link in my answer was not the right one.  I meant to post the following letter as an example of gender-neutral language: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/investigations/more/02131220-a.pdf.  Apologies for the error in the post, which I have just corrected.