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What form should evidence of a directed study take on a graduate application?
I'm planning to send out some applications to a few moderately prestigious Masters programs this fall. I have a lot of research experience, a good GPA, and strong recommendations, but the field I am interested in is somewhat niche. None of my coursework or research relates to it directly, and nobody at my university has this subject as their primary focus. After talking to some professors, I got myself enrolled in a directed study course and have been steadily working through a large chunk of material under the supervision of a prof from a tangentially related field; he's happy to help as much as he can and I'm making good progress.
I've started thinking about what the end result of this effort will be. It seems unrealistic to try to write anything publish-able without having an advisor that is directly familiar with the subject, but the applications I'm going to be filling out tend to ask for some "hard" evidence of research or previous work in the field. I feel that this work could improve my chances of entry, but I am not sure how to best present it in an application. Could I point to a substantial final project of this directed study class as research, or is this too informal of an arrangement for that (since I'm essentially creating my own class on the fly)? Would it be more prudent just to let the name of the class show on my transcript and have mentions of the work in my SOP and recommendation letters?
Thanks.
(If it's important: My undergraduate work and research is in the realm of  math and comp sci and I'm wanting to enter the field of acoustic modelling.)

The very fact that you conceived of the project yourself shows initiative, which is (alarmingly) unusual. If your faculty sponsor can simply testify to your own conception of the project, and your serious pursuit of it, that'd be worth quite a lot, even if the faculty person cannot give expert testimony about your "performance".

Most master's programs don't expect you to have done research in that area beforehand.  Can you give some links to see how exactly they ask for "hard" evidence?

Talk to an admissions counselor or undergraduate advisor on the phone.  Explain your situation and your questions.  They will help you figure out how to package yourself for their purposes.  Also, I support what @paulgarret said.

I think you should ask your mentors to discuss your research in detail in recommendation letters. Provide them with the language to discuss your research. I would also include it in personal statements and course work.

To this I would add:  Include a paragraph in your application essay describing the directed study, why you did it, and what you got out of it.


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Academically dismissed from grad school but want to reapply
Back in the Fall of 2013, I attended a masters program straight out of college. Turned out to be extremely overwhelming relocating to NYC, living on my own and starting grad school. I knew I was in the right field but my anxiety got the best of me and I struggled speaking up in class which of course negatively impacted my grades. By the second semester I already knew I needed to leave and recuperate before I could return just to work on my anxiety problem. The problem was that it was too late for me to withdraw and I ended up trying my best to complete the semester even though a huge part of me did not want to be there anymore, especially since my teachers felt I was not ready for the program given my lack of contribution in the class discussions. By the end of the semester I decided that I did not want to return to the school (was not thrilled with the program there or the faculty) but later on found out I had been academically dismissed since my GPA fell below 3.0 to 2.96.
Since last Fall (2014), I have been just focusing on work and working on my anxiety with a therapist but have been thinking about applying to the same field (mental health counseling) at another school for the fall of 2016. Would I have a fair shot at being admitted into another school in the same field given that I was dismissed from my previous program? Just wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation.
Thank you in advance for your feedback.

Maybe this is a duplicate of something, but not the question it's linked to. Specifically, that question and its answers do not address reapplication after dismissal at all. This question concerns an entirely different situation than in an initial application. I don't know how to flag it as poorly marked as duplicate, but the duplicate flag really doesn't apply here.

For the poster, I recommend you take this very carefully, and perhaps read it a few times. I hate telling people that their dream may not be achievable, because I was in those shoes at one point, too. However, I can't advocate blindly trudging forward and not giving up because that wastes both your money and your time if you don't objectively evaluate whether or not your goal is still achievable.
A while ago, I was in a Master's Program in Biological Sciences, with the ultimate goal of eventually going to medical school. I struggled as much as I could, but in the end, failed to meet academic standards and was told that I was no longer in the program. BAM! Just like that, my dream of going to medical school was over. What seemed achievable, in a year, became a flight of fancy, and a disappointment that I took deeply for a while.
Needless to say, when you fail out of one program, the chances of you continuing in the same field drop dramatically, even if you can explain it as a medical issue, because the onus of proof points to the fact that you were unable to complete your original program.
I gave up my dream of applying to medical school and started working on a Master's in Computer Science. I had some experience, and I knew I could do it. It wasn't brain surgery, but it was something I was good at. I've been done with the Master's for a few years, and have been VERY happy with what I am currently doing. If you had told me right after I failed my first Master's that I would find something better to enjoy doing, I would probably have just flopped over like a fish and not cared.
I now call this event my "early-life crisis." A lot earlier than the mid-life crises that people feel regarding their work, because we reach the point where our dream not being attainable actually becomes a plausible or even likely scenario.
I hate to say it, some of us aren't really prepared or capable of achieving our "dream" jobs. I say "dream" because dreams can change, and they certainly should, given how your life plays out. Lots of people want to become the next Lebron James, but very few can. You can take 24/7 basketball courses and weight training, but sometimes, we just don't have the traits we need to reach that level. We make do, and we should course-correct if we know that making do is not sufficient for us.
You state that you were uncomfortable participating in group discussions regarding the subject of your Master's, mental health counseling. I'm somewhat familiar with this by prior trade, but communication is a big part of that field, and unless you get around the issues preventing you from participating, the same failure is likely to happen. Given what you've said, I would like to put to question whether or not you feel that you are a good fit for the program you're enrolled in.
Instead of jumping immediately in and trying again, you definitely evaluate your short-term and long-term career goals with your therapist. You should seriously consider additional programs and subject fields as well.

+1. Thanks for sharing your personal story and I am glad it worked out well for you.

While Compass's answer does make some valid points, I wanted to add my two cents on the assumption that the original poster is sure that renewing grad school efforts is the right next step.
If you "failed out" of a program already, you are going to have a hard time getting accepted back (or elsewhere) without really demonstrating a change in your work habits, maturity, academic ability, and other areas. A doctor's note saying "so and so has been treated for anxiety and is now fit for readmission" probably won't mean a thing to admissions committees, regardless of its veracity. However, demonstrating that you've done good work in a job related to your field is something that could be of note to an admission committee.
I'm sure the mental health field has plenty of opportunities that only require bachelor degrees. Working in this capacity for a while can both demonstrate an improvement on your part and also connect you to great resources who could ultimately recommend you for readmission. My understanding is that recommendations from people in your desired field can lead people to overlook past mistakes.
It is likely to be much more difficult the second time around, but demonstrating your growth with concrete achievements--rather than by saying "I'm ready now"--will be your best shot at restoring the admission folks' faith in your preparedness for grad school.

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graduate student credit for work on a paper
I am a graduate student with a question about credit for work that I did. I contributed design, data collection, analysis and writing for a paper for which I am almost certainly not being credited as an author.  Though I have tried, I have not and am not expecting to make headway with the PI and first author to address issues clearly and fairly.  I am also pretty certain the PI would find a way to retaliate if I push this issue with others. I am not sure if it is better to just give up and graduate or continue to push because I think I am right and I have put a lot of effort into this project.  Would you please offer advice?

There are several questions on this site very similar to yours, and I would suggest that you look those over to see if they are helpful to you. See, for example, the following: I feel like I got screwed over by my PI? No name on publication

Any significant words that you wrote which go uncredited constitute plagiarism, full stop. Your contribution may not rise to the level of authorship, but it deserves an acknowledgement at the very least. The editor of the journal where the article is submitted should be quite interested in this at the very least. If you have draft text saved that can demonstrate your contribution to the paper, that may be strong and convincing evidence. Git/SVN commits to a LaTeX version of the paper would be best, but any evidence of work in progress is good. Contacting the editor is the nuclear option, but if you feel strongly and have proof, you may be able to make a case for killing the article.
The real question for me is whether the PI is your PhD supervisor or not. Your graduation hinges on your relationship with your PI, and if you destroy that relationship by exposing their misconduct, you may do more harm to yourself than the publication is worth. What does your supervisor say? Are they the same person?
I cannot understand why a professor would exclude any contributor who appears to have done as much as you have from authorship for any reason. Are we missing something here? What argument does this PI make that you shouldn't be included?

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Time taken by department to offer the admission decision
How much time does it take for getting the admission decision after all the required documents are submitted at a university that offers admissions on Rolling Basis? I had my application and all required douments submitted before 10 days for Fall 2015. Also, my appliacation has been forwarded to the department before a week. How much time should it take for the department to review my application?
Thank you.

Your use of "before" is non-standard. Do you mean that you submitted your application 10 days ago and it was forwarded to the department 7 days ago? If so, this is far too short a time to expect a decision in the US. Of course, I'd also be surprised to find a department in the US accepting applications for fall of this year this late even with a rolling admissions calendar.

@BillBarth , thanks for your suggestion. However, I had asked the department before I applied and they had told me to submit my application along with required documents. So, are there any chance to have the decision within next four weeks?

I have no idea. You'll need to ask the department that. If they told you it's was OK to submit for Fall 2015 10 days ago, then you will probably get a decision before the semester starts. You might want to check back and see what their plan is.

@BillBarth Actually, I had confirmed on 15th May that my application can be reviewed. I had applied a month ago, but there was a struggle in receiving my GRE Score. I had to send my score three times and that took rest of the time to have all my documents submitted in order to start reviewing my application. Thanks anyways for your response. I also want to know the environment of this application reviewing process. How often do proffesors check applications and how much time does it require to complete review for each application? Could you please inform me? Thanks again.

I have no idea. You really need to ask the department what will happen.

The waiting time for a decision depends on the admission process. The admission process itself can vary broadly depending on type and size of the institution.
I can point out two different examples from the German higher education system. I graduated at a public state university of applied sciences where I was member of several committees. Now I work at a private state-recognized higher education institution. The admission processes and concerns, may also apply for US universities.

For public state universities dealing with 10.000+ applications, all of them have to be checked for formal correctness (documents complete and valid etc.). After checking a local numerus clausus have to be calculated to find the limiting grade needed for admission. Especially in Germany some laws and regulations enforce to fulfill target percentages of e.g. women or handicapped persons. These tasks performed by a handful of staff members can last more than a month. Sometimes German universities publish target dates of submitting the admission mail in the same way they publish application dead lines.
For private universities, business-, management- or law-schools the application process often is more selective. Admission committees decide not only on base of grades and formal criteria. Some require letters of recommendation, motivation letters, CVs pointing out working experience or social engagement. All these documents must be read and for everyone the committees have to give a recommendation. Depending on the number of staff members concerned with this, the period until one receives the final decision can last weeks up to months.

A rolling application, admission and matriculation implies for me a more selective admission process like for doctoral students or habilitation candiates.


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Contacting A Professor for Master of Science (Thesis)
I want to know whether or not the professors are generally interested to supervise students in their M.Sc. (Thesis) program.
How many students they may supervise?
Do professors insist that we know everything about their research work?
Do they provide us some time in case we don't satisfy the knowledge of their research work completely or do they deny to supervise us right away?
If a professor is ready to supervise, then does that guarantee the admission (assuming we meet all admission requirements)?

The last sentence is confusing, at first it seemed to me that you are just looking for a professor who would supervise your master thesis, I presume this means you are already enrolled in a master program and you are approaching its end and hence time to do the thesis. So what exactly do you mean by admission?

Professors get credit with their departments for supervising graduate students and getting them through to their degrees. Depending on the department, university, type of program (is the master's degree terminal? etc.), and country, the importance of supervising a master's student for a professor relative to a PhD student can vary a lot. In some places the PhD students may be all that really counts towards the professor's direct incentives, or they may be more or less equivalent. In a terminal master's program, the master's students are everything (if that isn't obvious). I don't know of anywhere where a master's student would count more than a PhD student towards a professor's supervision requirements, but it might be common in some professional programs that also grant PhDs.
Now, that being said, there are other incentives for professors that master's students can affect. Professors generally need to publish peer-reviewed works, and master's students can definitely contribute to that. Perhaps less so than PhD students, but most master's students are working towards at least one significant publication. Professors also must staff the grant-funded projects that they win and produce whatever deliverables they promised (or at least try to), and master's students are hired for this purpose as well.
Typically, professors may have as many students as they can support with funding. That may be grant funding or departmental funding, but I know of no hard caps. Obviously, departments will want students to get good supervision, so if a professor has an inordinate number of students, say 100, then a department chair might try to slow them down or otherwise act to insure that the students are adequately supervised. On the other hand, departments tend to stay out of the way of extremely well-funded professors.
Professors may decide how to select their students in almost any way they choose as long as they do not discriminate based on legally protected statuses in their country (e.g. race, sex, religion, etc.) and as long as they comply with their university's local regulations. My PhD supervisor took me on knowing, since I was applying to the same university as my undergrad, that I knew virtually nothing of his research. I didn't have the mathematics, fluid mechanics, or really even the programming skills to contribute strongly on day one. That being said, other professors may do things differently, especially for master's students who are expected to be there for only a few years. This is a personal choice, and so it will vary a lot. However, university degrees are at least partly about educating the student, so they can't expect you to know everything already.
Finally, admissions processes vary wildly across departments, universities, etc., so it really depends. In my limited experience based on watching others at one US university, master's admissions tend to be looser than PhD admissions in the sense that master's students who can pay are frequently admitted without a supervisor lined up under the assumption that they will find someone to supervise their thesis while doing the required coursework during the first year. PhD students usually aren't admitted directly to a PhD program unless some professor puts up their hand and volunteers to take them on. In other countries, I understand that students apply directly to a potential advisor and as long as they meet minimal criteria, they will be admitted to the university. Many US programs may be de facto like this but separate the university/departmental requirements from the professors' requirements on officially.
Finally, it's my understanding that many students are admitted to master's programs with the implicit expectation that they will transition to the PhD program over time after they find an advisor.


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Cost/benefit of interim professorship
What is the cost/benefit analysis for a Post-Doc taking a position as an interim professor?
Some costs I can think of: High teaching workload. Current projects suffer and a gap in publication record may result.
Some Benefits: Higher salary during interim position. The value of adding the position to your CV.

Note that in many cases research post-docs are paid better than visiting assistant professors.  Another reason for taking a VAP position is that it is a way to gain teaching experience.  In many cases, people take such positions because they're the only positions available.

You really should make your question more specific. These kinds of analyses can't be made seriously in the abstract. IMHO.

The answer will depend on many individual factors. Some positive aspects are:

The university gets to know you. I know of several interim professors who got a full professorship later on because everyone was satisfied with the person.
You are gaining teaching experience. This is an important factor if you want to apply for a professorship.
Related, but slightly different: You build up a teaching portfolio. If you are becoming a professor later, you are already having some material at hand.
You are getting in contact with motivated students which you can involve in your research activities.
Last but not least: Teaching can be fun :-).

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Correction Note or New Paper?
I have been alerted to a mistake in a (mathematical) paper that I published about 8 years ago, during my PhD. The error is relevant, in the sense that it affects one of the claims made in the main result, but does not invalidate the rest of the paper. After some effort, I now also know how to correct the error.
So one course of action would be to submit a 'correction note' to the journal where the article was published.
On the other hand, since the time the paper was published also my understanding of the topic has matured a bit. In hindsight I would write the paper somewhat differently, I have had some related ideas that were not included in the original paper and finally I am also not convinced that my choice of journal was optimal.
So another course of action would be to write a new paper, including the corrected result and some new additional results and submit it to a different journal.
What course of action would be best, from an ethical and from a scientific point of view?

That depends on one question: If we assume that the original paper would not contain this error, would your new related ideas be enough for a publication?
If yes then go ahead and publish it, including the correction (and of course notify the journal about it). If needed put a bit more research into the topic to get enough new results.
If no then this might seem like an excuse to get a new publication with content that is not worthy of publication (yet), so it might look like you try to cheat on your paper count, which is of course bad for your professional reputation.

In my personal view, corrigendum is a service to the profession. Therefore, if I were you, I would publish that corrigendum regardless of the new paper.
So if the new ideas are enough to be published without correcting the old mistakes, then I will publish both a new paper and a simple correction note. The correction note can be as simple as an acknowledgement of the mistake and verify that the other results hold.
So if the new ideas are not enough to be published without correcting the old mistakes, then I will just publish a correction note for now, and wait until I have enough results to publish another new paper on a better journal.


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Will consistent good work as a referee for a journal make it likely to become associate editor?
I am apparently considered a good and competent referee and I get many requests to review papers to the point where I have to reject several (about a third) of requests.
I also have to prioritize refereeing with many other duties (teaching, research, etc.), so my question is: Is there a likely payoff of writing (many) good reports for a given journal in the form of eventually being asked to become associate editor?

If you have specifics about your subfield that might help people to give you specific answers. Also, specifics about the journal's structure and organization would help (e.g., how do they choose editors? is it a society's journal or who oversees the journal?). Linking to the journal would let someone else find these specifics (but also might give away your identity).

Yes (probably after a period on the Editorial Board), but only if there is an Associate Editor vacancy or gap in your area of expertise in the editorial committee.

@RichardErickson: My subfield is mathematics. One of the journals to consider is run by a society, the other not.

My experience is with the the life sciences, so I cannot offer specific advise. I would suggest doing your leg work for the journals and seeing how they choose associate editors. All else being equal, the society journal would befit you more professionally because recognition from the journal (e.g., becoming an editor, reviewer) also raises your profile in that society. Also, some journals have editorial meetings at their national meetings. Those meetings might also help you to network and boost your profile.

Based upon my own experience as reviewer (i.e., a sample of n = 1), yes.
Here is my experience: I review for several different different journals, but have reviewed extensively for one journal. This journal has acknowledged me as an Exceptional Reviewer and I have been asked to apply to be part of the Editorial Board. For this journal, the editors vote on membership to the editorial board. Additionally, editors are usually selected from the board.
The answer to your question depends upon your subfield and the journal for which you are reviewing (e.g., is this a commercial journal or a society journal; also what is the journal's organizationally structure and how are editors select?).
I would suggest focusing your reviews on this journal (i.e., decline reviews from other journals and accept reviews from this journal if you are limited for time) and possibly dropping the Editor-In-Chief (or head editor) an email expressing interest in joining the editorial board. If it is a societal journal (i.e., published by a scientific society), I would also make sure my membership was current and possibly start raising my profile in that society (e.g., serving on committees, networking at their meetings, etc).


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Citing contemporaneous (interlaced?) preprints
In my area of research distributing preprints of results is very common. Consider the following seqence of events:

Group A finishes paper P, distributes it as a preprint and submits to a journal
Group B posts related preprint Q
Group A receives referee reports for paper P. Referee requests discussion/citation of Q.
Group A responds that Q came later and was not used in writing P, therefore no detailed discussion/citation necessary.
Referee insists on discussion of Q in paper P

Who is in the right?

Does Q discuss/cite P?

@Bergi no, it does not

Cite relevant literature
Since you have the option of adding a citation to a relevant source, you should do it. It improves the paper by making it a more useful reference, and comparing and contrasting the results might also be useful.
Priority
If relevant, use a phrase like "A very recent preprint A claims this and that.", or even, if your results are very similar and you really need to emphasize priority, "During peer review of this article a preprint A was published. The preprint...".

Citations are not simply for listing the papers you referred to while doing the work. "We didn't use this while writing the paper" is not a reason to not cite relevant material. Besides, you haven't even finished writing the paper – it's still being revised!
Whether or not the new paper requires a detailed discussion depends on its relation to your own. You should discuss it as much as you would if it had been available before you submitted your paper.

+1 A paper ideally should reflect the state of the art on the day it is accepted (after which you can only correct typos). Of course you (and the referee) might miss some latest development, or you decide to not take it into account, but that's at the risk of you paper becoming (partially) obsolete within very short time. Your decision, and the referee's and editor's to be OK with that.

Who is in the right matters somewhat less than who is in control. Refusing the request of a referee possibly leads to rejection of the paper.
But you may not need an extended discussion of the other paper, but a notice that it exists and is related in -whatever- way. This is simply a service to readers who find one paper and are interested in the topic generally.
You seem to be insisting on a claim to primacy here, which may not be completely warranted. The work on the two papers, and the key insights, occurred more or less at the same time - independent research. The fact that one hit the streets a bit before the other is less important than that certain problems were solved and some questions have been answered. The earlier date of issue could occur for any number of random reasons. Had it gone the other way, how would you feel?

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Convince coauthors of reducing self-citations
I am writing a paper jointly with coauthors from another research group. In their contributions to the paper they include a lot of self-citations, many of which are (in my opinion) irrelevant.
How do I convince them that this is bad style and that they should reduce the number of self-citations, without creating an antagonistic situation between our groups?

Are there strict page limits in journals in your field?  If so, this is a concrete reason to argue for paring down the reference list.

While you can give your best arguments to the others they probably won't be convincing. On the other hand, I wouldn't worry about it too much since the most powerful advocates for your position will be those who review the paper after submission. Reviewers don't especially like to go through "crufty" papers with a lot of irrelevant stuff. If your co-authors are, indeed, over-the-top on self-citation, it will likely be noted and need to be cleaned up after reviews come in.
Rather than cause too much difficulty, let the reviewers be your allies if it is really needed.
I would, however, make the argument to your collaborators that a lot of the citations are irrelevant and detract from the main ideas of the paper. You could even send them back a draft in which you have removed the citations you think are unneeded, just so you have a "working document" without those citations.

Is this something that many referees check for?  I don't check the references carefully, so I would only catch superfluous citations when it's really obvious.  E.g., I probably wouldn't catch superfluous citations in a situation like Many results in this direction appeared: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5].

Ultimately the editor is responsible for the quality of what is published. I think it is a real problem only when "over the top" and you would likely notice it then. Or someone would.

(Due to reputation<50, I cannot comment) What is the constellation in your group and the other group (PhD student, post-doc, professor, ...) and how well do you know each other?
First of all, you have to have a consistent opinion within your group about whether the references are indeed irrelevant self-citations only to pump up some citation counts or not. By discussing this issue with your group leader (assuming you are the PhD student/post-doc in your group), you will get a feeling whether confrontation must be avoided at all cost or your group leader will back you up on this issue.
Then, consider politely asking the co-authors to reconsider the references list. Point out to the guidelines of the journal and/or of our university that state address citations. While this answer is not creative and you surely have thought of this one yourself, it is the honest approach which will define the framework for the future publications this collaboration will hopefully yield.

First collaboration, approx. equal merits (group-leaders + post-doc/PhD in each group)


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Effects of tenure in the US system
Suppose you are in a tenure-track position in the US and lucky (or successful) enough to eventually get tenured.
The most important effect is obvious that you now have a permanent position. But what other effects are there? Does your salary increase automatically? Does your teaching load change? Do you get (additional) grad students? Are these changes negotiable?
PS: I am outside of the US system but interested in these facts for the purpose of comparison.

Related : https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/74960/what-are-the-perks-of-being-a-tenured-professor-at-u-s-universities-besides-ha (and see also the question linked to that one).

All of the answers: in some places yes, in some places no.  The US is not as homogeneous as you seem to think.  Even within an institution it may vary... Department of History compared to Department of Zoology...

Tenure and faculty rank are somewhat independent in that a faculty member may be hired as an associate (or even full) professor without immediate tenure- in those cases the faculty member is typically awarded tenure after a shorter than usual probationary period of a year or two.
The more common situation is when a faculty member is hired as an untenured assistant professor and then awarded tenure and simultaneously promoted to associate professor after a fairly long (up to seven years) probationary period.  I'll focus on this common case in the US.

Does your salary increase automatically?

There is typically a pay raise given to faculty who are promoted, but this could be small (a couple of percents) or large (twenty percent) depending on the institution.  There might be a standard pay raise, or it might be determined on an individual basis.  At institutions with unionized faculty that pay raise would be part of the contract.

Does your teaching load change?

At some institutions, tenure-track assistant professors have a reduced teaching load which goes up when they're promoted.  It would be very unusual for the teaching load to be reduced due to promotion and tenure.

Do you get (additional) grad students?

Graduate students in the US are typically supported by research assistantships (which are under the control of the faculty members who are PI's on the grants that fund the assistantships) and teaching assistantships (which are awarded to students by the department.)  Students typically ask to work with an academic advisor and then either get an RA from the advisor or are supported by a departmental teaching assistantship if they can get one.
Thus promotion to associate professor doesn't really have any direct effect on your ability to support graduate students.
However, students may be more interested in working with you after you've been tenured.  Students are rightly concerned about starting to work with an inexperienced assistant professor who might not get tenure and leave them with a half-finished thesis.  Another issue is that in some disciplines (pure math is an example) it's traditional for assistant professors to focus more on their own research than supervising graduate students.  In that situation, a newly tenured professor might be more willing to take on students.

Are these changes negotiable?

It's always possible for a faculty member to ask for a pay raise or a reduction in teaching load.  However, you're unlikely to be able to negotiate a pay raise or different working conditions just because you've been recently tenured.  The norm is that faculty members who are tenured will simply accept a pay raise and continue their work.

Does your teaching load change? - I would disagree with you on this one that it is unusual for teaching load to be reduced, although I am thinking about it from a field where teaching loads are low to begin with, and effectively zero for many faculty. In my field it's much more common to see junior faculty teaching more, since they are fulfilling part of their requirement towards tenure for doing so. More senior faculty are more likely to have a full set of grants that funds them completely.

I’d say that the nominal teaching load isn’t ordinarily lower for associate professors.  It’s really a different situation if someone is using grants to reduce their teaching load.

Does your salary increase automatically?

It depends. Tenure may or may not come alongside a promotion (but often does). The increase in pay that comes from that promotion may be small or large - there are some universities where the move from Assistant to Associate Professor with Tenure is a major bump in pay, and others where it's relatively modest to encourage people to go after Full Professor.

Does your teaching load change?

It...depends.
You may have more sway in what classes you teach, which may enable you to shift your teaching load toward classes you find more desirable.

Do you get (additional) grad students?

It's possible that your promotion might come with a funding line for a graduate student, but I've honestly never seen this. Your ability to support graduate students is largely a function of recruitment and funding. Indirectly you might have more sway on admissions committees to shape the incoming class in a way where it's easier to draw people into your lab, but that's a pretty indirect method.

Are these changes negotiable?

Getting tenure might make you more (or less) interesting as a recruitment prospect at another university. If you have another offer, everything is negotiable. But "I got tenure, now give me more things..." is not something that happens automatically.


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Difference between Phd degree while remaining a student, and after quitting a Japanese university?
I am currently enrolled at a Japanese university in the doctoral program of Mathematical and Life sciences, and have already been a student for last 4 years. I am waiting for the acceptance of research paper, and based on it, will submit the thesis for defense soon.
But I came to know that Japanese universities have a system where one can actually quit the university, but if the paper has been accepted, one can apply within one year for a thesis defense. A PhD degree will be awarded in the case of successful defense.
My question is, has anybody here been such a situation, and is aware of a possible difference between the technicalities of the difference in PhD degree, while remaining a university student, and after quitting the university? I know the concerned university or department should be the best place to answer it, but just in case anybody here can clarify that, I would be grateful for it.
At the minimum, will the degree obtained after quitting the university, would it be considered equivalent to the degree obtained while as a student or not? I guess other country universities don't have such a system in place. Thank you very much.

I doubt you'll get a good answer here about such a technical issue... you could even get a wrong answer! As you state, go to the university administration.

Thank you for your response. your point about I could get a wrong reply is so true. I have approached the administration sometimes back, but still waiting for the reply :)

Disclaimer: my Japanese is quite good, but I'm not a native speaker, so please keep that in mind.
Based on the degree statutes of your university (広島大学学位規則), you need not be enrolled in the graduate program to submit a thesis and apply for a defense (Article 2 Section 3). However, non-matriculated students must pay a fee of 57,000 JPY for the defense. This fee can be waived if the applicant is not currently enrolled, but has completed the program and left the university without defending within the past year (Article 4 Section 3). If you wait longer than one year you can technically still submit and apply to defend, but you would have to pay the fee.
I spent 10 years at a Japanese university, although not the same as yours. I can recall one person who got their degree in the non-traditional way, so it is possible but uncommon.
I assume you don't have Japanese citizenship, so have you considered what will happen to your residency status? I can't recall the procedures, but you could run into trouble unless you have a job lined up and can change your status easily. I would discuss this with your adviser, but I can almost guarantee things will go more smoothly if you just wait for the paper to be accepted.  You may need to revise the paper based on reviewer comments as well. In the meantime, maybe you can apply for positions or spend time making your CV and dissertation look amazing.

thank you very much for the extremely helpful reply. I cannot upvote or downvote currently being a new user, so sorry for that.
Can I reach you via email or pm? thanks a lot.

If I quit the university, I would become a non-matriculated student. Though the fees of 57,000 can be waived as I have completed the program, the PhD degree I would receive, that would be equivalent to the degree I would have received in case I haven't quit, right? My only concern is any subtle distinction in the two cases, which may make me ineligible for applying for academic positions?
About the residency status, that is not an issue, as I plan to switch to another academic workplace. Thank you for the advise in this regard.

There would be no difference in degree obtained by either method, and the fee would be waived if you defend within a year of leaving. However, once you are no longer enrolled as a student you need to notify your city hall (via 退学届け or something). Your residency status might be uncertain if you don't already have a job lined up.

Thank you everybody who replied and gave valuable suggestions. I have obtained a reply from the university, and posting the relevant parts here, which pertain to the differences in the wording in Degree certificate in two cases I have mentioned. First comes the degree without quitting the university.
Next, the degree after quitting the university.

The difference seems to be about affiliation to a particular department of the university. I hope that should be fine for most of the cases.
Thank you very much once again.

It seems that specialized in xxx is also missing from the second one (the degree after quitting).

Just curious: Was there a doctor diploma awarded after?  I am just asking because the real certificate of the degree is the actual diploma (and its English version for international purposes) with ID # and so on.

These may not be significant differences: certificates in Japanese universities are often given ad hoc basis, whatever translation is found (own experience), sometimes even translated by the person who requests the certificate (own experience). So the difference may come from accidentally using two different templates.

You see this right: it is a question your adviser / university can answer best. If you advisor do not recommend it, do not do it.
Regular Japanese PhD programs in Science/Tech fields are 3 years. However a great number of students do not finish by that time, and defend latter. Some of them even get promoted in academia, and do the defense at a later point. So it is a tricky, but not impossible situation. If it is an option for you highly dependent on your professor, department etc support. Discuss it with them.
The good news is that once the defend is successful, everyone consider it more or less the same degree.

I don't personally have experience with this, but let me point out a potential issue.  Generally it's not a good idea in academia to do something non-standard that may make you look strange.  Moreover, Japanese academia seems a bit more rigid to me in many ways than Western academia, and it is rather tightly knit.  If you quit, people from other universities will know this (plus it will likely be clear from your CV), and this will color their perception of you, not to mention how your advisor might feel.  This may make it harder for you to get an academic job in the future, especially in Japan.
I don't know what your reason for quitting would be, or how your advisor would take it, but even having such a conversation with your advisor has potential risks, particularly if you do not have a very good reason.  I suggest you think it over carefully privately first.  If you want to quit, then it might not be bad to try to talk to someone you that you trust and very familiar with Japanese academia (and preferably your advisor/group) before broaching the subject with your advisor.


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Applying for MS in USA after completing 3 years degree in India
I have completed my Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA) from India. The minimum requirement for admission into the MS in Computer Science program requires a 4 year college degree. My BCA degree was a 3 year degree and I am planning on pursuing a 1 year Post Graduate Diploma in Computer Applications (PGDCA) from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and would like to find out if these total 4 years satisfy as minimum requirements for admission consideration.

You're welcome, Nikita. @jakebeal: Done.

I suggest you to inquire such information at one or, better, more international academic credential evaluation companies, such as WES (be careful, as I've had some negative experience with them in terms of accuracy of evaluation). Nevertheless, you can check the WES' international-to-US academic credential equivalency tool.

Maybe you should ask a professor you know that has some connections with professors in US to tell you more about that.

i tried talking to every possible professor but none of them could get it confirmed. i also tried contacting the universities by mailing them my query but they said they cannot assure and the admission committee will decide when i apply


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Many short papers or one big paper for a math postdoc?
As the title says, I am a math postdoc. I am working on a project, which I expect will result in a long paper (60-100+ pages, I am not really sure yet). As I work along the way, I am getting results, which are probably interesting on their own.
I wonder if it would look bad on my resume if I will have many short papers (say, of less then 10-15 pages)? or having many papers at this stage of the career is good for me?
Should I balance between these two approaches? What are you thoughts on this, assuming I am interested in getting a tenure track position at a research university?

in my experience (but i am a social scientist, which is rather unlike math), the small papers will become longer anyway. each paper has its own overhead, and once you sit down to write, you find that the idea is a bit more complex than you had imagined.

I would have a hard time reading a 50+ page paper. Please write several shorter ones. :)

@mmh Many good papers in math are over 50 pages, nor are long papers so uncommon.  I personally have a 2 50+ page papers.

Here's a related question, though not specific to math: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/9624/19607

When it comes to "typical" article length, the culture differs greatly even among different areas of mathematics. Articles are (on average) much longer in geometry than in analysis, for instance.

While at a university in Europe, the department head was discussing department funding and evaluation matters, in particular how they are tied to the number of faculty publications, and jokingly quipped "Instead of one fifty-page paper, please write fifty one-page papers."

This really depends on the situation, and I suggest you consult with some colleagues/mentors/your advisor for your specific case.  Here are a few points to keep in mind.

If these results are completely separate, then it makes absolute sense to break things up into separate parts, then assemble the various needed results for the endgame of your project.
If you're just continually improving results, it may not be worth while to publish every little improvement, particularly if they will not go into good journals, but you might want to look for natural breaks.
One great paper is better than many mediocre papers, but at this stage you should equate a few good papers with one great paper.
There's no general rule for how much you should publish, but a good rule of thumb is to aim to have at least decent 1 paper/year since you graduate.  Keep in mind, that papers always take longer than expected, and the refereeing time is generally long in math (particularly more so for longer papers), so the sooner you can submit, the better.

So you should take into account the rest of your publication record, a conservative estimate of how long the project will take, and what quality of journals you can publish in if you break things up in to parts versus keeping it as a whole.  If you can break things up and still publish in good journals, then I would say this is the safer way to make you a good candidate for tenure-track/second postdoc positions.
Edit: I just realized I didn't directly address the OP's second paragraph.  It's not bad to have many papers at this stage if those are good papers (though it can initially look suspicuous if you have many more papers than your peers, and most don't appear in good journals).  In some fields, it is normal to  mostly write many short papers (and for certain subjects, all papers under 15 pages would be strange).  What's most important is that people think you are doing good research, which will come primarily from letters of recommendations and secondarily your list of publications.  So while you should think carefully and seek advice from colleagues on how to publish your papers, but one long paper versus a few short-medium papers will probably not affect your application too much if they're accepted by the time you apply.

One consideration that hasn't come up yet is the issue of the amount of time it takes to get published in mathematics. In my experience, it is not uncommon for papers to be in the review stage for up to a year or more, and the longer the paper, the longer the review period.
Since you are a postdoc, you are going to be coming back onto the job market fairly soon and you'll want to have publications to put on your resume. Writing a 60-100 page treatise is going to have a diminished impact if it has not been accepted to a good journal yet. Assuming a 3 year postdoc and taking into account a 1 year review process, a rule of thumb would be to have at least one paper submitted by the fall of your second year and probably you should have more.

Actually, I did mention this in my answer (last bullet point and somewhat obliquely later), though I didn't spell out everything in your second paragraph.

The answer depends on several questions:
Is there a natural way to split the paper? If chapter 1 uses algebra to show that the number of plimps equals the number of glops, chapter 2 uses complex analysis to count glops, and chapter 3 uses this to construct an improved database design, splitting seems possiblee. If you develop one idea over a long time and the reader builds up a general understanding of the topic, splitting looks bad.
Would different parts of the paper address different audiences? If your work is in area A, but has implications to area B, people from B might simply ignore a long paper dealing with stuff they don't understand and don't care about. In this case splitting would be good.
Have you other publications? A 60+ page paper in a serious journal makes a pretty good impression. People will take your smaller papers more seriously. If you have no smaller papers, the benefit of a big one is somewhat diminished. However, if people get the impression that you split papers to increase their numbers, your reputation is lost.
Where do you live? There are countries where the number of publications is seen as an objective measure of quality, there are countries where quality is determined in a formalized way, and there are countries where personal impression and reputation count.


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When Corresponding Authors Don't Correspond
What are appropriate steps to take when the corresponding author of a paper one finds very interesting, and potentially very useful, but slightly puzzling (due to the enforced brevity of the publication format) in its nuts and bolts implementation doesn't correspond?  (I do not mean, 'Does not provide instant and copiously detailed answers,' I mean, 'Complete radio silence.')
Clearly, one does not send e-mail after e-mail after e-mail.  That is both rude and insane.  (Expecting different results from the same action.)
Clearly, one does survey that author's other literature (including past theses or dissertations, often the best place to find more verbose treatments of early papers) to see if the nuts and bolts questions are resolved there; one also surveys the literature of the non-corresponding co-authors for the same reason. (In fact, one does this, in my opinion, before contacting anyone in the first place.)
Clearly one does verify that the e-mail is up to date, to the best of one's ability.
When these options fail, and one is still extremely interested in a working implementation of a tersely published technique, are there any other reasonable strategies to apply?  Reasonable, as in, will not cause terrible reputation in the field.

Contact the co-authors starting at the upper-left end of the author list and working to the right and down? If there is only one author, you may be out of luck.

Authors, corresponding or otherwise, geneally do not respond for one of two reasons. The first is they miss the email. This could either be because of a wrong address, spam filtering, or a huge email backlog on their part. The other is that they do not think it is worth their while to respond. They could be so busy, that no matter how simple of a request, that they just are not going to respond.
Providing an explanation on how the nuts and bolts implementation works, is not an easy task. Providing a working implementation, can be even harder. Your want to make your request as easy as possible for them to (1) understand, and (2) address/answer. This means ideally asking yes/no questions where you provide enough background so they can see where you are coming from.


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PhD Supervisor Issues
I am currently near the end of the first year of my 3 year PhD. Unfortunately my experience has been very very disappointing. Well when I started the program, I was full of passion and enthusiasm for learning. However, my supervisor provides zero guidance, he gives contradictory information and he has no clarity about what he wants to do (it was his project). He does not even have a research question. Whenever I talk to him he says we are going to do this, we are going to do that, just a collection of methods and techniques with no clarity of what is it exactly that we are trying to do. I expected I was going to be guided in a systematic and step by step manner at least in my first year but due to these reasons I lost all motivation, now one year down the line, one year has been wasted and I have no idea what to do. There are many other problems which I have facing in relation to this but I have highlighted the main ones. How I can possible complete this PhD in two years. Can someone please help me or advise me?

Have you considered changing advisors?  It happens all the time in every field.

Hi, it will be like opening a Pandora's box. I am on funding too. I am pretty sure it will be create a bad atmosphere and to be honest it's not going to work.

What have you done to rectify the situation? You are working 3 years on a suggested area. What ideas you came up with, what previous methods you have implemented and what you tried of your advisor's ideas?

my advisor, is rigid in what he wants to do. but at the same time what he wants to do is contradictory and does not make sense and does not have a clear research question that he wants to answer. i just waste one year. because initial few months i tried to sort of follow what he was saying but then i lost motivation because of the contradictions in his communications. and also he does not guide me just spams me with names of 100s of books and articles and expects me to make sense of it and come up with something which is inline with his contradictory views and ideas.

What did your advisor say when you told him that you could not make sense of what he was suggesting?

he just repeat the same thing and say things "it should be very clear by now". and i did not want to confront him directly, so i just keep quiet

There are a few unclear points: (i) does your supervisor expect you to scout the area and come back with the goods or are you waiting to be told the next step?, (ii) has your supervisor graduated any students?, (iii) research (especially during the first year) is supposed to be confusing.  Read up on the research process, it's not linear. So don't confuse this with the lack of supervision; having said that, your supervisor is supposed to help you filter out the noise.

I am on funding too. — All the more reason to bring up your issues with your advisor as quickly as possible. — I am pretty sure it will be create a bad atmosphere and to be honest it's not going to work. — Then you definitely need to change advisors!

Your PhD supervisor sounds like my PhD supervisor.  And my PhD worked out well (though it was intended to take 5 years).  Professors typically are subject matter experts, not mentoring or management experts.  It's good he knows the methods and unsurprising he does not set clear goals for you.  I recommend you take this as an exciting opportunity to decide for yourself what the goals (which might relate to funding, publication, employment, scientific results...) and priorities are.  Some of the things you have been assuming are your supervisor's responsibility might be better viewed as your own privilege.


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Advisor recommended reuse excerpt of master's dissertation in Ph.D. Thesis
I am finishing writting my Ph.D. thesis and a bit short on time. Part of my Thesis would be a review of literature, regarding the method used. This method was used as well in my Master's work (under the same advisor) and thus, my Master dissertation contains a portion in which a literature review is performed. My advisor suggested that it would be good to reuse this from my dissertation.
Now, I went to look at my dissertation to select the excerpts, and I see that it amounts to around 16 pages in a 150 page dissertation. My thesis is currently with 103 pages and I believe that in the end it will have approximatelly the same length as my dissertation.
Of course, when I saw the numbers, a red light of self-plagiarism lighted up. Of course, there would be some addaptations. For instance, there are occasions in my dissertation where I refer to a previous chapter, which would need to be adapted. And of course, I would clearly state which parts are repeated.
However, it is a large excerpt, which makes me really scared about this and I seek a second opinion on the matter.

Perhaps edit to add your question

You can't plagarise yourself as the definition pf plagarism is Plagiarism is the use of another's work, words, or ideas without attribution

I would treat a long excerpt of your own material acceptable provided that you also cite it, listing carefully that it is an excerpt and pointing to the original source. I'm assuming that you hold copyright on the early work, not having yielded it to another publisher.
Don't confuse the two issues, permission to create a derived work, and proper citation. The permission is obvious if you hold copyright and by citation you avoid any claim of self plagiarism.
Note that the main purpose of avoiding self plagiarism is to let readers find the original source of material and, thus, learn its complete context. By citing, you make this possible.

Thank you for the answer. Would something along the line "The method used was revised in author's dissertation in Ref. [X, Chap. Y]. For completeness, it is reproduce here with some minor adaptations" a valid way of citing?


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Extending a paper being peer-reviewed?
I'm currently peer-reviewing a paper (for a computer science conference; review is double-blind). While reading it, I came up with a method for the problem they're solving, somewhat inspired by their approach but fairly separate. I haven't implemented and tested it yet, but I expect it to be better than their approach, and it is definitely (in my mind) simpler. The idea came from slightly reframing their approach based on papers that they've cited in their submission, so they had the tools to do so, but they may not be as familiar with as I am (it happens to be right in my wheelhouse).
I see two options here:

Suggest the reframing and the new method to them in the review. They may or may not do anything about it, but if they do, all I get is thanks to an anonymous reviewer in their acknowledgements, assuming the paper gets in. (In my opinion, their paper is probably borderline for this conference.) If they don't use the idea, then it just goes away.
Don't say anything about it in the review; develop the method independently. think, at this early stage, that it's reasonably likely a whole new paper can be written based on this method and related improvements I have in mind. If their paper gets in to this conference, or is put online / gets in somewhere else before I'm done with my paper, cite them. If it doesn't, I could either ignore their paper and write my own – which feels somewhat dishonest, though I wouldn't really be using their results in my new paper – or ask the PC to get me in touch with the authors for possibly collaborating on a single joint paper with both methods. I don't know if that kind of thing is ever done.

Option 1 is clearly ethical, but if option 2 is also ethical, it's both better for my career and possibly better for scientific progress as a whole (if they don't end up using the idea). So my question is: is option 2 okay? What do I do in the case where their paper doesn't get in?

Isn't this almost the same question as During review, I found a superior solution. What now??

Also related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23354/a-manuscript-i-refereed-gave-me-an-idea-for-a-paper-not-sure-how-to-proceed/23361#23361

Thanks for the links; I somehow just couldn't come up with the right search terms this morning.

I am hesitant with this question because the ethics of the fact that you are in a position of authority over them and what you do could affect whether or not they are published. The point of research is to advance the field, so by reading their paper, you have had a reactionary idea that will advance the field even more. So, I vote to mention it in the review and see if they pick up the idea, if advancing scientific progress is truly what you are worried about. If they don't do anything with the information then go ahead and develop it yourself.
Otherwise, you risk rejecting them for personal gain, on an idea that you said you haven't even implemented or tested yet, something that they have done.


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How to point out a novel conceptualization in a foundations chapter?
I am writing the foundations chapter of my thesis. I think I came up with an original conceptualization of the matter that I haven't read anywhere before.
Since a foundations chapter is usually more a survey, I'd like to highlight that fact. How can I phrase this?
A came up with two options:

The following conceptualization represents the author's individual perspective on the topic.

Isn't that somehow the case for every part of a thesis? Also sounds like a disclaimer.

In this section, a novel conceptualization of the topic is introduced.

Maybe  better. Or should I simply put it somewhere else, where the fact that I consider it to be a contribution becomes more apparent from the context (location in the thesis)?

Perhaps the best place to announce this would be in the introduction itself. If this novel conceptualization is part of the aims of the thesis -or can be linked to them in some way-, then the aims section would be a good place to say in which chapter the conceptualization is formally presented (perhaps Chapter 3, after the foundations chapter?)
At the end of the Introduction, it is customary in many fields to announce the thesis structure: in Chapter 2 we will be doing this and that, in Chapter 3... etc. I feel a novel conceptualization would also need to be indicated here.
Disclaimer: I have not yet defended my PhD (on the way to it, almost there), so I would appreciate any guidance other, more seasoned, academics could give both of us!

I've been thinking about it and I, too, tend to put in an extra chapter now. The problem is that I try to introduce all the foundations and related work and then give my contributions.
But I need the conceptualization to explain why the problems solved in the related work are different from mine.


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Repeating derivation from paper of professor with added comments
For my thesis, I think it would be useful that I write down a derivation my supervisor made in one of his papers. However, even though it seems fine when considering the paper on its own, the way the derivation was performed is outdated and does not fit well with other parts of the now existing literature (for examples, variables have now different meanings).
I need to use parts of the work done in the paper in my thesis, but I cannot do so directly because it clashes with other parts of literature I will have to use (again, for example, variable names from other chapters have different meanings).
How can I best deal with this? The "naive" way would be to say that I am taking the derivation from his paper while adapting it. But then, would it be OK to simply cite this once or do I have to cite every single equation?

You could make your rewrite an appendix explicitly aimed at rewriting the derivation in modern notation. Include the reference.

The purpose of citations is to attribute intellectual ownership. As long as it is clear to the reader that you are adapting the derivation there is nothing to fear. Citing every single part of the derivation is an overkill that just annoys the reader. If you are fearful, say at the beginning what you are doing and then say it at the end again.


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How to cite a book if only its chapters have DOIs?
I want to cite a book in my bibliography which does not seem to have a DOI listed anywhere. Google also does not give me a DOI for the whole book. However, it does provide me with DOIs for each chapter.
How can I handle this if I want my bibliography to have a clickable link for the book?
I have sometimes seen the first chapter DOI used, while the entire book is named as the reference.

is there a webpage on the publisher's site for the whole book, e.g. one listing the chapters?

@toby544 Yes, there is, but the issue with that is that it is not necessarily persistent. With a DOI that would be (or at least should) be the case.

@HerpDerpington  The reason to look at the publisher website is not to link to it, but to see how they list the publication data.  But really, the most reliable source of a books publication data is in the first few pages of the book.  Please note that citation convictions predate the computer.

Do you have to cite the whole book, or would citing a single chapter be enough?

@Neinstein I would have to cite multiple chapters

Contact the publisher, explain your point of view. You might be on to something!

Note: This answer provides information related to citations in general, but the OP needs help with clickable citations.

I consider the DOI optional.  If you have publisher, date of publication, author and title, that can be enough.  All of this should be in the first few pages of the book.
If a journal editor insists on a DOI, URL, city of publication and other fluff, then the journal can go looking for that.

I agree, except that you might as well include city of publication as that is usually written there as well. And of course you need the edition number if it is not the 1st.

Don't they often "delegate" this responsibility to authors though? As in, "please fix ref. [42] to correspond to the required format" during the copywrighting process.

@Neinstein  Some do.  Some don't.  In any case, adding a DOI that does not exist is not fixing anything.

I realize now I misread the question.  The OP wants a clickable citation, not the journal.  So stop voting this one up.

@nein I’ve never seen that.

Your answer still answers the question: "Don't make it clickable in the first place." Which is a valid answer.

Honestly, I think that a lot of the questions here about citation formats are mountains being made out of molehills, including (perhaps) this one.  Remember why we provide citations:

It is to help us remember where we found our ideas in the first place.  I cannot tell you how many times I have had to look at my own bibliographies in order to remember where something came from, and how it worked.  Having a good citation makes it possible to relearn something I knew once upon a time.
It is to make it possible for future scholars to "check our work" and reproduce our results—in order to do this, they need to know how we came to the conclusions we came to, which includes knowing where our ideas came from.  A citation tells that future scholar where to find the documents we used.
It is to give credit to the researchers who came before us.  Consider this part of the "gamification" of academia (since, for example, a tenure decision might be made on the basis of citation counts; also, it is just good etiquette to give credit where credit is due).

In all of the above cases, a citation which makes it possible to find the original source is all that is required.  Generally speaking, author, title, and year is going to be enough.  Maybe throw in a journal and/or publisher to make the Googling go faster.  You don't need a DOI, and many older documents don't even have a DOI to reference.  Sure, a DOI makes it faster and easier to find a document, but as long as there is sufficient information, it is fine to leave some fields blank.
That being said, if you are submitting a paper for publication, the journal will have standards for citations.  Luckily, journals employ editors, whose job it is (in part) to ensure that these standards are met.  If you submitting something, and you think that your citations might be insufficient, that is a conversation to be had between you and an editor.  For all other cases, just make sure that you keep enough information to find the document again (e.g. author, title, year; DOI; a persistent link of some kind; etc), and don't sweat it.

I'm also bothered you the workflow.  This is a copy editors job, and can pretty much go unanswered until the appropriate stage of the paper, which is galleys, and will p9ssibly be resolved all on it's own without ant input from the author.

In my US high school, which was probably typical, my teachers made a very big deal of citation formats. Even the smallest mistake brought out the red pen, with points taken off. In retrospect, this was probably because teachers don't have enough time to genuinely evaluate writing quality for 150 student papers.

@ScottSeidman And, in my experience, the resolution might well be "We don't include DOIs or links for books".

@academic Yeah, high school English teachers in the US seem to fetishize MLA for subs reason. No idea why. I wish they'd stop.

@XanderHenderson: If you don't tell high school students the exact citation format, you will get citations of the form "(the textbook)" or "(the internet)." And then when you take off points, they'll ask which part of the rubric they broke (because they think that they can just put "(whatever)" in parentheses and call it a citation).

@Kevin I would tell high school students exactly what I said here, reinforce that they need to keep track of the author and title at minimum, show them MLA and APA and Chicago and a few others, then introduce them to something like Endnote. The rubric is "Could I easily find the source you cited?" But, honestly, my complaint is more about high school teachers (and a few of my community college colleagues) who can't articulate the reasons to provide customs, and obsess about a specific format. It feels cargo culty.

@academic Being able to follow a citation style faithfully is important. High school is when you learn how to follow the rules. Learning when to break them comes later.

When I was working closely with graduate students, I had to beat using proper citations into them early on, including handing the first draft back with only the citations marked up. Why? Frankly, once the hard work of getting the content and writing is done, nobody wants to go back and fiddle with the citations. Do it right up front and don't worry about it again...

@JonCuster Yeah, that is why I encourage everyone to learn to use a citation manager (something like EndNote or BibTeX) early in their careers.  It just saves so much time and hassle to have tools which do the fiddly bits automatically.

@XanderHenderson - indeed, but this was pre-Endnote. I'm ancient. Straight TeX, no nroff or troff...

@JonCuster Yeah, but just because you and I are dinosaurs (I'm a little younger than you, but I learned Plain TeX as an undergrad in the early 2000s) doesn't mean that we can't learn new tools (or that our students shouldn't be required to do so). :D

Just last month I started reviewing a PhD thesis by a staff member who had started work before finishing up. I gave up after Chapter 1 since the references were incomplete or not there. They pleaded that they had issues with the tools. Trying to have your final draft approved is not the time to get everything straightened out...

@JonCuster I agree 100%.  Which is why I am all for teachings kids to use these kinds of tools in high school.  We make kids learn to use word processors and calculators and spreadsheets---why not some kind of citation manager, too?

Usually, books do have a DOI, from which their chapter DOIs are derived.
Take Springer. Compiler Specification and Verification (LNCS 124) has the following chapters:

Introduction (doi:10.1007/3-540-10886-6_1)
Theoretical framework (doi:10.1007/3-540-10886-6_2)
Source and target languages (doi:10.1007/3-540-10886-6_3)
The compiler proof (doi:10.1007/3-540-10886-6_4)
Conclusions (doi:10.1007/3-540-10886-6_5)

We can guess that the overall book DOI is doi:10.1007/3-540-10886-6 – and we'd be right.

ACM:

OOPSLA '87 Delegation is inheritance (doi:10.1145/38765.38820)
OOPSLA '87 Object-oriented programming in Smalltalk and ADA (doi:10.1145/38765.38826)

Guess: doi:10.1145/38765.

AMS:

Sur les décompositions cellulaires des espaces (doi:10.1090/pspum/056.1/1278698)
Real algebraic quotients (doi:10.1090/pspum/056.1/1278707)

Guess: doi:10.1090/pspum/056.1.

Elsevier, as usual, is a huge pain. From these chapters, a pattern is obvious:

Anterior Cruciate Ligament Ruptures in the Female Athlete: An Injury Epidemic (doi:10.1016/B978-0-323-54839-7.00001-4)
Epidemiology (doi:10.1016/B978-0-323-54839-7.00002-6)

The letter B, the ISBN, a 5-digit chapter number, and then a check-digit.
But doi:10.1016/B978-0-323-54839-7 is not a valid DOI! The correct DOI for this book is doi:10.1016/C2016-0-05049-0. I cannot work out why.

You are right! I forgot to provide the actual DOI. It was Elsevier. I tried the same thing and could not figure out the DOI. Maybe I can contact their support and ask if it even has one? Because the book DOI is not listed anywhere.

@HerpDerpington I might be able to find it. Which book is it?

This is the doi link for chapter 1: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-030275-1.50007-2

@HerpDerpington I checked Crosslink, but could only find ISBNs for two book reviews (1, 2). I also tried all the tricks I know for the Elsevier website, and I couldn't figure out an ISBN-A (apparently a thing, per this answer, though I've never seen an ISBN-A in the wild). I don't think there is a DOI for this book, making my answer wrong.


text:
Who decides about admission of a PhD student?
I am applying for a PhD position in Canada. I have already talked to a Professor and for some reasons, he really wants to hire me as his student. The problem is that currently, I have no TOEFL score requirement. The professor told me that he may convince the graduate committee to conditionally accept me.
I was wondering how likely he can do it? Who makes the final decision about a PhD applicant?

The admission committee makes the final call. Your intended supervisor can only advise this committee to consider you.

At my university, graduate admissions are technically under the control of a university-wide graduate school office. As far as I know, these people have always simply ratified the decisions of departmental admissions committees. So, in effect, the departmental committees make the decision.

Here is a related question, emphasizing  a similar point with @Coder's answer below, although for US schools rather than Canada:  https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/170755/do-phd-admissions-cs-in-the-us-work-on-two-levels-general-decisions-and-pi-de

Let me explain my comment as an answer.
The admission process works in two different ways: Formal enrolment and informal enrolment
Formal
You apply through university web link and select the research areas or supervisor. Then probably you communicate with the chosen supervisor through email(s). If things go well then you might get an interview call or direct admit.
Informal
You approach the supervisor first. Discussions or interviews may go on. If everything is alright, you supervisor would speak with the admission committee for your official admit.
In both these types of cases your supervisor recommends for the admission. However, it is the decision of the admission committee to make the final call.

Note: I have skipped the recommendation letters related points which is a major part in both these types of enrolment.

Moreover, each University has their own set of rules. It is wise to go through the same.

In my day in the UK at the University of Sussex it went something like this; well at least for Chemistry. In your final year students undertake a project with a department researcher. Generally, at this stage you have a pretty strong idea if you want to undertake a postgrad course and undoubtedly who you would like to work with.
Then, during this project if you are interested to carry on you just asked. It boiled down to funding. Some from the University but mostly from industry who were willing to sponsor the student so they could get research done. The costs went towards the student grant to pay for living costs etc and then lab supplies etc. If you got on well, showed an aptitude for research the 'prof' would say 'sure, I can get the cash and would like to work for me....' All of this, and it was a University thing would hinge on you getting a 2:1 Hons degree. If that happened you were accepted to take out a Ph.D with the research person.
I myself, missed out and got a 2:2. That said, someone dropped out in doing their Ph.D and I was offered the grant instead.
Ph.D's were also advertised externally in the scientific press and you then really up against other candidates and it became a job interview. Either way you had to be a good student, showed a keen interest in research and well, a generally nice person.


text:
Can I ask for recommendation from a person that I am working with?
2 years ago, for 7 months, I was an intern in public health department at a famous US university. In addition to work with my mentor, I was introduced to a faculty member from the other department, called X. My mentor and I helped his team to analyze their data in that time and the project is still going on and sometimes, if his team needs, I work on their project which is not paid.
Currently, I am going to apply for a PhD position or research assistant position. I need three references or even three recommendation letters. I was wondering is it rational/polite if I ask X to send a recommendation letter for me or if I can introduce him as a reference in my CV?
Also, if I want to mention the name of someone as a reference in my CV, should I talk with him prior to send my CV?
Thanks.

If they can write you a strong, well-informed letter of recommendation, then of course you should ask.  (And the only way to know if they can write you a strong letter is to ask them!)  And yes, you must ask permission before listing anyone as a reference.

I know this question was asked a while ago, but I found it while searching and can't believe it wasn't answered.

My mentor and I helped his team to analyze their data in that time and the project is still going on and sometimes, if his team needs, I work on their project which is not paid.

It sounds like you helped in research and also have a personal relationship with him. Of course this is exactly the kind of person who can probably write a great recommendation letter or give a great reference, especially if he liked your work. Even if he isn't in exactly the same field as you, he can probably write a very specific recommendation letter pertaining to research you helped perform.


text:
How do I / Should I, console a former classmate and stressed out PHD/MD applicant?
I have a former classmate of mine who wasn't successful in his/her application to top-tier PhD/MD programs this past application cycle.
Over the phone and through email, I've been sympathetic when I learned about his/her disappointment and offered words of encouragement, reminding him/her of their worth ethic (working 2-3 jobs at the same time and maintaining a stellar GPA) and personal aspirations (the kind of aspiration where you think that he/she would be a major force in research, selflessly serving the needs of others, and accomplishing a great deal in their career) during our undergraduate years.
However in recent time, I've lost touch with this person for unknown reasons, as I stopped hearing back from them. Distance, time, busy with other stuff. I don't know.
The question I wanted to pose is, should I try to reach out again?
If they decided to reapply, what little would my words of encouragement offer beyond a smile and good wishes? (I doubt they would have an impact on the actual admissions board)
If they decided to not reapply, wouldn't my words just pour salt into an otherwise fresh bitter wound in their mind?
Mind you, I am going through the testing phase at the moment myself and am narrowing down my PhD study programs to a handful for application, so I can't claim that I am in similar waters.
Put yourself in this person's shoes, how would you react in either scenario?

This might be a better fit for SE.InterpersonalSkills.  While the person's stressed out over an academic issue, they're basically just someone you used to know, and you're asking about how to interact with them.

Perhaps, but wouldn't the audience from academia SE be a better source of opinion on the matter? There has been posts regarding academic workplace issues, https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/97162/how-to-survive-the-remaining-5-months-of-my-postdoc-in-toxic-environment/97164#97164, but it would appear that by virtue of employment within a university, the question itself wasn't that far in the pale.

@FrankFYC: academia has very different norms from regular workplaces, so we kind of have to answer these questions "among ourselves". Anywhere else, the answer to "my boss is abusive" would be "go to HR". In this case however, the answer of "should I reconnect with
a friend who has gone quiet after a disappointment" isn't really changed by the academic nature of the disappointment.

I agree with your sentiment of "among ourselves" and this is exactly the reason why I believed the academia SE would be a better environment for the question. This is a person who want's to become an academic but is for a lack of a better word, disappointed. As someone who has gone through the process, would words of sympathy encourage or distress you?

If you decide to reach out again, I would try to reconnect over a different topic first. It sounds like it has been a while since the results were announced, and bringing up their past disappointment over and over again will probably not help them get over it. If all of your interactions are focused on this one topic they might start to wonder if you are either secretly judging them about it, or if you are just pumping them for advice on what mistakes to avoid in your own applications.
If subsequently they bring up the topic on their own, you can express sympathy at that point. But I would follow their lead in whether they want to dwell on it or not.

"secretly judging them about it" the notion never crossed my mind, I never saw myself as someone who needs to be superior to another. But given its possibility, this possible perception is noted. "pumping them for advice on what mistakes to avoid in your own applications" I originally reached out because I wanted to learn about the process from someone who just went though it, but when I learned of the results, I took a more sympathetic tone and offered reassurances they they would excel the second time around, I just didn't know what to do once they stopped replying.

Maybe rather than "secretly judging", a more general formulation would be that if you seem stuck on the topic, they might think that it somehow had affected your view of them. Even "No way, you're so smart, I was sure you could do it!" sounds like "I'm disappointed that you failed" if that's how we're currently feeling about ourselves.

not really... more like "Wow, I didn't know that. I'm sorry to hear that. Don't let it get to you this time around, you are X and have done Y, if you believe in yourself, you will be successful". But your advice certainly gives me insight and notions that I never considered before.

Note that I'm not saying that this is how they perceived you previously, merely listing some of the pitfalls that might arise from bringing the subject up again. If they stopped responding to that conversation, I'd take that as a sign that they weren't interested in talking more about it at that moment (for whatever reason, you already listed a lot of options). Since it's a topic they probably have many feelings about, opening with something more neutral and letting them get back to it, if they wish to, organically over the course of the conversation lets you gauge their mood first.

The most important question in terms of if you want to address the topic is: Despite their stellar and good record,he/she was not admitted. Do you understand why? Is there any issue which can be changed? If you really don't understand it, then I would not talk to them much.
From the viewpoint of picking up the conversation: I think it's not wise to make it the first topic, but leave it to them how he/she responds to a general "How are you doing." question.


text:
Is there a pre-publication access for ACM journals?
After a manuscript is accepted in a journal, usually it takes serveral months before it actually gets actually published. Many publishers now provide online access to the published papars, before they get printed, and even before the typesetting.
Some of the ACM journals have a section called "Forthcoming Articles" in their homepage, but clicking on the articles in this sections leads to nowhere! So, I wanted to know if there is a pre-publication access for ACM journals or not.
Here is an example:
ACM Transactions on the Web (TWEB)
I have searched for some of the articles of this type in third party pre-print servers, but I couldn't find anything.

My experience with ACM Transactions publications, as both author and editor, is that they do not generally offer any sort of early access.
I find this rather strange for a computing society, but suspect this may be because they also have fairly liberal preprint policies: authors can put early versions of their article up on arXiv or similar repositories.  Many ACM journal articles are also extended versions of conference articles, so that is another route for accessing information that you may be looking for.


text:
When applying to grad school: GPA vs Prestige
For undergraduate studies is it preferable to go the a prestigious school and get decent GPA or to go to not well known school but be top of the class?

While I'm sure there is a reasonable answer to this, i'm not sure this should be a question asked when thinking about where to apply (or go to) undergraduate school: the person/scholar you will become will matter much more.

possible duplicate of How does the admissions process work for US Ph.D. programs, particularly for weak or borderline students?

Honestly, when I'm reading applications I barely notice either one. I don't have to look at GPA 99 times out of 100 because those below the minimum are screened out, and I don't care much about what school you went to because prestige schools have some crappy departments and low-prestige schools have some great ones, and I'm almost never going to know which is which.
I spend most of my app-reading time on the personal statement. Can you write? (Very important in my department; importance to others is obviously somewhat variable.) Can you tech? (Likewise.) Do you understand what you're getting yourself into, and have decent, non-clichéd, at least marginally realistic reasons you're doing it? Do you have skills or an educational or life background we're specifically looking to recruit? Relevant experience?
Go be a worthwhile person with a clue. That's what we're looking to admit, not shiny GPAs or fancy-schmantzy schools.


text:
Should I review the journal extended version of the same paper I reviewed for a conference?
I acted as a referee for conference XXX where I reviewed a paper. It was decent and suitable for the conference, but I recall I thought it was too preliminary and lacking future projection for being selected for the special issue of journal YYY (which I was aware is prepared every year).
Now, I have been invited by journal YYY to review the extended version of the paper from conference XXX (at first, the title sounded familiar, but then the authors themselves declared it was an extended version).
So am I somehow biased against the paper?, or maybe am I the best suited to review the paper since the topic is already familiar?
As a practical answer, should I accept the review?, should I disclose the circumstance to the editor? (who I think would not even care)
Finally, as an hypothetical case, if my review at the conference had been deeply negative, is it still reasonable that I accept the journal review? (in this case being truly aware that I am strongly biased against the work).

So it means, it was accepted for the conference without considering your proposed decision (probably rejection). Am I right?

@John No, I gave it a weak accept for the conference, just I thought it was too preliminary for a journal, even after extension.

So, why do not you just review it as any other paper? and after submitting your comments, make a private note to the editor about this.

@John Yes, maybe I am overthinking this...

@Miguel I'm having trouble understanding your initial assessment that the work was "too preliminary to be considered for selection for the special issue". The whole point of special-issue versions is to extend the initial work so it becomes less preliminary.

I see no problem...
People re-review the same content all the time.  This applies to resubmissions of rejected conference papers but also journal articles.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I have been asked to review some journal submissions in the past specifically because the editor (who might also have been the program chair for the conference where the earlier version appeared) knew I had already reviewed it.
In this case, if you felt it was preliminary at the time of the conference, that does not by itself mean the extended version is unsuitable.  You would have to read the extended version and decide.  But just because you didn't expect to see a version suitable for the journal doesn't IMHO mean you're so biased you can't review it objectively.
P.S.  I'm pretty sure I saw a question similar to this in the past few months, but I'm not finding it.


text:
Potential rotation advisor reaches out -- with her entire academic record!
I am an incoming PhD student (for the fall). I recently received a message from a faculty member saying she was impressed with my application and asking if I wanted to talk about rotations. Ordinarily this would be awesome, but the rest of the message listed every grant and award won by this faculty member since 2009 (there were a lot of them), and it really seemed like overkill. Should this be considered a red flag, or is it just a practical way to demonstrate that the lab group is thriving? This is in the US.

May it be that it was a standard template that she used? Sent to you by mistake? Or she may be a new faculty member and has not yet found the right balance to talk to students? None of these is a red flag on its own, but it might be good to start with a rotation rather than a full PhD, just to test the waters.

I wouldn't draw conclusions from such limited data.  Ask around about people's reputations.

Many academics (and non-academics) are just bad in writing coherent emails.

RE: Captain Emacs It certainly reads like a template. RE: Anonymous Physicist Fair point. RE: user111388 I agree in general, but this particular email was perfectly coherent.

I think you may be overthinking this
slightly. It’s neither a red flag nor necessarily a practical way to demonstrate anything (although it might actually demonstrate something useful, I have no idea).
People are quirky and sometimes do things that don’t make complete sense to other people, or even to themselves the next day. This is true of everyone - including, I’d bet, you. I’m sure you wouldn’t want other people characterizing every slightly unusual or eccentric thing you do as a red flag.
Since “ordinarily this would be awesome”, I suggest that you be happy a faculty member (who has won many grants and awards since 2009!) is taking an interest in you, and talk to her to evaluate the rotation option as you would talk to anyone else in a similar situation.

A bit odd perhaps, but many of us are a bit odd. In a good way, of course.

I'd add that although this might seem extreme, it also could be a combination of lazy and effective which are not uncommon traits of busy people. It's probably copy-pasted from a CV that the professor has to keep up to date for grants and such; they could also keep an up-to-date copy on a website and point student prospects there, or they could just copy it quick to an email instead of spending time detailing all the projects they're working on.


text:
Contact authors about a related finding
My colleagues and I recently published a resource paper with a finding that could suggest a mechanism for a disease-to-gene correlation from a 2014 study. I'd like to inform the authors. But, the contact email given with the 2014 paper is dead, and I can't find a better one. Is it too creepy to track these folks down on Google? Should I give up? Is there a better way to get in touch?

What do you mean "track down"?  Googling their names to see if you can find current professional contact info doesn't seem creepy at all.

Yup, that's what I meant.

If "tracking them down on Google" means looking up their names, and finding a clearly posted contact address - perhaps on their personal website, or their new university's website - then absolutely go for it. Contact details like e-mail addresses unfortunately change every now and then when people move institutions, so this is just standard procedure. I wouldn't consider that creepy at all, and would be happy to learn about your paper. Now, if you go much further than that in your efforts, well, yeah you'll risk getting close to creepy territory. I wouldn't cross check their names and calling them on their work phone at their new industry job, for example, nor show up unannounced at their home...
Another way to get in touch that might work depending on the circumstances, is running into one of these authors at a conference.

I didn't find a clearly posted current professional email for the corresponding author, though he does have a blog. (He's a big shot and he's probably past the email event horizon.) I guess it's time to call it quits.

@eric_kernfeld Note that emailing one of the other authors isn't necessarily out of the question. Particularly if this is a paper where the corresponding author is the most senior, it's quite possible that one of the others is the student who did most of the work, and might actually be more interested.

This is good advice. I looked for emails for four of the authors before giving up. Then I decided to look one more time and I actually found info for the first author. I've sent a message now.