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Motivation of a paper from referee reports
I have been working on an article (in mathematical economics) for some time now and received many comments from referee reports on the use of a functional form that is commonly used in the literature on the topic.
While previous reports have criticized its use, this particular comment commonly pointed out by reviewers inspired me to write a whole new paper, as it was not feasible to change everything in the existing 50-page article.
My question is whether it would be appropriate to give references or credits to the referee reports as a motivation point in the new paper because my real motivation for the new paper stems from this specific point, which has not been discussed in the literature

I think it would be appropriate to add something on this to the Acknowledgements section, perhaps something like:

We thank anonymous peer reviewers of a previous manuscript for calling our attention to these methodological issues and motivating this work.

If you've received "many comments" of this type, I doubt it's actually never been discussed in the literature, so I would really try to find any evidence of that to also frame your work. Of course, there may be no papers about the topic, but I'd expect to find mentions in methodology or discussions sections, mentioning it as a potential problem in interpreting some results, or someone's effort to demonstrate its not impactful for a given case.


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How to ask for a letter of recommendation on a tight deadline, from professors I haven't spoken to in years?
I am currently applying to Ph.D. programs at several universities. Since I was a transfer student in my undergraduate years, and I have great relationships with my professors at community college, I asked them to be my letter writers for letter of recommendations.
Today I received an email from one of the schools I am applying to asking for a LOR from a professor from the school that I got my bachelor's degree (or else they are likely to reject my application). They give me time until mid January to turn that in.
My problems now are:
1. I graduated five years ago and have not contacted my professors there
2. I contacted their departments today to find out their office hours but they are gone for winter breaks already.
It seems like that my only option is to just email them. And my thoughts are that the worse case scenario is just a "no" from them. And as long as I am being polite, I would not be blacklisted (please correct me if I am wrong on this).
If that is the case,should I be straight forward in my email explaining my situation honestly and ask them if they could write me a LOR or since I have until mid January, just ask them for a LOR as I would normally do it?
I drafted the two versions. Any comments or feedback will be helpful and greatly appreciated. Or if none of my solutions is a good one, I would really appreciate any other ideas.
Thank you very much!

First version:

Dear Dr. Smith,
This is Mary, I took your XYZ class back in 2010. I apologize for my presumptuous email. I was on campus today but found out there is no class this week. I was hoping to ask you in person to see if you would be willing to write me a letter of recommendation.
I was majoring in ABC and I am currently applying to CDF. (and I plan to give some more background info)
You are the best person to write me a letter because not only did I gotten an A+ in your XYZ class and you made great comments about my group project on WHATEVER, your class was also the class that raised my awareness in XXX. I have my statement of purpose, transcripts, curriculum vita ready, which I will be able to provide.

2nd version:

Dear Dr. Smith,
This is Mary, I took your XYZ class back in 2010. I apologize for my presumptuous email. I was on campus today but found out there is no class this week. I was hoping to ask you in person to see if you would be willing to write me a letter of recommendation.
I was majoring in ABC and I am currently applying to CDF programs. I have submitted my application to University of 123. They said they need a letter of recommendation from my University 321 professor. If not they will likely to reject my application. They gave me a deadline to turn in this letter of recommendation by January 10th, 2015. Would you be willing to write me a letter of recommendation? I have my statement of purpose, transcripts, curriculum vita ready that I will be able to provide.
You are the best person to write me a letter because not only did I gotten an A+ in your XYZ class and you made great comments about my group project on WHATEVER, your class was also the class that raised my awareness in XXX. I have my statement of purpose, transcripts, curriculum vita ready, which I will be able to provide.

This question appears to be off-topic because it a request for proofreading, not a question about academia.

Note: professors don't like this. Just saying.

Necroposting to highlight an important detail: setting explicit deadlines and doing this very prominent and in an explicit manner is essential for such short-termed issues.

This is totally fine, don't worry about it. I wouldn't "apologize for your presumptuous e-mail". You might apologize for the fact that you are asking them to write on short notice; I'd simply explain that you had solicited references from people who had interacted with you more recently, and schools to which you had applied had requested a reference from your undergraduate institution.
Also I think it's fine to ask by e-mail instead of in person.
I'm unclear about what your relationship is to your recommenders -- you say that you finished a bachelor's degree earlier; are you a student or an instructor at this community college? In any case, you want to get letters from the people who can attest to your ability to do demanding academic work in your chosen discipline. It sounds like you might have chosen your recommenders poorly (i.e., you have chosen people who will say in generic terms that you are a "good person and a hard worker", or perhaps you taught you easier classes than you took as an undergrad). I speculate that your file is very positive but lacks credible evidence that you will succeed in a graduate program. If this is the case, then the school that contacted you is doing you a big favor (they could have simply rejected you).
You should ask someone who, in addition to thinking highly of you, will know what it takes to succeed in a Ph.D. program and will be able to communicate this in his or her letter.

I was a student at a community college before I transferred out to a four-year university. I worked very closely with my professors while at community college and have maintained the relationships. That is why I chose them to be my letter writers. I was not close to any of my professors at the four-year I graduated that is why I did not ask any of them.
The instructions on the website of the school that I am applying to only said to ask someone who can comment on my academic ability which in my opinion would be my professors at community college.

I understand that I should ask someone who think highly of me but unfortunately, I was not close enough with any of my professors at the four-year that I graduated for them to be able to write me a letter like that. I heard a generic letter will actually hurt the application, and that is also why I did not choose my professors at my 4-year to write my letters in the beginning. But now if the school that I am applying to is asking for it, I guess I have to ask for one without a choice.

My thoughts exactly. I started to write a comment: Please strike the word presumptuous. Your request is at worst inconvenient for the professor. If you really want to apologize, try, "I apologize for inconveniencing you," but move that to the end – don't lead off with it. Providing you didn't leave a bad impression, most professors are glad to hear that a former student is moving on with their education, and are glad to help.

I think either version will be fine.  The professor will understand that grad school wants a letter from the institution you graduated from.  One month notice is plenty.  Throw in that you really enjoyed their class and apologize for the fact that you need the letter over break.

I agree with the part about throwing you that you really enjoyed their class (especially if the O.P. really did enjoy the class, and provided the O.P. isn't sending an identical email to every professor she had.)

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How to politely and diplomatically ask one "half-senior“ coauthor to contribute more?
In our discipline we are equal coauthors ordered alphabetically.
We have one most senior coauthor (advisor) who supplied the idea and edited the manuscript, two junior coauthors who have done most of the work, and another "half-senior" coauthor who has been commenting but reluctant to directly contribute to the manuscript.
The "half-senior" coauthor from another institution was invited by another junior coauthor without an explicit and clear agreement of how the work will be separated. It is possible that the other junior coauthor merely asked her to "check the results" when inviting her.
I have been indirectly suggesting that she could "directly write on the manuscript whenever she find suit". However, she is still commenting without directly write on the paper. I am feeling like I have been doing too much work.
As a junior, I don't think I can explicitly make a complaint to others and say that I have been to doing too much work.
My advisor explicitly make complaints to his juniors that the half-senior is not contributing enough, but he does not speak directly to her. So this makes me think that the situation could be better.
How to be polite and diplomatic while fixing the situation?

This is confusing to me. If I were the half-senior, I would generally find it my role to make feedback in the kind you are describing, rather than writing directly in the paper. Why do you think she should be writing more? Please tag a field.

@AzorAhai-him- My advisor is much more senior than her and he is writing a lot while providing the main idea. He also says a few times that the half-senior is not contributing enough comparing to the rest of the team.

It's not ordinarily expected or efficient or practical that every author on a paper contribute absolutely equally. Coming from a field where author order communicates some of this information, I find it to be a drawback of the alphabetical ordering that there is no information towards contribution extent from different authors, but that doesn't mean you can solve it by making sure everyone contributes the same word count to the paper. Like Azor, I'd consider comments on a manuscript to be a direct contribution.

@BryanKrause I agree that ordering authors with contribution level is better.

It will probably be far less work for you to just incorporate their suggestions and move on with the paper rather than trying some diplomatic coercion and waiting for them to respond.

I didn't meant to suggest that more senior people should contribute less, rather she seems to be auxiliary to the main team. I think this is too far from my area to offer an answer in terms of authorship standards but I'd agree with Bryan's message that you should incorporate her contribution and not try to strongarm her into writing text (you are just going to end up without a paper).

There is nothing to fix. You are high GPA, with high power comes high responsibility, with high responsibility comes high workload. There you are.

This situation does not sound uncommon, and without knowing more I wouldn't even say it's a particularly problematic situation. I have been in all three roles at various points, and there are papers where one feels that the best way one can help is to provide a slightly "outside" perspective without messing up the text directly. I also note that it seems like there are already three people actively, and presumably concurrently, editing the text, which seems more than enough to me.

As a junior, I don't think I can explicitly make a complaint to others and say that I have been to doing too much work.

Well, I am of the opinion that anybody in a collaboration is "allowed" to voice their dissatisfaction with how things are going. That is, if it really bothers you, you could seek a direct conversation with your "half-senior" co-author, and ask them if it's possible for them to write their changes directly rather than commenting. I have done this in the past, with mixed success - sometimes they start doing it, sometimes they say they will but never follow through, and sometimes they have a good, or at least reasonable, explanation of why they do not want to or can't.
Of course being polite and professional is key, even (nay, especially) if you don't like what the other party is saying. I have also been in a collaboration where a junior author started to write fairly aggressively-worded and demanding action items and deadlines to a senior collaborator. Let's just say things did not go well from there.

Not writing on the manuscript but sending comments is a feature, not a bug in this situation. It is hard enough to coordinate between two authors. Also, we all tend to be slightly ego-centric. You are engaged in the difficult work of writing, and you might loose perspective easily. Commenting on written text by a co-author is much preferable to commenting on the written text by reviewers. Having someone really read your text is in itself a valuable contribution.
Your feeling of not enough input by your coauthor is the real problem. It could be based on a wrong understanding of co-authorship or the complex social networks in academia on your part or your advisor's part. If you still feel that there is not enough work done by your co-author, consider strategies that involve your co-author in a non-threatening way. For instance, can you ask her/him to allow you to run some things by him. Or you can ask to discuss a certain aspect that is troubling you. Discussing related work (instead of asking for a write-up) is also valuable. Prefer the spoken to the written work or even consider visiting in person.
If in the worst case your not-so-senior co-author is a parasite, academia has ways of solving the problem. Such a person will just find it harder and harder to collaborate with others. But there is also a certain amount of forgiveness for difficult personal situations as well as well as a tit-for-tat. Most research is based on the works of groups and authorship in group work can be rather indirect. Finally, you did not mention the field. Practices vary greatly between fields and even sub-fields.

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Trend of postdoc in theoretical computer science
When looking at profiles of professors in theoretical computer science, I've noticed a trend that older professors usually go straight from PhD to assistant professor, while younger ones tend to go through 1-2 (sometimes even 3) postdocs.
Is the trend a reality, and if so, what explains it? Is it because there is nowadays more supply of PhD graduates in theoretical computer science (relative to demand), so that people need to go through more training in order to become a professor?

Is it possible that older professors just don't bother to put their posdoc positions on the cv?

This is a general trend throughout computer science. Part of it comes from a general gradual inflation in cultural expectations. I suspect that a larger amount is due to the fact that CS is no longer a rapidly growing field. For a long time (several decades), as the field expanded and matured, universities were staffing up their CS departments, and could absorb lots of graduates as professors. Now, though, the great expansion is complete in most developed countries, which means there is a more competitive market and a need to absorb graduates in holding patterns. The field has not yet adjusted well to this expectation, however, in my opinion, and does not have the well developed methods for matching graduates with postdoc positions. This, in my opinion, is one of the major challenges facing CS academia at the moment.

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Are papers presented special sessions regarded inferior?
I am doing my PHD in computer-engineering (1st year), and am publishing at computer science and hardware conferences.
My department receives requests all the time, on confernces with high probability of acceptance. (Usually there are too few submissions, so they request for more) These conferences are prestigious, however the sessions, I participate are very specific to a certain project or topic.
There is a lot of progress on my research, but since I am publishing a lot, it is dilluted into more publications.
Can this later hurt my reputation, if I publish extensively on these sessions?

I think there is something missing here. You say that these conferences send out requests for additional papers with high chance of acceptance because they are lacking submissions. But you also say that these are prestigious conferences. These two things are pretty mutually exclusive.

Maybe prestigious is the wrong term. But they are good conferences. These special sessions are kind of decoupled from the main conference, and are usually seperately promoted.

@tonysdg Can you please turn your comment into an answer so that I can vote for it?

@jakebeal Done.

Is this a co-located conference/workshop? Based on what I've been told by my adviser/post-docs (I'm also first-year CPE PhD), these types of places aren't where you want the bulk of your research going. You're better off aiming for a higher quality paper at the main conference - it looks better on a CV, and it's far more prestigious.

First of all, you are the Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Science, so more than likely you will be able to answer your own question much better than we can for this specific topic.
Ask yourself: Is the subject of your talk at an appropriate Ph.D. level discourse, and will the audience be able to 'follow' and provide valuable feedback for your project? It is entirely understandable that there will be many small niches for any scientific discipline. As long as you are presenting adequate research for the Ph.D. level and the audience is able to follow along, these are very valuable presentation opportunities.


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Is there a way to improve the readability of equations in research papers?
I read a lot of computer science papers, and have to understand a lot of equations. Most of the time the concept is so easy, that someone could explain it to me in 5 minutes. I one the other hand need up to an hour to get it.
It is difficult for me to search for the variables in the text, and often I print the paper out and write the meanings of each variable down on the side.
My questions:
So why is it not common to make equations and algorithms more readable?
Is there some PDF reader plugin which highlights the variables in text?
Any tips on how to improve in reading such papers?
Why do authors not add an additional list to each equation with a list and explanation of each variable. Should I do that?

To answer your last question (why don't author do that) - because most authors have a page limit for the paper, and a reference table would very often blow it. Also, a variable's meaning may change (e.g., in Section 1, M is a symmetric matrix, where in Section 2, M is an arbitrary matrix)

On a related note: I once tried to convince LaTeX (which is used to write many/most CS papers) to allow be to typeset "bubbles" that will be displayed when the user hovers over a variable (so that I could remind a reader about what the variable defines) - this would somewhat solve the problem without exceeding page limits. However, the LaTeX package for doing that was not well-maintained or had many side-conditions, so I eventually gave up. Also, papers are often read after printing anyway, so there would have been little use for that, not mentioning the extra writing time needed.

When reading a print out of a paper, I circle with pencil all the definitions I see as I find them.

@DCTLib If you feel like trying again, the todonotes package may work better. You can add permanent "bubbles" to the output in the margins. Obviously the intended use is to put in todo-notes for oneself, but it may work for this case as well :-)

@darthbith I use todonotes quite extensively myself, and think it would be terrible for this purpose.  The problem is that it's simply not designed to look good in a finished document, and won't.

I (in physics) found a decent correlation between equations I needed to put some effort into understanding and papers I wanted to print and otherwise annotate.  But assuming I'm old-fashioned, then for most platforms (certainly linux/windows/mac) there is software which allows you to annotate pdfs.  The larger display equations often take a bit more looking at than understanding what the variables represent anyway, so the exercise is good, assuming you know from the text that it's worth spending the time.

@jakebeal That's too bad. I've only ever used it for the intended purpose, so didn't much care how it looked.

There is also another factor to take into consideration: mathematical maturity.  The top level researchers assume you are able to extract all necessary information from an equation directly; i.e., you must be able to read maths.  If you cannot see the forest from the trees, then you are not ready.  You might also want to search the forum on how to read proofs.   If symbols or terms are not defined, that's just bad writing.

I do not believe that the problem is fundamentally about space, but rather is a cultural problem that stems from three things:

Reviewers do not demand clarity in their mathematics
There is often a perception that "fancy" or "difficult" math means more important science (related to #1)
Really clear presentation of mathematics is difficult and takes a lot of work
("I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.")

Ultimately, a community tends to get what it rewards.  There is no reason that math must be impenetrable.  Even if one is faced with a space problem, you can play the same sort of games that you do with figures and data in order to fit.  Right now, however, it is typically understood and accepted that you don't have to do that with your mathematics.  In fact, some scientific communities will punish a researcher for presenting mathematics more clearly, because it makes the work look "less significant."
Technology cannot help solve this, because ultimately it is a problem of human communication.  Anyone who is bothered by mathematical impenetrability can, however, take their own small steps towards changing this culture:
In your own work:

Include tables and clear explanations in your papers.
Use as few symbols as possible, and choose the symbols to improve clarity, e.g., matching the symbol to the first letter of its description.
Buffer your equations with explanatory prose that restates their content in plain English.

When considering other people's work:

Call out mathematical impenetrability as a reviewer
Ask for tables, clear prose, etc. in the papers that you review
View the mathematical impenetrability of a work as a flaw rather than a good thing.

This is a very difficult problem, and unlikely to change any time soon, but it can be made better one paper at a time.  Moreover, it is my belief (and experience), that clearer mathematics can make for a higher impact and better cited paper, so it will likely be valuable to you in the short term as well, unless you are in a community that has a toxic relationship to mathematical impenetrability.

I've noticed this trend, some insecure authors seem to want their paper to seem more complex and hard than it really is. Sometimes the variables are never defined at all. It's not hard to include a line or 2 with "j is... " "K is the ..." and anyone who doesn't is choosing to make their work harder to understand without good reason. It's a type of bad behaviour I see far more in papers written by grad students than by confident senior academics.

@Murphy Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.  I think a lot of this is can also be attributed to people not realizing how impenetrable their math is and not having feedback that helps them fix it.

That would explain it if they simply explained it badly but no, when they fail to do even the most basic level: simply stating what each variable is. 10 year old are told off for failing to include that level of information. It's so far bellow the level of mere incompetence that it doesn't float. If it's simply hard to understand after the point where they've at least attempted to explain what the variables are then I'm willing to attribute it to something other than intent.

@Murphy When you've been working intensely on something for a long time, you can easily forget that the symbols you are using are not obvious to everybody (e.g., doesn't everybody use n for number of nodes and r for unit disc radius?).  I don't like to defend such writing, but I can easily understand how it can happen, and have certainly made these mistakes myself, especially when I was a graduate student and a much less experienced writer.

So why is it not common to make equations and algorithms more readable?

The simple reason is paper space constraints. You can only add so many reference tables and clearly separated equations into a paper before the page limit runs out. And given that many CS papers do not only consist of maths, but also need to have some space for a good evaluation, comprehensive related work, and various other sections, paper space is often at a premium, even at journals.
(and, given that most authors are really used to writing papers this way, they often also keep up the same style in those journals without an explicit page limit)

Is there some PDF reader plugin which highlights the variables in text? Any tips on how to improve in reading such papers?

I doubt that there is a plugin for that, but doing what you are already doing (keeping notes with the meaning of the more important definitions and assumptions) seems like a pretty good start to me.

Why do authors not add an additional list to each equation with a list and explanation of each variable. Should I do that?

If you have the space in your manuscripts, sure - whatever helps the readability of the paper.

+1. You could also put such a list of your variables into an online supplement if your conference/journal allows this (I don't know how common this is in CS; in other fields it is pretty standard to put "further info" online at the journal's website).

@StephanKolassa It's surprisingly uncommon I think. I started doing "Online Companion Pages" on my own blog / website for all major papers, where we put things like data sets, additional figures, or whatever other supplementary material seems useful.

I love the LaTeX package \hyperref. There you can link every variable to its definition. (If you use \usepackage[hidelinks]{hyperref} it does not change the visual appearance of your text, but makes variables clickable or you can color the links.)
You can link other symbols to their definition too (e.g. see http://docdro.id/HZMP7Uy from https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/360871/128042). See https://www.overleaf.com/read/mbbqrdpwbqfk for a simple code-example.
The advantage of this solution is that there is no additional distracting content that might annoy experienced reader that are familiar with the used notation, but those reader who forgot the meaning of a certain variable can just click on it.
Additionally, I personally think, sometimes there would be even more possibilities to improve readability by using

\underbrace to explain certain terms,
\overset like $a\overset{\text{Th. 1}}{=}b+c$ to indicate that a=b+c holds true because of Theorem 1.,
highlithing/lowlingthing to indicate more,
and less important parts of complicated equations,
and probably many other ideas ...,

but every time you do something creative/unconventional, you will have opponents. I use many of this tools and often get very positive feedback in return, but some people don't accept unconventional things which definitely makes it harder to get accepted to certain journals.
At least \hyperref is accepted or even recommended by the majority of the scientific community.


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Ways to get free and legal access to research papers as a researcher
I’ve discovered that website like ResearchGate offer the possibility to ask the paper editor to provide his paper for free. Many are collaborating.
Are there any other ways for researchers to obtain free access to papers?

Research library...

@keshlam: I don't have access to any research library I fear :( - but it would be nice to find any forum and ask people to download the paper and send to me.

@Revious That would break the licence that the person who downloaded the paper is bound by.

@MJeffryes: ok, this means it cannot be done publicly. But p2p and streaming are very spread realities and it's completely legal to say they exist. I wonder if there is something similar for research papers. This comment is legal, but if it's not welcome mod can delete it.

@Revious, that it can be done without being caught doesn't make it right.

The paper editor?  Don't you mean the author?

It is completely unclear how many papers at ResearchGate are available legally.  It is also completely unclear whether I should care.

@keshlam if you're talking about an offline research library, it's often not an efficient solution... too much time wasted transportation, finding the article, scanning it in case we need to keep a copy of it, etc.

@Revious - It's legal for you to say it exists, and it is illegal for someone to actually do what you are talking about. Your comment doesn't need to be deleted, but just be aware that you are advocating illegal activity.

@frankdemoncourt: I've done patent research by hand in a repository library, which is a roughly equivalent process of sifting haystacks for left-handed silver needles. It's certainly more work than an online search, but  the criteria stated were fee and legal, not easiest. And sometimes the paper search turns up connections by accident that an automated search wouldn't.

Whoever is paying for your research should provide you with access to a research library.  If you are donating your time and buying your own equipment for your research, that person is you.

I always use the following methods to get many inaccessible papers.

Open Google Scholar.
Search the title of the paper.
Click see all versions (you can see many places where the same paper is available)
Check one by one whether they are downloadable

Another method, I always use when I really need an inaccessible paper, is just to write an e-mail to the corresponding author to send that paper. My experience is that I have always received the paper in a return email.

Our university has better access than I do at home, too. You may be able to check if your institution has some sort of access (at home I can VPN onto campus). Depends on where OP is searching at.

You are right. It is really good if a institute has access to a large number of journals. But what about those journals to which the same institute has no access. So it is natural to face difficulties while downloading an essential paper from such journals. That is why I have mentioned inaccessible paper...

The other thing you can do is go through a university library -- try to get yourself some sort of position or student status (could be as an unmatriculated student, could be an online course).

@Kayan - Sorry, I only just refreshed the page and saw your comment.  The solution in that case is Interlibrary Loan.

Yes @aparente001 . That is also a good way. I had also that experience during my PhD. I don't know about your institute, but my institute was taking time up to a week.

It will be nice to see some screenshots here

I have also done this. If I recall correctly, I have received every paper I asked for.

It turns out that a related survey was posted last year in this PLOS blog post on how paleontologists access the (non-open access) literature:

I put together an informal, non-scientific survey. The survey asked
  questions about how people access the literature, the kinds of
  journals they can access most easily, and basic demographics. I
  advertised the survey via Twitter and Facebook. I wouldn’t count it as
  a scientific sample by any means, but I do feel that I got reasonably
  good coverage of various types of paleontologists at various types of
  institutions (as well as non-paleontologists who follow the
  literature). 115 individuals responded, during the course of about a
  week.

Note that it doesn't indicate the legality.
FYI: Bulk download Sci-Hub papers

The website mentioned here is obviously and blatantly illegal, but gives access to almost all journals ever published. It's very easy to use and more complete than our direct subscriptions. I might almost use it for stuff I have legal but slow access to.
Use or do not use depending on your views on the "illegal" consumption of research.

As the "illegal" consumption of research increases, this may hurt the editors, the publishers, and even the researchers themselves. ❧ I would downvote you if I had enough reputation points.

Let's be a bit realistic here: maybe the purchasing of individual articles accounts for 1% of the publisher's revenue. How is that going to hurt me as a researcher? It's not like I'm getting paid for reviewing or editing anyway.

A) 1%? Citation needed. B) Researchers depend upon publishers. When publishers get hurt, so do researchers, indirectly.

A) That's why I write maybe. Maybe it's more, maybe it's less. Either way, not a lot. B) I don't depend on publishers, publishers depend on me. When all the closed access only publishers disappear, we still have all the open access guys left, as well as things like Arxiv and whatever will take the place of Nature. Don't forget that a lot of Journals are not published by companies like Elsevier, but by associations or societies that could run on other sources of income.

Ask your public library (maybe not a local branch, but a large city's one). In some places, libraries are able to help citizens access journals. Another option might be national libraries - eg the British Library.


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Where can I find the Impact Factor for a given journal?
As from title. Not all journals provide the impact factor on their homepage. For those who don't where can I find their impact factor ?

For latecomers, I'd like to find a free API for finding impact factor. Thomspon Reuters has a private API. The other suggestions below don't have APIs which return Impact Factor (or alternatives) for journals.

If your institution has a subscription to Journal Citation Reports (JCR), you can check it there. Try this URL:
https://jcr.clarivate.com

Does anyone else think it somewhat ironic that even information about Impact Factors is hidden behind a paywall?

I expected it. Perhaps that's my cynicism. It's a metric that publishers could see value in and so some businesses will try to make them pay for what Google does for free.

Apart from the ones already mentioned there are two excellent open access options.
Eigenfactor is quite authoritative, and depending on field its metrics may carry the same weight as the Reuters stuff. They also offer the ISI metric (impact factor)using the exact same formula. You can search by ISSN, journal names, discipline etc.
However when I make my own decision on an appropriate journal to target for publishing my articles, then I use SCImago Journal & Country Rank. They have a wide variety of metrics, which include upcoming ones like H-index, the traditional impact factor, and other tweaked versions of the same. One of most useful functions on Scimago is the ability to compare a set of journals using a graph format and any metric that you desire. This can be exceptionally helpful in identifying the prestigious dinosaurs and the new but cutting edge journals. Placing your article is half the game, so this is incredibly useful.
That said, this site does not appear to have the same level of authority. So, while it is good for one to get a good feel of the quality of a journal, it doesn't carry the same authority in a formal evaluation as Eigenfactor or ISI. Plus, if I understand correctly, their database goes back only up to 1996, though their coverage of even lesser known journals is comprehensive. This would make it difficult to judge the impact of an article published way back (but for older articles, citations are the standard measure anyway).
I also feel it is a shame to be paying to access impact factor statistics. Even if you cannot publish open access, at least the rent seeking involved in paying for the ISI rankings can be avoided by using the open access rankings.

Is Scimago updated? The IF don't seem to match

There is a list at Science Gateway.

You should not be able to access Impact Factors on a large scale from anywhere beyond Clarivate Analytics' (commercial) Journal Citation Reports (JCR) and InCites.
The reason is stated in the Terms of Use for Clarivate Analytics' products, and for InCites specifically. For instance, the product terms for InCites (as of May 2020) states that:

(b) Extracts. You may include limited extracts of our data that have no independent
  commercial value and could not be used as a substitute for any service
  (or a substantial part of it) provided by us, our affiliates or third
  party providers, in internal documents and systems that are your
  property, provided that you do not create a searchable database. (c)
  Distribution. You may distribute limited extracts of our data that
  have no independent commercial value and could not be used as a
  substitute for any service (or a substantial part of it) provided by
  us, our affiliates or third party providers, to third parties as
  incidental samples for illustrative or demonstration purposes only.


text:
When to offer co-authorship vs asking for feedback
I am quite new to this game and I am not sure how to ask people to be co-authors on a paper I have mostly written myself but that I think would get better  with someone else's input. When is a good strategy to offer a coauthorship and when should I simply ask for a feedback on the paper? This is somewhat of a review paper and I feel that it would be important to have some experts from the field. But regardless how should I decide when to offer a coauthorship?

I'd ask for help. If said help turns out relevant, add a footnote thanking for it. If the help is in some way crucial (found and fixed a fatal flaw, suggested a (better) way to compute the results, suggested a relevant extension, ...) ask the helper if they want to be coauthors or just be thanked as above.

Co-authorship depends on many factors, few of them are:

The authors who had worked with you together to achieve the results.
Since this is your review paper, then co-authors may be them who had
shared the knowledges to briefly summarize your findings to write
the paper.
To get the proper feedback of any research work mostly
depends on the methods, results and discussions. So you need to find
few researchers' paper which has a good overlap with your findings.
Then you can ask the most focused/ experienced/ renowned researcher
out of them to get some feedback.
To increase the standard of the paper, you can ask well known
scientists/ researchers who can reorganize your paper.


text:
Do all universities have a minimum required GPA for graduate school application?
I am a senior undergraduate (electrical) engineering student, exceedingly interested in physics. 4 years ago when entering university, for some reasons (better: illusions) I chose engineering as my major, while I was interested (and also really knowledgeable) in physics . Soon after the first semester I realized that I've decided wrong, and I must have chosen physics.
Since our university is a technical institute and does not have a strong physics department I decided to study physics on my own, without changing my major.But I took and passed the basic graduate physics courses (advanced quantum mechanics, advanced statistical mechanics, electrodynamics I & II), have done a few research projects and had a paper published (maybe 1 more in the future). I have explored lots of research areas in physics and I think I have a good potential for doing research.
While concentrating on physics, I was inattentive to EE courses. Today, while searching for graduate programs, I saw that some schools require a minimum GPA, usually 3. I just calculated my GPA and found out that it is 2.95!

Do all universities have a GPA threshold?
Since I'm changing my major and also have a good GPA in graduate physics courses, is there any way I can compensate for my (very) low electrical engineering GPA? (like by taking subject GRE, etc.)
If I first (somehow) get a masters degree in physics and then apply for a PhD, can I throw away this electrical engineering GPA in my PhD application ?

Any other suggestion is warmly appreciated.

I stumbled on this guide some time ago. I can't say much about accuracy, but the author seems to know what he's talking about. Check under "A word on GPA cutoffs"
http://matt.might.net/articles/how-to-apply-and-get-in-to-graduate-school-in-science-mathematics-engineering-or-computer-science/

Are you by any chance Iranian? (I'm Iranian FYI)

I can't say "all" for sure, but I think you'll find that many if not most schools do have a minimum GPA requirement.
Whether you can compensate for a low GPA depends on how the school handles it.  In some cases it may be difficult, as admissions committees may literally scan apps for GPA and put all that do not meet the standard in a "reject" pile without even reading the rest of the application.  In other cases the minimum may be "soft" and they will read the app.  My advice would be to: A) get advice from a professor at your school you have a rapport with; and B) contact faculty at the schools you're applying to (or considering applying to).  I would not just bluntly ask the GPA question on its own, but email them in general saying you're interested in the program, and mention the GPA issue along with whatever else you ask them about the program.
You almost certainly cannot "throw away" your undergrad GPA in a PhD application.  Even if you have an MA, most schools will want to see all your college transcripts.
You should also take advantage of the time you still have during the year to bring your GPA up as much as possible.  Even consider doing this by taking easy classes that you might not otherwise take.  Personally, if I were in your situation, I would even consider delaying graduation by a year or part of a year, if it's financially feasible and your school will allow it, just to have more time to take classes and bring up your overall GPA.
You have already made a significant blunder in letting your GPA get that low, as a GPA below 3.0 will be a red flag to many graduate programs.  However, from what you say, you would be a strong candidate in other regards.  If you can get people to look at your app long enough to read your statement of purpose and see your grad coursework, then you probably have a decent shot.  To do that, you should leverage your strengths.  If you have taken many grad classes, done research, and published a paper, you presumably have good contacts in the physics department.  Lean on those people to write you glowing letters of rec.

I just graduated from school X in BS. Physics & Astronomy. I graduated with a CGPA of 3.0 (did not do so well due to family health issues). But then I applied for only one school for my Masters in Applied Physics in school Y and got accepted. I also got the Graduate Assistantship (GA) position with that which gives me full scholarship and a stipend. I did not even have to take the Physics GRE to get accepted, just the General GRE.
My advise get to know your professors really well. It's really amazing, what professors can do to get you accepted into a grad school. Get at least 3 excellent letters of recommendation relevant to Physics or Astronomy. Be the top student in the class you would like ask the professor for a letter. Be noticed by your professors as a determine & excellent student in class during your undergraduate.
Be a TA or SI in Physics/Astronomy during your undergraduate, and this will show you can teach, looks very good on your resume and you can be accepted into GA positions in grad school.
Publish papers & books in Physics/Astronomy journals. I did that, and I'm proud of my accomplishment and I stand out from the rest.
Be good at computer programming. Matlab, IRAF, IDL, Python, Zemax are some good programming skills looked by most Physics/Astronomy grad schools. Knowing a computer language for grad school is essential for research and publications.
Do research with professors from your Physics/Astronomy Dept. You will get to know your professor better and show that you can do research in lab. Lab skills are very important especially when you are going to grad school, as it shows you are knowledgeable and also experienced. Grad school will find it easier to select you this way.
While taking classes irrelevant to Physics & Astronomy to boost your CGPA, sound like a good idea, it actually may not be the case all the time. Grad schools are only mostly concern with how well you did in your physics, astronomy & math classes. They are not bothered if you get A's in all your art or language paper if you're applying to Physics/Astronomy grad school. What matters to them the most are your Physics, Astronomy & Maths.
While getting into grad school is one thing, but getting any financial aid or scholarship is another thing. Many student find grad school to be very expensive and in addition, they are still paying their loan back for their undergraduate. So funding your grad school is another thing to worry about, even if you got accepted. Most grad school requires a better grade to get any sort of scholarship or financial aid. For example, in my school only about 30-40 % of student got accepted into the grad school, will receive the GA position which gives student a full tuition waiver, a stipend and other benefits. I was the lucky few :)
My general advise in CGPA to apply for grad school around the US (other criteria will be considered for admission) for Physics/Astronomy grad schools. Disclaimer:This is just a rough gauge on where you are standing and where do you see yourself in the future.
1) 3.70-4.00      (Top schools in the nation)
2) 3.50- 3.69     (Good schools)
3) 3.00.3.49      (Most state schools)
4) 2.80- 2.99     (Community colleges, small schools & mediocre schools)
4) below 2.80     (Don't be a science major)

There is a lot of politics in academia, and being nice or knowing the right people can get you pretty far.
In your case, I would look at the universities that you want to study graduate level physics at, travel out there, and speak with the professors. They are used to meeting with students that are looking at several different graduate programs, so its all part of their job. You can ask them if they'd like to get coffee, and it doesn't hurt to look at the campus map and know which coffee shop is around the corner from their office.
Read and know their work before hand. They almost always have a CV listed on their personal web page, with the most recent publishings at the top. Start with that.
Expect to spend no more than 30 minutes talking to them, but if the conversation is good, it can go an hour or more. At that point, you can talk about your background, your interests, why you transferred from EE to physics and so forth.
While you're in town, talk to some other professors in that department; it can just be a casual swing by the office. Talk with the graduate student advisors in their office. See if you can get a tour of the labs, and while you're in there, talk to more people.
I guarantee you that when your application is being reviewed, they will recognize your name and give you a much higher consideration.
Grades are not everything. I made it into the #1 ranked program for my masters with a 3.0 GPA and a decent GRE score, then leveraged the 3.8 GPA to jump to a PhD program. Two years were knocked off my PhD requirements for having an M.S. And, I did the schmoozing all over again when I applied for the PhD.
EDIT: One last thing, as was mentioned elsewhere, take some extra classes to get that GPA up. Even if they're summer courses, just get it up enough to push you above a 3.0. The last 60 hours are the most important. It demonstrates your level of commitment.
Also, many schools have a Certificate of Advanced Study (CAS). Its not a masters, but its graduate level studies. If you get really good GPA in a CAS, then you'll make up for the low undergraduate GPA.
EDIT #2: One more thing... heh... part of applying for any graduate program isn't simply a matter of if you meet the qualifications. The best programs always have people storming at the door. What the admissions committee is also going to look at is whether or not they are a good fit for you. So they will try to figure out not only if you have what they need, but if they have what you need. That includes deciding whether or not you would be in over your head after a year of study and then drop out, having wasted a slot that could have gone to someone else. And, there is one thing that benefits you, and that's having studied EE. That means you're essentially a non-traditional physics student. You can say that you're interested in studying the intersection of EE and Physics, and that professor Y's research would be the perfect compliment to augment your studies.

Requirements are not set in stone, but meant to filter out weak candidates and create a sense of selectivity.  I remember a recent case where we accepted a PhD student who seemed strong, though for various reasons had a low GPA, which was below the threshold set by our Graduate College.  This just meant we needed to write a letter to the Graduate College petitioning for an exception in this case.  Incidentally, that student didn't accept, presumably having got into a better school.


text:
Is it unethical to add same environmental data such as temperature and salinity in two different papers?
I have collected sea water samples from a location to study the microbes. The study is basically divided into 2; one is considering the total community and another one is specific to a particular groups. If I write 2 papers considering these two matters, can I use the same physico-chemical properties?

Try to read this article Maximizing Your Data or Data Slicing? Recommendations for Managing Multiple Submissions from the Same Dataset.

@Kayan Would you please explain why this question has anything to do with peer review?

Researchers frequently have to decide how to publish journal articles from a large data set. When it is not possible to write a single, integrative article from such a data set, the issue of publishing multiple journal articles arises. Here is good article about the issue

This is not unethical if you are asking a different question, and thus, analysing the data in a different way. If the publication re-uses data that was previously published/submitted elsewhere you will need to be clear about that in your manuscript and possibly the cover letter/email to the editor. Depending on the journal, you could simply reference the previous manuscript rather than re-publish the data in tables/figures. In this case, the second article might fit the style of a short communication/letter. But it would be preferable if you include some novel data in each manuscript, which seems to be the case (i.e. additional community members in one of the articles).
It is important to recognise that each journal (and even editors within the journal) will have a different preference on this matter (see the article provided in a comment by user3624251). Make sure you revise the journal requirements and potentially contact the editor prior to submitting to inquire on their policy.


text:
Having to elaborate or modify an NIH grant aim
Background: I am a graduate student in neuroscience at a US institution.  I have a specific aim that I wrote into an NIH grant back when I was less knowledgable, and as I have grown better versed in my field, I realized that there were related experiments that were technically not described in the aim, but are logically necessitated to happen before even executing the proposed grant aim.  Key members of my thesis committee agree that I need to do preliminary experiments before getting to the proposed research.
Further, depending on these preliminary results, there is a small chance that the original grant aim would be inadvisable to execute as it is written.  In so many words, the aim might have been written using too many assumptions in the underlying hypothesis due to my naïveté.
A couple questions:

Is it bad to do these necessary experiments even though they are outside the aim?
Assuming the preliminary experiments do not scientifically justify the grant aim, can I provide a report to the NIH describing what I did and possibly modify the aim and hypothesis appropriately; e.g. pursue a different but related direction?

Was the grant funded?

Yes, the grant was funded.

The answer somewhat depends on the grant mechanism and whether or not it has been funded. If the grant has not been funded yet, do whatever you want. If you are talking about modifying a submitted proposal, you will want to talk to the program officer.
The mechanism also matters. As you are a graduate student, if the grant is an F31 or T32, then you are not technically incharge and you will want to talk to the PI (likely your advisor). If it is truly your grant, then you may want to talk to the NIH program officer. They are your friends and have a good enough understanding of the field to see if something is truly needed and if it would require some sort of amendment.

But keep in mind that (at least in biology) it is very, very common for researchers to perform work under grants that wasn't described in the grant application.  What you're describing is a very normal thing, and the program officer will almost certainly say it's fine.  Granting agencies (again, in biology at least) know that biology is fuzzy and that unexpected challenges inevitably appear, and they expect you to use the grant money to do the best research possible, not merely step through an outdated plan by rote.


text:
How hard is it to change universities after one year in a graduate program (USA, PhD in Chemistry)?
Let's assume I am going to a University for a PhD program in the  US. After attending for one year, I feel that it would be better for me to switch programs and University. How hard would it be to do that? I'm an international student not yet admitted to a graduate program.

In the U.S., you'd have to re-apply and re-compete to change the university. And competitiveness in one field does not promise competitiveness of your application in another.

In the U.S., it's sometimes possible to transfer from a mathematics PhD program to a different mathematics PhD program, although it's quite a bit harder than getting admitted in the first place. Transferring from one field to a similar field (e.g., mathematics to statistics) might be possible. Transferring from one field to a completely different field is probably much less so.

In chemistry (or physics) it would not necessarily be hard if your 1st year grades were great and you made progress in other activities during that year that showed you would be successful in US PhD system. The application timing is the difficult issue, as you apply in the fall to new school and you would have had no convincing track record by fall the first year.
People are accepting of helping (recommendations, etc) a good student switch if it is clear that no group within the department is suitable for that student due to funding, or subfield interest.
However, your email appears as if you are asking how to work the system to apply to one school  to get into the US, but then go somewhere else? Faculty are not clueless and some will be pick up on what feels like a lack of good faith or transparency during your year or two at the first institution. It will not lead to faculty being helpful. (And some resentment if it felt that scarce resources as TA or RA slots were 'wasted').


text:
What are the ways to transfer from my current PhD program to another one?
I am currently a 2nd year PhD student at a university in Canada. My PhD program is about environment chemistry. For a long time I wanted to learn computer science, especially machine learning, and I have 1 year work experience in an IT company.
I do not have a diploma in CS, though I have learned some course about programming and have experience in some programming languages.
Now I realize that I do not like my current research about chemistry, and my research has little progress recently. I also keep thinking about changing my PhD program or transfer to another program. I am particularly interested in machine learning, and relevant researches.
What ways can lead me to that track ?
Thank you.

PhD in CS without a CS degree sounds extremely optimistic. Perhaps getting a (self-funded) MSc in CS is more realistic. And how do you know that you will actually like research in CS, without even knowing the CS basics (algorithm complexity, data structures, databases)?

Although there is no longer a GRE subject test in computer science, some sample and practice questions are available on line. I suggest trying to answer those - they represent the sort of CS knowledge that would be expected of someone entering a CS PhD program.

Given that your current PhD is in Environmental Chemistry, and you want to switch to Computer Science, isn't this closer to starting over rather than transferring?

I know algorithm and some data structure.

A PhD is not like undergraduate school. The process is involved and particular, so you can't just stop halfway through and continue where you left off at another place. Most programs will not consider "transfer" applications at all, if you do get lucky and find one it will probably have very specific and unique requirements that you'll have to familiarize yourself with.
If you truly hate your field and want to switch, the more practical ways are:

Ask your current PI for a project that involves more computational work
Ask your department head for a new PI who does more CS-type work (they might even let you be supervised by a CS professor)
Drop out and apply again to a CS program

In my experience, these are much more common than "transferring".

hi, thank you. I am doing computational work currently. At the same time I am learning courses online, machine learning on coursera. Maybe that can help me.

@dogdog Well, I was once in a similar position to you. I would suggest trying to think of ways to apply the stuff you learned to your env. chem. research, or think of new projects that would use them, or try to think of computational methods you can learn that would add to your existing work. Also try looking at other computation-heavy papers in your field.

It is occasionally possible to switch to another department as a PhD student, if you can find a department/advisor who wants you.  I know someone who switched from chemistry to math when I was in grad school.  However it is not so common for a couple of reasons:

If you weren't successful (by ability or by choice) in another PhD program, why would you be in this one?
You will be taking a slot away from another potential student who is likely much better prepared than you for a CS PhD.

Getting an MS in CS first will do a lot to alleviate both of these concerns--it shows commitment to graduate work in this field and addresses your lack of preparation.
In any case, it makes sense to try to set up an appointment with the CS graduate director at your university and ask him/her about the possibility of switching to one of their grad programs.

He already answers 1 (he thinks he would like CS research more than EnvChem research) and 2 is wrong: If he were to get accepted, that means he is well prepared. If he was taking a spot from a better prepared student like you say, why would they accept him at all, instead of the better prepared student?

@Superbest: given that he has only done programming and programming languages, he probably isn't that well-prepared for CS research in machine learning. It might be really useful for him to get an MS first.


text:
What if I am not the right fit in a certain lab as a postdoc?
Almost everything is in the title of my question. More precisely, what if my advisor wants me to do research by using methods in a field that is not my field of expertise/interest?
Thanks!

Expanding your expertise is the whole point of doing a postdoc in the first place; you might as well be thankful for this opportunity. Lack of interest is another story. In this case, switching the lab would be an option - but keep in mind that a future employer might be curious what made you select the current lab.

Can you please add some more information?  Right now it's difficult to advise, especially because you are combining expertise and interest.

I presume that your postdoc advisor is the one that was directly responsible for your hiring. In such cases, she is presumably well aware of your skill set and former training, Presuming that she has not intentionally set you up to fail (a reasonable assumption, given her investment of time and money in you, and the potential damage to her reputation and your career), you should look on this as an opportunity to demonstrate that your PhD is well-earned. After all, the goal of a PhD is to certify that you are capable of learning a new discipline and making a demonstrable contribution to the state of knowledge in the field. Being put into a project outside your "comfort zone" is a perfect way to accomplish this.

Thanks to everyone. The point is that first changing discipline would take me a while to start make my contribution and second I do not want to do that; I graduated for my bachelor, master, and Ph.D. on my discipline, this's what I love. To be clear, we're talking about changing discipline and not just topic, that is what I expected. At the end of the day in research what counts more should be passion and especially training and those do not come in one year, isn't it?


text:
The meaning of "if any" in journal print charges description
I saw the following in a journal homepage at  http://www.pphmj.com/journals/jpanta_author_information.htm

Print Charges:
  To defray the publication cost, authors are requested to arrange print charges of their accepted papers at the rate of US$ 40 per page from their institutions/research grants, if any.

I don't understand the meaning of if any in the above sentences. I have a paper with no grant. Should I pay any thing?

This sentence turns up in very close varieties for multiple journals and conferences author guidelines. In some case it is followed by different explanatory sentences (different or no charges for authors from specific countries or a number of charge-free copies every or only the corresponding author will get). These sentences might change the meaning of "if any". (For example to " if there are any charges, if there are any printed copies you want".)

It means "We don't know anything about scholarly publishing and we don't care, just give us your grant money"

$40 per page?!

$40 per page (or even more) would have been pretty standard in the last century.  But nowadays (as noted) unusual.

The first google result for "journal page charges" shows that, as recently as 2011, The Astrophysical Journal (which has a top-10 impact factor for astronomy and astrophysics) charged $110 per page.  They've changed to "quantum" charges, but the concept is the same.  No reason page charges should be considered indicative of poor practices.

@GEdgar It really depends on the journal (and field). It isn't unusual at all for a journal that doesn't have other additional fees to charge $40 per page or to have a flat fee that averages out to well over $40 per page. In some fields, the move towards open access publishing means that valuable library subscriptions aren't a sufficient means of income, and also many good journals subsidize the publication costs for submissions from certain countries or in other circumstances where there is a financial difficulty.

The Journal of Neuroscience is one of the top journals in my field and the main journal of the Society for Neuroscience, the biggest professional organization in the field. Publication charges are $1260 for members and $1890 for non-members. I'd estimate about 15 pages is fairly typical for a research paper in that journal, so that's about $100 per page.

In my field (political science), a non-open access journal that charges publication fees clearly raises a red flag. But apparently publication fees in other fields are common for subscription-based journals (see comments). It might be just a coincidence then that Pushpa Publishing House is a predatory publisher that appears on "Beall's List".
Don't publish with this journal.

Note that although this particular journal may be disreputable, page charges are common in some fields even in the most reputable, well-read journals. Therefore I wouldn't say page charges themselves are indicative of a predatory publisher.

If you are at any institution or if you have any grants, these should be used to pay the print charges.
If you don't have these, it implies you pay the charges out of your own pocket-- if you want a printed version of your paper, that is.

"if you want a printed version of your paper, that is" Nothing in the text seems to say that.

@JiK what does "print charges" refer to then?

@astronat It could be an euphemism for "fee we want from everyone, and we can't just write that" ... ie. even without print version, they get 40 per page

What I wonder is why the journal cares about where the money to pay those charges comes from.

@JarkoDubbeldam: I guess they want to make authors authors think about the money as grant money rather than their own money.  People are typically much more willing to spend money when they don’t think of it as their own.

@PLL We can ask for high amounts, because its not your money but the money you got for doing research. Gotcha. Sounds a lot like everything in science, like lab supplies.

Actually there is another interpretation that sometimes applies, though I can't say that it does here. For some journals, in some situations, if you don't have institutional or grant funds to pay page charges they are just forgiven and won't accrue to the author(s). I can't say how prevalent this is, but it has occurred (one of my mathematics papers, in fact).
But you should ask the editor what happens if you have no source of funding other than yourself.

The if any is applicable to their institutions/research grants.  So, this sentence basically means:
The author has to pay from his/her own pocket if he/she cannot get it funded from his/her institution/research grants.


text:
If my supervisor sugests a very specific addition to something, can I use it verbatim?
Say you send a document, it could be a report, or a literature review, or a draft paper, to your supervisor. They write back something along the lines of;

Yes, looks good. You need to define the foobar and also add somthing
  to section 3 like;
The demonstrates the fungability of baz in the context of high energy
  ice cream sundays. The delicious factor is an extreme motivator.
Yours
  - Dr Sprinkles

They are clearly not asking for it to be put in as a quote, but is it expected that you would use some or all of it verbatim? That feels odd since it was written by someone else, but rewording it just for the sake of rewording it could result in something distinctly awkward.
Does the nature of the document make a difference?

In my experience with suggestions like these, the idea is that you more-or-less insert it verbatim, with edits for style (after all, your supervisor probably wrote it off-the-cuff) and flow with the surrounding paragraphs.
Your supervisor is probably a better writer than you, and so her suggestion is most likely a good one. If you really hate it, you aren't obliged to use the phrasing (but using the ideas is probably good).
If you're feeling "odd" about using someone else's writing, I wouldn't worry. Either she is already a co-author on the paper, or she's helping you edit with no expectation of receiving credit for her short suggestion. If you're still worrying, make sure to thank her in the acknowledgements or something.
It seems remarkably unlikely that there is any plagiarism concerns here. For one, this looks like a concluding sentence, so it's unlikely she's plagiarizing a write-up of results she is only just helping to write up. Secondly, as I mentioned, suggestions like this are usually made off-the-cuff. If you are very concerned, Google the phrasing and make sure she's not subconsciously copying it from a paper she didn't author.

Oh, I wasn't concerned about her plagiarising. I was worried that it would count at plagiarism on my part, given I didn't come up with that point. But your right, I should probably check that too.

@Clumsycat Ah, your tag was unclear. No, using the phrasing she suggested is not plagiarizing. 1) She didn't publish it anywhere and 2) she's explicitly telling you to use it.


text:
Is it acceptable to ask for the original bibtex file of a paper?
I am reading a review paper which includes hundreds of useful citations for my paper. I would like to import some of the citations into a bibtex file. The only thing I know to do is to search them on google one by one, and then click on "export bibtex".
Is it acceptable (ethical) to ask the author of a paper for the original bibtex (Latex) file?
Or I wonder if there are any program could do the repetitive job: searching each citation on google one by one and export the bibtex from google scholar.

Thanks for the Scopus answer. It works for most of the published (not working papers, though) papers!!

If you just ask for the bibtex file rather than the rest of the latex source, it might be seen more positively.  On the other hand, some people use one giant bibtex file for all their projects, and might not like to share with you the list of every paper they have ever looked at.

I agree with Nate, I would be happy to provide the .bib source of my references.

It would be kind of weird, though I probably would share it if asked.  FYI: If the paper is posted to the arXiv, you can download the source from there without asking the author.

@Nate: you could provide the .blg

You mean .bbl?  That is only useful if you want to use exactly the same citation style as me.  (By the way, I think arXiv only needs the .bbl as well, so @AndyPutman's suggestion may suffer from the same issue.)

The title of this question currently says "original Latex file", which makes it sound like you're asking for the source of the whole paper. That is a rather different request than source for the bibliography, and I would recommend editing your question to clarify the title.

Qiqqa would allow to speed up the reference searching, reading and collections process, if you are looking for a Windows tool (with Google support).

@NateEldredge "That's [.bbl] only useful if you want to use exactly the same citation style as me." I have to disagree. Parsing a bbl file to get an approximation of the bibtex references sounds like a straightforward task task compared to many other hacks I've been doing to get some data in a nice form. Yes, many things might result in an error, but it's still easier to correct those than to download the bibtex files one by one.

Shouldn't you manually go over the cited papers and include those relevant, not just dump a lot of unread citations into your paper?

@Matsemann Bibtex automatically includes in the reference list only the papers that have actually been cited in your document. So it's perfectly fine to use a monster .bib file containing lots of paper in your area (and some people actually do it).

This has nothing whatsoever to do with ethics.

@NateEldredge: "On the other hand, some people use one giant bibtex file". In that case I would suggest to use aux2bib to create a bib-file containing exactly the referenced items.

For what it's worth, it shouldn't be terribly hard to write a program to do this (at least approximately) given the pdf or dvi file.

Not unethical - just lazy

Edited the question title! Asking for the LaTeX of the body is one thing, asking for the bibliography is another.

I put my own master bibtex file on line and see no issue in anyone using it, there is nothing embarrassing in divulging this file!

Hundreds??? I think that my Ph.D. has 34 references, and that includes a lot of overlap (each chapter has its own bibliographic section, and there are cross-references between the chapters). Sure, I wrote a very specific thesis. But nonetheless, hundreds sounds like you are writing a series of books, not "my paper" (singular!!!)...

@Inkblot It depends on the discipline. In pure math it is very common to have less than 10 references; in econ or finance, even some undergrad paper have more than 100 citations. It is common for a serious econ paper to have more than 10 pages of citation!

Jesus... 10 pages of references??? My god...

I would consider this a perfectly reasonable, if unusual, request.
That probably has a lot to do with the culture of my field; most papers in particle physics are uploaded to arXiv as LaTeX source (though .bib files are often not included), which is then made available to download along with the rendered PDF. This facilitates a cultural expectation that source code to the paper should be available to readers, not hidden. So I would consider sharing the BibTeX file associated with a paper to be a reasonable thing to do, a professional courtesy of sorts - similar to what sharing a copy of the paper itself is or used to be.
Other fields may think differently. Still, in most cases I would think it's fine to ask. The author can always say no or ignore your request, if they don't want their file to be shared for some reason.

This. I actually do make sources of my papers freely available on my website, .tex and .bib files both. I honestly have no idea why anyone would make a fuss about it. I sometimes do look at .tex files of other people's papers (on arXiv) to see how they typeset something. Sure, sometimes I found slightly embarrassing hacks, but it's not such a big deal. ;-)

@tomasz Sure, if it's already available either on arxiv.org or because the author posts the source themselves, the question is moot. But presumably the situation here is that the source has not been made publicly available.

@ElizabethHenning: my point is, I don't see what the big deal is about making it publicly available in the first place. That or sending a copy to someone. This is of course different if you don't have access to the source for whatever reasons, but otherwise...

@Elizabeth FWIW the .bib files are often not included in the source uploaded to arXiv.

I agree, this has to be related to the expectation of different fields of research. It is such a reasonable and simple request, I can not imagine anyone saying "no, I will not send you the .bib file of the article, even though the article is already published".

@Gabriel - sure, unless it appears to take some time to prepare the bib file for it to be 'ready' for random consumption. (remove extraneous items, or at least check and get rid of any 'review' or 'note' comments associated with entries that might not be notations that one would want distribute.

@Carol I've never added any comments or notes to my .bib files, but if that's the case removing them can not be such a time consuming task. If it indeed is, then sure, you are not obligated to take the time.

(upvote) Works!

It would be inconvenient for me to share the .bib file in my publications. The reason is that I have a huge .bib file with all the papers that I am using / have used / am interested in, and use it as source for all my Latex files. The .tex, of course, should always be shared instead.

My feeling about this is that if you don't personally know the author, it's weird and tacky and will probably result in being ignored. Even if you do personally know the author, it's still kind of weird and tacky. But there's nothing unethical about it.

(upvote) I think it is a little bit awkward, too. Is it better to mention this in a friendly, personal chat (if this is an option)?

@HighGPA You're basically asking someone to (1) share their working documents with you for the purpose of (2) saving you some work which is really your own responsibility. I'm not saying you should categorically not do it, but it could be seen as very presumptuous depending on your relationship with the author.

"weird and tacky"? I can honestly not think of a single reason why anyone would consider sharing the sources of a published article (which are already public) either "weird" or "tacky"... I guess this must be related to the different disciplines of research.

I disagree.  Reusing a bibtex file would be an example of working efficiently, which is a good thing.

As an alternative solution, if your institution has access to Scopus, you can find the paper there and see the citation list and export it in Bibtex. Web of Science has a similar feature.
To answer your question, however, it is not really unethical, but would likely be seen as a weird request.

(upvote) My current school only gives the access to Scopus's competitor, Web of Sci. Does Web of Sci has similar function?

Yes, you can find the paper and click on "Cited References". That will give you the bibliography and allow you to export them. You can't do it directly as a Bibtex, but you can output to a couple of bibliography management software, or output the raw citation data which isn't difficult to convert to bibtex.

Thanks! Luckily I have the access to Scopus through my another affiliation. The only problem is the most useful review paper is most likely a working paper which is not documented by Scopus......

@HighGPA If it isn't published, how do you have access to it? If you are reviewing the paper, I would say it is definitely unethical to ask. That would be a whole different scenario. Or do you mean it is a working paper somebody has published unofficially e.g. a draft on an author's web site?

@cfr Yes, I mean the working papers.

The .bib files produced by Scopus/WoS/Google Scholar are not directly usable without manual editing. They get a lot of things wrong (capitalization, name/surname splitting, special characters...).

@FedericoPoloni That's true of pretty much any online citation source. Plus there's no guarantee the authors of the paper in question got all the citations completely right too considering the number of citations in question.

@JAB I am not sure of what you are trying to tell me with this comment. Do we agree that grabbing someone else's bibtex file (with a useful selection of references, human-readable keys, and some manual edits to fix at least glaring mistakes such as those that cause compilation errors) requires a lot less work than trying to produce a new one from automated sources from the internet?

The context can often make a big difference. If you are an experienced researcher, then this request would be seen as weird and possibly annoying since you could easily find these .bib sources yourself without bothering busy people. However, if you make it clear in your request that you are a high school student without proper [experience and] resources, and also make clear that you don't want them to go to any bother to accommodate your request, then I think that most people would be happy to help, and it wouldn't be awkward.

I know how to produce the bib source by myself. But I am not sure if it is "easy" to find the bib source by myself?

In your situation, where you might not have proper resources [or experience], I would not call it "easy" for you - so it would fine for you to email a request for help. On the other hand, if you were a professional researcher, then you would have resources and experience that would allow you to create the bib source yourself "easily", so an email request would be far less appropriate.

There is the Arxiv API that can be used for this purpose.
You can read the documentation and programmatically make requests for the papers that you need, asking for the various fields as an output. You can send these requests as you want from the browser or any other programming language. In python for instance you can use urllib.request.
Furthermore, someone already did this and it is freely available on github.
For physicists there is an alternative using the INSPIRE API that is documented here. It can be used to automatically request for the bibtex entry without the need of composing it by hand by reading the various fields.

No, I should have explained better. An API is a service that websites offer you to programmatically request data from them (with some limitations of course). This means that you can write an URL that says "Arxiv, give me the bibtex citation data for the papers with id 2011.12345, 2011.12346, ...". Which will return either an html page, a json file or a text file with the data requested. And then you can make a python script that generates said url automatically.

Truly sorry about misunderstanding you! Does you method only works for sites like Arxiv or for any journal articles?

authors: Xi'an ні війні


text:
Accepted for Masters but Can Only Attend if I Have a Scholarship
I'm not a US citizen, and I was accepted recently for an MS Degree in CS. After asking the Graduate Office, I was told so far they don't have a scholarship for me (only 15 out of the 115 accepted got one).
I'm proceeding with the papers and such, since if someone drops, it will pass the scholarship for the next one, but due to currency exchange and the high price of US education, I can't go without the funding. Is there any way I can prove myself now or is it better to refuse the offer right now?

Any chance of an on-campus job if you don't get a scholarship?

@PatriciaShanahan Unless I can pay the whole tuition, unfortunately no :(

Ask if you are eligible for student loan.
Scholarships are often not available for undergraduate and Master's degree. It is extremely common in the US (and UK) that students borrow money to pay tuition fee and stipend. My former flatmate didn't paid all the loan until he was 28 years old (his father paid his tuition fee, he only borrowed for stipend). You can consider this as an investment if you believe the degree could bring you a well-paid job in the future.
On the other hand, you don't have to go the US to do a Master's. Many EU countries, such as Germany, provide free education for foreigners, and many provide scholarships based on the household income.

It seems to be a Hypothetical question. However, my advice is to but for some financial aids to study if you really believe it's worth doing.


text:
Why is my supervisor ignoring me?
I am an undergraduate student with major aspirations to go to graduate school. I am in my final year. I am currently working on a research project with 2 supervisors (1 of them marks my work and the other just signs off on it). I have meetings with one of them every couple weeks and he always tells me "send me a message whenever you have a question, there are no restrictions". So I had a question last Thursday, yet never received a response. In addition, I have a presentation tomorrow and need his approval before printing out the presentation (it's a poster) to ensure that no private data is shown. He told me to send him my presentation on Monday so I did. However, I have not heard back from him and my presentation is tomorrow. I am not sure if this is a common situation with supervisors? I know the simple solution would be to send him a reminder. However, I really don't want to make anyone angry. I will honestly "kiss up" to anyone to get into my graduate program. So I am treading carefully. If I do send him an email, how should I phrase it?

There's no harm in you emailing him or visiting his office and asking if he's had a chance to review the poster and reminding him that the presentation is tomorrow. I wouldn't ask why he's "ignoring you", as it's possible he didn't even see your email from last week. Given the amount of emails we get each day, it's not unheard of.

Follow up, always follow up. And "escalate", if you cannot reach him via email, try going to his office hours or even just come by his office randomly. Or call.

Part of me wants to point out that your supervisor correctly noted that you can technically send him a message whenever you have a question. He did not say that he would answer any of them.

The blogger UniversityOfLies wrote in a post titled What to do When Your PhD Adviser Ignores You:

Busy [sic] Backson Syndrome (as coined by Winnie the Pooh and Benjamin Hoff)- My first adviser suffered from this.  These people are Too Damn Busy flying around the world, giving lectures anywhere other than their home university, being on TV, and frolicking through the lavender fields of Provence and buying age-inappropriate accessories with Johnny Depp.

You are too late. If I have presentation tomorrow, I will make sure everything is prepared and checked by my supervisor 2 weeks before.

what now you can do since your presentation is tomorrow is:

1. Again, Write him an Email with high priority indication:
2. Meet with the department chair faculty if any available: and ask if it possible to check it with you.
3. If it all fails: print your poster and be prepared to the presentation and make sure your impress the audience

Thank you, this is helpful. I am always pro-active and never leave things to the "last minute". However, this research project was only 8 weeks and I would not be able to have everything done 2 weeks before. My supervisor knew that so told me to send him the presentation on Monday.

@aspire94 I see...


text:
Any advice on the Erasmus experience
What are the advantages and disadvantages of taking an Erasmus exchange semester abroad, and will it have an effect when it comes to finding a job?

Might be better to include an explanation of "an Erasmus", if you don't mean the historical figure, etc. :)

Besides the obvious cultural advantages, I do not think it has any benefits in the job market.

Beside obvious cultural advantages, it is a good opportunity to practice languages.

Other answers aren't wrong, but I think an important point is where you are going to search for a job upon graduating. If you are going to work in your own country in a job not related with international relations, an Erasmus may be just a plus, as Buttonwood says.
However, if you plan to work abroad an Erasmus may be a very useful experience, specially an Erasmus in the same country you are going to search for a job. It can be useful both to gain skills to live and interact abroad (that can be shown in a resume) and to test if you are suited for the experience of working abroad. In addition to that, an Erasmus in the last years of your studies is an opportunity to start networking in the target country.
Furthermore, in countries where professional proficiency of English or other foreign language can't be taken for granted, an Erasmus is a good practice and a good evidence of your language skills.
I've meet an Spanish engineer working in Finland after an Erasmus in Finland and a German engineer working in Spain after an Erasmus in Spain, and as far I know the Erasmus were an important step in deciding to work there and in finding a job there.
To summarise in two examples: for an UK student planning to work in the UK, an Erasmus would be just a plus; for an Spanish student planning to work abroad, an Erasmus would likely be a must.

Going for an Erasmus, an EU student exchange progamme, may be a plus, not only "the obvious cultural advantages" (like learning a language better than in the lab / during holidays) if you watch out for similarities and differences in your field, comparing your home and your hosting institution.  Hopefully you will recognize both the odds and the benefits of different teaching / learning cultures and mint benefit for you.  Use it as a chance to learn differently, including different topics than at home.
If possible, look for integrated programmes (like the ones by the French-German University, for example), where two institutions are partners who mutally agreed on the curricula. Otherwise upon your return, if there is no recognized equivalent of what you did at your host institution at your home institution, you may have to attend lectures and lab classes a twice and hence, delay completion of your studies.
Going for an Erasmus is a potential obstacle, be prepared some won't understand you this well anymore, as your horizon of experiences may diverge from theirs.  At your host institution, at least at the beginning, you will be a foreigner; at your home institution you may be earmarked as "thinking different" or "s/he once left the boat".  You may somewhat "tainted" like a foreigner, or become a pacemaker returning with new ideas.
Is it better for getting a job?  Again, it depends on the where you want to go, if the potential employer recognizes, appreciates and supports the benefits of someone who left the nutshell.   Some do their studies including a PhD and beyond, promptly find a job, never even thinking about getting into an Erasmus; all staying in the same city.  Some face the difficulties of "you no longer think/act as we expected as a true/pure (insert your nationality) physician / biologist / .... would do."

It also depends on where you are now and where you would be going. I'd say going from Bulgaria to the UK / Germany is probably a big plus. Going from Germany to Spain to party for half a year might not benefit your job prospects too much.

Really? There is something like a true maltesian biologist compared to a pure andorran one? The things you learn. I guess I have definitely killed all my chances to be pure or true in anything. And because I realised this sound a little too aggressive as is: I am not trying to imply @Buttonwood thinks like this, I am amazed at the fact(?) some people seem to do.

@skymingen Some weeks prior to embarking an Erasmus a professor by an other university, who knew the to-be hosting institution and curriculum (as he was one of the coordinators of his university) visited my home institution.  He frankly stated, he stoped to estimate students from there to be true, full-fledged chemists.  On the other hand, thankfully I had colleagues appreciating that I took the other, less travelled way (R. Frost...), capable to see things from /more/ than one perspective (contrasting to a dogmatic "there is only A, and as we used to see A all the time, it must be A again.")

@skymingen And as we interact with people, some feel better inside their pure field to advance there.  Others enjoy blending their (scholastic?) origin and promoting advancement of science at interfaces with other disciplines.  This said, there are things apparently universal, quorum sensing of eucaryotes likely happens both in Malta, as well in Andorra.

While in general, studying a semester abroad will likely make a positive impression in your CV (even if you 'lose' half a year on the way), I have experienced that some of my colleagues would regard an 'Erasmus' stay slightly less valuable as opposed to organizing your foreign semester all by yourself (outside of such a program).
I am not going to say that it is particularly 'easy' to go abroad with Erasmus, but I think this sentiment originates from the perception that some Erasmus students primarily get in contact with other Erasmus students (e.g. from their home country) and not so much with their local peers and local culture. This is of course strongly dependent on your own dedication and in general may just be a prejudice.
Overall I'd say, studying abroad with Erasmus is still much more valuable than no foreign cultural experience at all.


text:
Referencing a mathematical result already obtained
I was working(in maths) for some months on a paper. After I got the results, I found out that some of those were already obtained in another paper that was not very related to my topic. In fact, in that paper, the result is stated as of 'minor' importance because the main purpose of the paper was quite different. It is the technique that he used to prove this, the one that I rediscovered and used in my paper to prove this result and others in the same domain. Due to this, I didn't have a reason to search there in the first place. Although I have other results in my paper, this one was one of the main ones. Of course, I want to cite the old paper.  Hence my questions:

Is it worth publishing this with a proof?
Assume now that I do publish it with proof. Is a phrase like: "Although we arrive at this result independently, it turns out that this was already obtained in [Ref]" acceptable in the paper?
Is there a more correct way than the phrase above to cite the old paper?

@user37208 Yes it is

I would suggest submitting your paper.
An appropriate title could be «A proof of [result X] using [technique Y]» or «A study of [Result X] and associated corollaries».
The abstract introduction should start with «[Result X] has been first proved by Mel Doe in XYZ. This paper presents a novel proof of this result, achieved applying [technique Y]. In addition, this paper presents a series of corollaries proved using the same technique: [list of other minor results].»

Is it worth publishing this with a proof?

Ask the editors of the journal, underlining the use of the technique you used.

Thanks for the answer. However, I should have been more clear(I will edit the question): the author indeed proved the result. The technique is what I am constantly using in my paper, either to prove this result or others on the same domain. Since he is focused on another topic, in that paper this result is stated as of 'minor' importance.

I updated the answer. I still think it is worth publishing such a paper. In-depth studies focused on a single problem (however minor) are often useful to students and newcomers of a field. And, IIUC, it will be a nice way to present the use of this technique.

As clarified in comments above, the proof is not novel.