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Impact of holding non-TT positions on potential for a TT position
Is there any (negative) effect of prior holding of one or more non-tenure-track (TT) positions on the potential of being hired (and promoted) at a TT position at a university (mostly interested in US)?

... as opposed to being hired into TT position from the scratch.

Now, I saw that title and wondered why Academia SE was talking about racing on the Isle of Man.

You mean this? Sorry, I didn't know about that thing before your comment. Otherwise, I would likely choose another topic to limit your potential surprise :-)

What kind of non-TT position?  Teaching oriented?  Research oriented professor?  Postdoc?  Industry?  Something else?  For how long?  What kind of TT position?  What kind of university?  R1 university?  One with more of a teaching mission?  Please provide more detail, as the answer will likely depend upon these factors, and trying to cover all possible cases would require too long of an answer.  In general, if your question is only one sentence, that's often a good indication that it would be helpful to flesh it out: it will help you get better answers, and make it more useful to others.

@D.W.: Thank you for clarifying questions (+1). Mine is thought as a more of a general question, as I was trying to capture various types of situations. I agree with you that those factors should have been stated, if known. Unfortunately, I had no specific circumstances in mind for this particular question. Having said that, the answer by Brian Borchers is quite nice and provides a good starting point for thinking about the topic.

In many academic fields it has become the norm for new PhDs to work in post-doc, visiting assistant professor, or other temporary non tenure-track positions before moving into a faculty position.  This is normal and expected. It should be obvious how a research post-doc will help you to gain experience in research.  For new PhDs with limited teaching experience, a good visiting assistant professor position can help with gaining teaching experience.
However, there's a difference between a research oriented post-doc and a long term full time (or worse part time) non tenure track position as a lecturer.  In the latter case, you will have little opportunity to continue working on research and may be put to work teaching very low level courses.  It can be very hard to work up from such a position into a tenure track position, and the longer you do it, the worse it will look on your resume.
Even with good research post-docs and visiting assistant professor positions, there's a limit to how many years you can do this work before you'll be seen as having failed in your academic career.  Too many years of post-doc experience is worse than having too little experience.

Thank you for such an excellent answer - detailed and very clear. Much appreciated (+1 and accepted).

Related mini-question, based on one of your points above: could a postdoctoral position (at an excellent university), affiliated with a project lasting more then 2-3 years, be damaging to one's academic career?

Five year grants are about the longest planned projects that I've ever seen,  It's wouldn't be unusual to budget for a post-doc position for the whole 5 years of such a grant, but I wouldn't plan to have the same person in the position for that whole five years.  As a post-doc working on such a long term project you should be careful to make sure that there are ample opportunities to publish results during your time as a post-doc and not just at the very end of the project.

I appreciate your clarification. Thanks to it, I have a clearer understanding now.


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Formal pedagogical knowledge
Considering that sooner or later I will, hopefully, be able to teach formally at a university level, I'm curious about the following. While I do have pretty decent (some people, even, say, very good [he is blushing]) informal pedagogical skills, especially in terms of explanatory power :-), I'm thinking about how best to improve my ability to teach (I have informal teaching experience via high school students tutoring, corporate IT classes teaching as well as informal advising online and offline).
With that in mind, I wanted to ask people's recommendations on what are the optimal strategy and useful approaches in terms of acquiring some additional formal knowledge on pedagogy, instructional design, learning theories and similar disciplines and areas of study. While currently I'm preparing my research (have an agenda) and teaching statements, this question is not concerned about that, but rather about establishing a solid foundation for the long-term teaching success. In addition to strategy and approaches, some advice on relevant resources, including MOOCs and books on the topic will be greatly appreciated. (This question is inspired by reading this and this.)

As Nicholas said, you can get a certificate, diploma, or even a master degree in education (some focus on higher ed, some on primary and secondary teaching). However, for me, I've always found it quite helpful to read-plan-use-evalate and repeat as necessary.
For the reading, Faculty Focus on the Teaching Professor are wonderful. There are countless good quality texts. I'm continually surprised at the percentage of high-quality books (like McKeachie's Teaching Tips) on higher ed teaching. By far most of the higher ed teaching books I've read have been very helpful. Resources aimed at primary and secondary school teachers have not been very helpful to me in my university teaching.
The Art of Teaching is also quite good as a video or audio book. I have not found MOOCs to be better than books and newsletters, at least not yet.
There is so much theory out there that it is difficult to read even a significant portion of it. However, I believe what is most important is to find what pedagogical styles best fit both you and your students (if you know much about them at this point). So, I return to my earlier point: read-plan-use-evaluate, then try something else to build up your toolbox. Granted, this is difficult to do without actually doing it.
Oh, it goes without saying that Academia.SE is a great resource. :-)

Excellent answer (+1) - much appreciated, especially advice and mentioned resources. Academia SE site is indeed a great resource, it is just not realistic to expect receiving some formal knowledge on this particular topic here :-) [it seems to be not one of the popular ones].

So, if you would have to choose only one book on the topic, what would be your preference?

@AleksandrBlekh There is a Reference-Request tag if you are looking for some research to support your teaching (so formal knowledge is available here). As for books, I would never limit myself to one. In fact I would sooner read one of the two newsletters I referenced (Faculty Focus is free, Teaching Professor is not) which regularly include reference to research done in the area of pedagogy.

Thank you for the tag info as well as for resources clarification. The "single book" question is a hypothetical one. I don't plan to limit my learning on the topic to a single resource - I was just trying to get an idea on whether there exist a relatively comprehensive guide to start with.

Many universities now recognise that tertiary academic teaching can be taught as a scholarly subject. There is a growing body of research on the subject.
Similarly, tertiary institutions recognise that there has generally not been a requirement for academics (usually research-focused) to demonstrate any ability in teaching, nor are they exposed to any opportunities for training.
For this reason, many institutions (in the UK and Commonwealth, at least) offer a post-graduate diploma or certificate in Academic Practice. In such a course -- usually attended by research academics with a teaching component to their work -- students are exposed to current pedagogical theories.
My institution offers such a PGCert, and I am working my way through it now, with the support of my HoD. It's been pretty good, so far. See if your institution offers such a degree.
Bear in mind, I've seen this strategy -- institutions offering PGCerts in academic practice -- done very badly. Namely, staff are required to take the course, and pass. In the worst case, the quality of the teaching was poor.
I am pleased to say, that at my present institution, the teaching on the PGCert has been very good, the readings helpful, the exercises relevant. Your mileage may vary.
With respect to resources, I am generating an annotated bibliography of the readings (journal articles, books, etc) that we have been recommended for this course. If you are interested in this, I can share the link with you.

Very nice answer (+1). At the present time, I'm not affiliated with any institution - currently, I'm between being a recent Ph.D. graduate and holding a post-doctoral / junior faculty / industry position. My university doesn't offer postgraduate certificates in Academic Practice or similar (while it does offer some in other specializations). In regard to sharing the annotated bibliography, I would very much appreciate it. I think that I've seen some relevant MOOCs - any thoughts on this option?

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At what point does my practical software project become an academic research project?
I am a working software developer getting a MS in Computer Science. I've really enjoyed the courses -- but I have never done any academic research. Now I have an idea for a graphics-driven iOS application that I would like to build for my upcoming year-long thesis. (It's a variation on a particle simulator). The other students in my program have told me that a thesis is about generating a paper on a new technique or unsolved problem -- not building a polished program or application. They say that the code can simply be a proof of concept or prototype.
With that said, how should I approach building this particle simulator and pitching it to my advisor? Should I focus on underlying structures that would allow me to render complex physics-based graphics efficiently? Is there a name for that area of CS research?  Are there papers in a certain area that I would want to start reading?

A related (but as of yet unasked) question would be "At what point does my academic research project become a practical software project?"

How should I approach building this particle simulator and pitching it to my advisor?

That depends on your goals. Your advisor should be able to advise you how to approach building this particle simulator. But in short it depends on the goals.
If you want to get funding to do the project, then state how that is going to be useful and profitable for the one paying.
If you want to make research with that, then state how is that research and why it is interesting research that will produce interesting publications.
You may have some other goals not included in these two. Your advisor may also have different goals. Whatever the goals are, try to plan to do whatever is useful for your goals and try to explain to your advisor how what you plan to do is useful for his or her goals.

Should I focus on underlying structures that would allow me to render complex physics-based graphics efficiently?

IMHO algorithms are going to be more interesting than structures specially when using parallelism, everybody loves parallelism nowadays. In any case try to check this [1] and possibly this [2].

Is there a name for that area of CS research?

Apparently that is computational physics, but simulation may work well too.

Are there papers in a certain area that I would want to start reading?

Yes, to find more papers you can:

take the first reference I provided (and possibly the second) this is your set S of all sources.
check the citations in S, add interesting ones to S.
check who cited the references in S (you can try google scholar and other services for that), add the interesting ones to S.
check other papers from the authors of the references in S, add interesting ones to S.
search (e.g. google scholar) for related terms that appear on the papers in S if you think they should be explored further, add interesting references to S.
you have now a lot of references to read, try not to read all of them, check the abstracts and summaries, try to prioritise what to read and how detailed the reading process should be. If you need more, return to 2.

At what point does my practical software project become an academic research project?

When you do something new and interesting from a scientific point of view, basically when you face challenges and provide solutions that are worth publishing, because reading about those solutions saves time to people working on similar problems.
E.g. If the solution is very specific (e.g. an implementation in a programming language) then reading about it may be a waste of time for people not using that language. An algorithm in pseudocode will be useful to anyone working on a similar problem if the problem is hard/big enough and searching, finding, reading, understanding and implemented what a paper says pays off in the end. Keep in mind that evaluation is a fundamental aspect in research, either empirically or formally (proof instead of evaluation then).

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Should an abstract make an argument about why an experiment is important?
I am submitting my first academic paper (in computer science). It is a short paper for a conference. In my abstract, I state what my empirical research uncovers. Is it appropriate to then explain why that empirical result is important? Or does that argument belong in a different part of the paper?

Yes it is generally better when the abstract indicates why the experiment is important, since it's key to hook the readers (otherwise why bother reading the paper if it brings no "important" results?), but succinctly as anything else in the abstract. There are typically 2 parts in the abstract where you can explain why the experiment is important:

when explaining why the problem it addresses is important (somewhere in the first half of the abstract)
when summarizing the implication of your results (at the end of the abstract).

I love the following abstract for a paper on how to write an abstract written by Steve Easterbrook; I italicized the two parts I mentioned above:

The first sentence of an abstract should clearly introduce the topic
  of the paper so that readers can relate it to other work they are
  familiar with. However, an analysis of abstracts across a range of
  fields show that few follow this advice, nor do they take the
  opportunity to summarize previous work in their second sentence. A
  central issue is the lack of structure in standard advice on abstract
  writing, so most authors don’t realize the third sentence should point
  out the deficiencies of this existing research. To solve this problem,
  we describe a technique that structures the entire abstract around a
  set of six sentences, each of which has a specific role, so that by
  the end of the first four sentences you have introduced the idea
  fully. This structure then allows you to use the fifth sentence to
  elaborate a little on the research, explain how it works, and talk
  about the various ways that you have applied it, for example to teach
  generations of new graduate students how to write clearly. This
  technique is helpful because it clarifies your thinking and leads to a
  final sentence that summarizes why your research matters.

That said, to make sure your in the same tone as the conference, reading abstracts of papers published in the same conference in the last years is the ultimate reference.


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Approximate time frames for US postdoctoral application decision making and starting
Performing an academic job search for the first time (unlike the industry ones), the more I dive in, the more I see how such search for a junior faculty position is very dependent on timing, time frames, natural seasons and academic calendar (and I totally understand the reasons for that). However, that creates significant challenges in my particular situation, to a degree that I almost decided to abandon my junior faculty position search and focus exclusively on postdoctoral positions along with some IT research-related and general research-focused industrial ones.
In addition to timing issues, there is also a reason that many, if not most, junior faculty positions require or prefer a candidate to have a portfolio of peer-reviewed publications (or, at least, working papers) as well as teaching experience and, often, teaching evaluations. Unfortunately, at the present time I cannot offer any of these (beyond my dissertation and citable research software).
Having said all that, for my job search planning and plan adjustment purposes, I am curious about time frames for decision making and hiring for postdoctoral positions. I realize that this aspect might significantly vary, between geographical locations and, even, institutions. However, if there are some average numbers for US universities, I would appreciate you sharing them (my discipline is information systems, if it matters). So, my question is as follows:
For US postdoctoral positions, what are approximate time frames between applying and making hiring decisions as well as between communicating such decisions and desired actual start dates?

While the answer doesn't address this, there is at least some dependence on field (e.g., teaching postdocs are very different).  Since most people get PhD's and get hired into tenure track positions on the usual academic cycle, this also affects when vacancies tend to open and get filled.

Since you are in Information Systems, I'll post this as a comment: time frame definitely is discipline dependent. On one extreme you have Mathematics where the vast majority of US postdoc positions are advertised on MathJobs and first round acceptance deadlines are coordinated.

Kimball and Willie Wong: Thank you for your comments (upvoted).

Most postdoctoral positions in the US are made available by individual professors within their own research groups. Consequently, there is no standard timeline for postdoctoral applications, outside of special programs where positions are sponsored by entire departments or institutions.
In general, though, I think that positions are held open at least as long as is required by the guidelines of the individual institution where the postdoctoral associate will be housed (anywhere from two weeks to 60 days), although this may be extended if no suitable candidate is found in the initial advertisement process.
Moreover, the start date is usually somewhat flexible, but is also dependent on funding—usually people will want the postdoc to start as soon as is reasonably possible.
On the whole, however, if you're applying for an individual postdoc position, I would normally assume that you'd hear back from the postdoc advisor within a few weeks if there's any interest.

Nice answer and useful information (+1). I appreciate that and your rapid feedback.

It can be as little as 5 business days.


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Interpreting academic applications' timeframe requirements
Based on my limited experience in academic job search, most advertisements for academic positions (it seems, more often the faculty ones) include phrase, similar to the following:

To guarantee full consideration, applications must be received by
  DATE.

I am curious about the strictness of that requirement, in other words, what "full consideration" really implies. The requirement seems to be relative, but to what extent? Moreover, I'd love to hear your advice on best strategy, if any, in terms of applying to positions, where the specified date has already passed, but the position advertisement is still active. Just ignore the requirement and apply? Are there any differences in that regard between faculty positions and postdoctoral positions? Is there anything else that I need to know?

@kimball is partly right in that applications may also be considered later than the deadline, in particular if you know someone in that department who can speak for you.
On the other hand, many departments start building consensus for candidates even before the deadline. For example, many departments have deadlines in mid-December for full files, but members of the department know many of the candidates and start talking about them to their colleagues long before that. (Between the mid-December deadline and early January, nothing much is going to happen anyway.) If an application appears on the date of the deadline out of the blue, it will be considered, but human nature being what it is, it may be difficult for this applicant to supplant a candidate whose file has already made the rounds within the department and has been found to be a good match.
In other words, while there really is no reason not to send an application after the deadline, my recommendation typically is to (i) send the application well before the deadline, and (ii) tell your friends in that department that you applied there so that they can talk to their colleagues about your files before other candidates become lodged in their heads.

I appreciate your helpful answer (+1). Now I have clearer understanding of what "full consideration" actually means. Due to various reasons, I'm just starting to apply (both academia and industry/consulting), so, I guess, getting an academic position for the this/upcoming academic year would be something close to miracle, while for the next one I have plenty of time for the full consideration.

Correct. Nothing is happening any more for the upcoming (September 2015) year.

What is usually means is that they will start reviewing applications on or after that date.  How much of a disadvantage applying later is will depend on things like (i) how much later, (ii) how fast the department goes through the hiring process, and (iii) how difficult it is to find suitable applicants.
It's generally not as bad to apply late for postdoc positions, since hiring is often more flexible for that. (For tenure-track there are meetings to decide who to interview, etc, so if you apply after these meetings, it's harder to be considered.)
One thing you can do, if there is someone you think will be genuinely interested in your specific application, is contact this person to let them know you applied.  That way, even if they are already done looking at applications, they may take another look when yours comes in.

Excellent advice (and fast reply; +1) - much appreciated!


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Who gets to write book reviews for academic journals?
Some journals publish reviews of newly published books in their field. It's not clear how authors for these reviews are typically chosen. Can you apply for writing a review? Or should you do just like for a regular paper: buy the book, read it, write your review and submit it? How is this typically handled? Is it reserved to the editors to initiate such reviews?

I am sure this varies but is most likely one of the following (in some kind of falling order):

you are a well-known and respected researcher/educator in the field

you have recently written material that are key to the book (perhaps referenced in it)

you are known not to know the word "No" (makes the editors work easier)

you are friends with the editor (makes his/her life easy)

I doubt many editors will necessarily take you up on an offer (depending which category you may fall into) but I am sure some might be fine with it. It never hurts to contact an editor and express interest. You should then provide a background for why you should be considered for such a task.


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Are spelling issues part of the reviewer's job?
During peer-review, is it part of the job of the reviewer to check the spelling, typos, grammar, and suggest improvement? It will help the paper and seems part of the job, but seeing some manuscripts it could take ages to write down every tiny correction in the review.
So, is it the job of the reviewer to judge quality of the writing?

I also would like to add to all the great answers, that if the manuscript you receive for review is so littered with typos and grammatical errors that it is actually hard to understand, you might consider refusing to review until the author turns in a readable manuscript. I once received a horribly TeXed  manuscript that was simply painful to read (among other things, using a lot of < instead of \langle, so you got things like <x,y>>1). I suggested to the editor to ask the author to improve the typesetting. Once the author turned in a manuscript without this issues, I reviewed it.

No, the major goal is to examine the validity, integrity and contribution of the work. Since these can be challenged, causing the work to be rejected or subjected to a major revision, editing at this stage would just be like staining the wood before the carpentry work.
Also, at least for me, my mind runs on two different gears when engaged in editing and reviewing. If I have to edit, I can only edit; if I have to think about the concept, I can't edit... perhaps in my mind editing only happens when the concept is already there.
Having said that, there are three areas I always do a full body pat down, once for concept, once for edit:

Table: I suggest always comb through the table title, column and row titles, numeric agreement, footnotes, superscripts, etc.
Illustration: Check labels, title, and footnotes.
Abstract: Look for typos and point out if a particular sentence appears to be terse or even misleading.

The reason for putting the abstract under all lenses is apparent. The reasons for checking the illustration and table are that these are usually the most neglected places in copy editing and revision. And yet, these are the most viewed sections in a paper. Nine out of 10 errors I've spotted in journal articles are in these two hot spots.
In the main text, if there is any sentence that is very grammatically challenged, I cite the page and line in the review, and comment on the need of a rewritten version.
If there are typos, I collectively write one separate comment requesting a through spell-checking, and give 2-5 occasions in the article as examples.

The simple answer is no. Unless the review instructions ask for such comments, it is not mandatory. When I do a review, I usually do some corrections if there are not too many of them. If the paper is littered with such errors I might make corrections for one or two manuscript pages and then state to both authors and editors that the papers needs substantial checking and correction beyond my capacity. I also sometimes just leave that comment without making example corrections.
One of the more problematic issues is the difference between native English speakers and this who have English as a second or third language. Clearly authors who are not native speakers, should receive more help than others. There are also services that do language corrections and each publisher typically can suggest such services. If there are native English speakers as co-authors, some responsibility should fall on them to correct the language, after all, they are credited, or perhaps discredited, by the paper as well. So my point is that some leniency has to be considered depending on the severity of the problem but the bottom line is no-one is forced to correct spelling and grammar.

It is not the job of a reviewer to proofread an article.
However, it is the responsibility of a reviewer to comment on issues that would improve the state of a manuscript. Therefore, one should not completely turn a blind eye to issues of formatting, spelling, and grammar. Moreover, there are some papers where the grammar, spelling, and usage of English is so poor that it actually hinders appropriate evaluation of the manuscript.
Thus, it is appropriate to include some comments on the general level of usage in a review, although one would not want to list tons of typographical errors as part of the review; a comment that corrections are necessary should suffice.


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Taking a pseudonym for publication
I will soon get my first paper submitted. Because my name is very common I think it will be hard to look for my papers in databases in the long term. If I want to decide on a pseudonym (author name different than my real name) it must be now before my first paper. I wonder about choosing a pseudonym that is a small variation from my own name so that it is unique in databases. Like changing my first name spelling (John -> Jon) or adding middle name or changing my last name (Smith -> Smyth). Is it a good idea or am I overthinking it? Will it be a problem later?

Do you have a middle name?  That makes a huge difference.

I would strongly advise against spelling changes, unless you adopt the new spelling absolutely consistently in every aspect of your professional life: this should be the only name anyone ever sees on your CV, conference name tags, professional web pages (including ones maintained by your university without your direct involvement), etc.  Otherwise, there's a serious risk people will think John Smith and Jon Smyth are two different people.  Middle names have the advantage that nobody will assume John M. Smith and John Smith are necessarily different people.

It can be a very real problem later on, when you will be looking for a job and potential academic employer, or just colleagues, will want to check on your academic record. Changing your name to make it unique might also bring you a lot of trouble later, as your employing institution will not easily access your publications (knowing you by a different name than the one appearing on you publications).
However, it could very well be that, given the practice of your field of research, you could avoid changing the spelling your name. Usually, journals will take your second (and possibly third) name into consideration, and use it for all indexing purpose. At that point, your abbreviated name could simply be unique, no matter how common your first and last names!
For instance, John Andrew James Smith would be abbreviated and indexed as JAJ Smith, for which even PubMed does not even returns a hit! (PubMed covers most of life and material sciences)


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Application to create 3D figures for papers
I would like to know of a good and easy-to-use application to create simple but visually appealing vector figures such as spheres, planes, lines.
It should permit transparencies for example, and 3D coordinate representation to be able to show concepts in the 3D space, such as tangency or crossing.
Thanks!

In this Wikipedia link you can find a list of different vector graphics softwares available, giving some details on their use and characteristics.
From your question it is hard to say what is it that you want to do and seems similar to this question. Plus, there is probably not a single answer to this question. I personally use Inkscape, which is quite powerful in terms of possibilities and it's Open Source !


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To act against rearranging authorship irresponsibly
If the first author changes the authorship arrangement of a journal paper without discussing or informing the other co-author who is being unfairly affected with this, what we can do about it?
Is there a way to stop this sort of stealing other one's work? What would you recommend to do?

Speak with the first author.

@DavidKetcheson We did, indeed. His response was "it is OK"! Of course OK for him.

@Developer It would be good if you included the information you spoke with the first author in your question by editing it in. Mention shortly what how asked him about it, what concerns did you raise, as well as what answer you got and which explanation. It will be easier to get more relevant answers that way, if we have more facts.

To play with the author order is not fair and perhaps unethical if it unfairly changes the picture of the intellectual contribution to the paper. Unfortunately, the ordering is largely an internal problem within the group since only that group can assess the appropriate ordering. So, discussing the problem within the author group would be the first choice of action. When doing so you need to have a good argument for why the division of authorship should look the way you see it and have good arguments for that. The core problem therefore seems to be a lack of communication.
It is a good idea (necessary) to discuss a system for ordering of authorship. There are guidelines for authorship and contributorship based on the Vancouver Protocol. You can also look at the post Paper contributions and first authorship. Requirements for authorship are quite strict and each author group needs to work out how authorship should be divided along a clear set of rules. An example of how such a discussion is given on, for example, the site AuthorOrder.
There are cases when authorship changes can be unethical, but those mostly concern the first authorship so I do not sense this is the main problem in your case. Nevertheless, for some input on disputes, I recommend looking at COPE's How to handle authorship disputes:a guide for new researchers.
If you do not think you can discuss the changes with the first order, then you have to learn from the experience and insist on discussing the grounds for authorship and ordering in future collaborations.

Full of nice advices. We think for our case your last sentence is the only that we can do, unfortunately.


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Am I allowed to my article to researchGate which is so far only published at arXiv?
I understand that in general, it depends on the publishing license of the journal if I am allowed to distribute my article further. However, I want to know if I can upload an article, which I submitted to arXiv prior to publication in any journal (which is allowed by the journal I will send it to in the end), to researchGate?

Why? If the paper is on arxiv, why put it on Researchgate? Have you fallen to the "Someone requested your paper on Researchgate" trap? If this person cannot google the article's name and get it on arxiv, then there is nothing to be gained by giving the paper to him through Researchgate.

arXiv uses a default license that does not transfer copyright but rather only grants arXiv a perpetual, non-exclusive license to redistribute the work, similar to, but less restrictive than commonly used Creative Commons Licenses, which arXiv also accepts as alternative licensing for submission.  That means you retain the copyright on any articles you submit, while providing a perpetual license to arXiv to do redistribute it.
Since you still hold the copyright on your article, you may do anything you wish with it, including submit it to researchGate.
The issue you need to be concerned about is whether the journal you wish to eventually submit the article to considers submissions to arXiv and/or researchGate to be "prior publication".  Some journals only accept articles that have "never previously been published" and different journals define what constitutes "published" in different ways.  Some journals exclude arXiv, researchGate and others (along with conference presentations, etc.).  Other journals will not accept papers that were previously on those (or other) archives.  Check the policies of the journal in which you wish to eventually publish the paper to ensure that you will still be able to after submitting it to researchGate.

The default arXiv license is not a Creative Commons license, and the vast majority of arXiv papers use it (since the Creative Commons licenses are far less compatible with non-open-access journal publication).  Other than that, I agree.

I stand corrected.  Updating post.


text:
Is it possible to remove an author's name after publication?
If a paper was published with an author's name without that author's consent, what can be done about it?
It there a way to disassociate oneself with a published paper? is retraction the only way?
If the paper is retracted, does it still stay online and is associated with that author's name?

All journals that I've come across require the submitting author to certify that all authors have consented to publication. I would think that therefore if an author gets in touch with the publisher to indicate they have not given consent, the publisher would be forced not only to withdraw the paper, but also instigate investigations into misconduct.

Agreed. It's a much bigger deal than simply removing a name. The elephant in the room is of course "why?" to which there is no good answer.

In math (where the number of coauthors is usually small), many journals require each author to submit their consent directly.

It is possible, and possible routes have been given in other responses. However, I'd like to give another facet. Before you go down this route, consider the consequences:

a likely investigation into misconduct of your fellow authors
you will not be exempt from the investigation, namely "how did it get that far", and inhowfar your role in miscommunication contributed
furthermore the authors will be exposed and you will be likely shunned by them (and a "halo" of their friends).

This is not to say you should not pursue it; it may be perfectly justified - but, as you did not inform us of the context behind your question, you should understand that retracting authorship is a massive step to take and you should be aware of its consequences. You will lose a lot, so I only see the upholding of ethical principles or the threat of a massive loss of reputation as plausible scenarios for such a step.

"You will lose a lot" -- as you have said, we do not know the context, so I don't think one can categorically say that OP will lose a lot. I can very well imagine he might not lose anything at all (beyond the time and emotionall/mental fatigue), depending on the circumstances.

If the OP were a senior author who was put on a paper without agreement, chances are that they would just put their foot down and demand to be removed from the paper, and would not place this question on stackexchange. So, my bet is on the OP not being the senior author. Importantly, here the paper is already published, so there will be collateral damage which cannot be waved off (much differently from being taken off before submission or publication, for which easy ways out are conceivable). This is the educated guess forming the basis of my scenario of "will lose".

Yes user2390246 is somewhat right. However, many journals require consent through signature on consent form that needs to be scanned and uploaded during submission. If you did not get signature or somebody signed behalf of him/her, you need to contact editor and they make correction in the next issue and the editor also make necessary arrangement for the journal.


text:
Email alert for Google Scholar's recommended articles
I really like Google Scholar's list of "recommended articles". I usually find  useful references there related to my work that I did not know about.
But I rarely log into Google Scholar to check them out and I would like a more convenient way of being informed about new items in that list (i.e., one that would flow more easily in my daily routine).
I do check my emails every day, so an email alert would be best.

Is there any way to receive an email alert about new items in my "recommended articles" list?
If not, does Google Scholar has a process for "feature requests" where I could ask about implementing this?

Please keep discussion friendly and civil.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
SSRN "unusual download pattern"
I use SSRN extensively in my work. From time to time, I even use SSRN to find my own papers. (Sometimes (often), it's just much easier for me to go on my own research page and click on the SSRN link than search through my directory)
I think as a result of this and my regular downloads of other people's papers, SSRN has flagged me as a user with an "unusual download pattern":

What Happened?
We have observed an unusual download pattern.
The reason why this might happen:
Accessing through a proxy server
Having problems downloading a paper
Accidentally downloading a paper too frequently

Please consider signing in or creating a free account. You can
  continue downloading this paper and you will no longer see this page.
  It also helps us track reader interest and provide accurate download
  counts to our authors and readers.

As explained above, I am not "accidentally downloading a paper too frequently", I am rather purposefully doing so.
I would like to keep using SSRN without having to sign in.

Has anyone encountered the same problem and found a solution to keep using SSRN "anonymously"?

I've tried using other browsers, including "brand new" browsers that I just downloaded and installed, to no avail.
If that did not work, would something like clearing my cookies help at all (are cookies browser specific?)?

Cookies are browser specific, yes, so it's probably IP-address based.  (You could also try your browser's "private browsing" mode for a similar effect.)  It seems clear that they don't want people to anonymously use the service the way you are.  If you try and circumvent it, you're probably just asking for a harder ban and/or having them complain to your ISP.

Why don't you want to sign into a free account?

I guess my main concern is saving the couple of seconds needed to login. But that may be faster than any attempt to circumvent the flag.
I might also have a minor privacy concern. When they say their goal for pushing people to login is to "helps [them] track reader interest", I cannot help but wonder what they plan on doing with that information, once they have "tracked my interest" (especially since SSRN was recently bought by Elsevier, which I am somehow more suspicious of than the "Social Science Electronic Publishing Inc." that used to run SSRN).

Time it takes to log in -- why not set up your browser to remember your username and password? // Why don't you create a throwaway account for this purpose?

Such sites often have measures against crawlers. Sometimes normal users can trigger them. For example some university institutes which have a single IP address for everybody at the institute can even get blocked permanently until someone mails the site admin and explains the situation, which may get the IP whitelisted.
When it is triggered by you alone, probably the best choice is either to slow down and wait a bit between requesting stuff, reconnect your internet connection to get a new IP, or to accept the suggested solution and use a free account to prove them you're human and not a crawler.
Such blocks are most the time IP based. If cookies help you at all, you should NOT delete them, so the site can track you as individual user.
If deleting cookies would help, crawlers would just delete them (or not store them at all), so the site would have no benefit to allow access after you deleted the cookies. If changing the user agent would help, crawlers would just randomize the user agent string. So you can be pretty sure, that such things will not help you.


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Why do some Elsevier journals use a single column format?
I believe that the majority of Elsevier journals use a standard dual column document class.
However, some journals that are owned by Elsevier use an alternative single column format (e.g. J. Comput. Phys.; J. Sound and Vib.).
What is the reason for using a different format for these journals? My first guess would be that since historically those journals were single column format they may keep this format, but why then did Elsivier move them to their own single column format (narrow margins and smaller font) instead of moving to dual column (easier to read) or just keeping the same words-per-line that the journals had beforehand?
Personally I find it more difficult to read the current single column format (post 2002)

The only case in which I know of an advantage to a one-column format is when the papers tend to contain many long formulas. However, I would guess that this is not the case for the Journal of Sound and Vibration.

Two columns are a hack to put more ink on one page while keep the text readable. In PDFs, you'll find single-column and shorter lines (cf LaTeX's default) but I guess journals view that as wasting precious paper.

"Standard double column format" Didn't know that this exists.

while keep the text readable — [citation needed]

(Copy Editor speaking ;-) )
When designing a journal's typesetting style, there are several things to consider:

What are the paper size restrictions? Can you choose any paper size or choose from a short list, or is it fixed? For instance, Springer uses it's own paper size for many publications, The journal I typeset is stuck to A4 because it's the cheapest to print here, etc.
What font size and family is going to be used? The smaller the size, the more characters per line you get, as well, sans-serif fonts make it harder to follow a line of text in a long paragraph.
What are the typical contents of the papers? For papers with many long paragraphs, it's almost necessary to have narrow columns (I'll explain that later). For papers with lots of colour photos and graphics, you want to allow graphical appendices since colour printing is then cheaper and printer handling easier. For lots of math formulas, you prefer wide columns so that they fit better. For lots of very small graphics and tables, you might prefer two columns so that you can put more easily two of them next to each other.
Who is going to use the final template and how? Do you have a professional typesetter to carefully typeset all the papers? Do your audience use Word or LaTeX more? If they use Word, you think twice to make the journal two-column since you can be close to sure that people will mess the template up.

What is "narrow" and "wide":

Narrow is basically anything with less than 66 characters per line on average. It's been proved over centuries that this is the limit width on which the eyes are able to follow the line correctly and switch to the next line correctly. With sans-serif fonts, the width should be a bit less since the serifs significantly help to follow the line.
Wide is anything that allows you to conveniently typeset long formulas. The rule-of-thumb I know is: At least 50 characters per line on average. Remember that being too wide makes it difficult to follow the lines correctly. However, this is not much an issue if the only long text in the typical articles is the introduction and most of the other paragraphs are less than 4-5 lines.

The decision of Elsevier to make some journals one-column and another ones two-column on the same paper size might be, seeing the arguments above, quite justified.

Mathematics journals (including many published  by Elsevier) are usually single column. I assume this is because of the frequent need for long equations. The longer lines are somewhat more difficult for the eye, but one gets used to it.

I have a few issues of Elsevier's TCS lying around here. Many articles are next to illegible, but not because of single-column mode; I guess it just does not matter. If you want to read it comfortably, get a nicely styled preprint (LaTeX's default are already better). If that's not readable as well (poor craftsmanship happens), don't read the paper.

One column is just as standard as two column. Tradition, in conjunction with type-setting standards, likely determine the state of affairs. Many journals have traditionally been printed in a smaller size than letter/A4. For the large format, two column is more efficient. That is, you can squeeze more words into a page than for a single column. With smaller formats this is no longer true because the two-column format requires smaller font size to maintain readable lines; lines with to few letters are detrimental to the readability since it fragments the text. Hence it becomes more a matter of choice which way to go, one or two column. In addition, one column is easier to type set and one column figures in a small format also becomes small.

Note that it is no problem to use two-column pictures in a one-column format. Also lines with many letters are very detrimental to the readability of the text.

One possible explanation for the variety of formats is the fact that Elsevier acquired a lot of other publishers; they tend not to change the format of an newly acquired journal, probably for brand issues (the cover and style are well-known to the audience, changing them could be disturbing).
This does not explain why the journals where single columned by their original publishers in the first place, but other answers have tackled this issue.

One reason for one-column format has already been mentioned: especially for math papers, it's useful to display long computations and formulae (even with one column, it can be a nightmare to make them fit the page!).
I don't know if anyone shares this, but I see another reason to prefer this format: when reading an article on my computer (which cannot display the entire page on the screen), I find it very annoying to get back to the top of the page when I finished the first column instead of just keeping scrolling down.
I suspect however that habit plays a large role in the appreciation of such and such presentation and that helps explain why the practices seem to be so homogeneous in a given field.

There's a good reason why many people have two screens, one rotated landscape ;-)

When I am rich and want to stop working from all the places where I carry my laptop I will consider it ^^.

I see your point, I live on the same boat as you do.

Of the Economics' journals that Elsevier publishes (and there are lots of them!) I think all (if not almost all) are single column. Which journals use double column? Why would they use double column? I referee a lot for Elsevier's economics journals, it would be a nightmare to read double column economics papers.

Two examples would be J. Chem. Phys.; Ultrasonics. That's interesting that economics uses single column. What is the advantage (I'm assuming the equations aren't that long/numerous)? Personally I prefer single over double (when text/margins are appropriately sized), but don't appreciate Elsevier's effort to squeeze in as many words-per line as they can at the expense of my eyes.

@James: Economics papers have two parts. In the introduction and conclusion, you try to "sell" the paper, connect it with existing literature, etc... So it is pretty much like a book. If you are reading a book, I assume you would prefer single column, no? The rest is pretty much like a mathematics journal: theorems, proposition and proofs. Lots of equations or tables (if it is empirical work). I never print (or read) papers in their original size. Try to crop their margins and print a zoomed version.


text:
Awesome papers that were initially rejected?
Recently I heard from a senior student that the celebrated adaBoost paper was originally rejected by a conference.
Are there any other instances of seminal papers (in any field) which initially could not warrant a publication?

Something like this? (BTW: those are fictional)

I'm not sure if this counts, but Edward Jenner's original paper on smallpox vaccination was rejected by the Royal Society.

In 1797, Jenner sent a short communication to the Royal Society describing his experiment and observations. However, the paper was rejected. Then in 1798, having added a few more cases to his initial experiment, Jenner privately published a small booklet entitled An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a disease discovered in some of the western counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire and Known by the Name of Cow Pox (18, 10). The Latin word for cow is vacca, and cowpox is vaccinia; Jenner decided to call this new procedure vaccination. The 1798 publication had three parts. In the first part Jenner presented his view regarding the origin of cowpox as a disease of horses transmitted to cows. The theory was discredited during Jenner's lifetime.

Reference: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1200696/

One should also mention Fermi's famous 'Beta decay' paper, which was rejected by Nature and appeared in Z. Physik 88, 161(1934). English translation of the paper: http://microboone-docdb.fnal.gov/cgi-bin/RetrieveFile?docid=953;filename=FermiBetaDecay1934.pdf;version=1


text:
Need suggestions on quitting a computer science PhD
Seems it's the second time that I came to ask a question here. But this time the situation is quite different for me.
I've completed my B.S. 2.5 years ago, and entered a PhD program in a top notch school. My advisor is a domain expect in my field and he treats all of us very nicely and friendly, and he does know a hell lot of both academia and industry. I just received my master degree and interned at a uprising company in Silicon Vally.
However for academic work, I'm not doing that well. The past 2.5 years I only published in a workshop. In the meanwhile many of my friends have published top conference papers. I feel really stupid that I can't do so. Since my mathematic background is not well to understand some papers, I tried to digest the math while I'm on free time. And now I could understand most of the papers that I read.
The problem is that, I can't think of new ideas. Every ideas I try fails, constantly. I'm don't know why my mates could do so well in publishing. Because of this, I seriously feel a lot of pressure. Everyday when I wake up, I can feel the heart beats like dumb. However during the internship in the previous summer, everything is so smooth and I enjoyed the life there.
In theory, my advisor could let me graduate even if I don't publish. But I really do not want to let him down and waste his funding. The question is, shall I quit my PhD now and receive the offer if the pressure continues? Any suggestions?

Well i have been in similar situation like yours. I chose not to give up and that is why i was able to defend my PhD last month.
It was very frustrating.I switched advisers 4 times. Would you believe that? I was recommended to be expelled from the PhD program. My situation was much worse than yours. I was almost thrown out of the PhD program in 2010. How i was able to change this? Just like you, i interned in Silicon Valley in 2009 and 2010 where my manager sort of liked me and he stood for me. He and even his manager wrote two letters in my favor supporting that i should not be expelled from the PhD program. They argued that i should switch topic and adviser and continue PhD program. All i was looking for was a good adviser who could trust my skills and luckily i got it.
After that, it was fine. The moral of the story is " i did not give up in circumstances much worse than yours." Does your current adviser like you, have trust in you, have confidence in you? If so, don't worry. Regarding publications, choose mid-tier conferences first to raise your confidence and then go for top-tier conferences.
And now on communities like stackoverflow and various forums for hardware and software, discuss your ideas with experts, shape your ideas here. Talk to your contacts in the industry as to what do they think of your problem or in their opinion what are the hot problems to solve.
Another lesson is be pro-active. Don't procrastinate or live in your own world. Get up

+1 for "choose mid-tier conferences first to raise your confidence and then go for top-tier conferences". You can't always have the "super" idea, so warming up by smaller conference is a good way to raise your confidence.


text:
When should you stop "doubling down"?
At what point should a student decide they shouldn't try to be a researcher anymore, assuming they still have the desire? My personal situation is that I have ample cognitive ability (in the opinion of my professors and me), but the "mental" side just doesn't seem up to the challenge and my grades are sporatic, even as an undergraduate. I would have to drop a lot of money on a Master's program to get into a PhD program highly ranked enough to possibly make it research-wise, but that would only (possibly!) work if I succeed. Part of me feels like indulging my dream further would just build up to a worse let-down, even though I have no competing priorities such as creating a family, becoming rich, etc.

Could you explain that part about your "cognitive ability" vs. your "mental side"?

The "mental side" I guess has to do with outputting effort on demand, regardless of emotional circumstance overall and towards the particular work (most of my life). Recently, my mood has severely declined too (hard to tell how bad it is, because I don't know others ). So its some mixture of not "faking it" well, and having to "fake it".

Without risking uniquely determining myself, I soared through the department's hardest upper division courses while doing lower divisions too in my first 1.5 years, then started flubbing in easier classes.

What discipline are you talking about here?

Mathematics(charcount)

No one can answer this question but you.
Having said that, some points to ponder:

There exist funded research based masters programs. Depending on the field and geography they will vary substantially in quality, but conceivably you could delay answering that question by going somewhere for a Masters and seeing how well that goes.
Grades are going to have an effect on you getting in. In terms of success, what really matters is grit. Smarts get you somewhere, but you need to learn to tolerate challenge and failure to succeed in research.
If you have nothing else on your plate, in terms of family or ambitions, then now is the time to experiment with possible paths. So long as you don't define your self-worth based on success in a PhD, the worst that could happen is you decide research isn't for you.
Is it research you want to do, or is research just the only entrance into a field you can see. Sometimes people think they want to do research, but it's because that is the only job they know in that field. Maybe spend some time thinking about alternative entrances into the field you're interested in!

Thank you. I knew no one could really answer but me, but advice can yield insight; yours was helpful.


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How to Help Commuter Student with problems at home
How do I help a student being controlled by his parents? He has a lot of potential but his parents give him projects over schoolwork and discourage him. What role can I play in helping the student?

Have you consulted with student affairs, or whoever handles that sort of thing for your university?  That would be my first thought to try.

You need to say more. What is your relationship to the student? To the family? What sort of "projects"?

Don't get between the student and the parents. That's a complicated and stormy dynamic and [you] can't do anything but harm there.
You may not like it, but it's really not something to get involved in.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Research Masters
If somebody isn't up for the rigours of coursework in their discipline, can they pursue a Masters degree just for creative research contributions? I am on these antipsychotics that affect my focus and intelligence, but I have lots of research.

What makes you think research is easier than coursework?

@AzorAhai-him- Well some people produce hundreds of academic papers, so for them research is easier than coursework.

What makes you say that? People on hundreds of papers are experienced PhDs who did their coursework already

One could argue that research requires more rigour than coursework...

Why not jump into research right now, skip the graduate program altogether?

Regarding "I have lots of research.": Published and such?

@Nat Not published but mathematically rigorous.

@Aruralreader maybe I could pursue a PhD without a Masters. Overseas PhDs only have a research requirement.

If you identify yourself as being on anti-psychotics, with trouble performing the core coursework and suffering from issues with your focus and intelligence, along with unpublished research, you might risk being seen as a crank.  If you have any basis for demonstrating that you're not a crank, you may want to mention it in the question-statement as a good answer to your question may lean pretty heavily on such evidence.

Give it a shot @anon! You might find the PhD programs you're looking at presume a level of preparation, familiarity with standard concepts and vocabularies and methodologies, which you get through coursework, and also that the competition can be brutal. But it might be you're a natural talent and one way to find out is by applying. Best of luck!

If I understand correctly, your focus and intelligence are affected to the extent that you aren't up for the rigor of coursework. Then how can you confidently say that your research is rigorous?

@Servaes Because I'm not crazy right now...

You would have to find a university willing to go along and I think that would be pretty rare. Most MS degrees include at least some coursework, though some might let you design a program. I'll guess that a small, rather than a large, program would be more willing to let you design a personalized program, though it would take some convincing.
But the bigger issue is that you also need an advisor who you need to convince that you have the required background and knowledge to do research and to do it ethically and correctly. The grades in your coursework give some indication of that.
Also related, though maybe less important is that the university in granting your degree has to put its "stamp of approval" on you and say to the world that you are qualified. That may be harder to do without coursework.
But it is the knowledge and background that are important, not the courses per se that matter.


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Do mathematicians need logical thinking?
Do mathematicians need logical thinking? I did well in undergraduate math but I only took an axiomatic approach. I've never done logic workbooks.

Don't worry about this. Logical thinking is not at all obtained "only" by taking logic courses or doing logic workbooks. I think this is a non-issue...

Workbooks?  I last saw a workbook when I was about 10.  Do you mean "read a textbook on logic" perhaps?

@TerryLoring Ok, it is chemistry and not mathematics; but workbooks are still around for school (example) and uni (example).

I find it hard to see how one can achieve anything in maths without logical thinking. I've always assumed that the rationale for teaching children Euclidean geometry was that it's all about deductive proof, which is surely the core of logical thinking.

@Buttonwood Also maths (example).

Your question seems very confused. Yes, of course mathematicians need logical reasoning: logical reasoning is the methodology of mathematics. "I only took an axiomatic approach" - maybe I don't understand what you mean by "an axiomatic approach", but to me, taking an axiomatic approach to mathematics requires using a whole lot of logical reasoning. Maybe what you're asking is whether you need to know formal logic or mathematical logic. The answer to this is no: the majority of mathematicians have never had any training in formal logic.

Mathematicians need a lot of things. Intuition, insight, and, yes, logical thinking. Proofs need to be rigorously connected to what is already known. That is logic.
I'd be surprised that, even if your background was heavy on axiomatic structures, you didn't need proofs. So, you probably have enough "logical thinking" to move forward if you studied undergraduate mathematics.
A course in formal logic is mathematical and fun, but it isn't all that is mathematics.

@anon: To elaborate on Buffy's answer, a possible analogy is "formal/mathematical logic is to mathematics as the Peano axioms are to accounting" (or replace "accounting" with any area that involves lots of arithmetic computations and good number sense). Roughly speaking, one can view the Peano axioms as a way of formalizing common-usage arithmetic notions to create a model of them that can then be formally studied, and formal/mathematical logic is a way of formalizing common-usage logical thinking notions to create a model of them that can then be formally studied.


text:
Research on stackexchange
I have some nice research in math and philosophy but I don't know if I should share some of it in question form here. Can I still get it published in a journal if I post on philosophy and math stackexchanges?

It seems unlikely to me that either of those SE sites would welcome those sorts of contributions. Are you familiar with the concept of "preprints"?

@BryanKrause I know it has to do with arxiv. I don't even know Latex though.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/73498/63475 https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16832/why-upload-to-academic-preprint-sites-like-arxiv https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/75733/when-to-upload-preprint-or-abstract-to-online-repository https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13089/what-are-the-boundaries-between-draft-manuscript-preprint-paper-and-article are some other questions that you might find relevant.

This is also on topic on meta!

Asking Math.SE or Philosophy.SE if this sort of content would be acceptable on those sites would be on topic on Meta, but the question "can I publish after posting something on StackExchange" would not be on topic on a meta site.

Previously asked on Meta Stack Exchange: https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/370104/177408

@anon you don't need to know LaTeX to post to arXiv. It certainly helps your work to be taken seriously, though, especially in maths and physics. It's very easy to learn -- there is even a whole Stack Exchange dedicated to it (TeX.SE)!

@anon You have asked more or less this question a while ago: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17479/when-should-ideas-be-shared-on-stackexchange, Why again?

Yes, you can usually submit research you have previously published online to a journal. That's effectively a preprint. These are almost universal in maths, physics and computer science (as I understand it) and increasingly common in other disciplines (such as in medical science where preprints have been high profile during the pandemic, for better or worse). A few journals may still object to this practice but that objection is becoming less common as preprints gain in popularity.
No, in this specific case you probably shouldn't share it to the Math and Philosophy stack exchanges as those sites exist to answer questions, not discuss topics of interest to the poster.

Some journals do not accept submissions that have been publicly made available as preprints.

@JoelReyesNoche - fair point, I'll make an edit to the post.

It is possible to ask a (research) question that is on topic on an SE site and answer it yourself. Is there a convention that this should not be done? It certainly does not happen frequently (if at all), presumably because there are more suitable ways of publishing.


text:
Better to do PhD program for Marine Science in Australia or US?
I have a dilemma about doing a marine science research degree in Queensland Australia vs in the USA (california or florida). I have been accepted to schools in both countries and offered scholarships to pay for my studies. I have personally spoken with advisors that I would work with from both countries and both have great projects that I am interested.
I am just wondering if anyone has insight into the quality of life and research at either location?
I am also concerned about the strength of a PhD from Australia if I wanted to go back to the US to do a postdoc?
Thanks for your input!

One word: The Great Barrier Reef.

Have you talked to these potential advisors about where their alumni have gone? Might give a hint...

Mattew G - yes I have looked into their alumni and for the most part each advisor has had some successful alumni as well as some not as sucessful (when it comes to publishing research in higher impact journals). I am more curious if anyone from the US has had a personal experience with doing a PhD in Australia? Thanks for your advice!

Quality of life is very subjective.  If you like nature, you will struggle to find the same quality of life in the U.S. as you do in Australia.  If you like big bustling cities, then your quality of life will be better in the U.S. than in Queensland (Brisbane is lovely, but hardly bustling).
People care more about the strength of the school in the Ph.D. subject than they do about the university overall.  If you intend to stay in marine science, it doesn't really matter whether you get a Ph.D. from e.g. James Cook in Australia or many places in the U.S..  If you're not sure marine science is where your heart is, a university with a bigger name overall will help you.  Australian universities are competitive internationally; it really depends what your choices are.  (U.Q. is not, say, Stanford, but I don't think there's anything in Florida that would really give you a big edge over U.Q.)

Thank you very much for your response. I definitely love nature and no matter which school I end up choosing there will be components for outdoor marine research. For the PhD I was trying to look more into the actual advisors rather than the school itself, and I am convinced that all of my potential advisors would be useful and help put me on the right track, which is another reason this is such a difficult decision. The Australian school is James Cook University in Townsend, do you know any more specifics on that school? Thanks again!

@user11182 - Townsville, you mean.  Other than knowing that JCU has an excellent marine biology program (and not much else that is truly excellent), I know very little about them.  Townsville isn't my favorite city in Queensland (a little too dry to be exotic, a little too hot to be comfortable), and a little too rural to really appreciate intellectual endeavors (beyond the university).  But it's growing increasingly attractive (and large).

yes that is what I meant sorry... thanks for the information about it! I have found that their undergraduate marine biology program is in high regard, but I could not find many testimonials on their higher research degrees.

@user11182 - I'm not a marine biologist so I can't say personally.


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Are there any changes in NSF proposals/awards processes that are likely to be of special interest/relevance to PIs?
The NSF has recently released a new version of their Proposal & Award Policies and Procedures Guide, releasing their previous guides.  (See their Dear Colleague Letter.)  This contains a number of changes to the policies regarding grant proposal reviews and ongoing reporting.
However, it is unclear to me whether any of these are likely to be significant in practice for PIs; many of them sound primarily bureaucratic in nature.  The list of changes seems like it was written by a bureaucrat and seems likely to be of interest only to a bureaucrat, and of modest relevance to PIs (e.g., it might change a few section headings in proposals to comply with the new requirements, but not make any fundamental changes to what we propose or how we do research).
Are any of these changes significant enough that PIs should be paying serious attention to them?  Are there any changes that are important enough that they would make a substantive change to how we write proposals or do research or interact with the NSF, and if so, which changes are those, and what will their impact be?  In short, if a colleague of yours (a fellow PI) asked you what the impact of these changes will be, are there any changes that rise high enough that you would highlight them as important to be aware of?

At the top of a recent NSF Solicitation the following note exists:

A revised version of the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures
  Guide (PAPPG), NSF 13-1, was issued on October 4, 2012 and is
  effective for proposals submitted, or due, on or after January 14,
  2013.
Please be aware that significant changes have been made to the PAPPG
  to implement revised merit review criteria based on the National
  Science Board (NSB) report, National Science Foundation's Merit Review
  Criteria: Review and Revisions. While the two merit review criteria
  remain unchanged (Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts), guidance
  has been provided to clarify and improve the function of the criteria.
  Changes will affect the project summary and project description
  sections of proposals. Annual and final reports also will be affected.
A by-chapter summary of this and other significant changes is provided
  at the beginning of both the Grant Proposal Guide and the Award &
  Administration Guide.

By my reading of the section in the PDF that lists the changes, the following might be of interest to PIs:

Chapter II.C.2.f(i)(c), Biographical Sketch(es), has been revised to rename the “Publications” section to “Products” and amend terminology and instructions accordingly. This change makes clear that products may include, but are not limited to, publications, data sets, software, patents, and copyrights.

Plus, a minor change to the Indirect Costs section w.r.t. international participants, a minor change in the Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources listing,
A change in the definition of "New Awardee":

Chapter II, Introduction, has been modified regarding the period of time after which an organization is considered a “new awardee”. Organizations that have not had an active NSF award within the last five years (formerly two years) should be prepared to submit basic organization and management information and certifications.

Prior funding:

Chapter II.C.2.d, Project Description, has been revised to clarify that, in the Results from Prior NSF Support section, “prior” NSF support includes current NSF funding. This section also was updated to indicate that information should be included irrespective of whether or not the support was directly related to the proposal, or whether or not salary support was provided.

References Cited:

Chapter II.C.2.e, References Cited, has been updated to specify that if there are no references cited, a statement to that effect should be included in this section of the proposal and uploaded into FastLane.

And various other minor changes...

No, there are no earth-shattering changes.
There are some minor changes that you may need to be aware of when you write a proposal, but they mostly come down to changes the titles of sections and that sort of thing.  They may affect some PIs, but for most PIs, the changes are primarily clarifications or modest bureaucratic tweaks.  For example, they are unlikely to change that way that grant review panels review proposals, or to change how you are allowed to spend the money that you receive in a grant.
One change you'll notice is how you enter the summary page.  Instead of preparing a one-page summary page, you now will have to paste your text into three separate textboxes (project overview, intellectual merit, broader impacts), and the length limit is in characters rather than pages.
There's a great summary in the Chronicle of Higher Education: Don't Underestimate NSF's New Grant-Submission Rules.


text:
What are the benefits of getting a PhD in statistics?
I've been working as a statistician in the marketing world for two years, and I have an M.S. in applied math.  I want to change industries a bit (maybe epidemiology or engineering) and I also want to live overseas (ideally, a job where I'd live in one country for a few years and then move on to another).
So, my question is: to accomplish these life goals, does it make sense to get a PhD?  Or, is there some other route that would be more beneficial?

Obvious question but...have you considered a PhD in Epidemiology?

A doctoral degree is a credential signifying largely that you are capable of doing independent research at the highest possible level. It is not, in an of itself, a ticket to working in a particular industry or in a particular location any more than a bachelor's or a master's degree. In fact, PhD holders may have substantially more challenges in those aspects, because the additional qualifications make them unattractive for many positions in conventional businesses and industries. (You are unlikely to find a PhD working in a sales division of a multinational conglomerate, for instance.)
The reason to get a PhD is because you are interested in problem solving and doing original work. If this doesn't describe your motivation, I would recommend against pursuing a graduate degree, because it will be a very long few years of your life which are not guaranteed to achieve the objectives you've laid out.

So, if I understand correctly, the PhD is only valuable as a stepping stone to a career in research/academia?  It doesn't really have much value for industry purposes?

In most industries, a PhD has negative value.

@JeffE: Outside of research divisions.

@JoshBrowning: There are other career paths also: scientific project management, but also things like patent law, scientific journalism, and start-ups.

@JoshBrowning: I'd say a PhD is a stepping stone to a career in research or research-related work. That may also be outside academia.

Thank you all for all the helpful advice.  It sounds like the question I have to answer now is "Do I want to do significant research in my future career?"

@JeffE do you have a reference/source for this claim?

A PhD in statistics is more flexible and useful that PhDs in some other areas.
The usual issue with PhDs one hears about is that one becomes over-qualified for non-academic work once one has a PhD. Additionally, there is a lot of time spent getting it.
However, statistics is intrinsically an applied science, and one that is in big demand across lots of areas, because it can be applied to lots of areas, unlike most academic disciplines. Specific anecdote: I was once told by a Statistics Professor that the head of a clinical trial is required to have a PhD in statistics (by the NHS, possibly). I don't know if this is true, but it sounds like something that is probably true. As he put it, this creates jobs for PhDs.
With computers being used more and more, and lots of data being created that needs to be analysed, new methods need to be invented to handle all this data. This is the kind of quasi-research work which is quite well suited for someone with a PhD.
Areas like data visualization and graphics are quite hot right now. Having a PhD in an area like that will probably not hurt you. See Hadley Wickham's thesis for example.
Of course, it is possible to get a PhD from a Statistics Department without learning any statistics, for example if you write a Probability (Mathematics) thesis. You probably don't want to do that.
My personal experience (I have a Statistics PhD) is that to get an interesting work, even in industry, a PhD is helpful. Much of the work so-called statisticians do is to mindlessly apply standard algorithms from some software package to data using things like SAS, and then package up the (machine produced) results. If you have a functioning brain, you don't want to do that.
BTW, it seems such questions are not on topic at stats.sx, but you could ask people on chat there - perhaps point to this question.

Thanks Faheem, I'm glad to hear from another statistician!  I'm considering focusing my PhD on spatial statistics, as I'm interested in epidemiology and geographical applications.  Do you have any opinions on that particular topic?

Hi Josh. No, I don't know anything about spatial statistics. Have you thought about which dept you want to go to? Choosing a dept carefully is important. As is the adviser, of course. You should also consider, of course, what your aim is in getting the PhD. As I said, getting a statistics PhD does not necessarily constrain you to academia, but what you work on in your thesis should at least somewhat depend on what you want to do afterwards.


text:
How to interview a faculty candidate?
When interviewing a faculty candidate, how should I structure the interview?  What questions should I ask?  How should I make the best use of the limited time available?  Assume this is for a full-time faculty position at a R1 (research-focused) university.

If you have a 30-45 minute slot (which is typical for such things), you have to make some decisions:

Are you a 'buyer' or a seller' ? Are you evaluating the candidate, or also trying to convince them that your institution is a good place to work ? In general, you want to do both, but which you're thinking of emphasizing more will affect how you conduct the interview.
Is the meeting before or after the candidate's talk ? If after, you can do some probing based on the talk. If before, you might choose to ask them about material not in their talk, but in their CV.
Is there concern about their area and how it fits with what you're looking for ?
Have you heard anything from your colleagues during other interviews that might prompt you to take a particular line of questioning ?

In general, since you can't really get a big read on a candidate in a short session, your best bet is to focus one one aspect (such as one of the above), and explore that in detail. One thing I've also found useful is to ask questions "out of left field" that test the assumptions the candidate's work rests on: if done right, this allows you to explore the candidate's larger views about their field and the direction of the research.

Nice answer. Could you please elaborate on "out of left field" questions.?

authors: Ηλεκτρολόγος Μηχανικός


text:
Emphasizing proper nouns and jargon
What is the recommended way to ephasize proper nouns and jargon in academic writing?
I usually use italics to emphasize specific proper nouns (e.g., the name of a software: Gitolite). Until now, I did not emphasize technical jargon at all. However, my editor suggested to highlight jargon with double quotes (e.g., "the gauge hierarchy problem" or "spaghetti code").
Is this a good practice? If so, should I use the double quotes only for the first appearence of a jargon term?

Read other papers in your field; do what they do.

The way you outline seems fair and proper. It would not be wrong to put jargon terms in quotes every time they occur unless you define the true meaning of the jargon term once and then use it throughout the paper.

@NateEldredge, my field is interdisciplinary (physics, computer science). There are hardly any papers that cover both fields in the same detail. Usually one field refers to the other superficially. When I use cs terms they might be unfamilliar for physicists and vice versa.

@PeterJansson, this seems to be a reasonable solution, thanks!

"This" is not "emphasis".

So the solution to the hierarchy problem is that it would be clear what the mechanism is if the universe hadn't been written in spaghetti code?

Your question was tagged 'publications' - if you plan on submitting work to a particular journal, it would be worth checking to see if they have a house style for jargon.

In my opinion, the right moment to worry about house styles is not before submission, but after acceptance.


text:
How to make an MD more appealing for a PhD program in basic research (neuroscience)?
1 year and a half away from completing my integrated MS in Medicine, I have decided that, once complete, I won't be pursuing life as a clinician and want to do research in Neuroscience instead.
Now, I already have a paper published (jointly) and two more almost ready to be submitted, after having worked in both the genetics and pharmacology labs, where my tasks ranged from data gathering ("pen and paper research") to Western Blotting and micro surgery in mice.
My grades are not very good though, and I'm looking for ways of making my CV more appealing, besides asking for a summer intership in one the groups I like (all in Germany by the way).
Would having a specialization (Neurology, Psych, etc) be a plus? On which skills should I work?

It is already a huge plus for you to have the MD degree. Much of the neuroscience research is considered medical research, and, in many countries, to conduct medical research there must be an MD supervising the measurements. If you want to make your CV even more appealing, learn signal processing. Collecting data takes weeks. Analysing the data takes several months or years.


text:
How to deal with a student who tricks a professor into accepting a late exam?
There are multiple cases of movie or TV show students who are attending an exam and are too late to turn in, but then ask the teacher "do you know who I am" at their desk. Then when the teacher says "I have no idea", they mix in their exam with the pile of completed exams and then walk away. 2 examples of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CqgnZhb--Q and https://www.reddit.com/r/BollywoodRealism/comments/hzeu2u/i_so_wish_this_was_how_it_worke/
Now, I know that these are just fictional scenes from comedy movies, but if a student were to try and pull a stunt like this during a real exam, what are ways to deal with this and/or avoid this problem to begin with?

Know your students. 2. Don't have a giant pile of tests on your desk in reach of students. 3. Don't believe everything B/Hollywood puts out.

No one has in-person time cutoffs of 10 second granularity; "attending an exam and are too late to turn in" intrinsically doesn't make any sense.

A better question would be "why have timed exams?"

Submitted exams should be going into a securable container, even it's just a cardboard box or a big envelope, and when the time period is done, the container is closed and/or removed. Late-submitters can leave their papers on the table if they want, but they won't be graded.

Don't leave the pile of exams on your desk. Simple enough, and good practice. Exams should probably be properly secured in some way.
If you catch them, reject the exam, or otherwise deal with it.
If you consider it a breach of an honor code, especially an explicit one, then they can be reported to the overseeing board, of course.

Any system where students do not have physical access to other students' completed exam papers would prevent the whole situation. Either the professor can go around the room and collect papers, or put them in a less-accessible spot like a briefcase as they are turned in at the front of the room.
If the situation has already happened, there are ways to track down the culprit. The professor doesn't know who they are right now, but that doesn't mean they can't find out later. The professor will be likely to remember the face of such a brazen upstart, so they can search their class manifest on social media to try to find a match. Most colleges have photo IDs, so the college itself may also be able to provide a photo of every person in the class.

It is easy. If there is an attendance, compare the signatures. If not check the school's database for student ID pictures (you only need to check for that classroom). If it is not available, you can explain the, quite unusual, situation in an email and kindly ask your students to come in your office in the time of their chosing to verify their identity (that they are not the ones pulling the trick).

This was actually touched on in The Ultimate Book of Puzzles, Mathematical Diversions, and Brainteasers: A Definitive Collection of the Best Puzzles Ever Devised by Erwin Brecher. I don't have the book on hand right now, but the solution for the professor goes something like this:

After grading the exams, ask the students to collect them in person.

That's assuming the professor cannot verify the student's identity in other ways, e.g. via student ID. Most universities will have some kind of photo ID of the student (since that's what ends up on the student card). There's a good chance as well the student will have to verify their identity to take the exam in the first place - this policy is in turn in place to stop substitute exam-taking where someone other than the student takes the exam in the student's name.

I’d have a list of students doing the exam and require (student) ID as they hand in the exams.


text:
Creating a research questionnaire with repeating sections
I am preparing the questionnaire for my Doctor of Business Administration research; for the purposes of this question (on Academia SE), I am investigating techniques used in customising cars. It is conceivable that a respondent has used several techniques, so I envisage repeating the same questions, each time for a a different car or technique.
I imagine that the same repeating structure would be needed in a medical exam, where the respondent can give data about several complaints.
Is there a name for this technique? Does it have a canonical source?
I appreciate that this question might not be within the scope of this site.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about the contents of research, specifically survey design, and not about academia

This is a form of branching (I guess "conditional branching" based on a screening question).
A good model for this is the Bureau of Justic Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey. In that survey, respondents are asked screening questions that identify incidents of crime victimization (e.g., respondent was attacked). Respondents are then asked to complete an "incident report", which asks an extensive number of questions about the episode of victimization. Here's an example of such an incident report for the 2012 survey. Respondents may complete zero of these incident reports or they complete up to ten.
Another, simpler, model is the U.S. Census (or most household surveys) that ask for basic details about household members. For example, the 2010 Census Form asked for details of up to 12 household members. In a telephone or online context, of course, respondents would not see the questions relating to household members beyond the number they initially list.

This is the correct idea, but I wanted to know whether this technique had a name. What you called 'branching' is more commonly known as 'filtering' - there are 'filter questions'. In the time since writing the question, I seem to dropped this idea of repeating sections from the questionnaire.

It is usually referred to as a "checklist". This term also implies that multiple answers are allowed, while "multiple choice" may mean either single or multiple answers.
Depends you how you structure it, the name can change as well. For instance if you line up all the customizing techniques in columns and all the cars in rows, the questionnaire then can be called a "checklist matrix".
Regardless what you end up calling it, people are usually not very good at identifying the names of all these questionnaire formats. So, I will suggest attaching a non-technical description (like your question's wording) and/or an actual sample question in your document to avoid misunderstanding.


text:
How should I include substantial background definitions and notation from another paper?
For my new paper, I need to use the notation and definitions of another paper that I wrote in 2019. The notation and definitions take about 3 pages.
I really don't know what to do. Can I copy and paste the notation for the convenience of the reader? Or simply provide a reference? The required material is difficult to summarise.

Make life easy for your readers. Not everyone may have access to your earlier paper, or it may be hard to get it, so please don't just point to the earlier one.
I would recommend putting the notations into an appendix or supplementary material for the new paper (which may only be made available online), and pointing to the earlier paper.

Thanks for your reply, the definitions and notations also include mathematics and matrices. Should I still put the into an appendix?

In the end, it depends on your paper and how important it is to have everything close at hand. If the paper can't be understood without the notations, they will need to be in the main text. Another possibility would be to put a high-level explanation into the text and the stringent definition in the appendix. I am sure your reviewers will have recommendations, too (and their recommendations will likely be different).

The paper can't be understood without the notations, I also have to add a few new notations. If you recommend to put it in the main text, should I change the writing or simply copy and paste the notations?

It's hard to give recommendations without the paper itself. Put yourself in the shoes of your reader (I know that is not easy) and ask yourself: if you were reading the paper, what would be most useful? And yes, that may well differ between a reader that is a first-year student and a reader that is an expert in the field, so you will need to think about your target audience.

I decided to copy and paste the required notations and definition in an appendix with citation

The appendices must be included in the main manuscript file or include them as another file?

That may depend on the manuscript submission system. Take a look at the journal's guide for authors. If it's not explicitly specified, you can typically do whatever you prefer - journals are used to getting submissions in widely ranging formats, in one or multiple files. Often enough, multiple submitted files are combined by the system into one large PDF that is then sent out to reviewers.

Some journals check if the manuscript's text is similar to another one. If I put it in the main text, it may be flagged as a copy. Am I right?

I would not be overly concerned about that if it's only a few pages in the appendix.

@MamaD It might be good to warn the editors why that part is copied, then follow any instructions they might give.

@SolomonUcko Thanks for your reply. For the initial submission, I will do this. Later, they may instruct me to do something else.


text:
How to make an entire section as a conjecture?
I was writing a research paper and solved a problem inside it. To solve the problem for a specific case, I need to assume something to be true (I'm now sure about that) and then write a set of proofs based on that assumption.
This specific case is going to be in a separate section. My question is, how can I write such a thing? Does the entire section must be assumed as a conjecture? can I call results from an unknown (true or false) something as Theorem or Lemma?
I am having a problem with writing this section.

What field is this about?

@Buffy Computer science and Algorithms

Note that "conjecture" does not seem like the appropriate word here. A "conjecture" is something that you think should be true but that you don't how to prove. This is not your situation here. I wonder if you are conflating the words "assumption" and "conjecture".

@AdamPřenosil Yes you are right. I need to prove based on  something I don't know whether it is T or F. Then It is not a conjecture at all.

@MamaD: reread Adam’s comment.

@Aruralreader Yes I did. I was entirely wrong about the meaning of conjecture.

A conjecture is different from an assumption. A conjecture is something that can be (in theory) proven true or false. An assumption is just a condition under which something else can be (again, in theory) proven true.
What you seem to have is an assumption. If this assumption holds then you can prove something follows from it.
Of course, it could be both. "We think that X is true but don't have a proof (conjecture). If it is true then Y must also be true (assumption: If X then Y).
If your statement as a conjecture is proven false, then your proof of Y breaks down but doesn't disprove Y.
So, in section A you start with "We conjecture that the following holds...". Then section B starts "If the conjecture in A is true then...".
You can label A as a conjecture or not in the title as you choose. If you have any evidence for X then you should probably present it.

You have essentially proven an implication of the form "A implies B." Here, A is the assumption you have made. There is nothing wrong with writing your results like that as implications for which you do not know the veracity of the antecedent. In set theory, where one often uses assumptions that are provably independent of the theory, it is quite usual to write results like that ("Under
CH, the continuum is not a real-valued measurable cardinal").

Is it good to title the section as conjecture or something like this?

MamaD, not "conjecture", but "assumption", as @Buffy has noted. At least in U.S. English.