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Is this self-plagiarism?
I have two papers which are using totally different methods and are on different subjects. However, in both papers I use the same case study as a benchmark. The case study is very technical. When I describe the technical properties of this case study, if I use the same sentences, but cite that I used the same case study before, is this a problem? Is it self-plagiarism?
Since the case study is very technical, it was very hard to rephrase the description which is only two paragraphs.

@user207421 - Self-plagiarism has been asked about on this site hundreds of times, and there is even a tag for it.

I kept J.R.'s comment for anyone else that wants to question the premise of self-plagiarism, otherwise comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

I use the same sentences but cite

If you cite the original paper, i.e. make it clear where the content comes from, it is not plagiarism. That applies both to regular and self-plagiarism.

Said otherwise, it would be plagiarism (regular or self, it does not matter) if OP had not cited the material.

@EarlGrey - It does matter for your direction of the implication - self-plagiarism is only a concern if the reused text contains ideas that would be presented as new ones in the present work.  Whether you need to cite your prior work depends on the nature of reused text and on the function of the reused text in the new work.  However, if you had co-authors, or are forced to reuse somebody else's formulations, then you need to cite unconditionally.

Different methods and different aspects? I mean, it does sound like you are writing two unrelated papers on a specific issue you are focusing on. If I wrote two papers about the German political system or a Swedish political party with different focuses and methods, would that be self-plagiarism? Not really. Would I refer to similar reference points in both? Probably. It seems like you are not reusing findings or approaches. As long as both papers present novel findings, you should be good.

Yes different aspects and methods but they are tested on the same benchmark and the text describing the benchmark is the same in two papers

I would reference at least one of the papers in the other (sometimes you can mutually reference them).

The question isn't about the papers as a whole, it's about the fact that both papers refer to the same case study.

The APA publication manual (American Psychological Association) presents an (in my view) rather clear explanation of self-plagiarism including situations where the reuse of exact sentences/phrases is deemed acceptable. Perhaps this might help you (https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/plagiarism). Although I realise the APA is not used in all the disciplines as baseline, it may still help you to find a position that is suitable for you.

Reusing the same sentences, especially statements of fact, isn't plagiarism. Failure to attribute ideas to the original source is plagiarism, including self plagiarism.
But if there is only one way to say something, other than some paraphrasing, and they aren't statements of ideas that can be misattributed, then there are no issues.
Even copyright won't cover things for which there is only one way to say it.
In particular, using the same wording in a citation in two different papers isn't plagiarism. A citation is a statement of fact.


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Can a PhD candidate be a guest editor in a peer reviewed journal?
I am a PhD candidate (last year) and was invited as a guest editor in a peer reviewed journal. I am excited to take the experience and I am sure I will handle it well, but I am not sure if I have to be a PhD holder to qualify for such position.

What discipline are you working in? In a STEM area this will almost certainly mean that the journal that sent you the invitation is a fake/predatory journal.

Fun story: I, a mathematician, once published a paper that contained the word "old" in its title ("Old and new algorithms for "). After that paper, I have been invited several times to submit papers to predatory journals in geriatrics and gerontology. This should get you an idea of the level of scrutiny the spammers do when sending out their invitations.

Groucho Marx quipped that he wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have him as a member.  I feel somewhat the same about publishing in any journal that would invite me to be a guest editor (at least on my own). @FedericoPoloni I made the mistake of publishing a paper with the word "cancer" in the title.

Why not ask either the journal or your own institution? Who else could really have a useful view?

Is that not down to some combination of the journal itself, any relevant professional associations and your own institution? I assume none of them is required to, yet any of them might impose regulations?

I think that until you have many years of refereeing papers behind you, you are not ready to be a guest editor.
By the way, I get invited to be a guest editor about once a week.  Unless you have strong evidence to the contrary, you should assume this is spam and delete it.  One way to check if a journal is reputable is to ask your advisor.

I think I could probably get my cat to be a guest editor!

It'd be unusual to invite a PhD candidate to guest edit a journal. You are right to be suspicious. I would check if the journal is disreputable; simply being peer-reviewed is not sufficient. Even if the journal is reputable, I would still discuss with supervisor (not only about how to edit, but whether or not to do it, since it'll take time away from your PhD) before accepting the offer.

There are no general rules, inscribed on ancient scrolls, about such things, though an individual journal might have its own preferences or rules.
But, the person(s) who invited you is(are) almost certain to know of your status. So, assume it is fine.
Also, spend some effort to determine the reputation of the journal and the one who invited you. Your advisor can probably help with this.
It will take time and effort to do this, of course, so make sure you (and your advisor) are prepared for that.

Also be sure you trust this journal... You should be suspicious of invitations from a journal you haven't heard of.

I think it is too trusting to assume the person (or AI) that did the inviting knew the status of the person.  I get invited to be guest editor for topics far from my areas of expertise.

@TerryLoring, on the other hand, you are assuming the worst case.

I find it much more likely that whoever sent the invitation does not know of the OP's status. A real guest editor invitation to a student strikes me as unusual, and spam invites are all too common. In my experience with the volume of spam vs. legitimate correspondence, I'd actually say the exact opposite, that it's almost certain that whoever sent the invite has no idea whether the OP is a PhD candidate or a PhD holder.

@Buffy Unfortunately, if my inbox is anything to go by, the worst case is also overwhelmingly the most common case here.

The main question is whether you know the field well enough to identify reliable peer reviewers who will able to review the papers properly.  You will also need to be able to judge from the reviewers comments whether the papers should be accepted and what needs to be done to improve them.  It will be difficult to do both of these things without experience.  Are you confident that you can do both of these things?  If not experience, what is the basis for that belief?
Note that in some fields, e.g. climate, there are a lot of "fringe" scientists that repeatedly try and get obviously wrong arguments published in peer reviewed journals.  In such cases the editor really needs to be aware of these "fringe" views and make sure that they receive a desk reject, or are reviewed by reviewers who are already familiar with the argument.  Unfortunately "fringe" scientists often pick journals in other fields, where the topic could just about be considered within their remit, as they are unlikely to run into a reviewer that has seen the canard before.  Here is an example of a very obviously wrong climate paper that got published in a peer reviewed journal on medical physics.  Note the links to the comments papers towards the bottom of the page.  You would have to be confident that this could not happen in an issue for which you were the editor, as the failure of the review process is ultimately the editor's responsibility.
This means you should definitely refuse unless the scope of the journal is very narrow.
P.S. "fringe" is used here euphemistically because in responding to "fringe" views it is important not to attach insulting labels in order to make sure we respond rationally and factually.

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How should I deal with challenging master thesis students as a supervisor?
I'm a PhD student in my first year, co-supervising master students with a postdoc, and listed as the first supervisor. This is my first experience supervising a thesis. My previous experiences with students were mainly tutoring or conducting lab experiments with students.
The issues:

The students are not honest; they have experience with some tools, and it is in their curriculum, but when I asked them about the tools, they stated to me clearly that they don't have experience with it. In another meeting with the co-supervisor, they admitted the opposite; however, minimum experience.

I have sent many tasks since the beginning stating clearly why these tasks should be done now because they will need it in the future to do so and so. The tasks were ignored.
The student neither thinks actively nor searches for the information, expecting everything to be spoon-fed. I stated many times that this is not how master theses work.

I thought maybe the topic was new to them, so I prepared a list of questions, including keywords with the required material to search within and learn. It was not taken seriously.

Also, they don't consider our time and that we have other responsibilities and expect an answer within a few minutes.

Since time is running out for them, they are playing some game (I don't know the proper term for that) like:

You are my mentor, and the time is running; if I didn't help them immediately, they would spend the time doing something wrong, which would be my fault.

Whenever I ask a question from the questions list I sent earlier; supposedly they did a literature review, and the answers are entirely wrong. Their excuse is the topic is new, and there is not enough literature, which is a lie.

They reached the stage where they complained to me that the server was down (where they should get the data), which is a national server and not my issue.

I don't know what to do anymore; I tried positive reinforcement, specific tasks, and specific tasks with deadlines, but all did not work. I don't want to be an "unsupportive supervisor"; I'm afraid I have already lost interest in the topic and am not interested in getting a good master thesis out of it.
The questions might be: How should I proceed, and how can I proceed objectively?

A good master thesis in my opinion is that the students understand the problem, review the relevant literature, approach the issue, develop a workflow to solve it, try that, and write all that in in their thesis.

The students received their topic/title, recommendation regarding literature, the tools that should be used in the thesis at the beginning. After, two or three consecutive meetings, it was clear that they need to be guided a little bit. That is why I or we started guiding them.

Have you discussed this with your post-doc and professor? If so, what did they say? Also: who decides whether these students pass or fail? I assume a professor -- but if you are "first supervisor," maybe this is your decision?

Also: I don't understand your first bullet. What does "in their colloquium" mean? My read is that they are trying to avoid overstating their level of knowledge, which is minimal. Or?

If you were my supervisor, I would kindly ask you to let me be freer. You are supposed to only guide them, not to tell them what do you. Note that, there is a difference between giving them suggestions and giving tasks.
"[...] getting a good master thesis out of it.". That is not job. That won't affect your career. That is not your thesis. If you are interested in the subject, work on it yourself or give the project to someone else.

@cag51, I fixed the term in the question. They have two subjects in their curriculum where they study these tools thoroughly. I even went and checked the slides and the assigned homeworks. I don't know how they passed.

Thanks for clarification. Please also see my other question above.

@cag51, yes, I discussed the issue. Actually, the guided supervision was their idea (which I guess fired back on us). Three people decide the final grade.

@Our It seems like that is more of an answer than a comment.

@ZeitderNordwanderung cag51 is asking whether you've discussed the problems you're having with the students with your supervisor. If so, what did they say?

@BryanKrause, and I answered above!

That "guided supervision was their idea"? I assume by this you mean the hands on approach you're taking so far... If guided supervision isn't working out, isn't it time to have a new conversation?

Please be patient; we're really just trying to understand the situation so that we can offer helpful advice. If I understand correctly, it sounds like you discussed this situation with your professor and they told you to offer additional "handholding." Is that correct? What I'm really trying to understand is: if you tell the students "do X or you or will fail," and they don't do X, will they indeed fail? Or will your professor swoop in and offer some alternative?

How many such students? (Suggest the question be edited with that info.)

@cag51, I appreciate that! And I would answer your polite questions (not questions in that passive aggressive way). I don't think there is a way for alternative, their delivery deadline is in two months, and according to their study regulations, either they achieve it by that or fail the master.

OK, so it sounds like you're supposed to help them, but ultimately they have to submit their project, and a different group of people will decide whether they did enough to pass. In that case, I agree with amon's excellent answer below, nothing further to add. Good luck.

I think that there is a lot of context missing here that is important to keep in mind when trying to provide or triage advice: are you in the US or Germany or some other country? Academic norms vary a lot across countries. What is your field? (CS?) Do the students have industry experience? Frankly, this whole setup is very foreign to me. My first year of PhD required no TAing. After that I was more of a "helper" whose "real job" was research. I don't want to impeach your abilities as an adviser. You clearly care. But I can't help but feel that your dept. is taking advantage of that fact.

You are trying to be helpful, but there is such a thing as too much handholding. The more helpful you are, the more likely students are to exploit this and to become a help vampire.
You do not owe your students any success. You owe them a fair chance at succeeding. But this chance is theirs to take. The thesis is solely their responsibility, especially since the purpose of a masters thesis also is to demonstrate the ability of doing independent academic work. By definition, success or failure of the thesis isn't your fault. Some students will throw their chance away, regardless of how much you help them.
Things that might help in the future include clearer boundaries, and focusing your assistance more on methodological aspects.

Your student currently expects responses within minutes. Matters are rarely so urgent that they need responses the same day.
When supervising a thesis, it might be best to minimize such informal messages except for truly urgent issues, and instead have regular meetings for which the student can prepare questions. Depending on the kind of work, a cadence like one meeting every two weeks might work well. Then, you can defer any small issues that come up: “let's discuss this at our next meeting”.

You mentioned that you “sent many tasks”, provided material, and tried to set deadlines.
This is fine when working with an intern or research assistant, but not for a student who is supposed to independently write a thesis. Firstly, because you're doing their work for them. Secondly, because it's their thesis and they should use whatever working style they believe works for them.
Instead, it might be best to focus your assistance on methodological aspects, so that the student knows how to write a good thesis. For example, many students need an explanation about how to find useful literature, how to structure a thesis, and maybe where to find techniques that weren't covered during lectures. A master thesis is often the longest independent project done by the student, so sharing experience with time management can also help.
But mostly, a Socratic approach is useful, where you ask the students about their plans for the thesis. What are their goals until the next meeting? Do they feel they are on schedule, if not how can they adapt their plans? Have they considered the connection with $related_topic? How to they intend to mitigate a certain risk you are concerned about? What challenges are they currently facing, and how do they intend to solve them? You can suggest things, but it will be the student's decision what they do with that suggestion.
Added benefit: if you set out a plan and they fail, they will blame you, and perhaps rightly so. If they set out a plan and they fail despite knowing your concerns, that's clearly on them.

Since the thesis in question is already close to its end, it will be difficult to switch to clearer boundaries and to more passive support. But if at least two weeks or so are left, not impossible, if you are willing to put your foot down. For example, consider an email along the following lines:

It is great that you have these questions, but this is your thesis and working through such challenges is part of it. I don't have the time to discuss your progress right now, but I can offer a meeting $in_4_business_days. Please continue work on your thesis in the meanwhile, and we can discuss remaining issues then.

Is this impolite? Maybe, but so is bombarding you with endless requests for help.
What I find rather odd in all of this is that it's the first thesis you supervise, and already as the main supervisor. Supervision is a skill that can be learnt, but ideally by shadowing another supervisor for one or two theses. I'm still in that “apprenticeship” phase. So I think it's completely unsurprising that you're running into these kinds of problems, and I also ran into similar problems with the first students that I mentored. The good news for you is that you can learn from this experience, and can be a much better supervisor for the next student. The learning experience goes both ways.

I appreciate your answer! And I will keep your advices always in my mind :-)

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What should I do with discarded paragraphs?
I'm writing a difficult paper for my PhD. My first draft is rambling and long, so I'm cutting it down for the next round of edits.
However, I find it difficult to discard old writing. Some of the paragraphs I'm discarding may still be valuable for my future PhD, so I put them in 'discard' documents which I may use for my final dissertation document, or try to fit them into drafts for future papers.
What is your strategy for discarding old writing? What's the most efficient way to utilise discards, so you don't have to rewrite the same paragraph in future?

Is it difficult to discard because of the effort you put in, or because it contains information/ideas that is left out of the final version that you might want in the future?

A bit of both I think!

We usually have a separate document where we put the discarded paragraphs - this way you still have them when writing something else.

Science: you will have to rewrite again and again and again the same thing. And everytime you will not be able to reuse your previous text because of some small changes in the context. Be prepared.
Bonus point: be prepared also for the consequences ... what you write again and again as a PhD will be read as "innovative", as an assistant professor will be read as "state of the art", as full professor will be read "oh gosh, not that old pile of crap again" ;D

Acknowledge that less than half what you write will get to print, either discarded by you or not accepted.

(This answer is based on my experience with mathematical writing. I assume that it should apply to other kinds of scientific writing too, but your mileage may vary.)
I suspect that you may be fundamentally misunderstanding the purpose of the writing that you are having a hard time "discarding".
It seems like your logic is that you spent a lot of effort writing a certain paragraph, but since the paragraph will not appear in the final version of your manuscript, this effort was wasted. So that the effort is not wasted entirely, you would like to keep your writing in the drawer so that you can pull it out later at an opportune moment. This is of course pure speculation on my part, but I cannot imagine why else you would "find it difficult to discard old writing".
The flaw in this logic is the idea that the effort it took to write the paragraph will go to waste unless you use it somewhere. This is a misunderstanding. The effort was not wasted, since the paragraph has already served its purpose, which was to serve as a stepping stone on the path towards the final manuscript. Its purpose is not to be something for you to hold on to until you find a proper place for it. The paragraph had its place in the process of exploring and stumbling towards the final manuscript, but after it has served that purpose it's time to let go of it. Imagining that it is going to be revived for some other purpose is almost always wishful thinking.
Of course, from time to time you may find yourself writing an outstandingly well-polished couple of paragraphs which for some reason or another did not quite fit into the final manuscript, or paragraphs where you have a convincing, well-articulated reason to believe that they might be useful later, rather than a generalized feeling of what if. These it makes sense to keep around. But your average run-of-the-mill paragraphs that simply didn't make it through the editing process? Kill them and don't carry their corpses around. (This does not mean that you should never back up previous versions of your work, but rather that you should not primarily do so with a view to resurrecting unused paragraphs in some future work.)
Your stated reason for keeping these paragraphs in a state of suspended animation is "so you don't have to rewrite the same paragraph in future". Again, I suspect that there is some fundamental misunderstanding here, because it's not like the act of writing a paragraph is a major undertaking. The amount of effort you are going to save by not starting from zero is going to be infinitesimal, and is more than made up for by the fact that writing the paragraph anew will almost certainly result in a better one. What is a major undertaking is polishing a paragraph over and over again (and moving it to and fro) until it fits perfectly into its surroundings. But this process is not something you can substantially speed up by cutting and pasting bits and pieces from your previous work. Whether you start from zero or not is almost irrelevant, as long as your focus is on producing good writing rather than spending a minimum amount of effort on the writing process.
I can sympathize with the fact that at the beginning of your scientific career it make take you some time and effort to write a coherent paragraph, so my comment that the amount of time saved is going to be infinitesimal might not ring true to you. If so, then that's all the more reason for you to practice the bread and butter of scientific writing – which is editing, rewriting, and experimenting with different ways of expressing the same idea, rather than clinging to existing strings of words and sentences – until it does ring true.

+1 A big part of writing is experimenting with different ways to think about the work, as well as different ways of organizing and presenting it. When constructing a building you often need to construct scaffolding to support parts of the building during construction. Metaphorically, you often need to build intellectual scaffolding to arrive at the profound ideas that underlie the work. Once you arrive there, the path you took to get there is often messy and obscures the final result. Your writing is only useful if people can understand it, so you discard the mess in service of clarity.

This idea is what I needed to hear: "the paragraph has already served its purpose, which was to serve as a stepping stone on the path towards the final manuscript". Thank you!

I used to hate discarding paragraphs, which I'd spent lots of effort writing. And indeed, they can be useful and save time. On the other hand, hoarded paragraphs could be distracting and delay the inevitable rewrites.
My solution has been to use version control, such as GitHub. It's free and easy with LaTeX, and there must be something for other document types. There is a learning curve, but lots of advantages: easy backup and version management, clean directories, easy re-use of text (you can highlight differences between versions), collaboration with co-authors, and no regrets for discarded text.
Added Clarification (fully re-using the comment by @preferred_anon):
Just to clear up any confusion about terminology: GitHub is not a version control system, it is a third party host for files that are version-controlled by the software git. For offline work, no more is needed than just git - no server, local or otherwise. "Private" github repositories are not private from GitHub, but for truly private hosting over the internet, you are forced to do it yourself. Server software like Gitlab or Savannah provide this, but both require some know-how.

Similarly, Overleaf is a good service that has version control. I find while I almost never use paragraphs once they were discarded, and writing is faster without them serving as a distraction, I am much more comfortable knowing we can recollect them if we need - particular if an editor wants a section chopped, then another wants it back.

I’d add that sometimes a paragraph gets discarded to meet a page limit on a conference paper. Or an experiment is reduced to a couple of sentences and a couple of numbers. Having the original paragraphs as commented-out LaTeX text makes it easier to put them back in for a “director's cut” in your thesis.

For LibreOffice, save in the .fodt file format. It's equivalent to odt, except it's a single XML file instead of multiple zipped XML files (and can therefore be version-controlled more easily). If you want a LaTeX-based WYSIWYG editor, I'd recommend LyX; its format isn't quite TeX, but it's also version-control-compatible.

@DanielHatton Good point! Also possible to have a GitHub account with private repositories. It's something like $3 per month, or even free with one or two repos (not 100% sure).

There's a famous saying about version control that (one of) its main purpose(s) is to allow deleting without fear. I use Rmarkdown/knitr a lot and that also works well with version control.

Just to clear up any confusion about terminology: GitHub is not a version control system, it is a third party host for files that are version-controlled by the software git. For offline work, no more is needed than just git - no server, local or otherwise. "Private" github repositories are not private from GitHub, but for truly private hosting over the internet, you are forced to do it yourself. Server software like Gitlab or Savannah provide this, but both require some know-how.

@preferred_anon Necessary clarification added. Sorry, had to re-use your comment.

@schrödingcöder Don't apologise, I'm delighted you wanted to include it!

In LaTeX, I often just comment something out and leave it in the document. When I'm revising later if I decide that it doesn't need to be there, I delete it. Sometimes I end up pulling parts of that discarded paragraph back in and I find it easier to have it sitting there than have to dig through version history.

If I have discarded something earlier, this was for a reason.
If it was rambling then, it is still rambling now.
Because of that, I keep these drafts around to kickstart writing and to help overcome the writer's block so to not stare at the blank page, but not much else. The rest is generally easier to rewrite.
There are cases where the writing itself is reasonably good, but the decision is made to make the scope more narrow for a given paper. If that is the case, strike while the iron is hot: build up on this work lest it becomes outdated.
As Hemingway famously said, "The only kind of writing is rewriting". You will be discarding a lot of old drafts, because part of what you are producing in the process of writing is knowledge and deeper understanding of the topic, not words on the paper that make it into the final version.

(+1) Good advice! I think Hemingway also said “write drunk, edit sober”. ;-)

My take is a little different than some of the others'.
Your old rambling paragraphs will distract you and weigh you down, pulling you back into your previous thinking and approaches.
You need to improve your writing skills, so I strongly recommend you burn everything (or at least put it all away where you can't easily get at it) and just keep starting over.
You need to find your writing voice, and that takes time and a lot of attempts. It's really hard to find a better way to write if you keep focusing on your old and admittedly not good attempts.
Toss it all out.
Like the cartoon writers, each time you change your mind, pull the paper out of the typewriter, crumble it up and toss it in the garbage.
Only this way will you make a fundamental improvement in your writing skills. You will see that it gets easier and easier.

"However, I find it difficult to discard old writing." I would certainly say the same of myself. I agree with your sentiment that this stuff has to be axed from your current draft and yet, hoarder that I am, I feel your pain in not wanting to throw it away. (You might not be a hoarder like me, but that is definitely what instigates me to think in this way.)
Here is what I have found works great for me: I have a massive collection of electronic notes where I hoard all these snippets. (I use Microsoft OneNote, but you could use any note-taking system that works for you.) I save them in notes in a section that I call "Research ideas". Here is the power of this simple strategy for me:

Because I know that I am not throwing anything away, I can be very aggressive in cutting out these paragraphs from my current working document. There is little pain of parting because I know (or think) that it's just a goodbye; I can change my mind and bring it back whenever I want. So, I have no excuse to cut things out aggressively. That meets the very real need of aggressive rewriting if you want to move forward. For me, this is probably the single most powerful feature of this simple system.

Because everything is in an electronic notes system, storage space is virtually unlimited. So, I can hoard as much as I want. (That satisfies my hoarding urge with little cost.)

Because it is an electronic note-taking system, I can rapidly search for and recover anything that I really need. So, unlike a physical hoarding system, there is very little downside to the clutter here.

As I think more about these tangental ideas, the notes give me a place to develop and flesh out details. Some ideas are recorded once and then never again revisited; others I find myself coming back to again and again, sometimes over several years.

Over the ten-plus years that I've been saving snippets like this, I would estimate that probably no more than 5% of things that I put aside and save actually make it into new, active work. I evaluate this either as that the 5% justifies my hoarding reflex, or that the system frees me of 95% of deadweight that I could quickly offload from other projects. Either way, this system works for me.

So if you do find you want to use that paragraph again, it's going to be tough to find it again in a "discard" document. You will be most likely to be able to locate it again in the location you originally wrote it, because that's where you remember creating it. Much better if it can stay there.
Also, sometimes I think I can cut a paragraph, then my supervisor comes back with the comment "I really think you need more background on X", so it has to go back in.
For both these reasons, you don't really want to move the paragraph.
If you are using LaTeX, the solution is easy, just comment it out in place. If your LaTeX document is getting too large, it might be time to restructure each chapter into a separate file and pull them all together with \include.
If you are working in some other format, then the way to hide the text will have to depend on the format. Lots of formats allow some form of annotation or comment that can be hidden. But in the end my advice is still the same, keep it in it's original document, just find a way to hide it in the final output.

In LaTeX, I sometimes discard-but-keep text by moving it down below \end{document}.

@AndreasBlass, fine for one file documents, but once you split the document over multiple files, it would mean moving text between files.

In LaTeX you can: (a) "comment out" unwanted material using \iffalse or (b) [as Andreas mentioned] move unwanted material below the \end{document} .  In both cases, that material will not appear in the final manuscript, but it remains in the source file where it can be recovered, if desired.

For those wanting to clean up such comments before submission, see Utility to Strip Comments from LaTeX Source

As with everything you do with a computer, use version control.  There's little reason to throw out anything digital in the 21st century, save security concerns.

This is reasonable for e.g. writing, but since you use the words "everything" and "anything", file size concerns may also apply. For example, if you generate terabytes of raw simulation data a month some deletion may be required.

@Anyon: if you version control the code (incl. settings) that generate those terabytes, the terabytes are intermediate results which usually do not need to be put under version control.

@cbeleitesunhappywithSX -- I suppose the point is a bit more valid if it's data and not simulation data -- but a 10TB drive is under $200 today.  If I were in the data business, generated TB's per week, $2.5k/year in drives (not counting things to put those drives in) or so to maintain local storage without deletion is not an unreasonable cost of doing business.

@ScottSeidman: I do measurements that generate in the order of  GB/min raw data. While those so far have been for an institute with a different backup strategy (and their git server does not offer git-lfs), for another institute I've put GB of raw data under git lfs storage. Since raw data is anyways not supposed to change, and the most important metadata change (typos in file name) work well with git lfs, that is also fine. I'd recommend to consider a "release" snapshot of the important intermediate files when submitting the manuscript, similar to a copy of a binary release of solftware.

@cbeleitesunhappywithSX some of us have data generated by physical processes; that can be big too. Storing the data collection code isn't a panacea and @ Scott project budgets can easily be too tight for that, especially given the stupid markups universities' preferred/sole supplier agreements lead to for non-standard IT

@ChrisH: I'm one of those some :-) ... And I'm very much aware of a) the seriously limitated IT infrastructure funding in many scientific projects and b) discussions on whether we really need to or even can store a copy of the raw data we acquire, or whether it is necessary to move on to store only the much reduced data volume after some initial aggregation. (After all, for many instruments, we never get access to the very raw signals, but only to suitably processed/calibrated output data which we define as our raw data)... but we're getting off-topic wrt the question of manucript text

Every time you remove sections from a document, simply save it under a different name.
In the morning you open up Abacus.doc. You spend the morning chopping bad sections out. In the afternoon you save Abacus(i).doc. The next morning you open Abacus(i).doc and continue writing as normal.
Take this opportunity to backup the most recent version externally.
You end up with many numbered versions of the same document. But this is no problem. The old versions are still there in case you ever need them. The only difficulty is if you remember something you removed but want to put back, you need to crawl through all the earlier versions to find it.

If you start working in the morning and don't save until the afternoon to a different file, won't the autosave feature (that is standard nowadays almost everywhere) overwrite the original file you opened?

Let them go.
Those paragraphs were not living in a vacuum, but they were heavily intertwined with the surrounding sentences and paragraphs and documents.
They costed you some effort, they may contain some valuable informations, both things are true, but:

it costs you less effort to rewrite them from "scratch" (see next point) rather than being burdened by carrying them with you ... don't let you drown in the burden of sunken costs;
the valuable informations hidden in them is there because youput that worthwhile chunk of information into them: either you can reproduce that information, or it is lost forever if you are not being able to produce it again, having that information already written will be of no help, if you cannot reproduce the "substance" underlying that information.

In short: either you can prepare a short essay, a commentary, a blog post, a tweet or some analogous microblogging post with those paragraphs, or they are more of a burden than  of a potential help in the future.
Disclaimer: obviously there is a small exception: if you by any chance will become a Nobel prize in literature, those discarded paragraphs will have immense value ... afer your death. If you really worry about leaving something to your offsprings, think about how unfair is for some people to be loaded with cash and responsibility with no merit on their own ;D


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Are first-generation college students considered an "underrepresented group" in academia?
Neither of my parents went to college. Is this something that can be brought up in the context of university diversity hiring and outreach?
This is for academic jobs - postdoc, tenure-track, etc.

What's your country? In many countries, they use college entrance exam to determine who can go to college. For example, about 10 million students take college entrance exam trying to get into college in China every year. So, college education has nothing to do with diversity and outreach in China.

I expect this would be considered for admission to undergraduate programs.  But not for postdoc, tenure-track, etc.

I am always a little surprised at the reported number of 'first generation' college students at the California's UC system. It always seems improbably high to me.

great question. my 1st thought is like no in letter but yes in spirit. my 2nd thought is given that you're 1st gen...perhaps there's another underrepresented group that you belong to? i just came up a theorem in academic applications: 1st gen is necessarily in some underrepresented group (at least for maybe 1950s onwards) !

united-states-based answer.
Yes, you can mention it, and in theory it can help as it is something that some institutions’ policies, and some individual faculty members, care about. Some caveats to keep in mind:

The word “outreach” as used in US academia has no connection to this issue.

It would probably matter more in the context of undergraduate/graduate admissions than for academic jobs. However, it might still matter a bit for academic jobs.

How you bring this up matters: you can mention it in a “good way” that might slightly help your application, but if you’re not thoughtful about what you write you can also mention it in a “bad way” that will have no effect, or even slightly hurt your application, by showing you to be a person who misunderstands why universities care about this issue and/or who thinks that their first generation college student status makes them entitled to preferential treatment in hiring.

Related to but separately from the above, you can bring this up in an “honest way” or a “dishonest way”. Here, by “honest way” I mean bringing this up out of a genuine belief that this information is relevant to the question of whether you deserve to be hired over someone who has similar qualifications to you but has parents who went to college. And “dishonest way” is bringing this up without having that belief, but just knowing that this might help your chances. (The words honest/dishonest are just an approximation; some people might disagree that there’s anything dishonest about the second approach. But just to give an example, if you grew up in a wealthy household with privileged access to many resources that helped you succeed academically, but your parents just happened to have never gone to college, and you mention that latter fact but not the former, I would consider that dishonest and a form of gaming the system. Which is not to say that it wouldn’t work, just that it’s ethically questionable.)

Obviously, it would be best if you bring up the issue in an honest, good way. But you might do it in a dishonest, good way, or in an honest, bad way, or in a dishonest, bad way. I wouldn’t advise you to do it in a bad way, and I wouldn’t advise you to do it in a dishonest way. But avoiding those pitfalls, the answer to your question is “yes, you can mention it”.
Hope this helps, and good luck with your job search!

(+1) "I wouldn’t advise you to do it in a bad way...".  Ha ha, such helpful advice.  I think I will steal this line as generic advice to students on all matters.

Can you elaborate on point 3? You describe a "good way" and "bad way," but give no hint as to how to produce (or avoid) either of those effects.

@DrakeP I’m happy to give general advice that helps OP make sense of some of the bewildering things universities are asking for in job applications these days. But coaching them what to write to achieve specific effects like you are asking about could seriously undermine what universities are trying to achieve with their hiring process — they want to know what job applicants think, not what they’ve been advised to write by someone else. So I don’t feel comfortable offering advice at that level of specificity, sorry.

@DanRomik alright, I can understand that perspective. Thanks for the consideration

1+ for clearly stating US-based.

Here is one "honest way": you might have been a McNair scholar or at least be interested contributing to the McNair program at that university.  (I was a McNair scholar for 1st gen reasons, and at least at that time and place 90% of the McNair scholars were black.)

Yes, colleges do track and care about encouraging first generation college students.  An undergraduate application might even have a place to indicate status as a first gen.  It's unlikely you'd ever see that on an application for a faculty or post-doc position however.  But you might still work a mention into one of the essays you may be required to submit, perhaps to explain your passion for diversity, that you bring the "I've been there" lived experience of understanding of the challenges first gen and minority students face.

I'm not sure who you're thinking of with "understanding of the challenges first gen and minority students face" reference at the end though? Perhaps just redundantly referring to first gen as a minority status? Because being a first-gen student doesn't really help you understand e.g. the experiences of LGBT students or those of people of color, and it'd be rather naive to suggest otherwise IMO.

@aquirdturtle "being a first-gen student doesn't really help you understand e.g. the experiences of LGBT students or those of people of color, and it'd be rather naive to suggest otherwise" - further still, people in those groups may take offence at one's suggestion that it would help, as it minimises their experiences (which may include abuse, oppression and persecution) by suggesting that a lack of education would allow you to relate. Such groups are usually implied when the term "diversity" is used, so I would also be careful about my usage of that term in any application.

@NotThatGuy I'm LGBT and I would not be offended.  I would expect that someone who felt different than other students when they were an UG would have some compassion and understanding of what it feels like to be different.  YMMV.

@NotThatGuy Being a first-generation student is different from being a "minority student," but, well, the experiences of being an African-American student, an African international student, a Vietnamese-American student, an LGB student, a trans student are all pretty different from each other too. In my application materials, I talked about my experiences as a trans student/academic and tried to relate them to compassion for and some understanding of students with challenges from other groups. I agree with Nicole that a first-gen student writing something on those lines feels very appropriate.

@Danica Some people may appreciate the similarities between first-generation and typical minority groups for mentioning it to count in one's favour, while others could be offended due to the differences. One could probably express a similar sentiment while avoiding the "diversity" and "minority" terms specifically (or at least being very careful about how one uses those terms), to get the potential benefit of the former without the downside of the latter.

@NotThatGuy  Is you argument that LGBT and minorities might be offended based on personal experience as an LBGT or minority or is it just speculation?  There's a difference.

@NicoleHamilton I am a robot and all my arguments about humans are based on observation and analysis. ("based on personal experience as an LBGT or minority" or "just speculation" is a false dichotomy.)

@NotThatGuy Okay, so have you observed that LGBT or minority students are offended if a first gen student remarks that they feel their experience helps explain their passion for diversity and understanding of the challenges first gen and minority students face?  I have not.

@NicoleHamilton "based on observation and analysis", not just "based on observation". If you assert that only experiences that exactly match the one in question matter and any reasoning based on similar and related situations is "just speculation", that would raise some rather concerning questions about the idea of learning and pattern recognition in general, as well as the entire field of psychology. You're again implying a false dichotomy: either I have observed this exact situation, or I'm incapable of having a reasonable justification for how someone would react in such a situation.

@NotThatGuy  Okay, so you haven't observed anything that supports your claims or your "analysis" and you have nothing else to offer as "reasonable justification" except a word salad.  Good to know.

@NicoleHamilton So you expect me to summarise here the decades worth of life experience that led me to this belief? Firstly, that seems quite unreasonable to expect anyone to be able to do to any significant degree. Secondly, that is asking a stranger for what they might consider to be quite private details about themselves and their life. Thirdly, my only claim relates to what "some people" might do, which doesn't seem like it should require a high, if any, burden of proof. Lastly, you've been dismissive of me in practically every reply, so why in the world do you think I'd open up to you?

@NicoleHamilton Had you said, based on your experiences, that people most likely wouldn't take offence, I wouldn't have had any objection. This is pretty much what you did initially, which I didn't object to. But then you felt the need to take it one step further and try to seemingly dismiss my experience completely and assert that I don't have any justification whatsoever to say that even one single person would take offence, which seems like quite an extraordinary claim from your side, that would require extraordinary evidence, not to mention the added burden to dismiss someone's experience.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

I taught for many years at a school where many students were the first in their families to attend college. We were proud of that record.
This fact about your life will be a positive factor in your application, since it suggests motivation that might not be there in an application from a student from a family where college was just "expected". Some schools like mine value it very highly.
That said, I doubt that there is any formal characterization of your status as "diversity" or "outreach".

I think that the earlier answers were focused more on undergraduate education, where there can be some effect in the US.
However, for post PhD position, post docs and regular academic jobs, I doubt that anyone will hire you because you went farther in school than your parents did. The focus will be on you and what you can offer. It will depend on predictions that you will fit a position and the recommendations of others who can support those predictions.
That said, there are people who went to the finest schools because their grandparents and such did and those people get hired, but a lot of that isn't for the quality of the applicant. A lot of that turns out to be misplaced faith.
But, for the great bulk of people, at that age and level of education, it is on you, both your accomplishments and your perceived potential. Other aspects of diversity might count for something in these days but not first-generation alone.
I was one of the first generation folks. My mother had a 2 year nursing degree and I had some uncles with bachelors degrees. I had the support of teachers to get into college and suspect that the family history paid no part. It did help me get scholarships, though. But everything post BA was entirely on me and the recognized (by professors) fact that I knew some things, had some insight, and worked hard. FWIW, I became an academic and my uncles became rich.

There are a few colleges, perhaps not especially prestigious, that specialize in first generation students. For jobs at those places you might get an edge for a faculty position if it is perceived that you are more likely to understand the needs of the students.

I agree that first gen status is likely to be far more relevant for an UG applicant.  For a faculty position, I think it might be helpful if it's connected to the applicant's passion for diversity and the "I've been there" experience they bring.

The literal fact of being first-generation college grad is not quite what "diversity and outreach" can be about, at the level of faculty positions in the U.S., I think.
Namely, I would be interested in the awareness of faculty candidates about the difficulties first-gen students face, as well as the difficulties other "traditionally under-represented" demographics face. E.g., college is easier if your parents can tell you what it's like, and have the money to allow you to not worry about money too much while you're in school.
Faculty in roles of appraisal of undergrad applicants and grad-program applicants should (in my opinion) be aware that some people have had more opportunities and advantages in early demonstration of talent and interest. That is, peoples' early-life accomplishments certainly occur in the context of their family and social environment. Having been through difficulties oneself can lead to better understanding of those difficulties... but, not necessarily.
In particular, at the faculty hiring level, in very legitimate regards it's not literal membership in traditionally under-represented groups, but awareness and some understanding that no, "it's not a level playing field".

Would doing something to support first-generation students count?

@cgb5436, I'd certainly think so!


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If you have no choice, is it acceptable to translate a recommendation letter for yourself?
Inspired by the question Is it acceptable to write a reference letter for yourself?
I have a related but somewhat different question: Given no choice, is it acceptable to write a recommendation letter for self?
This question is based on real cases. In non-English speaking countries, many professors don't know how to write good recommendation letters in English. The professor may know how to write papers in English in his field. But, when writing recommendation letters, he has limited vocabulary to write about his students. In other words, his English is not proficient. To make the matter worse, some professors may only be able to  write simple English sentences. The professor may tell the student the contents of the letter in his native language and ask the student to translate it into English and then signs it.
The student may want somebody else to write the letter because he does not want the professor to do this unethical thing. But, the professor just happens to be his advisor (undergraduate or master). The student may want to suggest that his professor ask the professor's colleagues for help to write the letter. The professor may say no. Therefore, the student writes the recommendation letter for himself by translating the professor's draft in their native language into English.
Is it acceptable? If not, what should the student do?

I would hope the Professor/Department would hire a professional translator.

@StrongBad Actually, I personally encountered this kind of problem. I have friends in Academia. They come to me for help to correct the grammar errors in the recommendation letters for their students.

I like this question. While I fully agree with the sentiments expressed in the linked question, I feel that are simply not practical outside the US. In Europe, where there seems to be less of a culture of reference letter writing, one must either choose between having no letter or self-writing it. In fact, I have talked to approximately 10 faculty from different universities about this topic, and 100% of them found it completely normal that the applicant writes the letter and the faculty simply signs it.

@StrongBad That seems very unlikely. In Europe, most faculty I talked to can hardly be bothered with the process of letter writing in general. I hardly see them contact outside assistance in this matter.

I would add to this question: given the strong negative sentiments that are associated with self-written support letters, what concretely is an applicant to do that comes from a culture where asking a faculty to write a support letter themself is indeed considered an unusual request (which is going to be denied)?

In my case my professors knew enough English, but they had almost zero experience with the concept of recommendation letters. It was a very difficult situation for me.

@xLeitix: In my answer to the linked question, I make the following point: among other things, a recommendation letter written by a student is likely to be a bad(ly written) letter.  In practice, if I read such a letter I am likely simply to register that it is not helping the student's case; I am not going to try to track down who wrote it.

@StrongBad: Aside from being considered an unimportant favor for single students rather than an "official task" of departments in European academia, and thus ranging in a very low priority compared to many other tasks, as described by other comments, I'd like to add that hiring someone to do/participate in that work seems even more unlikely to me. It is not unusual for university departments in Europe to have problems getting any "support" staff not directly involved in the research process (with the result that sometimes, it is up to the researchers to use a part of their working time ...

... for maintaining the department's computer systems, updating the website and doing other PR things, or doing other merely administrative tasks. Getting paid positions for conducting "voluntary favors" such as writing recommendation letters sounds rather unrealistic in that situation.

@O.R. Mapper: maybe not every department can afford a professional translator. But, at the university level, there is an English department, whose role is probably not restricted to teaching students, but may also provide different services: English classes for faculty (including letter of recommendation writing related courses) or translation service... Mine as such a service (for a reasonnable price compared to professional translators outside of the university).

@Taladris: My university (for approximate dimensions, with an academic staff of somewhat more than 3000 people; in a non-English-speaking European place) does not provide a translation service. All researchers employed at the university are supposed to be good enough at English to be able to read and write scientific papers on their own (and there are indeed courses for faculty for that kind of text). As letters of recommendation are very unusual here (when I once needed some for a foreign institution, I had to write 3 out of 4 myself), no specific courses for that kind of text are offered.

In non-English speaking countries, many professors don't know how to write good recommendation letters in English. - supporting evidence?

@LeonMeier There are plenty of examples of such rec letters online. One of my professors asked me to write one for him.

@scaaahu There are plenty of examples of such rec letters online. - Supporting evidence?

Thanks for asking this question.
In light of recent strong comments I have made on closely related issues elsewhere, let me say that I think that getting a letter translated from one language to another is an absolutely kosher academic practice.  The classy thing to do would be to also include the original (e.g. how do you know that the readers will not speak that language?) and also indicate who the translator was.
However, the translator should not be the student.  That is a problem because:
(i) It is an obvious conflict of interest.
(ii) Recommendation letters are often meant to be confidential, and this violates confidentiality.
If you absolutely cannot get anyone other than the student to translate the letter then you should clearly indicate "translated by the student" and expect to have your honesty applauded and the letter largely dismissed.
I must say that my heart opens up for a student who is living in a context where there is no qualified third party to translate a letter into English.  I have been to academic departments in several non-anglophone countries and never encountered such a situation...but of course I have not been everywhere, nor to a random sampling, nor to any academic department in a "third world" country.  That's a tough situation.  Translating the letter yourself does not seem like the best answer.
Let me also say the following: if you are a non-anglophone student whose English skills are far superior to those of the faculty at your university [and assuming that you are applying to anglophone graduate programs, of course!], then you might try to cultivate relationships with anglophone professors elsewhere in the world.  Twenty years ago that would have been preposterous advice, but due to the proliferation of mathematical interaction via the internet, it seems very viable today.  For instance there is a small but positive number of students with whom I have had sufficiently substantial interaction on MathOverflow and (more often) math.SE so that I would be glad to write them a strong recommendation letter.   If you are a math student, you can always try writing to any professor and having mathematical interactions with them.  They are not obligated to respond (I certainly do not always respond...), but they often do (I often do...) especially if you show them something truly promising.
[At some point in the previous paragraph I forgot that I was supposed to be writing for a general academic audience rather than an academic mathematical audience.  But since I am not sure how far my advice extends outside of mathematics, I will leave the m-word in.]
Among US students applying to US graduate programs, it is increasingly frequent for at least one of three recommendation letters to come from the director of a summer undergraduate research experience (REU) than a faculty member at the university.  Such letters are not necessarily the most penetrating -- they read very similarly, perhaps because of the implicit motivation to paint one's summer research experience in a positive light -- but they often get the job done, i.e., they lead to admissions.
Let me also say that a letter of recommendation for graduate admission is not always the most important part of the application.  If I get an application from a university that I have not heard of, and letters from faculty that I have not heard of and whose reputations I do not know, I can only take the letters so seriously no matter what they say.  (And it is quite true that not everyone knows how to write a good "American-style recommendation letter".  This does not necessarily get counted against the student; it just doesn't get counted for them.)  If you are coming from an "obscure program" then your goal is to convince the readers of the applications that your training is equal to (or superior than!) the training that students in more familiar programs get.  So it can be helpful to include very specific information about coursework: e.g. not just the title of the course and the course grade but the textbooks used.  If you wrote a paper which does not make any research contribution but shows a solid understanding of graduate-level material, by all means include that as part of the application.  Also be sure to take all the applicable standardized tests and do your best on them (and don't cheat on them!!).

I'd like to suggest instead of asking if you could self write the letter, send your advisor an email that says something like this. "Thank you so much for agreeing to write this letter for me. We have done a lot of great work together over a long period of time and I'd like to highlight some things that you may wish to talk about in your letter (of course feel free to choose not to use any of these examples if you so desire):

Example 1
Example 2
...

This will allow your letter writer to at least have some phrases he/she could say in relatively good English, but you aren't actually writing the letter. The advisor will likely edit them and add more phrases, but at least it is a good starting point. This way, no confidentiality is breached because the advisor can still ignore all of your examples and you have no idea whether he/she chose to do so or not. I also like Pete Clark's idea of sending in an untranslated letter if it is in a language that can be easily translated in most English speaking institutions.

Also make sure the examples are not something that could be read from your CV. They should be like hey remember when I came up with this idea you really liked in our meeting or remember when I advised that undergrad of yours ... listing some of the things you did with the undergrad.  Basically they should be more related to your personal interactions with your advisor.

No.

It is a breach of confidentiality.
If the recipient of the letter is not informed that the student translated it, then that is (at the least) unethical.
If the recipient of the letter is informed that the student translated it, then I see no immediate breach of ethics. But it's no longer a confidential opinion, may have been subtly altered by the student, and likely won't carry much weight as a result.
In either case, how can the recipient be sure that the student's translation is true and unbiased?

The proper way forward, as I see it, would be to get the professor to write the letter himself and then get the letter professionally translated. Enclose copies of both the original letter and the translation, declaring that the letter has been translated into English (by either a professional translator or another professor).

Or just send the letter in its original language. If this is a field where serious scholarship is done in Flemish, some of the letter recipients will read Flemish.  And if this is not a field where serious research is published in Flemish, then a letter in Flemish correctly identifies the author as not a serious scholar.

I don't disagree with you. The last part of your answer is hard to do. Professional translator is expensive. Ten letters could cost the professor's one month salary. Other professors are also busy with writing letters. Do you have better ideas?

@scaaahu Besides what I said and what JeffE said, I cannot think of any other options. It's very unlikely there would not be a friend or colleague you can hand the letter to for translation (after removal of identifying things such as names). What if the letter contains some negative opinions? The honesty and confidentiality of reference letters is sacrosanct.

a friend or colleague you can hand the letter to for translation is possible but only to a certain degree. I got requests from friends to do such tasks until I got tired of it. Colleagues is probably a different issue. Sometimes colleagues are reluctant to do it for various reasons. Thanks for your suggestion. It carries weight.

Let me just chime in to say that, depending upon what the language is, just sending along an untranslated recommendation letter may be a reasonable option.  American scholars are still scholars, and a good scholar participates in a context larger than that of the US or of anglophone writing.  If one is applying to a program in mathematics in the US, I think it is at least likely that some faculty member in the program will be fluent in any of: French, Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese.

@Moriarty I'm curious if you would find the answer I provided below as also ethically questionable. It certainly is less objectionable than writing the letter yourself but I could see others thinking its a bit inappropriate as well.

@MHH I think that's OK.

Send the original and a translated version, both electronic. Then the recipient can copy-past the content of the original letter into Google Translate and get something meaningful out to confirm the content of the  translated letter.
Slightly dodgier: write the recommendation letter yourself, in English, then translate that into your native language, have the professor read/sign that and the English version, and send both copies. Dodgier because you could be writing one thing in one language and a nicer version of the other, but I'll bet your recommender reads more English than they write.

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Community College Math Prof. Prospect
Where can I find reliable statistics/info on the outlook of tenure math teaching jobs at the community college level? Teaching is my biggest reward, I love math, and I refuse to enter industry (but I also don't think I will do a postdoc).
I'm seriously considering entering this profession after the PhD (I'm currently a 3rd year math Phd student), but I am not sure what to expect. I.e., I am not sure how much pressure there will be for me to be forced to accept adjunct roles with no hope of tenure or security of employment. I was told that my old community college, which has 10,000 students, hasn't hired a tenure track math professor since 2009, and I am not sure how common this trend is. I am willing to move.

For general issues involving teaching in community colleges (in the U.S.A.), The Chronicle of Higher Education has a lot of useful articles.

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Is it possible to publish a research paper as an independent undergraduate author?
I am interested in a new fast moving field in which none of the professors at my university have an interest. I have even started to work on some areas that show promise in the current scenario.
As I am working independently, and this will be my first paper, do I have a reasonable chance of getting it published (assuming it turns out well)?
What mistakes should I absolutely avoid while working on this paper? (to maximize chances of publishing later on)

I published part of my senior thesis before I got started on my postgraduate studies.

Yes, it is even possible to publish in a first rate journal, as long as the result is "good enough".

Why are there close votes on this question? This is clearly not an undergraduate question; it's an academic research question from an undergraduate student. Please don't abuse the close vote system.

Your question contains three questions. Is it possible? yes. Do you have a reasonable chance? Probably less than any other researcher because you lack the training but not zero. What mistakes to avoid? Well, that is what research education partly is about.
Writing a paper involves many aspects, providing the proper background, explaining the research, putting the research in perspective and reaching proper conclusions. There are many mistakes that can be made: you do not show you know the field, you do not describe the methods/theory/experiments well enough, your discussion does not hold and your conclusions are not well founded. All of this can come from poor understanding or from not writing well. So as long as you can tick the boxes from the subject specific to the methodological including writing skills then you would stand as reasonable a chance as any. In the end there is likely only one way to find out, try.
You state that you work independently and that is all fine. But, in science we all benefit from having others read and comment on our work to improve it so your chances of success can increase dramatically if your writing can be read and commented on by peers (with at least a PhD would be recommended) to weed out problems and any lack of clarity.

While this answer is technically correct, I think it's ignoring the practical reality of the research community. The likelihood that an undergraduate with minimal exposure (<5 years) to a research field can (1) understand the relevant published literature, (2) understand where the field is currently and what other labs are doing, (3) perform research worthy of publication, and (4) write up the results in a journal-worthy article with minimal to no mentorship throughout the project is extremely slim at best.

I am sorry, but I do not think I am ignoring what you comment on, it is merely implicit in my answer. I definitely agree with your explicit version of the list.

A small addition to Peter Jansson's great answer; your chances of publishing your work independently will most likely depend on your field and how you want to publish your results.
I work in biomedical research and the only "independent" articles I have seen so far are written by senior academics that either portray their "expert opinion" on something, or a literature review of a particular subject. Yet again, they are not independent there either (at least in some meaning of the word), but rather utilize the resources of their affiliations and many years experience in the field.
If you are into some sort of CS research, I suspect there will be more options in terms of publishing your results, and there you might have a better chance in getting published.

Practically speaking, you may be sufficiently well equipped for performing the research and writing it up. But, as others have mentioned, you almost certainly lack experience and understanding of the field to explain why you did it and what impact your work has.
And most experienced researchers are able to spot some common issues in the presentation, even in topics they do not know much about.
Corollaries:

You can publish, and I would absolutely encourage you to try. Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.
It is a lot easier for a student to publish a research paper solo rather than to publish a literature review, although the latter is also commonly done - as a part of a thesis project and under supervision.
One potential issue might be presentation. You should enlist some help to review the article before sending it to a journal.
Another could be a flawed experimental design (if it is experimental research we are concerned with). This is what training is for, and it is hard: very few can get it right, much less first try. Do not let that discourage you, however: this is where practice and feedback are especially helpful. More on that point later.
Yet another issue does not have to do with research but with the submission process. From personal experience and communications, it could be an unexpectedly enormous roadblock. Suppose you read enough literature, and you also got an interesting result and wrote a paper about it, and this paper looks no worse than what you see out there... Now what? Teaching you the process of picking a journal, submitting a publication, and interacting with its editorial office and reviewers is yet another role typically assumed by an advisor. You may or may not find this problematic, but if you end up struggling, again, enlist help.

Now, to expand on the experiment design... One piece of advice I could give you is this: before doing anything, pretend for a moment your experiments showed very favorable results, the best you could plausibly imagine. Try to describe them; do they make for a convincing case? If not, this is a bad, bad design; figure out what is missing. Do not underestimate this pitfall, it is far more common than you think.
Then, consider what happens if the results were very weak, sitting firmly at the previously established baseline. No improvement at all. Could you extract any knowledge from that? If not, this is still fine, but consideration should be given, especially as the experiments get more and more laborious.
Good luck!


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What should I focus on to get admission in a Masters programme in the US?
I am currently in my second year, pursuing a B.Tech. in Software Engineering, in India. I want to pursue a Masters' in the US in CS/CS-related fields. My area of interest is AI.
I still have two years to go before I will need to apply. So, what should I be working/focusing on in the next two years so that I have a good chance at making it there ? Keeping in mind the fact that i will need scholarships/financing options.

My GPA is not very good at the moment. — Start with that.

@JeffE Actually our University awards percentages, my score is about 70%. I am not sure what that translates to in terms of GPA. I am in the top 20 percentile of my batch.

@JeffE any advice beyond that ?

Since you still have two years to finish your bachelor degree, I strongly advise you to focus on the two years and leave this issue till 1 year or even semester before graduation.

Please keep in mind that only a small percentage of Master students get funded.
It's less competitive to get into a Master program than a PhD, mostly because the students pay their own way.
If your grades are not the best you should try to get high GRE, good reccomendation letters, and possibly to some research during your Bachelor.
Are any particular reasons why you chose the US? There are many other school around the world that would cost you less and get a good education as well.

US has the best research centres as far as AI is concerned (as far as i know). Almost every year about 1-2 people from my institute make it to some of the best/better colleges(CMU, GeorgiaTech, Cornell) there largely financed through scholarships and the like. I  havent really looked at other options considering this + i still have around two years.

I don't doubt that some Master students are being financed, but as I said they are a really small percentage.


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Why do so many institutions choose their own systems for application process rather than universal systems like mathjobs.org or interfolio?
Why do so many institutions choose their own systems for application rather than universal systems like mathjobs.org or interfolio where letter writers don't have to upload their letters multiple times?
Customized questions don't seems to be the reason since mathjobs.org and interfolio also offer the same option (or at least let the applicants address this in the separate PDF document uploaded)
Cost? I don't know how much mathjobs.org or interfolio charge each institute to use their system, but it seems that it is also not easy or free to build and maintain their own application system.
So there should be reasons other than these. Why can't every institute use mathjobs.org or interfolio, making the lives of letter writes easier?

My impression is that this is usually forced by central administration (see e.g. https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201907/rnoti-p1085.pdf for a story related to MathJobs specifically).

For US state schools, the answer is "ensuring compliance with state law". Many private universities do rely on just interfolio or math obs.

Even if one discipline has its own system, which one should they use? The math jobs? Or, an English jobs? From the university administrator perspective, they are using one system. One could also ask the flip question: Why doesn't the math group adopt the same standard as a university system such as the large University of California System?

One of the main advantages of mathjobs.org is that you don't need to ask the referees for additional letters once they've uploaded the generic reference letters. This is important because busy professors wouldn't be comfortable writing letters for 10–20 separate applications. I am a candidate, and I feel it. But in my experience, most of the positions in North America (USA, Canada) uses mathjobs portal

Just to clarify, do you mean for faculty hiring or something else like grad student admissions?  (We use mathjobs for both, but are also required to use an internal system at the end of the process for grad school applications.)

(They can't even spell their own name: three different ways on the same page: MathJobs.org, MathJobs.Org,  and Mathjobs.org)

Centralized systems like Mathjobs are really the exception rather than the rule.  In most other fields of academia, and in practically all industries outside academia, the norm is that applicants for a job will apply through the employer's own HR system.  And university HR policies are usually written to assume that as the default procedures.  They may need to comply with laws or institutional policies on confidentiality, record keeping, non-discrimination, etc, which are harder to ensure with an outside system.
So, if a department does want to use a centralized site like MathJobs, then usually someone from that department has to lobby the university HR office to get an exception from the general policy.  This may or may not be successful, depending on the flexibility and/or risk aversion of the HR and legal people, and/or on how much internal political capital the department is willing to spend.
Sometimes there is a compromise, where the bulk of the application material is collected through MathJobs, but the applicant also has to submit at least a pro forma application through the university's HR system (maybe entering only their basic personal info and a generic CV).
Another argument that's sometimes raised is that MathJobs is something of a victim of its own success: it's so easy for applicants to apply that they very often apply to basically every job they see, even those for which they are not at all qualified, or do not fit the expectations.  (E.g. fresh PhDs applying for full professorships, algebraic geometers applying for math education faculty positions, etc).  As a result, employers using such platforms can receive a huge number of applications, often in the hundreds.  Even if they have very efficient procedures to screen out those applicants, it takes time, and if they do not have such procedures it is going to take a huge amount of time.  (For instance, in my department, every application that meets the minimum requirements - which is usually just a PhD in the desired field - must be read in its entirety and scored on a formal rubric.)
As a result, some people think that the extra time burden of requiring applicants to apply through the university's own HR system is actually an advantage, as it forces applicants to "show that they are really interested".  Personally, I don't agree: I think it just tends to skew the applicant pool towards people with a lot of free time on their hands, and that it's disrespectful to candidates to make them waste their time filling out forms in order to prove their interest in the position.  I would rather see an employer keep using MathJobs, and if they really need to make candidates prove their interest, add a requirement for a special essay about something that's actually directly relevant to the position.
Cost is also a factor: MathJobs currently charges an employer about US$500 for one job posting (or about $800 for multiple postings). It may not be that much in the big scheme of things, but it means that a department lobbying to use MathJobs has to also lobby for the administration to pay for it, or come up with funds from their own budget.  At my institution, the normal advertising budget for a faculty search is $500, so if we want to use MathJobs, then we can't advertise anywhere else unless we get special approval for extra funding.
You're right that an internal system has a cost too, but usually it's some off-the-shelf software-as-a-service package that the university has already licensed, and so the marginal cost of posting one more job is basically zero.

Probably worth noting that it's the people in HR who are legally responsible if anything goes wrong.  If days is leaked,  or a hiring process turns out to be discriminatory,  it'll be HR people who will be in front of a judge.  Makes sense they want a single system they were confident about, understood,  and controlled.

@IanSudbery: I'm not sure that's true here in the US.  Certainly the organization is legally liable for data breaches, discrimination, etc, but I don't know that there is personal legal liability for any of the individuals in the organization.

is guess I miss spoke there. I suspect the HR person is not personally legally liable, but that they are the person the organisation males responsible for the organisations liability, and they are the person that would have to answer for any problems, even if the punishment would go to the organisation.

My institution uses the same system for tenure track professors as for HR staff as for plumbers as for student jobs.
If they used mathjobs for math jobs what would they do with all these other positions?

I consider using mathjobs is a courtesy for applicants and letter writers by making their lives easier. It is completely up to "all these other positions" whether to use a centralized systems or not.

@NoOne I don't know much about the use of MathJobs; it's possible people here in that field post on both as long as that's in compliance with regulations. And if you go tell HR "Hi we'd like to hire a faculty member, here's the job description" they're going to use the standard procedure. But, besides that it may be a bit cruel but what's the incentive for making applicant's lives better? It's not like it's hard to find people that want research jobs in mathematics.

@NoOne To the institution their time is more important than yours. If MathJobs costs them time then no amount of "courtesy" is going to be worth it.

Plus, of course, the school had a hiring process in-place before MathJobs (or even the internet) was even a thing. Don't ever discount inertia.

A non-American perspective...
In the country where I work, we have a single job application portal for all academic jobs and other university positions across all our univeristies, research institutes and other similar organisations.  Why should we change to use multiple subject-specific portals?  All jobs are advertised through this site, although university policy may also mandate adverts elsewhere for certain types of jobs.  Then the applications are also gathered with this site.  This gives the adminstrators their single system, and the academics a key place to job hunt.
(For reference I work in the Netherlands and am referring to https://www.academictransfer.com/en/ ).

As Pieter Naaijkens comments, it is administrators who are pushing this, often against the advice (or protests) of mathematicians.
From their point of view, they might be overseeing hires in multiple disciplines, and so using a university-wide system is simpler from their point of view. It is true that significant amounts of faculty time is wasted in fiddling with letters, but, well... that's less visible to them.
Some universities (including mine) have adopted a hybrid system, asking candidates to apply both on MathJobs and whatever software their university uses internally. The key point is that recommendation letters are only required on MathJobs. This seems like a sensible compromise: candidates have some extra hoops to jump through, but letter writers don't.
One extra point: I have read in the Chronicle of Higher Education that hiring processes can be very cumbersome in some fields. Apparently it is expected there that recommendation letters be tailored by the writers to individual job openings.
With mathematicians often applying to 100+ jobs, such an expectation seems utterly absurd to me. However, for an administrator familiar with such customs, mathematicians' complaints might seem trifling in comparison, and hence easily dismissed.

I think your last paragraph is looking at the issue backwards. US mathematicians apply to 100s of jobs because with an automated system like mathjobs it is feasible to do so. In Europe every job application is individual and therefore mathematicians apply to much fewer jobs. They choose a lot more where it is actually worthwhile to apply and tailor the application. Both from an individual mathematicians and from the  hiring universities perspective I prefer the European model.

@quarague Sorry, this is a naive question, but how then do candidates decide to which jobs to apply? From an American point of view, there are lots of universities out there, and if you're a candidate it's very difficult to guess which of them might be interested in you.

I would say the match of research interests is the key point. Pick universities where you already know some researchers or have already collaborated with them. Of course this works a lot better with research focused postdocs but then the teaching oriented liberal arts colleges in the US are a lot more rare in Europe.

@academic thanks for asking your "naive" question. In the countries I've been in, there is no centralized application portal like you described in your answer, and the way quarague described (look at each institution/university and consider the people and the reputation, and topics, etc. then apply individually) is the norm, and happens to be the only way I could imagine, at least until I read your last paragraph. Applying to 100+ jobs is very much an exception (in my experience) and you're supposed to be deliberate in choosing where you apply.

From a university IT perspective, a lot of it is ensuring compliance with all the boring bureaucratic parts. My institution does use the same system (PeopleAdmin) for every single job, from trades to temporary office workers to professors and deans. I have seen others where there is a clear separation between faculty and staff application systems.
Especially as a public university, there's a bunch of questions we have to ask everyone about veterans preference, prior state service, equal opportunity statistics, acknowledgment about false statements, etc. It would be difficult for HR/legal/IT to get all that implemented on a website like MathJobs. Another issue is requirements about retention and privacy/disclosure of job application materials. At the end of the day it's a state job, professor or not. A lot of the rules are exempted for academic positions, but some still apply.
There is also a direct connection between our application software and the so-called ERP software (which handles everything from grades to registration to payroll). So job postings automatically connect to the relevant position/salary/etc. I don't think they even allow people to post a job without first setting all that stuff up in the system.

Inertia. Tradition. Preference. ...
Not every institution wants such things to be seen and perhaps even "mined" by other entities over which they have no control. Some information needs to be "privately held" for various regulatory reasons.
Some seemingly useful online "services" have disappeared with little or no warning. Google is rather famous for this. Some large online services have had security issues with personal data released to the public.
And, asking potential candidates to take a little extra effort tailored to the institution isn't a bad thing from the institution's perspective.
On the other hand, if you want to know, you can ask, though you need to ask lots of places to get anything useful. It is a sort of research question that a potential service provider would want answered.

The first two (inertia and tradition) are factually wrong, at least in California: mathjobs was used widely in California for about 15 years until administrators decided to  change the system to a homegrown one.

Actually, inertia and tradition are the reason most universities do many (most?) things, @MoisheKohan. Easy call, and the world is bigger than California.

I agree in general, but this way one can also easily prove that 7 is a composite number, because "most numbers are composite." And for how many universities do you know as a matter of fact that they are not using mathjobs because of tradition and inertia? The only example I know is Harvard, but their hiring process is totally different from anybody else's.

NIH
The Not Invented Here syndrome.
Many organizations consider themselves unique, and with extraordinary requirements when it comes to recruiting. The reality is that a site that manages generic recruitment is enough.
There are specialized sites that will have integrations with external entities that help to link to publications, author databases etc, making them ideal for a specific field. If they also manage the legal specificities of a country it becomes a fantastic site.
These sites cost money, when local development is free. Except for the salaries. Except for the lack of experience in development, legal and HR requirements. Except in maintainability. Except, except, except.
Unfortunately this becomes clear too late.
The specialized sites aren't a panacea either - some of them are truly atrocious and then a general site will be better. Local dev will rarely be great, except if you have an IS army.
The industry used to be in that situation in all cases. This is slowly improving now (even though the larger and older companies still belive that are unique in their needs)


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What should we do when an abstract gets accepted for a conference, but the material is not ready?
Recently, my team's abstract was accepted for a poster presentation at a conference. The abstract submitted is not a complete work. Over time, we still don't have the desired results that are worth publishing / presenting.
... what should we do in this situation?
I worry that our contribution is not good enough - or bad.

Did the abstract represent the status of the work accurately?

Does the conference expect complete work? There are places which encourage work-in-progress submissions as abstracts, with the idea of sharing preliminary results and getting feedback.

Yes, the abstract did represent the status of the work (usage of the words: 'intended to', 'will'). As for the conference's expectation for the work's progress status, it's not clearly stated..

In the future, do the research first and then submit the abstract.

I suppose that standards differ, but in my experience (CS) posters don't need to be all that refined. Unless your standards are different, I suspect that you could put enough together to inform people about your project, its current state, and its direction, if not the conclusions that aren't yet ready.
Many posters are "work in progress", rather than completed.
Alternatively you can withdraw if it is impossible to do enough to meet your own standards.

You may not have a complete set of results, but presumably you have a clearly defined research question and method. You may have already encountered and learned things along the way. Perhaps you have preliminary results. It could be an option to present these and look for feedback on your research question and approach and perhaps even get valuable input to improve your research. One of the things that is so appealing about conferences is to see updates about progress in various research projects, even when it isn't yet ready for publication in a journal.
Unless you intimated in your abstract that you had specific results which you don't have, or you do not have a research question or method, I would personally still present. Especially a poster.

Someone has to say it: simply withdraw the poster presentation. Of course, no one wants to do this. But there is nothing wrong with simply yielding to reality: things just did not work out as expected. Then, next time you submit an abstract, bear this one in mind! Best of success with future submissions!