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Is it good for the speaker to read notes during a presentation?
I am wondering whether it looks odd if a speaker reads notes during a presentation? I am asking this because, I noticed that a few presenters can’t present their work or research well due to nervousness and other factors such as language, pronunciation etc.
So if a speaker makes notes and just reads them properly along with the slides, how will it look? Will audiences accept or criticize such presentations?
How will it be if the speaker speaks by themself, but they will look into the notes if necessary?

What is your field? I have made the experience that in technical and science subjects, this is commonly looked down upon, whereas in fields such as philosophy, it seems to be the preferred way (from what I have been told, because the exact choice of words planned beforehand by the author is considered one of the crucial aspects of the talk, rather than showing ad-hoc mastery of the topic).

Yes, I am agree with you @O.R.Mapper.. I am talking about the field of Atmosphere, where many proper wordings are necessary to address the originality of  one's work. Would like to comment anything more.

Join Toastmasters.

Twenty years ago it was not at all uncommon at international conferences in physics and electrical engineering to attend at "read" presentations, especially from old researchers from Asian countries who were not used to speak English.
How was it? Boring, utterly boring, and audiences drifted away. Please don't do or suggest it: if you feel uncomfortable speaking, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

I don't think 'presentations by asians who were not used to speak English were boring' leads to '(all) presentations which are read are boring'. The skill to deliver a presentation/speech well is totally seperate from how perfectly you remember each word.

@DavidMulder I reported that the presentations were from Asians just because that was really the situation at the time, but the main point is that those presentations were read, and because of that those were boring. Even imagining more brilliant speakers, I can't get excited about read presentations. When I was a student I also attended a few read lectures in the humanities, in my language, and I wouldn't consider those appealing either.

Now the trend has changed to read bulletpoints directly from the Powerpoint. Equally boring, and done by people with all sorts of levels of language and experience.

@Davidmh: It can get worse: I've seen people put a pdf with the notes (not a presentation) on the screen and read that. Awful.

I suspect "a good presentation" is culture specific.

Can you clarify your answer with what field this was in? In some fields, particularly in the humanities, reading straight from a previously-prepared text is the norm.

@E.P. Done, I've added the fields.

@tomasz I have been to one like that that was actually very interesting. But I guess one has to be Sheldon Glashow to pull that off (and he didn't just read from it, but used it as a guide).

Within the last few years I've come across plenty of these eyes down monotone style of presentations.  I doubt they're going away.

What @ChrisH said. But I'll add that as much as I hate seeing someone simply read notes, it is worse if they don't read but have poor command of the language, so they pause, repeat, and correct themself constantly.

So if a speaker makes notes and just reads them properly along with the slides, how will it look? Will audiences accept or criticise such presentations?

It will not leave the best impression, but you will survive it.
The biggest problem, however, is the word properly: Reading a talk or speech in a manner that is equivalent to ad-libbing is an art of its own and if you have mastered it, you usually do not need it anymore (unless you are a politician, actor or similar). If you have no experience in this manner and are nervous on top, you will almost certainly make frequent mistakes with respect to emphasis, tone and rhythm, usually by losing them altogether. This will make it difficult for the audience to follow your talk and very likely be worse than trying to give a regular talk.
Another problem is that writing a talk is not as simple as it may seem, as spoken language crucially differs from written one: Sentences are shorter and simpler; certain grammatical constructions only work well in written language; other aspects are exclusive to spoken language and essential for a good talk. A simple example for the latter is using the word here and pointing at the proper part of the projection.
Here is roughly what I recommend:

Learn the first one or two sentence of your talk by heart and memorise important aspects of the next few ones. This should give you a safe start and way to cope with your nervousness. What is important is that you have a smooth transition from fully memorised sentences to ad-libbing. If you don’t, you may get stuck at the transition point.
Rehearse early and often. This way you can spot difficult passages and prepare ways to master them, e.g., make mental notes on how to do a transition, look up vocabulary that you lack, and so on.
After a few runs, rehearse in front of an audience that can give you some feedback – even if it’s your ten-year old brother who does not understand a word you are saying and can only comment on the impression you are leaving (an audience that can give you feedback on the content is better though). This also forces you to rehearse the actual talk situation and makes you avoid starting all over on a regular basis. Most importantly, rehearsing is one of the best wards against nervousness.
Mind you: rehearse not memorise entirely. A talk that is entirely recited from memory is as bad as a talk that is entirely read from notes.
Learn to use your slides as a memory aid. Avoid putting full sentences on slides, because you may read them out during your talk (and your audience does not want to read full sentences either).

I am talking about the field of Atmosphere, where many proper wordings are necessary to address the originality of one's work.

I am not in your field, but I am skeptical that this extends beyond using the proper vocabulary and keywords – which you can put on your slides as a memory aid and to tell your audience about them in case you forget to mention them.

At least in my field, mathematics, in the U.S. (and probably western Europe) it is stylistically quite undesirable to read from slides, because it makes a person look as though they haven't really assimilated the material. For that matter, I've occasionally wondered who actually wrote those slides that the speaker treats as mysterious, surprising, or baffling.
On the other hand, there are indeed possibly even-worse failures, such as becoming completely tongue-tied, incoherent, panic-attacked, etc. But this scenario won't make a good impression on anyone, in any case.
If one's command of the relevant language is so minimal that one can do no better than to read the slides... it still may be better to not read all the slides, but just emphasize the high points, rather than look a bit silly. After all, people can/will read the slides themselves.
In particular, ideally, the audio portion complements the video. They are different mediums. Formulas are best displayed, not spoken. Complicated English (or other) sentences are best spoken, not filling up a slide with small print that makes people squint to read it... Graphics go on slides...

I don't think reading from slides makes the person look as though they haven't mastered the material. I always thought (and my own experience reflects this) that reading from slides is bad because (1) it's boring, and (2) it makes the speaker fairly useless. If you're going to read from slides, you might as well just put the slides up and let the audience read them on their own - but then again there's little point in doing that when you could just hand out copies of a printed article. I do quite like the advice in your last paragraph.

@DavidZ, if it's a job-oriented talk, and the speaker "reads", it does make me wonder whether they really know what's in the slides. I approximately interpret need-to-read as some sort of inexperience and/or incompetence. There's no upside. It is also boring, but that's just anti-icing on the anti-cake.

I agree with paul that reading from the slides can create the impression (e.g. in me) that the speaker has not mastered the material.  I don't know whether this is particular to mathematics or not, but one feature of math is that it is so vast and technical that virtually everyone has things that they don't understand as well as they want to that are of some relevance to what they're presenting.  Some people seem to deal with this by looking up tricky definitions and results and placing them in the slides, then seeming dismayed when they get asked questions about them.

I should add that I have seen a few absolutely top mathematicians, including one Fields Medalist, give talks where they only read from slides.  I did not at all get the impression that these people didn't know what they were talking about; it was only boring and disappointing, making their talk somewhat pointless.  There's something for those reading from their slides to aspire to!

Actually, the question is not about reading from slides, but read from something while presentating slides. That's something quite different and for people who mastered the material but not the language it can be a good idea.

@Dirk, ah, indeed, if such is necessary. Still, practicing the intonation so that it doesn't sound wooden or stilted or unfeeling is advisable/necessary, or it'll achieve a similar (bad) effect.

@PeteL.Clark In every field everyone has things that they do not understand completely which are relevant to their work or to what they are presenting (and don't believe to anyone who denies this...): on the positive side, these can be the next step of the research.

@Massimo I always thought that for every field, what people don't understand completely is usually the mathematics behind it.

@sgf Not really: in complex experiments, the mathematics is just a tiny part; the most challenging part is getting the physics and the modelling of the system right. Mathematicians and people who are used to simulations usually quite underestimate the difficulty of understanding what's going on in a complex experiment: e.g., I have now a relative discrepancy of several parts in 10^-7 between two measurements, where I'd have expected 10^-7 at most. Where does this discrepancy come from? Is it a device not working properly? Is it bad grounding? Am I missing a second-order effect in the model?

I'm in mathematics and I don't think I've ever seen a speaker in a math lecture read directly from prepared notes. I have seen many speakers read from their slides, and like Paul Garrett (and for precisely the reasons he explained) I think this is a bad practice and should be avoided at all costs.
As for reading from paper notes you prepare in advance, while highly unusual for technical talks, if anything this would be less bad than reading from your slides, but whether this is a reasonable idea or not really depends on the execution. Some orators can deliver an amazing speech when reading from a teleprompter or written notes, but most of us who don't have extensive training in this particular artform will probably end up giving a rather dry, boring presentation if we try reading from notes.
My thinking on this can be summarized with the saying you can't beat the system. Giving an effective and engaging presentation, whatever your chosen mode of delivery, requires a combination of several skills:

A good level of fluency in, and mastery of, the language you are presenting in.
Good pronunciation, articulation, and voice projection.
A high level of mastery of the specific skills pertaining to your chosen mode of presentation (e.g., good blackboard technique for a blackboard talk; good knowledge of PowerPoint if that's what you're using; good ability to read effectively from written notes if that's what you're doing; etc.).
Engaging personality and ability to relate well to your audience, calm nerves, sense of humor, etc.
Last but certainly not least: knowing the material well!

None of these skills are easy or trivial, and all of them require extensive training and practice to get good at. So if you're thinking of reading from notes as a shortcut that will enable you to give a good talk despite having serious language deficiencies or suffering from terrible stage fright, think again - there are no shortcuts (which is what I mean by saying you can't beat the system). The bottom line is: reading from notes may be the approach that works best for you, and I wouldn't advise you to rule the idea out, but the point is you'd still have to put in a lot of work to do it well and successfully. Good luck!

Dan R., yes, (as I happened to see this question again), the relevant response to the question is your point that it is not possible to "beat the system". Substantial work has to be devoted... and being able to give an excellent presentation is not something that can be achieved somehow automatically. Public speaking, oratory, and acting, are non-trivial arts. :)

Just reading aloud your notes is something that is typically not seen as good in many fields (e.g., computer science). There are many reasons for that, one of which being that it is often the bad presenters who do this.
However, I feel compelled to point out that there is nothing wrong with doing that if it actually improves the presentation. Two examples are:

I've once witnessed a super-big-shot doing this for the introduction of his talk at a premier conference. The introduction was ultra-carefully crafted to set the work into a very precise context, in a well-understandable way, in very short time, while speaking clearly and slowly at the same time. After that, he continued with freely talking about the actual novel results in his talk. The introduction was actually great and helped researchers from related disciplines a lot to grasp the main ideas.
Speakers with a native language that is quite "far" away from English do this sometimes to avoid grammatical errors during the talk. If the errors that they make during free speech makes it almost impossible to understand the talk, then reading from cards improves the talk.

Can you clarify your answer with what field this relates to? In some fields, particularly in the humanities, reading straight from a previously-prepared text is the norm.

@E.P. Done. What you are writing is news to me. Thanks the remark.

I agree with avoiding reading notes for the reasons already suggested (Death By Powerpoint being one of them).
When presenting (no matter how small or large is the audience) I use slides with one or two words (or a picture) to help me to keep track of the presentation rather than to entertain the audience.
I then use a technique used by Romans speakers (it has its own graceful name which I forgot Method of loci, thanks @MassimoOrtolano) to mentally walk though a house from room to room and attach "things I must say" to elements in that room. It also helps me to time the presentation (I am usually within 2-3 minutes for an hour presentation)

It's the method of loci.

@MassimoOrtolano: exactly, thank you. I updated my answer.

I took speech class a couple of years back and my teacher taught us that we should not read our notes when doing presentations.
It is very boring and you will lose credibility in what you were talking about. It is better to have a speaker who is engaged and knows what they are talking about in order for the audience to listen. This would require plenty of hours to practice. I believe a good example who has done this is Martin Luther King. He used to spend hours and hours preparing for his Sunday sermon.

Did anyone mention 'rehearse'? Watch TED talks, or any good speaker, whether or not you admire their viewpoint. Pay attention to the presentation, rather than the subject. And rehearse. A colleague can help  you get your points down, but a manager (or professor) can help you get your points across. Criticism from these sources is welcome, while criticism from your target audience is not. So, rehearse.

What I recommend you is to present as best as you can and %10 percent of the each slide you can read or just skim realy quick while you are speaking. As @Massimo said listening a presentation that a presenter read from the slides is not nice at al.

During Speech classes I took in college, I had notecards with notes on them just in case I forgot or needed to add something related to that situation. So I believe it's good to read notes, but best not to read it word for word. You should keep your eyes on your audience and not distract them with sudden movements or bore them as you read your notes.

Two relatively extreme examples.

Digression from notes
Consider Bryan Cantrill on Jails and Solaris Zones | Papers We Love (2016-02-11) – 105 minutes of excitable, fast-talking discussion around a 44-slide presentation.
How fast? Commentary under https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgN8pCMLI2U includes a wish for the speaker slow down a bit; the speaker jokes that "To slow down is to admit defeat". There are neither subtitles nor a transcript (I might joke that the pace of discussion defeats the will of most potential transcribers); if spoken at a more 'traditional' pace, I reckon that the discussion could have spanned three hours or more.

Is it good to read notes during a presentation?

At one point, Cantrill appears to rein himself him – one of the digressions (from FreeBSD jails) ends with a salutory mention of Robben Island and whilst presenter's notes are at the rostrum, the reining involved no visible use of those notes. Instead, there's:

visible presenter focus on the audience's view of the presentation.

At all other times, the audience enjoys presenter focus on the audience; on his maintaining their engagement with what's discussed.

Attention to notes
DCTLib observed:

… at a premier conference. The introduction was ultra-carefully crafted to set the work into a very precise context, in a well-understandable way, in very short time, while speaking clearly and slowly at the same time. After that, he continued with freely talking about the actual novel results in his talk. The introduction was actually great and helped researchers from related disciplines a lot to grasp the main ideas.

Back to the opening question:

Is it good to read notes during a presentation?

For an introduction of the type described by DCTLib: yes – it can be very good to do so.

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Do Editorial Articles get indexed in SCOPUS and WOS?
I am editing a couple of special issues for two reputed journals that are indexed in SCOPUS, SCI, and WOS. Currently, I am writing the editorial articles for both of these special issues. Since these types of editorials do not go through the peer review process, the decision to include them in the publications maybe made by the Editor-in-Chief. Therefore, I am curious whether these publications will be indexed in the SCOPUS and WOS databases.

You could easily just find a previous article of this type and look in the databases to find the answer yourself

You should ask the people who sell you the data in SCOPUS, SCI, and WOS what their datasets include!

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If a student's work has been substantially (>80%) revised, are they still qualified as the first author?
The issue of authorship is often a thorny issue in academia, so I’d like to ask for your insight into the authorship in the following situation:
My advisee’s MA thesis is mainly and originally based on a new idea from me. We worked together to refine the idea and turned it into a thesis. I worked closely with him, spending 6 hours per week meeting with him to examine the collected data (he spent about 4 hours per week for data collection). Finally, he completed his thesis with a lot of work and graduated. After his graduation, I approached the student and asked him if he would be interested in publishing the study. He declined this offer mainly due to his availability and due to his work but appreciated this possibilities. Seeing the potential of the collected data, I decided to do this alone.
To make the study publishable, I substantially revised more than 80 % of the student's work, using a different analysis method to recode the data and revamping the introduction, literature review, discussion, and conclusion sections. In other words, the revised paper, albeit being based on the student’s raw data set, is already substantially different from the student’s original work; the rationale is different and the focus is also different (just to appeal to the scope of the journal of our interest and the readership of the journal).
The revised work was then submitted to a respected journal. I took care of all of the responses and revisions (three rounds of major revision + two rounds of minor revision), and the paper finally got accepted. Of course, I asked the student to read the paper and he liked/approved the paper.
I listed my student as the first author and myself as the corresponding author. But given my student’s contribution to this publication, is he qualified as the first author? Or should he be listed as the second author and myself as first author? What should I do so that I can strike a balance between the ethical code and the effort I have put to this paper?

Please clarify: "I listed my student as the coauthor and myself as the corresponding author." - while doing so, you have not yet indicated any ordering of authors, right?

Sorry for not making it clear: I listed my student as the first author. I know my question will not make any difference to the order of authorship at this point. But, unlike many of my colleagues who do not contribute too much to their students' works, I felt that in my case I've done most of the work. I'd like to know if there is any clearcut guidelines stipulated anywhere.

Perhaps specifying the discipline and the country would help you to get better answers.

I'm in the field of education.

Another point which is not clear but may be crucial is what this "data set" is and how much work it was to get it. If gathering the data alone is a massive endeavour (for instance, interviewing hundreds of subjects, or performing months of reactions and measurements in a lab), then IMHO the student still deserves to be first, no matter how much rewriting and polishing you did. If I understand correctly, your 80% figure is not relative to the total, but to the data analysis, writing and revision. So it still has to be weighted with respect to the total amount of work required for the paper.

Thank you for the feedback. The study only involves a few subjects (it's a case study). During the 2 month data collection, I met the student four times a week, 1.5 hours per meeting to discuss the findings (the student spent about 4 hours per week for data collection). In other words, I also played an active part in the data collection process.

I deleted my answer because the picture which emerged slowly over the course of many comments on the part of the OP is quite different from the one depicted in his original question.  I am no longer claiming that the OP made an advising mistake.

What is this work that was revised? 80% of what exactly? Is it 80% of the lines of text the student wrote were rewritten by you? Did the revamping of the various sections change the content or was it more editorial?

The content of the student's text has been rewritten; it is more than editorial change.

You didn't mention field or journal. Many journals routinely list authors alphabetically.

My field is language education. Listing authors by alphabets order is not a common practice in my field.

There is no hard and fast rule about what exactly qualifies a person for first authorship, which is why it is so often a thorny issue (except in those disciplines where the convention is to always list people alphabetically).  It is also often highly dependent on the particulars of a given situation.  For example, I have had situations like this a number of times and in some cases have ended up keeping the student as first author and in other cases ended up replacing them.
Accordingly, the principles that I would go by in making such a decision are, from most important to least important:

Did you previously make an agreement about authorship order?  If so, you should almost always respect that agreement.  Renegotiating, even if things have changed significantly, is likely to be coercive to the student given the difference of power between you.
How much work was the non-writing effort?  Advisors are often much, much better at writing than students, and 80% of the writing may be far less than 80% of the work that went into a paper, particularly if the advisor's writing focuses on the "supporting" material like references, introduction, discussion, etc.  If the student has put in a lot of hard work, especially if there has been significant intellectual work, in gathering the data, then I give the student first authorship even if I basically wrote the whole text.
Is the student interested in continuing in academia?  If authorship could be argued either way, and the student has any possible interest in continuing, it's generally better to put them first.  It's a gracious act promoting your proteges and you still gain recognition as the advisor on the paper.

In the end, it is likely that it will not be clear-cut exactly who should be first author.  Personally, I prefer to err in the direction of giving a student too much credit rather than too little, but others may choose otherwise.

Thank you very much for your response and valuable feedback. In my student's case, we did not negotiate about the authorship. But after he knew the paper was accepted, he specifically told me that he did not mind the authorship because he will not continue  studying or working in academia. Furthermore, after knowing the amount of work I put into the paper, he explicitly told me that I should be the first author. Despite this, I still listed him as the first author. Would you please kindly share the experience where you replace your students as first authors?

@NYC10027 What you describe sounds quite similar to one of the cases in which I moved myself to first author, since none of the 3 reasons I give for keeping the student first apply.  Having explicit (and presumably voluntary) consent from the student also matters a lot. Note, however, that there's also nothing wrong with having left the student as first author as you did: since they deserve to be some sort of author, ordering is a very big grey area and mostly up to the judgements of you and the student.

+1 for suggesting the gracious act, and +1 to the OP for doing that.

I agree with much of what's said in other answers.  I want to add a few comments:
Order of authors has different meanings in different disciplines.  In some situations in some disciplines, the last author is the one who's most important.  You and others in your discipline will have a better sense of the kind of meaning that others in the discipline read into author order.
Graciousness is nice, but dishonesty is not.  There have been discussions about practices in which people receive authorship as pure favors, or because they are funders, or lent equipment, etc.  Some people argue that such "authorship", like being listed as the "author" of a paper ghost-written by a drug company rep (this happens) is a form of misrepresentation.  There is ongoing debate about this issue, and some journals have adopted new, more stringent practices that partly mitigate potential problems.  Your case is different, but the need to accurately represent authors' contributions is not so different.  If it's OK for an advisor to graciously give a student higher prominence than is deserved, would it be OK for a student to graciously give the advisor higher prominence than is deserved?  The power relationships are different--so maybe these are not the same thing--but the potential for misrepresentation is the same.  Life is complicated.  I don't want to claim that there is always a clear right and wrong way to present authors, and it may be that erring in favor of the student is a good idea within limits, but I did want to raise this issue.
Why not add a note on the first page stating what each author contributed?  This is what some journals now require (although often in such a vague way as to be uninformative). This wouldn't completely resolve the problem, because many people will still see the names in the citation without reading the paper.

To me it almost sounds as if you are more or less sole author of this paper but should most definitely cite the thesis as the source of the data as well as marking as citations the 20% you retained.
You make it sound like a separate pitch done without the original author's involvement even if the pitched material is the same, and the original author was not involved in any of the decisions involving this paper and particularly was not able to review or veto it.  If he does not get an opportunity to agree with your approach, putting a paper out in his name seems inappropriate to me.
To me, it sounds like citation would be more appropriate than attribution.  Of course, sending a courtesy copy of the paper to him before publishing and making sure that he's fine with the approach you have taken for publication would still be a good idea.  He can then decide himself whether or not he considers himself properly attributed, and then he won't feel slighted and/or cause trouble later.

He did read the submitted paper and agreed with the new analysis I used.

@NYC10027 This is more the situation I was picturing, especially if your student's dataset was included in its entirety in his thesis.  If all of the data you used in your analysis was already published, then IMO a simple citation would have afforded all necessary attribution.

The student clearly realises that he will not stay in academia or continue to pursue a Ph.D (due to age reason and family concerns). He pursued the M.A. mainly for personal reason (self fulfilment). I asked this question because I also played an active part in the data collection process (the student spent about 6 hours each week during the two-month data collection period; in return, I spent about 5-6 hours each week helping the student construct and interpret the data.

In a case like this and given my contribution to the published work (which has also been agreed and read by the student), I am a bit unsure if listing my student as the first author is appropriate (of course, I will not rearrange the authorship order at this point; I am asking this question simply because I want/need to know if there are guidelines for me to follow in the future

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Thinking about grad school for computer science. How to talk to my old professors now?
I am considering grad school for CS now after graduating my undergrad in 2014. I have been working for the past 4 years and it has been fine, but I feel like I might need a more complete education in order to reach where I want to go in my career.
I understand very little about grad school applications. I know I need to take a GRE test which is fine, I can study for those. I need a statement of intent, I can write one. But then there's letters of recommendation. Apparently I want these from my old undergrad professors. I mean my grades were fine, but I never had a close relationship with any professors and even if I did, it's been awhile. How do I go about making that happen now?
Any advice for approaching this. Is there a good resource of information for someone in my position? Thank you.

Just contact them way in advance of the deadlines, remind them who you are, and ask them if they can recommend you. Also did I mention you should do this way in advance of the deadlines?

I get that with deadlines I am still a ways off from actually going. I am just starting to think about this.

If you are in a position to do so, go visit in person. Tell them what you've been doing and what you want to do. Give them a good picture of you as a success story. Catch up a bit on old times and what is going on with the newer students. Thank them for what they've already done for you.
All of that is worth doing even if you don't want letters, of course.
Doing it in person will help jog their memories of you as email won't. They've had quite a few students since you left and those are more likely to be remembered than someone from four years ago.
But you probably want to do most of that anyway even if you have to do it by mail/email. You might need to be a bit more complete about what you've been doing since graduation, describing projects and such.
But in general, professors like to hear from previous students, and, in general, like to help with their careers. They might even appreciate some guidance from you on what to stress in any letters.
They will also, likely, be full of advice about where to study and how to go about applying.
I would probably give the same advice no matter what the field of study.
Note that you will probably want recommendation letters from current or recent supervisors at work, as well.


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Should I ask permission from my former PI after finishing my contract when I'm sole author of the paper?
I'm a postdoc and I worked with a PI with whom I had many issues and disagreement. I even went to HR to report him for breaking the law. He told me to write the paper by myself as a single author. Even before that, his presence wasn't helping. He was giving me zero feedback and deliberately wasn't helping me. He wasn't like that before. My contract had finally ended and I'm still working on the paper. I would like to know what are postdoc rights on the project after finishing the contract with the PI. I would like to have a collaborator, someone who can proofread the paper and give me suggestions. Is it OK to ask other people to collaborate with me without his permission, now that I'm not employed by him anymore? I asked ombudsperson in my university and he didn't reply my email. What is norm in academia in this situation?

From what you say, you already have his "permission" to publish as a sole author or otherwise exclude him. From what you say, you are ethically the sole author of the paper in its current state. I see no reason to ask (See caveat at the end).
If you want collaboration, however, the question is a bit more complex. Would a collaborator have enough intellectual input to the result to be considered an author? If so, it would seem to imply that more needs to be done and that there are unfilled holes in the current product.
One possibility for you to consider is to try to publish what you have, and then seek collaboration on extensions with one or more people who express interest in the work as published. If it has value, you will likely see some interest.
In some fields like CS where the typical publishing venue is a conference, the conference itself is a good place to meet interested people.
A complicating factor, of course, would be any contract you have signed with your PI that extends into the future.

In my opinion it is best to confirm, especially if all you have is a verbal agreement, I would get it on the record via email (if you already have that, then that is fine).
Further to that, you may also want to confirm that you have given appropriate credit to associated funding (this may go beyond your salary to centers or facilities which may have been involved) which is relevant to the work being published.
As to your needing a co-author or collaborator, that is entirely up to you, only you know the state of your work and the limitations of your knowledge.


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How to report plagiarism in a publication
A friend showed me a paper that literally copied two pages of another paper, without any reference. This clearly is a fraud. He tried to inform the authors of the original paper. Is there any other way to deal with this situation?

related: What should I do when images in a publication appear to have been faked?

Contact the editor of the journal in which the fraudulent paper was published, present your claims, and be prepared to submit evidence.  If there's no response, contact the editor of the original journal - they may be able to use legal means to force the retraction of the fraudulent paper.

I have done exactly this in the past.

In fact, if you really care about anonymity, you may send it to them by traditional mail at hide your address.

I've done that too. However, since the journal in which the copy of my work has been published, is a predatory open-access garbage journal, they did not reply or react in any way. Instead, I received an auto-reply: Thanks for submitting your paper. Please transfer your publication charges ... ;-)

I think the editor should not be the first contacting person. Because it will be a rude act. Even there is a possibility that you misunderstood the whole thing, and authors should ask for an opinion and explanation.  Therefore, first of all, I will advise you to notify the authors and ask an explanation by sending an email. If he/she do not response your email or decline your claim, then send another email to the boss of the author (or the organizational head), if authors have an affiliation. If nothing happens, then contact the editor of the journal. In the email, you need to specify (page number, figure, methodology or idea) that can be considered as plagiarism.

Contacting the authors lets them know who you are (contact them anonymously and they'll probably not respond), which may have adverse effects for you.  Sorting this out is the editor's job, and they have the tools to do it.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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Should I make 2 applications to the same university
I applied for a PhD position, with my own research proposal, at a university and received an offer already. However, as I cannot fund myself, I have to wait for the scholarship decision which will be announced at the end of April.
In the meantime, the university is advertising an industrially funded PhD project whose deadline is end of March. My background matches the requirements for the project, which is quite interesting to me, too. I wonder if I should apply for this project as well. If I am accepted and receive a scholarship from the first offer, I have to choose one of them.
Update: I'm asking this question as I'm worried that making two applications to two supervisors from the same research group may impact the outcome of both applications, i.e. whether I receive a scholarship for the first application and/or be accepted into the 2nd project. I am worried because I believe both supervisors would not be very happy if they knew about me applying to both positions.

so your question is ..?

the question is whether I should apply for an industrial funded project while waiting for a result of my scholarship as they are from the same university, in fact they are from the same research group but 2 different supervisors.

Well, do you want to apply to the second one? Are you still interested in the first one, now that you found the second (industrially funded) project? I don't see how anyone other than you can make that decision. Unless you are asking whether or not the ethical perspective of applying to two different positions announced by the same group, this question is not-constructive. If  you are interested in the ethical perspective, I suggest you rephrase your question and your title to reflect what you are really asking

There is no right answer to this and it depends on the institution that you are in and the people you are dealing with. You are the only one who can decide on this.
In principal I don't see any problem with this if you manage it correctly. IMHO talking with the first guy to understand the consequence of your action and then making the decision is the right course. Second guy has the money and that makes the situation entirely different for him. The reality is that if you are good people will always assume that you have your own interest in mind and will try to get the best offer. So thats not new. What matters is how you play your cards and behave.
So, what I would say is go to the first guy talk about the scholarship situation and your prospects, see what he says, if you feel its right bring up the other project ask him "given the uncertainty of the situation and what would you do if you were in my shoes". and take it from there...
If he says something on the lines of well i am not sure what will happen with scholarship and nothing is guaranteed then go ahead and apply for the second one but if he is saying its a tough situation and you have to make your own mind it kinda indicates that his is not going to be happy about it and is really not understanding you/caring.
I think right now you need to test the waters first and need to do it very delicately...


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Does it look negative for a young assistant professor from a low tier university to apply for a postdoc at other (possibly higher tier) university?
Post completion of my PhD in 2020 I spent one year finishing pending publications, teaching as a part-timer, and applying for some jobs. Then, I had to return to my home country, where I immediately joined a school as an assistant professor since 2021. It is a very good school locally but it has a low rank globally. I have just taken this job since I had no other options and continued applying for jobs elsewhere. I am struggling to continue in my current position due to national circumstances that I have no control over nor my current university. I am applying for both assistant professor and postdoc positions.
Does it look negative to apply for a postdoc while I am currently an assistant professor since two years? I secured a few interviews so far, for both positions, yet no official offer.
I am thinking that being an assistant professor while applying for postdoc positions might have caused a bad perception of me and hinders my hiring. As I have applied to over 50 positions during last two years without success.
I found these related questions, but they don't answer my question.
Postdoc in reputed university vs Assistant professor in below average university
Assistant Professor position at a VERY low rank University or a Postdoc at VERY high rank University? (Please advice)

Are you applying to postdoc positions in your home country, abroad or both?

What is your worry? Is it that your university will close? Something else?

"Does it look negative" compared to what?

Given Covid, one might hope for more flexibility and understanding with respect to decisions made in the 2020-2022 time frame in academia (and elsewhere). One can only try and see what happens.

I wouldn't worry that much about this, because regardless of how it looks to some people, I doubt that this is a major reason why somebody would not win a postdoc position. At least in all committees of which I was member where decisions about such positions were made, I haven't seen any candidate who didn't get the job offered for such a reason, and I have seen candidates like this. Usually there is a requirement for formal reasons why a person will be offered a position or not, and I don't know any place where this would be an acceptable reason.

@Sursula abroad only. Postdoc culture is not yet active in my country :)

I have seen a number of people from globally not well known universities apply to a lower level position at a top university abroad, even for a PhD studentship. I think this is not so unusual and not in itself an issue.

@AdamPřenosil compared to the normal PhD》postdoc 》AP

I think you are asking the wrong question. Suppose you get the postdoc. Presumably you will eventually want to apply for assistant professor positions again. So the important question is: does it look bad when applying for an assistant professor position if the candidate previously had one but left it to do a postdoc?
This could potentially have much more serious consequences than your current question, and if you wait until you start applying for assistant professor positions to ask it, it will be too late to do anything about it.

This is exactly implied in my question since none is going to saty as postdoc for the rest of his life!!. Once I secure a postdoc position that will be the right time to ask your question as I may not get it at all, who knows ??!!

@AlFagera My point is that if moving to a postdoc will make it difficult to get back to an assistant professor, you need to find this out before getting the postdoc, not after.

tl;dr: to a certain extent, it does.
If you apply to a postdoc from an assistant professor job, it means clearly that your current job is "not good" in some sense, otherwise you wouldn't think of demoting yourself. This cast doubt on your career, your success and your strategic planning (why did you take that job if it's so bad that you consider demotion?).
It also casts some doubt on the credibility of your credentials, since it portrays your current institute of a very low-tier.
On the other hand, this doesn't mean you shouldn't try to apply to postdoc. Once you secure a postdoc in a better institute your past would mostly be forgotten. It just means that it would be a bit harder to find a postdoc while you are an assistant professor.

Given the potentially highly limited life choices in 2020-2021, some leeway may be granted.

Once you secure a postdoc in a better institute your past would mostly be forgotten It'd still be on one's CV, no?

@Allure, yes, but it will be perceived as the candidate already showing they can make the leap from low-tier to higher-tier. So this may even count as a positive, proving the candidate's resilience.

The answer to the question is hard, because it might not be the question that matters. The "why" matters a lot.
Looking at your career trajectory, you have to ask yourself "what can I do with a post doc that I can't do at my own institution?" If you can produce at your current institution, you will be able to get an asst. prof (or even an assoc. prof) position faster at a higher institution than if you took a post doc. If your current institution does not have the resources or environment for you to be successful and productive, then getting a post doc somewhere that does would be helpful. But at the post doc, you have to produce and succeed at a very high level to be competitive after.
If you are doing it because you think a bigger name university alone will help you advance your career, you would probably be better off stating where you are and producing, then moving to a higher tier university.
A producing, independent asst. prof at a low tier university is much more valuable/marketable than a post doc without a history of independence or productivity from a top tier university.

I have gone through a similar experience. I believe you are trying to obtain a position in an overseas institute. So, to answer your question, it does not look negative at all to apply for a postdoc position while holding a faculty position in a different country plus different system/standards like in your case. In many countries PhDs go for non-research teaching positions in small institutes/liberal arts colleges and return to research intense academic institutions to start or resume their postdoctoral work. My advice to you is first make the decision as to what position you want to apply; postdoc or assistant professorship as this will help you better prepare for the application process and the transition. I guess this understanding is important because you don't want any hiring committees to explain which position is most suited for you as it will be a time waste. Other advice is sooner the better as some PIs, and Universities prefer to recruit fresh PhDs for postdoc positions, but this is not always the case. For your postdoc application, make sure you indicate what an assistant professorship in your country actually means in terms of international standards. In some countries, it's just a job title where people teach classes. If you clarify this in your application, you can avoid the risk of looking like you are a failed assistant professor. And everything else just do as how a potential candidate would prepare an application for a postdoc position in a high-ranking institute. So, it is absolutely possible to secure a postdoc position for someone like you if that is what you want. Good luck!

I have a friend who earned his PhD in civil engineering in the US and gave up an assistant professor position at a local (non-US based) university, which, although reputable locally, had a lower global ranking. He then decided to pursue a postdoc in the US because he felt bored with his field and wanted to explore something different, such as data science. Initially, he faced numerous rejections when applying for postdoc positions in data science in the US. Consequently, he made the decision to pursue another master's degree in the US and used this experience to connect with potential advisors (PIs). Ultimately, this strategy proved successful as he secured a postdoc position with one of the faculty members from his master's program at one of the top universities in the US, as reflected by global ranking. He has now been in his new research area for five years.
I'm not sure if it would be perceived negatively when applying for an assistant professor position if the candidate previously held such a position and then left it to pursue a postdoc. However, I want to emphasize that it is indeed possible to secure a postdoc even after leaving an assistant professor position. What's important is to strategize and work towards your goals.


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Do retired researchers keep a personal web site?
A retired researcher may still like to keep some unfinished work, maybe as a good hobby. Therefore, I am wondering if it's better to keep a personal web site to keep those previous works such as publications, projects, etc. listed. Isn't it important? Or simply just retired and won't do any old trick?

It is not clear what you mean by old trick. Also it is not clear whether you are talking about a retired researcher who still carries on work as a hobby, or a more general case

As a general observation - many current professors have a university web site that has been set up at some time in the past. Few are kept particularly up to date. I suspect that the few that do update them have some plan for what happens later.

@toby544 What I mean the old trick is the hobby of keeping on researching the unfinished work.

My university web pages have some still useful material and they get hits. So, the university has decided to keep them up, even though I maintain the content. This is ten years or so after retirement.
But, I also have personal site(s) for various projects. Most of them don't get much traffic, though. The best sites are those that have a stream of useful material, not just old stuff. So, if you keep active in retirement then it is useful both to yourself and others to share that. But to be useful, a website needs to be somehow visible to those who might want it. That might be difficult to arrange. A web search on my true-name turns up the university site (and obits of folks that share that name).
If the university won't keep a person's pages then a personal site might be a useful place just to keep in contact with those you interacted with over the years. But that assumes, I'd guess, that you have new things to offer. I read some blogs of others, for example.

Yes, it would have some new to update for one's site. However, the site should be visible and my university wouldn't keep the link to my web site (I use google site). So I am thinking of how to share new to other researchers.

If you're retired and want to have a site with all your work, go ahead. If you don't want to ever deal with work again, then don't.
It's a 100% personal choice.

I'm not sure I understand the question, but if you're concerned about keeping your work accessible after retirement, there are good options for doing so without having to actively maintain your own website.  Here are a few that come to me off the top of my head.

Zenodo
This is your one-stop-shop for archiving pretty much anything academics do or produce, including

Datasets
Publications
Posters
Presentations
Images
Video/Audio
Software
Lessons

I want to emphasize the datasets, because you really can upload very large datasets on there.  They've now partnered with Dryad, which is similar.  There's also Figshare, which is also similar, but I don't get the feeling that it's as sustainable as Zenodo.
It's also very good for archiving software.  I've linked it to my github account, so that every release of every package I maintain gets a permanent DOI, and is stored on Zenodo.

arXiv, bioRxiv
You can also post manuscripts or class notes here.  If it's a published paper, you'll need to check that your publisher will allow a copy to be posted.  In certain fields, these are actively used, and so would be more readily searchable than Zenodo.

Github, Gitlab, etc.
These are great ways to host code, and increase visibility.  It's not clear how long these will be around and hosting your code for free.  But for now, these are the de facto sources of open-source code.

Nowadays, people mostly just google for a person's name and some relevant keyword, which would readily take them to any of these sites.  If you want a personal site that's just a static page that links to all these things on other sites, that's reasonable, and such a low-cost easy-to-maintain option for your department that they'll generally just leave your site up by default.  But honestly, I've almost never gone to someone's site for anything like these things.

Thank you very much. These are very useful.


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Does Elsevier inform authors (or corresponding author) once they received the payment for Article Publishing Charge (APC) for open access?
I have submitted a manuscript to a fully open access journal in Elsevier and they accepted it after several revision rounds. However, after acceptance I received an invoice and I submitted it to my funding agency and they processed it for payments. However, Elsevier sent me several reminders regarding the payment and when they send the final reminder my funding agency already completed the payment. Therefore, I told Elsevier that payment is already done and they asked me to send some details to locate the payment wire transfer (beneficiary account no, posting date, amount paid...etc). I sent such details along with a letter from my funding agency. However, I did not receive a response thereafter by Elsevier, I mean they did not confirm the receival of our payment or anything but kept silent. Should I be worried or were any of you in similar situations ?

In general, when people want money, they are much more persistent and communicative. I assume if they payment wouldn't have gone through, they would have kept on asking for the money.

Send an e-mail asking for a confirmation that they received the money. Close it with "if I don't receive any news from you on this matter, I will consider the payment issue settled." Ask for a return receipt in your e-mail program.


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Adding a co-author in the arXiv version of a conference paper
How can I give credit to a co-worker who contributed significantly to our paper after submission, given that the conference won't allow us to add them as a co-author? The entire team, including the new co-worker, disagrees with the withdrawal option. Our paper has been accepted, and we plan to include their name in the arXiv version. How should I list this on my CV, and how might potential employers/professors view this situation? Will they ignore my CV, assume something unethical has happened, or simply ask and hear my explanation?

What field? The importance of conferences varies

And why would the presence or non-presence of a co-author affect what you put on your CV?

Are the contributions from the co-worker incorporated into the accepted paper or not?

Computer Vision. ECCV 2024. @AzorAhai-him-

Maybe the professor/employer thinks we unethically remove their name and later we decided to change our decision. @AzorAhai-him-

Consider not including the new stuff in the conference paper, and instead publishing an extended journal version of the paper that does include the new stuff (if that's customary in your sub-field of computer science)

They are. They made actual difference. We presented them in the rebuttal and in the came-ready version. @DavidKetcheson

Yea the extended journal version seems reasonable although his contributions did a lot in the rebuttal so we cannot ignore them for the camera-ready version of the conference. So, how do you think about the arXiv version plan and the think professors think when I apply? @lighthousekeeper

@Igy Nobody is going to look at your CV and see a conference presentation without a coauthor, see the same project later and think "they unethically removed their name and then changed their mind," that's really paranoid. People will just assume they contributed later, as they did.

You should add that information to the question: your co-worker's contributions are included in the published paper, even though your co-worker's name is not.

I think you're overthinking this, there are many common circumstances that lead to authorship changes in collaborative work, additions in particular.
The conference rules seem a bit silly, but they are what they are. I'd credit them for their contribution in the presentation and add them to future iterations of the work, as you plan to do, and not worry about it further. You're doing all you can to acknowledge the person who deserves acknowledgement and it doesn't sound like anyone in the situation has a problem with it.
I doubt it will ever be questioned, but if it is you do not need more explanation than the very sensible truth.

Yea but some people on my team are really anxious about a professor who sees this and instantly thinks the worst and neglects their CV for their lab. Do you have any similar experience or have some idea on professors when they look at a CV?

@Igy I have a hard time believing anyone would ever look for this sort of thing in a CV. It's not a useful way to measure ethics in publishing, it's not a useful measure of anything at all. You are overthinking this.

I believe the conference rules are the way they are for two reasons: (1) to prevent people from unethically adding themselves to author lists after acceptance (gift authorship), (2) significant new contributions are not supposed to be added to the paper after the main submission deadline in venues like ECCV since there is no second round of review, so this might also discourage that from happening.

@GoodDeeds There are also practical reasons like "already printed the abstract titles on paper", but I think a more sensible rule would allow for exceptions especially because apparently in this review process significant new contributions were requested by the reviewers (or at least were necessary to respond to them).

Under normal  circumstances, the arXiv verion  of your paper would mention (in the paper itself or in the arXiv's comment field or both) that this paper was presented at conference X. I suggest expanding that to include the information that you've given us here: That the initial submission to the conference was by authors A and B, that the final version included significant contributions by author C, but that the rules of X prevented you from adding C as a coauthor there.

Those new significant contributions suggest that this is now a new and better paper.
If your inablitity to add an author is just your reading of the conference rules, I suggest you ask the organizers for an exception.
In any case. when you present at the conference you should talk about the new version, with due credit to the new author.
You can update the arXiv posting with the new paper and the extra author. In your cv you can list both the conference presentation and the arXiv preprint, noting that it includes later better work.
If appropriate, submit the new version for publication.

We emailed them many many times. They just said you greed upon our rules. It is what it is and you can withdraw if you want. But my concern is what a professor thinks when I apply for their lab.

With both the conference and later arXiv versions on your publication list properly annotated, you're truthful about the history of the work. This should not be a problem

Isn't it just drawing too much attention? I don't know if drawing too much attention a good or bad thing.

Congratulations on doing good work and then making it better. Just let this go.

It's not a new paper -- according to OP's comments above, the contributions in question are included in the conference paper.  So the arxiv and conference papers are the same, content-wise.


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Can your friends/family go to your Dissertation Proposal? (not one's final defense, but the proposal)
I am presenting my dissertation proposal (first three chapters) to my committee in a week, and my friends/family asked if they could come. I know they can come for the final defense, but what about the dissertation proposal?
Thanks!

That would be a question for your adviser and/or graduate director. Surely it depends on your school.

You can ask locally, but this would have been very unusual in my graduate program.
The final defense in my program was a public presentation, but other committee meetings certainly were not. The dissertation proposal would have been part of one of those ordinary committee meetings.
Students separately also typically presented their proposal with preliminary findings in a seminar to the rest of the graduate program - that seminar was also not typically open to the public and I don't recall anyone's family attending a talk ever, but it might be possible without being too weird.
But, overall, I'd thank them for being supportive and tell them you're excited to have them attend your final defense when it's time! If they want an excuse to visit, you might come up with another alternative for something purely social.

Definitely ask locally! Where I went to grad school the thesis proposal was an open event that lots of other students and sometimes faculty went to. It wasn't uncommon for people outside the department to attend. But where I am now it's typically just the student+committee.


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Transferring to math Ph.D. program?
I am currently a second-year Ph.D. student in CS at a U.S. university. Previously I have completed 30+ credits from the math department as an undergrad and during my Ph.D. years I have 3 math classes taken in the graduate level. I am currently thinking about mastering out and applying for a pure math program instead due to mismatch in interest. My current supervisor offers to write a reference letter and I will probably ask one of my undergraduate professor and one of my graduate professor (both are from the courses that I took) to write LoR for me. I wonder:

I heard that despite all the 'we do not care about the background' cliche on the application websites, the committee still has a strong preference for students with a math degree. How can I overcome this shortcoming? What is the evidence that I am a 'well-prepared applicant' (quoted from some application website) despite my background as a CS student?
If I do not haste into application this year, what should I do to enhance my chance of getting into a math program next year? Perhaps co-working with some mathematicians in our institution while staying in my CS program? (I am not sure whether that is even possible)

I don't think you will have a lot of problems transferring within the US. If you have the equivalent of upper division math courses, as it seems, then you should be fine.
But you will probably need to extend the time to the degree. You won't be a "second year" doctoral student most likely. You will probably need additional coursework and will probably need to pass difficult comprehensive exams that the coursework is designed for.
Both the comps and the associated coursework are there to guarantee that a math PhD holder is widely versed in math, though it is no longer possible for an individual to know "all" of math. That boundary passed early in the previous century.
But people with a lot less background than yourself, regularly begin doctoral study in the US.
As for the future, figure out what comps are like in some programs you want to transfer into and do some coursework in those areas. Typical coverage is Analysis, Abstract Algebra, and Topology, though it can vary.

Thanks for the reply! I am aware of the extra work that I need to do for the transfer and I am perfectly fine with it.

"Do not care about background" may be (sort of) true, but you should have certain math courses: real analysis; abstract algebra; differential equations.  In some cases you may (as Buffy said) be admitted, and then allowed to make up the missing courses.


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Salary chart interpretation: "M.A" vs "60 Units includes MA" vs "M.A. plus 35 Grad Units"
For the record, I'm a college dropout myself... ;-)
During the late 90's, my wife completed both a B.A and M.A.  in Psychology in the Cal State system.   She also completed during the Master program two years of interning to concurrently obtain her required Certificate as an Educational Psychology.   She then essentially worked for the same employer for about 18 years.   However, she is ready to move on.
While assembling a comparison chart of salaries across districts, I was stumbling on one of them.  It features three separate charts, with the following labels which I am putting here verbatim:
I: "M.A."
II: "B.A. + 75 Graduate Units Includes M.A  -OR- M.A. + 35 Graduate Units"
III: "60 Semester Graduate Units Includes M.A."
These have different significantly pay scales, with I: the lowest and III: the highest.
(There is an seperate addenum noting an additional stipend for a earned doctorate).
I guess I'm not clear on why so many charts?  What is meant by "60 Semester Graduate Units Includes M.A".    Why would this merit a higher salary?  Surely this doesn't mean 60 units AFTER completing an M.A.?  And why "B.A + 75 Includes M.A:?"   Clearly, I am not understanding the terminology.  (Again, dropout here).
This is just an academic exercise (groan, bad pun), since this is not a district she is likely to apply to, but we are trying to put together a comparison chart to see where each stands based on her years of service.

Are “graduate units” different from “semester graduate units” for some reason?

Are these public school districts?
 Interpreting Salary Tables
School districts often have different pay schedules, which is what you are seeing.  Although I'm not from California, I've seen quite a few of these in my own state.
"60 semester graduate units Includes M.A." likely means that she can count her M.A. credits as part of the 60 hour requirement. If her M.A. required 36 hours, she could qualify with an additional 24 hours.
I is the lowest pay scale because it requires the least number of credits. Think of it as MA+0 credits.  II is MA+35 credits; III is MA+60 credits.  Pay increases with additional coursework.
 The Rationale Behind These Tables
Primary and secondary teachers (and other staff, like counselors or behavioral specialists) often start their careers with a Bachelor's degree, which is required in most states for a teaching license.
Additional education is desirable for teachers. It allows them to stay up to date on teaching techniques, expand their subject-matter expertise, earn additional endorsements or licenses, or earn higher degrees (which might include any of the previous reasons).  For example, a physics teacher who wants to expand into teaching biology might be required (by state law) to have a biology endorsement, which might take 12 credits to earn.
Since salary advancement is tied to having higher degrees and more college credit, it is not uncommon to see a teacher with an MA plus an additional 30-40 credits - if they are a career teacher.  These credits would have been accumulated over time, perhaps 1-2 courses a year, rather than the traditional college schedule of 4-5 courses at once. These credits may or may not be part of a degree program.  A Ph.D is less common, but does happen occasionally.

Is completing an additional 60 credits  completing a Master degree common?   As noted, they have a separate "add on" for a doctorate.

@dave_the_dev: Many students who drop out from PhD programs do so after completing the coursework, they therefore have more credit than needed for a Master's, but no PhD.

That might be, but teachers commonly take college coursework after completing their program. Their salary advancement is tied to having these credits.  Many states/districts have policies allowing other kinds of training, too.

MA +60 means that, most likely, the person qualifying for this category has two Master's Degrees, as 60 units is usually required for a Master's Degree. It's a way to differentiate between people who have multiple Master's Degrees and those who have a Master's and a Doctorate, which pays more, as getting a Master's and Doctorate demonstrates more dedication to practice than Two Master's Degrees.

Most MS degrees in my field are 30 or 36 semester units.

At least one Masters, plus 60 units (which is enough for two masters), but they don't really care if you actually have two masters, just that you have enough credits for them?


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Tips to organize LaTeX presentations for a semester
I am giving my first course this fall and, as a LaTeX enthusiast, plan to prepare my slides in LaTeX for all the usual reasons.
For those of you who also do this, I wonder what resources you use to manage your slides for a semester. For ex., do you have one "master presentation" with different "chapters" for different classes or some other strategy?
What's your best practice?

Relevant questions from TeX.SE include 1. Output different beamer presentations from same tex file, 2. Reusing slides from Beamer presentations, and 3. Dynamically hide LaTeX beamer frame based on tags.

Off-topic, and not the fault of LaTeX, but every beamer presentation I have ever seen has been a long list of bullet points. I feel death by PowerPoint is even more likely for LaTeX presentations.

@henning That's because it's more difficult to write "free-form" content with Latex (e.g., playing around with columns and content position), so people feel more forced to write using those few constructs they know in Latex. (By the way, learning to use blocks is a first way to reduce that effect and add a new structure to lay out content).

Not an answer, but in general you can manage TeX well with git. Start from there and prepare a master template.

If you are teaching for the first time and your material involves a lot of math I strongly suggest considering a blackboard (or whiteboard / similar) to deliver your material. It is incredibly hard to present pre-fabricated math on slides at a pace that is even remotely comparable to the time it takes the students to absorb the variables, concepts, and definitions. The time it takes to write down an equation is a useful speed limit! Go and ask your colleagues and their current students what they think works best for your kind of material. I'd be surprised if their consensus is beamer slides.

Having said that, the slides of course would be a great way to hand out the material to the students after (or before) the lecture. Although you could in that case probably forego the beamer/slide format and simple write up the lecture notes as a book.

As a fellow LaTeX enthusiast I strongly urge against using it to prepare illustration heavy documents unless you (a) know exactly what you're doing as a graphic designer, (b) sketch out every slide beforehand on paper. Slide presentation software fundamentally differs from text authoring software for a reason, and LaTeX fails to capture this distinction. Typical LaTeX slide decks clearly shows this deficiency.

Latex is amazing but isn't PowerPoint more practical at times?

@FedericoPoloni An alternative tool that allows for a more 'free-form' approach is Ipe. Primarily a tool for drawing precise figures, it can also create presentations (in the form of pdf slides, similar to beamer). LaTeX enthusiasts might prefer this over Powerpoint because 1. all textboxes can render LaTeX directly 2. While the editor is visible, it creates an human-readable xml file in the end. This means you can change everything exactly. Especially if you have a lot of figures in your presentation, Ipe can be very useful. The layer system also makes it easier to 'animate' those figures.

You might consider using MathJax/LaTeX-enabled Markdown slides. Markdown is much less of a hassle than Beamer and there are much better-looking templates available. It's also adapted to posting them online as HTML slides, which is preferable to PDFs for several reasons.

I use a different file for each topic. Each file covers 1-2 hours of teaching, more or less.
All files are in the same per-course folder, and their names start with numbers which define the order of the topics, for instance 1-introduction.tex, 2-polynomials.tex, 2.5-rationalfunctions.tex, 3-analytic.tex... If I have to insert an extra topic at the last minute (or in the next year), I can do it by adding decimals like in the example with 2.5. :)
Dates are a bad idea because if you want to re-use the same material the next year you have to change all file names. :) Lecture numbers can also be quite fragile, so I prefer to use topics like this.
I just copy the same preamble over to each file, because I don't change the preamble too frequently. If I had to make more frequent changes to the preamble, probably I'd consider a custom Latex class, but for now it works for me like this so I keep it simple.
I suspect that this works well for me only because I have a good set of tools though: for instance, a file manager that uses natural sort order and an editor that can compile Latex without clobbering the directory with lots of .aux and .log files.
Another tip is: sometimes you notice weak points and mistakes only after giving a lecture. If there is a chance that you will be giving the same course next year, keep a file called notes where you note down all the things you'd like to change.

"Lecture numbers can also be quite fragile, so I prefer to use topics like this": well, also order numbers are fragile, otherwise you wouldn't have to add decimals for extra topics (reminds me of the time when in Basic you would number the program lines 10, 20, 30 etc. to leave space for extra lines....). Why then not just dropping numbers altogether and record the lecture order in another file?

@MassimoOrtolano Because I like to have my course sorted when I look at it in my file manager, so I don't have to look at an extra file. :) But I get your point, and I understand that this is just a hack, too.

Copying the preamble? Urgh. No doubt lots of people do that, but I have to say I'm surprised that somebody with 25.8k TeX.SE rep does it... to me, not needing to copy anything ever is one of the main reasons for using sourcecode-based languages like LaTeX for document creation. It's not like you need to make an actual style file; simple \include of .tex sources would also do the trick.

@leftaroundabout I don't have 25.8k reputation on Tex.SE; I have 5.1k, and most of them come from questions. :)

Use \include and/or \input to insert repetitive latex code used in the slides. If you use chapters then you will still want to have a separate file for each chapter.
Use git to do version control and backup your slides. This works well for changes through the years. If you put the slides into a public repository (github, bitbucket), your students/other teachers can help you fix typos.
Subfolder graphics and other included files.
Use a good latex editor that supports code folding and easy navigation of your documents. For example, eclipse (texlipse plugin) is organized into projects (with multiple files) and has a navigation/outline panel with the different sections/chapters/etc.. Even some commercial editors (overleaf) lack this feature! A good document/project navigation panel makes it almost irrelevant whether you use chapters or separate .tex files.
\usepackage{beamer} is useful but not the only way to organize your slides. You may also simply write lecture notes and scroll through them while giving elaborations on the board.
Make good use of packages like \usepackage{beameraudience} or \usepackage{versions} to distinguish between slides you use in class and the full lecture notes.

My courses are usually a mixture of blackboard lectures and slide presentations, and along the years I taught more than 10 different courses, with slight changes in each course from year to year.
Given the above, my slides are divided in subfolders by course/topic/year because I need to track of the differences from one year to another.
Some courses have a few topics in common, but there are always differences that justify the creation of different slide decks targeted to each course.
Overall, if you don't have disk space limitations, this structure is quite flexible, but indeed, many folders will contain replicated material.

So, I have small groups of slides (1,2, or 4 as necessary) about particular topics - then I can tailor a presentation level and content quite rapidly.

How’s does this look? Can you give a screenshot of what you mean?

Well, if I want to talk about solar panels, is it about orientation, or output calculation etc so I choose the slides I want and to the level I want. Examples of slides you can find anywhere...

Ahh so you organize by topic not eg date of presentation. How do you organize your slides though? Is it into eg folders by topic or?

Folders with the names of topics... Solar is a good one because then there is solar pv, solar orientation, solar thermal.. Solar orientation works for both pv and thermal...


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Is a letter of recommendation from a member of defense committee helpful and acceptable?
I am an assistant professor in a developing country. Previously, in 2019, I graduated from a university in my home city. In my Ph.D., I was able to publish 3 JCR papers with impact factors 6 or greater. One of my papers was published in a prestigious journal with If 11.5. My supervisor does not have any papers in such prestigious journals. I got my grade of 20 out of 20 from the defense committee which is very rare in this university.
My supervisor didn't even look at any of my work during all of my Ph.D. years ( eight years of hard work). He submitted a plagiarized paper to the same journal in which I submitted my hard work during the time my paper was under second time review. And the journal rejected them because of plagiarization at the start of the process. Anyway, our relationship became very bad afterward.
Now, I want to apply for the postdoctoral program in the US, Canada, or Europe, somewhere that I can improve my knowledge and expertise.
I don't want to ask him for a letter of reference. I asked a professor from my Ph.D. defense committee and he is willing to write a letter of recommendation.
My question is: Is a letter of reference from a professor who was a member of the Ph.D. defense committee useful? Someone who read and asked questions during my Ph.D. defense.

It's impossible to give advice in your particular situation without knowing much more about it than you can provide here.
The general principle for letters of recommendation is to have them from people who know your work well.

Knowing much more about what?

To give advice we'd need to know how well this reader knows your work,who  your other references are, how competitive a program you are applying to, why the plagiarism seemed to affect your paper. You should probably consult other faculty at your school for advice.

My question is: Is a letter of reference from a professor who was a member of the Ph.D. defense committee useful? Someone who read and asked questions during my Ph.D. defense.

Generally speaking, yes, people who are on your PhD defense committee will have been chosen because they have some expertise in your area and will have read your thesis. They might not be the best person to evaluate your research, e.g., a co-author, or someone who invited you for a research visit, or someone recommended by your advisor might be better. But, lacking that, a PhD committee member is probably better than a random professor you took a course from once. As others said in the comments, the key is that they understand your work, can write coherently about it, can give an opinion as to its quality, and can write about your potential as a researcher. If you had a falling out with your advisor, then it would be essential that your relationship with this person is solid, and that they have your best interests in mind.


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What are some good practices for a supervisor?
I just started co-supervising a master student and I was wondering how people approach supervision.
I tend to follow what worked for me but not everyone is the same, so I'm not sure if what I'm currently doing is the best scenario. I've always had freedom to make my own decisions, so I do the same. For instance, the student has to choose between method A and method B and both are options. I don't tell him/her to choose one of them, but instead tell them to research and decide which method they think it's the most appropriate. However, I know some supervisors prefer to tell the student use method A.
So, my question is mainly how do you approach supervision? Do you give space to the student to make his/her decisions? Do you meet with them on a regular basis or let them find you whenever they need? Do you have a chat with the student to understand what does he/she want? If it's the first research experience of the student, he/she may not know what works for them.
Any tips or advice are most welcomed. Given the number of poor/complicated supervisor-student interactions I've seen and heard of I'm just trying to improve my supervision skills.

As in any teaching situation, your job is to educate, not just watch over the student. This means, that you have some responsibility that the student continue to make progress toward their goals. You need to assure that they don't get stuck, or, rather, that they don't stay stuck for long.
This will take some time and interaction - regular meetings, reading their work, giving feedback, etc.
But, you don't have to give a direct answer to any particular question. What you need to do is to assure that the student has a way to find the answer, even if it doesn't come directly from you. Answer questions with other questions, for example, so that the student can have her/his own insights.
In the example, you give, it is better, IMO, to ask the student to tell you the tradeoffs of each method, A and B. You don't need to tell them to "go away and research it". Tell them to lay out the pros and cons of each method. If they miss something in their explanation, you can help them along, of course.
But if they have no idea of the tradeoffs, then you should probably send them off on a quest of learning.
The short form is "give them the minimum they need to keep moving generally forward". This lets them develop confidence over time, make the work their own, and, still, not get (or stay) stuck.
If done well, this will also put the student on the path to intellectual independence, which they will need as they continue.

Thank you! It's the mindset I'm trying to adopt though I wasn't sure about regular meetings. This is also a learning process for me so it's good to hear some feedback.


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How to handle conflicting instructions when applying for a grant?
I'm applying for a grant renewal. There are subtle and not-so-subtle differences between the solicitation document and the submission instructions document with regards to which materials (e.g. the proposal narrative, personal statement(s), CV(s), research schedule, budget, transcript(s) for student(s), etc.) are required for new proposals vs. renewal proposals.
Obviously, the best path would be to contact the funding agency to ask for clarification.
How might one proceed if contacting the funding agency to ask for clarification isn't an option?
Should I assume the solicitation as written overrules anything else? Would it be best to just include all materials mentioned in either document, or does it hurt to include "unsolicited" materials?

When relating to granting agencies, I would say that, as a rule, it is not recommendable to submit more documentation than the one they are expecting.
I would first make sure that the guidelines you are reading are up-to-date; you'd be surprised on how many times they are not. Once you've done that, consider whatever is written as the truth. If it is renewal you are after, restrict yourself to whatever instructions for renewal they have.
Of course, it will depend on the agency, but in my experience if something is missing either the automatic upload service (if that's the case) or someone from the agency will contact you to make sure everything is ok.

The dates were updated, but some of the content was not.


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How to proceed with a supervisor who won't read paper manuscripts? But won't allow submission until they have read them?
I have patiently waited for over six months for my supervisor to review two 30 page manuscripts. They have yet to do so. Furthermore they will not allow me to submit them to journals unless they have had a chance to read them.
I am at the end of my PhD and am looking to submit soon. They have yet to read my thesis - though they have also had several parts since early this year. I have sent many emails and spoke to them in person explaining the stress this is causing. I have heard every excuse under the sun. What can I do about this?
I think I need to approach the department, however I'm not if that will make the situation worse. I believe its to late to find a new supervisor and if the department does talk to the current supervisor, the supervisor could just delay me even further. I'm trying to find some one else to review the work currently and hopefully that will suffice. However the supervisor still needs to OK it before I can send it off - so in that respect I'm stuck. I've pushed the supervisor as fair as I as and have explained to the the stress this is causing to no avail. Any suggestions?

You seem to be very emotional with the issue (and I understand that) but have you done anything? Like explaining to your supervisor the problems he's causing you?

There are a lot of questions in your question (most of which we cannot answer). While the titular question can be answered, there is not much we can say about it except: “No, this is too much.” Please specify what exactly you want to know. (Also, I suggest that you browse the [tag:authorship] tag.)

However the supervisor still needs to OK it before I can send it off — Unless your advisor is a coauthor, they cannot ethically prevent you from submitting your work for publication.

Before escalating things with the department, first try managing your supervisor by taking control of the process. If you stay in academia, this sure not to be the last time you deal with somebody that is very busy/slow to respond. The best way to get responses out of such people is by (politely) setting them deadlines. For example send your supervisor an e-mail (with your draft attached/linked):

I am planning to submit this manuscript to journal X next Monday. If you have any comments could you send me any comments you may have by Friday?
Thanks, user2350366

Your supervisor's slow response rate is clearly holding you back.  It's time to talk to your department administration about the problem.
When you do so, please state the problem in neutral terms.  Examples of things to leave out: This individual tends to over-promise and then not deliver with external funding bodies....  It has been myself and another who have always come through, at the expense of our personal (unpaid and recognised) time, for the good of the group's image.  That may all be true, but administration will probably respond in a more useful way if you can keep the emotions out of your exposition.  (This is not to say that I don't understand your frustration.)
Meanwhile, please find at least one knowledgeable and trustworthy person to show your manuscripts to, so you can get some useful feedback on them.


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How to correct my advisor's English?
I've noticed that my advisor (non-native) sometimes makes minor spelling/grammatical errors in academic papers. I believe this is due, in part, to the fact that until very recently, nobody in the lab was a native speaker.
Is there a way that I can bring this to my advisor's attention professionally? I would like to also let him know that I'd be happy to proofread any of his papers prior to submission, if he would like. Obviously, I make mistakes as well, so I'm sure I will make similar errors at some point in publications, but I would always want someone to point it out to me.
Edit: I should note that I have no intention of trying to correct his spoken or informal English.

Trust me you do not want to read and proofread your advisor's papers unless you are a co-author, let him deal with the issue, he/she should have enough experience to know better.

Note that minor spelling and grammar errors are not really an issue if the article is otherwise well written. Especially if it's unambiguous and uses the appropriate vocabulary.

If I know a student or co-author has better English than me, then I'm more than happy to oblige.  I am also happy if someone corrects any careless mistakes.  The main issue: do I respect the other person's command of the English language?  Note, native speakers can write very poorly, especially academic writing.  Here, if you think you are 'better', you might not, and hence, annoys your supervisor.  Choose your actions carefully. :)

I am not a native speaker either and it is not unusual for non-native speakers to have some more minor issues as you suggested. I think that telling your advisor that you are interested to read more about the topic that they are working on, asking for the paper and providing some feedback about grammar and what need to be clarified should be welcomed by them.
However, if the person is sensitive and easily offended, I would try to stay away unless I am specifically asked to do that task!

Some non-native speakers of English are eager to improve their English and grateful for corrections. Others have, unfortunately, a very different attitude.  Ahmad correctly suggests caution if your adviser is easily offended, but it may be difficult to determine whether he's easily offended. So I'd suggest beginning with just one of your adviser's errors, perhaps a spelling error where it's easy to check in a dictionary that it really is an error.  See how he reacts to that before correcting more errors.

Is there a way that I can bring this to my advisor's attention professionally?

Yes.
More specifically, tell him that you think you've found some minor English grammar issues and ask him politely and carefully whether he would be interested in feedback.  If you don't get a clear "yes", forget it.


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Confirming the Identity of a (Friendly) Reviewer After the Reviews
Somewhat a follow-up to this post.
I recently had a paper reviewed, and in receiving one of the reviews, I feel strongly that I know the identity of one of the reviewers (someone with whom I'm on generally friendly terms, but not enough to be a COI). Unfortunately, the paper didn't quite make it in, so we're looking to make the requisite changes and resubmit elsewhere.
Out of sheer curiosity, I'd like to reach out to this individual to ask if they were a reviewer for this paper. However, I believe this may be inappropriate, and have thus avoided doing so. Is it ever appropriate to ask such a question, and if so, when? I suspect doing so before the paper is accepted elsewhere is likely a faux pas for many reasons, including selfish ones (e.g., getting this reviewer again after making the suggested changes would likely be quite beneficial).
While not strictly relevant to the question, it's worth noting that this reviewer gave an extremely helpful and thorough review, though they ultimately gave a weak reject. In my reaching out to this reviewer, it would be solely to ask whether or not they reviewed the paper, and not discuss the review whatsoever (regardless of how they responded).

How about sending them a copy of the paper and asking their opinion without disclosing your suspicions? Wouldn’t that have the same effect?

Although I agree that it doesn't change the answer much, I think your last comment about the review being a rejection is in fact relevant. In addition to the issues raised in the answers, your approach could come off as an attempt to social engineer a more favorable review from them if they should get it again.

If a reviewer won't show you his face, never ask for it. It will usually look bad.

"Reaching out to this reviewer, it would be solely to ask whether or not they reviewed the paper". If this is the sole purpose of reaching out, I fail to see the point. Just trying to see if you correctly guessed the reviewer's identity?  "...and not discuss the review whatsoever (regardless of how they responded)" even if they turn out not to be the reviewer, they have enough expertise in this area that you think them capable of writing an "extremely helpful and thorough review", you would not want to discuss the paper any further with them??

Thanks all for the advice! I'll definitely avoid reaching out. @Spark, I think I may take your suggestion, as this reviewer has some previous experience in related fields.

No, this is why the review process is anonymous...
Any "reaching out", while you say it is only to find out if they did or did not review your paper (and others will think "well that's because they want an inside track"...) will put the reviewer in a difficult position whether you intend that or not.
The reviewer's reputation with the journals they work with is important to them, so while you might be curious, don't go there.

Thanks! I'll avoid reaching out.

There is one reason I can think of as legitimate for getting the identity of a reviewer, and it is closely related to your situation: you have a manuscript rejected and found the reviewer's comments so helpful that you'd like to ask them to collaborate and become co-author of the enhanced version of the manuscript.
In contrast,

In my reaching out to this reviewer, it would be solely to ask whether or not they reviewed the paper, and not discuss the review whatsoever (regardless of how they responded).

to me would not be a legitimate reason.

All that being said, I still don't think it legitimate if an author directly approaches the suspected reviewer: what you could do is to explain your reason for wanting to contact the reviewer to the editor who handled your manuscript. If they think it a legitimiate reason, they can contact the reviewer whether they in turn agree to be de-anonymized. If everyone agrees, you'll get to know your reviewer - if not, this procedure ensures their anonymity.

It's certainly not unknown for deanonymization to be pushed in the other direction as well (that is to say the reviewer contacts the editor and says "I have a method to fix this flawed paper, can I reveal my identity and collaborate?"), but ethical communication will still be via the editor.

Is it ever appropriate to ask such a question, and if so, when?

I can't think of many instances (probably only if there's some gross misconduct). Reviewers are anonymous for a good reason.

Out of sheer curiosity, I'd like to reach out to this individual to ask if they were a reviewer for this paper.

Paraphrasing, curiosity killed the paper :)
How about just sending them a copy of the manuscript and asking for their opinion?
"I have written a manuscript that I think you might find interesting, I would love to hear your thoughts."
This alludes in no way to you having any suspicions (you may get your answer if they inadvertently let it slip), and offers you a chance to get more feedback. If they aren't actually the reviewer then you can get more feedback and outreach for your work - a happy unintended consequence!

If I was the reviewer, I'd feel obliged to lie to the author and respond with something like "Thanks for the manuscript – it looks like great work, and I deeply appreciate that you ask me for my opinion on it. But right now, I'm so busy with work that I can't really find the time to give it the attention that it surely deserves. I'm very sorry about that." I would never reveal to the author that I reviewed that manuscript before. If the potential reviewer feels similarly, your approach will never provide a positive identification.

I agree, but I suppose the point is to get more good feedback...

I'm not sure that getting feedback is really what the OP wants. To quote from the question: "In my reaching out to this reviewer, it would be solely to ask whether or not they reviewed the paper, and not discuss the review whatsoever"