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Is there a Plain English dictionary/glossary for education terminology
I am looking for a plain English dictionary (or glossary) for terms in education.
My friend has stated a Math Education degree and is having trouble reading the material (e.g. the lecture slides), It is full of education jargon (e.g. constructivism, ) but these are defined in terms of more jargon so it is very difficult for her to make sense of the definitions. Furthermore, English is a second language for her.  Even for me for whom English is my primary language, I have difficulty reading the slides and other material and making sense of them.
Does anyone know of a plain English dictionary or glossary of education terms that I could recommend to her. This would help her to learn the jargon.
thanks,  Glenn

@scaaahu: I would not assume that "constructivism" in the sense of math education is the same as the constructivism you've linked to.  In fact I doubt they're the same.  (Rather: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(philosophy_of_education)) This really bolsters the OP's point: math education has its own jargon (or, less pejoratively, technical vocabulary).

@PeteL.Clark Thanks for pointing it out. I deleted my comment in order not to mislead the OP.

Look for education terminology dictionaries, preferably for the state or other locale where she is. Here's one for Washington state. It even has constructivism!

Since it deals with Math Education, you are welcome to ask it over at http://matheducators.stackexchange.com/! =)

In relation to Educational Terms, Kathlyn Griffith and Helen Kowalski have published a Dictionary of education terms.
While not the most ideal source Wikipedia have a Glossary of education related terms that may be of some help as well.
You can also view a copy of the Oxford Mathematics Dictionary at the link. While it's the concise edition (coming in at just under 900 pages!), it covers a lot of terms that you friend would encounter and has biographical information on famous Mathematicians as well.
It appears that many of its explanations give short examples as well. The English is clear and as plain as can be expected from such a publication.
This Glossary link also has Maths terms searchable in alphabetical order.


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Graduate Student Co-authorship Etiquette (Dissemination of Student Papers Not For Publication)
I recently finished my masters degree and co-authored a lengthy paper (It was my idea and I took the lead on the research and writing). The paper is not for publication but provides valuable information and research for the the department faculty and dean.The paper is a program development proposal that our academic department would like to implement. Our group discussed sending the paper to the Dean in conversation with her, and one of the co-authors brought it up with her again at the end of the semester and offered to send it to her individually without consulting our group.
I'm okay with her sending it, however, I felt that she acted independently and did not consider the time-lines of the other co-authors for doing final edits, or offer to CC us when she sent it.
My name comes last on the paper (alphabetically) even though I wrote and researched more than the other two authors combined. I have the sense that my co-author is taking more credit than she is due on this project since her name comes first and because she acted independently.
I requested that I be provided an opportunity to review the paper and to be CC'd on any future sharing of our work with others.I think my co-author was offended.
I am interested in asking my two co-authors if it is okay to have my name as the first author on this paper (then she can send it).
Please advise if I am being petty or if this is a reasonable concern on my part. I would like for the Dean and faculty to remember my contributions. The co-author who offered to send it has already made her mark on the program in other ways and I am not sure I have stood out as much.

I should add that I am in the field of Occupational Therapy.

Our group discussed sending the paper to the Dean in conversation with her, What was her response then?

Dear scaaahu, I'm not sure who you mean (the Dean?). The Dean wanted the paper. I have decided how to handle the situation. I am not going to worry about having my name first. The pros do not make up for the potential cons of seeming petty or offending my co-authors. I think I will be asking for a recommendation from the Dean, and if she wants to know what I contributed to the paper I will tell her then.

Yes, I mean the dean. You did not explain why you and other coauthors did not act soon - send the paper to the dean. Had you sent the dean the paper right after the dean wanted, none of this would have happened. Why waited until the end of the semester?

@karina, seems like a reasonable plan to me.  One suggestion: if the Dean agrees to write you a letter of recommendation, I suggest that you be proactive about telling the Dean about all of your accomplishments and contributions, including what you contributed to the paper.  Don't wait for the Dean to ask; give her all the information up front.  (I usually suggest you give recommenders a "brag sheet" or a short summary of some of your accomplishments you are proudest of.  This helps them write a stronger letter for you.  It is one time when you should not be humble.)

I understand why you are a little peeved that she offered to send it to the Dean without checking with you first, but I think you need to swallow your frustration on that point.
Instead, you need to figure out what your goals are.  Right now you are reacting: you are letting your emotions control your reactions.  Instead, you should figure out what end goal you want to achieve.
Do you want to make sure that the paper is in good enough shape, before it is sent to the Dean?  Then negotiate a timeline with your co-authors.  This might mean you both have to give a little: you might have to work extra hard to get your revisions in; and they might have to be willing to delay sending the paper a little bit until you've all had a chance to revise to your satisfaction.  That's a perfectly reasonable request.
Do you want to be listed as first author?  If so, why?  You said the paper is not going to be published.  So why do you care?  If you think your contribution means it is appropriate for you to be first author, and you care about it, then raise the point with your co-author.  But approach it with humility and gentleness.  Remember that we're human; we have a tendency to overestimate our own contribution and underestimate others, so you need to correct for that.  Also, definitely do not ask to be first author as a way of getting revenge; that is petty and beneath you.  Take the high road.
And, take this as a lesson.  Generally, it is best to discuss authorship early in the project, not wait until the very end.  In my collaborations, there is often an understanding from the start about who is the lead on the project; the expectation is that the lead has the overall responsibility and will most likely put in the most work, and in return will likely end up as first author.  These discussions about authorship are often easier to happen earlier than later.
Anyway, bottom line: Figure out what you want to achieve (what you want the end state to look like).  Then, figure out how to ask for that.  Set aside your emotions and your negative reactions to your co-author's initiative in moving things forward without checking with you first, and focus on what end state you want to achieve.  I suspect you might find that you share pretty much the same goals as your co-author, and there's no need to get upset or strain your relations with her.

I think this might be one of those cases where it wasn't clear up front who the lead would be. However, if the coauthors aren't in the same group, it would be good for the coauthors to copy each other regarding future dissemination of the proposal.

@aeismail, that's perfectly reasonable -- but reading between the lines, it is possible that her co-author was offended not by the perfectly reasonable request to be Cc:ed, but by other elements of the communication (e.g., tone, allowing frustration to show through, etc.).

That's also possible. How you say something is just as important as what you say.

@D.W. that is entirely possible. I was unemotional but in retrospect I could have softened the request had I made the effort to do so. Thanks for your feedback!

Thank you for your responses. The paper has been turned in but I have not heard anything back.

D.W.'s answer is great advice. I just want to add something for the (your) future.
What counts in the end if you intend to continue in academia are hard publications. Since this seems to be a soft "publication", I think you should ask yourself; can the material be re-written and actually published? If the answer is yes, then you have to ask yourself, should you take on the job as first author (you have already done a lot). Most often the one who takes the initiative will be spearheading the work.

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What is a "running title"?
I'm about to submit a paper and the format requires a running title in addition to the actual title. What is it for, and is it supposed to be longer or shorter than the actual title? Should I abbreviate the title, or take the opportunity to convey another message that could not be included in the main title?

Running title: "the title or abbreviated title of a volume printed at the top of left-hand text pages or sometimes of all text pages"
It allows readers to determine which paper they're looking at just by glancing at the top of the page.
If your actual title is already very short, use your actual title. If your actual title is not very short, use an abbreviated version of it as the running title. (The maximum length is often set by the publisher; for example, APA style sets the maximum length of the running head to 50 characters, APS style allows 55 characters, etc.)

I agree with this answer except for "left-hand" in the first paragraph. I'm accustomed to seeing running titles on right-hand pages and the authors' names on the left-hand pages.

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Who gets corresponding authorship in the biological sciences and what does it mean?
Let's imagine several levels.
(1) Graduate student.
(2) Post-doctoral student.
(3) Assistant professor.
[Cultural context]
(I don't know if this has any impact on the question, providing the information just in case)
In Japan, assistant professor(s) don't usually have their own independent lab. They work in the same lab "under" an associate or full professor. Their level of independency highly depends on the professor above them. Some of them may have a small team within the big team. Lab management and teaching grad students how to do experiments usually rely heavily on the assistant professor(s). In big labs, there may be several assistant professors.

In which cases can (1) and (2) expect to take corresponding authorship?
Should (2) or (3) be granted corresponding authorship if they made the research with grant money they managed to get in their name?
What is/are the benefit(s) of having corresponding authorship? Is it a requirement to be considered for some higher level grants?
Should the corresponding author always be the last author? Or is it OK for any other author to be corresponding author?

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10062/does-corresponding-author-carry-an-implied-meaning

I wonder if it would be useful to have a master question on corresponding authorship, with one answer per field, like our one on first authorship.

The corresponding author serves as the point of access for readers to inquire about a paper. This does not imply it should be any particular author, though particularly common choices seem to be first or last author.
The corresponding author should be the author that is least likely to change institutions. Changing institutions generally implies losing your contact details where you left (including email). The corresponding author should be the one that is most likely to remain a consistent point of communication.
This is often the last author because that is the common spot for the supervising PI (typically tenured). This is not always true, for example some domains like maths and theoretical computer science organise authors alphabetically.


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What is normally not acceptable to budget in a grant
I seem to have much more freedom in industry sponsored grants, so this is specific to government grants.  I have never been allowed to budget in a 'Computer', but I can budget in 'a CPU'.  I mostly work with computation, but I assume the computer issue effects many fields.  I also cannot budget in tables and chairs, but through overhead from the institute I can buy those.
Are there other issues for budgeting funding for items that are not allowed that may be more specific to fields?
For example, are there usually restrictions on a microscope, for people in that field.

This is typically clearly defined in the grant's rules and restrictions.

So you can buy a microprocessor with the grant, but have to buy the rest of the computer with other funding? Or can you buy a complete computer, but you must list it in the budget as a "CPU"? Either way, that makes no sense.

@Moriarty It makes sense in the domain. When user1938107 says (s)he can buy "a CPU", that usually means server hardware specific to the research project and/or time on a shared cluster (e.g., a public cloud). Buying a complete (desktop) computer, which is going to be used for all kinds of things, is usually a no-no for grants, because this is precisely the type of spending that overheads are for.

@Moriarty, the way its explained to me, is you can not buy anything that is a complete 'computer' kit, such as a laptop.  I can buy components that are needed, such as a CPU, RAM, SSD.  While the rule might not make sense, it just is.

Are you sure that it wasn't GPU workstations that were allowed?

@aeismail It is bundled kits.  However, from the comments and answer, I am learning about the different country rules, so it seems it is impossible to make a list as I thought.  Maybe a more appropriate question would be, which funding agencies have restrictions on budgets that seemingly contradict productivity in the project?

First of, Marc has it right - these things need to be defined in the grant rules / grant agreement. There is no universal truth in these matters. For instance,  European Union funded projects almost always contain travel budgets, which can be used for project meetings or research-related trips (e.g., conferences). The  Austrian Science Fundation (FWF), on the other hand, explicitly disallow travel budgets for conference trips and claims that these expenses need to be covered by overheads. Contrary, the Swiss National Science Fundation (SNF) works very similar to FWF, but allows for travel budgets.
That being said, typically only costs that are specific to running a project and which would not have been accrued without the project are covered. Besides personnell costs, that typically includes buying special hardware that is essential to the project, but which is not usually used in the rest of the PI's research. What is usually not covered are indirect costs that stem from hiring any researcher. This includes mundane things, such as the office space for the researcher, desks, telephony costs, coffee (if you work in a place that buys such things for employees), and IT equipment.
As for the "why are CPUs covered, but not entire computers?" case - I presume that your grant does not allow you to buy just any CPU from your grant, but it should allow hardware specific to your project (e.g., buying or renting a powerful server or cluster for number crunching in relation to a computationally intense project). It will likely not allow you to buy just a regular desktop CPU, just as it would not allow you to buy the entire desktop computer.


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Graduate in three years and then apply for Ph.D. programs?
This is a question that I've been pondering for a long time and badly needs advice and different perspectives. Background: I'm an international student attending a modestly reputable college in the US. I'm a rising junior majoring in math and minoring in chemistry and psychology, with a GPA of 4.0/4.0 and pending publications in computational chemistry and psychology. I'm interested in Ph.D. programs in computational neuroscience (since this is a inter-disciplinary field, mostly I will apply to math or neuroscience programs).
So here is the problem: I really want to graduate early in three years, but should I? There are four reasons supporting this decision. First, due to some poor financial choices of my parents, it is risky if I stay in college for the total four years (getting a degree in three years is surely better than no degree at all!) Secondly, there is no professor here who works in the field of computational neuroscience, and the lack of relevant research opportunity is disappointing to say the least. Third, I find myself under-challenged by the curriculum. I'm taking the maximum course load with a lot of "hard" classes, but I find myself getting nothing out of the classes besides more facts and techniques. Finally, from the limited internship opportunities and readings I've done in computational neuroscience, I know that I will enjoy immersing myself in this field.
On the other hand, I can see how graduating in three years can put me in a huge disadvantage for Ph.D. application, and this is why I'm hesitant to make the final decision. One more year means more higher-level classes to take, more time to do better research, more time to prepare for GRE general and subject tests, and more time to grow as a person in general. I feel like even though I'm one of the best student in my college, but I'm certainly far from being one of the best in the country (which means diminished probability of being accepted by one of the better programs). I just want some more time to further challenge myself before I leave the college for good.
I would really appreciate some different opinion on this matter, and I thank you for reading through this long question.

You should explore post-bac and master's programs at high quality institutions.  Many of these are funded, and doing well in one of these would put you in a good position to apply to a top PhD program.

Similar: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20655/better-chances-for-math-grad-school-graduate-in-three-years-or-four

If it really is a risk that you might not graduate at all if you stay on another year, then maybe you could consider graduating early and hedging your bets. There are other ways to catch up and make yourself both more prepared and more desirable to PhD programs of your choice. For example, you could try and apply for a research position if you see any openings in labs, and either take courses simultaneously or or as someone else suggested, apply to a non PhD program first.
Either way, if there is an academic you know you would want to work with, it doesn't hurt to write them an email and ask them if they would be willing to take someone with only three years of college and if not, what would kind of skills and strengths they might be looking for. I did this when I switched fields right after college, and I was told that though I did not have quite enough qualifications, if I managed to do x, y, z I would be considered. That's what I ended up doing while working part time and two years later I got into the program (of course if you need a visa to work that's a different story).
However, if you can manage it financially, I would probably advise staying in college the extra year, and prepping for the GRE, taking courses relevant to your field, and getting those very important recommendation letters by making an impression on your professors. Also, most colleges have the option of doing a senior thesis, and if you want to go into a research career, while not a deal breaker, writing one can be very beneficial, no matter what area you write it in. Showing that you have the ability to do independent work is always a good thing when applying for doctoral programs. And it gives you a chance to work one-on-one with your advisors and can be as challenging and fulfilling as you make it!
Everyone is different, so you will have to decide on your own, but I'm always in favor of a little bit more rather than less time between college and grad school to be both psychologically and academically prepared. But that's just me. Good luck to you!

Thanks! I didn't realize that communicating with the professors directly was one way to figure out the viability of a three-year plan. I'll definitely try it.


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Postdoctoral applications - informal enquires
I have seen many Postdoctoral advertisements where they mention that an informal inquiry can be made to a PI. What are the kind of questions that can be asked?
Should we attach our CV and mention our research interests while writing to them?
I have also seen advertisements where they tell  to send applications to HR. While writing a covering letter should we address to them or to the PI of the project?

Introduce yourself (briefly), ask for more details of the project, perhaps ask for recommendations for background reading. Other things you might enquire about include the level of support for conferences, opportunities to teach/help supervise students, and the likelihood of follow-on funding (if the advertised position is relatively short). Note that you don't have to ask everything in your first email, and save yourself some questions in case you get called for interview. Attaching a brief CV can't hurt - but don't make me open an attachment to find out where you've studied and who you're currently working with.
Also, remember: writing this email seems important from your perspective. However, the PI probably gets dozens of emails daily, and will barely notice the precise words you use. Don't get too hung up on the content of your message!
I would always direct my letter towards the PI, even if it is to be sent to an HR contact for initial processing.


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Masters Admissions and Academic Dishonesty
The summer before my last year of undergrad I committed academic dishonesty in one of my summer classes. I received a sanction of a course grade of 0 and a notation on my transcript until I graduate, which would be June of 2015. I decided to take a year off in light of my transgressions (I wasn't suspended but felt that if I could do something that heinous I needed to take a step back and reevaluate  everything).
I'm a psych&stats major and I wanted to eventually work in research or some related field as I work as a RA at school and it's something I'm interested in. My overall goal was to find work after graduation and at some point when I have some career direction apply to a Master's program. However, in light of the academic dishonesty I'm not sure how it will affect my application, or if it's something that's redeemable?
Thanks for reading.

hey, I did read this thread, but I didn't find it particularly helpful for my situation. But, thanks !

I'd consider it redeemable. This documented incident might well close some doors, but likely not all of them.

However, in light of the academic dishonesty I'm not sure how it will affect my application, or if it's something that's redeemable?

From a graduate admissions point of view, relatively speaking, having a note on your transcript concerning your academic dishonesty violation is not as bad as being kicked out of undergraduate studies altogether (as noted in this answer here to the following question: Is it possible to do a Master's degree without obtaining a Bachelor's degree?).
So, your school is giving you another chance. It's up to you now to make the most of your remaining time in your undergraduate studies. In my view, here are some things you can do to improve your chances of admission at the graduate level:

Do really well in your remaining coursework.
Take up a research project (or two or three). You should do this anyway if you are serious about graduate studies.
Build a professional network, such as professors for your courses or your research project advisor. In addition to helping you become a better student/researcher, these folks will come in handy when it comes time to submit letters of recommendation along with your graduate studies application materials.

You already took some time off from your studies to reflect on your actions, but it bears repeating: Don't dwell on this indiscretion. All you can do is move forward and utilize every bit of time you have left in your undergraduate studies to increase the odds in your favor of admission to a graduate program.

Edit: OP mentioned that they are an RA, but my 2nd bullet point above is added for future users in a similar situation.

I agree with the comment that you shouldn't dwell on the past. However, when it comes to be time to apply for graduate study, you should be ready to answer questions about what happened, and why it won't happen again. They might not get asked, but if they are you want to be able to offer well-considered answers.


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What are good reasons for declining to referee a manuscript that hasn't been posted on arXiv?
This question is inspired by the comments under this answer, specifically the points raised by user TimRias. The discussion was about a paper submitted to Physical Review D (PRD), a journal covering the physics related to particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology. This is a field where posting a preprint to arXiv is extremely common. The relevant comments read in relevant part:

(Note that if the paper is not on arxiv, this can be one reason for potential reviewers declining the review.)

There is actually a number of good reasons for doing so. One of them being the apparent lack of faith that authors have in their paper

in the subject areas that PRD serves, arXiv is the defacto primary way that research is disseminated to peers. So, the question to ask is what reasons can authors have to delay disseminating their results? None of the answers to that question bode well for the quality of the manuscript.  There are various practical reasons as well

Question: What are these good reasons for declining invitations to review papers that have not been posted on arXiv?
Note 1: Clearly, this question only makes sense in the context of fields where posting to arXiv is prevalent enough to be the default. Answers from fields where this does not hold true are very unlikely to be useful.
Note 2: The journal in question has an online referee portal through which one can read the full manuscript before accepting or declining.

My own perspective is from condensed matter physics, which also makes heavy use of arXiv, though I don't think it's quite as prevalent as in particle physics because the field also overlaps with chemistry, materials science etc. I've had (predominantly experimentalist) coauthors request holding off on posting a preprint, not because of a lack of confidence in the results (indeed, these papers were often submitted to the glossy journals), but out of a concern for scooping. It also seems somewhat weird to me to conclude that the absence of a posted preprint necessarily implies lack of confidence - perhaps it was submitted to arXiv but just misclassified and got stuck in moderation... Overall, it seems like referees acting as described above could potentially give the arXiv moderators a lot of power that they didn't ask for.

Do you mean to say that experimental physicists are more concerned about being scooped than theoretical physicists? That is peculiar, I would have expected the opposite: it's much easier to scoop a bunch of equations and computations than to repeat an experiment that took months and complicated infrastructure to perform.

How would getting an exact timestamp for when the paper was completed make it easier to scoop?

@FedericoPoloni That is indeed my impression - publishing in experimental physics is higher stakes to some extent. More important to get into fancy journals (where the publication process often is slooow) to get jobs etc. That said, the concern seems almost inversely proportional to the time it takes to conduct the experiments. After claims of new superconductors you often see groups rushing to grow samples and get some preliminary results within weeks. Of course, that scenario likely doesn't translate well into the types of experiments that might get published in PRD.

@TobiasKildetoft In practice in my field, the citations are highly affected by which paper was published in a journal first. This means that there have been instances of someone hearing about a significant result, rushing to reproduce it, and then getting it rapidly published in say Physical Review B while the original paper is struggling with reviews in say Nature Physics. If we had a policy that everything gets posted to arXiv first, perhaps that timestamp would be viewed as more significant.

I have served as an editor/managing editor of three math journals and in this capacity was involved in refereeing process of countless papers. Many, but not all, mathematicians post their preprints on the arXiv. Not a single time a potential referee declined refereeing a paper because it was not posted on the arXiv. I think, there is a good chance you are asking about something that simply does not exist.

If arXiv posting is the default method in a subfield, then it's also the way people claim priority. There's no reason to worry about getting "scooped" after posting on arXiv.

@TobiasKildetoft, knzhou: At least in math, I agree that posting result X to the arXiv gives you priority for result X.  But maybe you only proved that to use for result Y, which you're still working on, so maybe you want to wait, e.g., to post both papers at the same time.  I don't know how common this is, but at least in principle I can see it happening sometimes.

@MoisheKohan This might be very field-specific; Arxiv is much more widespread in (some areas of) physics than in mathematics, from what I hear.

A couple of answers to Why do some journals want to send the manuscript to arXiv before submission? partially address my question: 1 and 2.

In my view this would be downright unethical.
If you don't have time to review, just say so. If the title and abstract aren't interesting to you, decline on that basis. Nobody's making you review it, so don't bother with some nonsensical justification.
The task of the reviewer is to assess the written paper as submitted, not to speculate on the confidence of the authors. Maybe they lack confidence because the results are so unexpected? This all comes across as a way to put down novel results and keep outsiders out. Refusing to review on this basis seems a rather dishonest way of reviewing - i.e. of signalling your opinion of the unworthiness of the paper to the journal - while disclaiming responsibility.
Worse, the putative reviewer doesn't actually know this about the authors: they are just speculating on the basis that they've not found an OA preprint.
There's an insulting undertone there: not everyone has an easy route to getting an arXiv endorsement, is willing to deal with the hassle of non-standard licenses, or has the energy to deal with the extra bureaucracy around IP and dissemination issues in their particular organisation. There are many valid reasons for not having a preprint in the arXiv, and dissing papers on this basis is IMO both wrong and dishonest.
There's also the rather weird situation around arXiv becoming the de facto gatekeeper to publishing for an entire field: who elected them? (arXiv may be widely used in a field as a repository, but here it's suddenly instead being used as a filter.)
(Elsewhere, there would also be concerns about double-blind reviews)
Disclaimer: PRD may not be my usual field, but I'm a named (i.e. non-corresponding) author on at least one (OA) PRD paper, as well as a number of others for which preprints have been posted in arXiv. I don't have an arXiv account.

To take a slightly different angle at this: Even if the authors did not publish a preprint on account of some unfounded fear of being scooped, having an embarrassing first version, a complex submission process, or whatever, “educating” them by not reviewing their paper is unlikely to even reach them (will the editor tell the authors that potential reviewers refused because they did not a preprint?) and even less likely to work.

Another scenario I considered mentioning in the question is: what about authors banned by arXiv? If they're banned for posting unscientific garbage, perhaps it's not much of a loss if their papers aren't reviewed. But there have also been at least one temporary ban for unprofessional language. The linked story was in the context of pointing out scientific fraud, so it would be particularly problematic if arXiv could suppress such criticism from the literature.

Lou, could you please re-read your third paragraph and fix the first sentence?

@Anyon An aspect that I'd like to expand on at some point (but need to find good words) is that (summary!) there is an underlying assumption that everyone is in academia - a lot of this stuff suddenly isn't that easy for industrial/commercial or even govt. labs. Maybe people will argue that PRD doesn't publish such research, but maybe that's precisely because it dissuades it...

My former supervisor often uploaded his papers to the arXiv post-publication because he was often spammed by various people asking their works to be cited in the published version. This is not always unreasonable, but for the most part this was "give publicity to my mostly  irrelevant (to the paper at hand, at least) results pls", and he simply didn't want to deal with this. Just another example if why someone would not want to pre-publish to the arXiv.

"If you don't have time to review, just say so. If the title and abstract aren't interesting to you, decline on that basis. Nobody's making you review it, so don't bother with some nonsensical justification." Nobody has time to review. Everybody has to make time to review.  Consequently, everybody needs some way to decide which papers to make time for and which not. I actually consider it quite ethical to do this one basis of indicators that correlate strongly with authors wasting reviewers time.

"Maybe they lack confidence because the results are so unexpected?" Why would that ever be a reason not to post the preprint? I would consider the use of peer reviewer to filter a possible bad result,  an example of unethical use of peer reviewer time.

@TimRias: I would consider the use of peer reviewer to filter a possible bad result, an example of unethical use of peer reviewer time. – But that’s one of the main purposes of peer review. Of course, authors should investigate unexpected results to an appropriate extent, but at some point they have to move to peer review (while acknowledging that they are unexpected).

@Wrzlprmft Yes, and they should only move to that point, we’re the manuscript has reached the stage where they would not be embarrassed by it, if someone points out a short coming in the result during peer review.

I feel like this asks the wrong question.
Referees can decline to review for any reason. They do not need a "good" reason to refuse to review. Therefore, if a referee does not want to review a paper that's not on the arXiv, that's their prerogative. Granted you could argue that "because it's not on the arXiv" is a bad reason to decline to review a paper, but it's still their prerogative. Nobody can make them review a paper (see e.g. this question).
Given that, we could answer peripheral questions:

Is it common? No. I vaguely remember seeing it once, with the reviewer saying that they want to see the paper before agreeing to review it, and they couldn't find it on the arXiv.
Is it a good reason? That's dependent on one's personal values. See this comment for another reason to decline that different people will call good/not good.
Is it acceptable? Yes, because it's their prerogative. If the decline reason goes against your personal values, then it can be aggravating, and it might color one's impression of the reviewer. But then a lot of things can do it too (such as whether they review a paper on autonomous armed drones, or travel to lots of conferences building up a giant carbon footprint, etc.).
What does the editor do next? If the underlying reason is because they want to see the manuscript before agreeing to review (as in first bullet point), then one might send them the paper (not always possible because of confidentiality requirements). Otherwise, there's always the option of finding another reviewer.

But there is not likely to be a broad-based consensus opinion on what these good reasons are.

I'm interested in what the referees acting in this way consider "good reasons". Given the apparent field-specificity I don't expect there to be a broad consensus supporting those reasons.

Unfortunately people will consider their own reasons to be "good reasons", just as I obviously consider my objections to be "good" objections. Others will disagree! The issue is whether some wider community (e.g. the field, or academia, or all scientists) sees them as good reasons. Possibly a danger with field-specificity is that it can normalise poor behaviour as people go with what's usual around them, rather than stepping back?

Good reason: If you believe every paper in your field should be posted to arXiv, then refusing to review papers that are not posted there puts some pressure on authors to post there.
Reasons for that reason may be varied but likely includes reducing the reliance on the more traditional academic publishing pipeline which is primarily run for-profit. arXiv ensures work is not entirely behind a paywall and facilitates rapid communication of results to the field.

What's the justification for you demanding ("put pressure") that authors waste our time putting preprints on arXiv? Especially when the Version of Record will itself be Open Access?

@LouKnee I'm just giving a reason, not saying that I do this. If someone agrees with my reason, they'd disagree with you that it's a waste of time. And even if the final version is open access, in the meantime the results are secret. Also, I'm not in a field that uses arxiv but the preprint servers I've experienced have been pretty painless to submit to besides the tedium of documenting coauthor affiliations.

sorry to be coming across as a bit bolshy, but something underlying this question makes me very uncomfortable... If refusing-to-review is a good way to "put pressure", this just shifts the question to why "putting pressure" is good. The results aren't even necessarily secret - they may already be out there as a bunch of conference posters for example. The preprint being demanded is by definition close to the form and content of the intended article.

@LouKnee "If refusing-to-review is a good way to "put pressure", this just shifts the question to why "putting pressure" is good" - exactly, that's why my answer has two paragraphs. The second paragraph answers the shifted question of why putting pressure might be seen as good.

Maybe, but I don't think the arXiv-specificness of our hypothetical reviewer candidate is a appropriate way to achieve those goals.
(got to stop there for tonight)

@LouKnee As OP noted, the entire premise here only makes sense for those fields which already use arXiv heavily.

I think it is fair to only "gift work to" (i.e. review) papers, which also give back to the community by being open access. So I like this argument with the caveat that arxiv is not the only means to achieve this goal, but a very common one.

I don't mind arXiv being the preferred repository within a field: "I just posted my preprint about X" "Ooh, I'll take a look" [knows where to look]. The trouble is that the premise of the question both changes its status from "preferred" to "mandatory", and changes its role from repository to gatekeeper - that's where my objections kick in.

"more traditional academic publishing pipeline which is primarily run for-profit." better to fix the problem rather than abandon proper peer review.  Journals can be run on a not-for-profit basis, the only reason it doesn't happen more is that academics don't make the effort to make it happen often enough (c.f. jmlr.org which demonstrates how well it can work).  Pressuring others seems to be making it someone else's problem rather than dealing with something you don't like yourself.

@DikranMarsupial I think there is a mistaken tendency to believe that any solutions that don't entirely fix a problem or are not the best fix are automatically not worth it. The comparison should be to the status quo, not the ideal. A reviewer could put even more weight on the scales by refusing entirely to review for a for profit journal, but one who acknowledges that this is still the norm might see preprints as far better than no preprints.

@DikranMarsupial I strongly disagree that this is making it "someone else's problem"; it's a reviewer exerting the influence that they, individually, have in the system.

@BryanKrause I am in favour of arXiv, but until arXiv is fully peer reviewed, it is not fixing the problem.  " it's a reviewer exerting the influence that they, individually" it is the reviewer pushing a political agenda.  In this case it is one that I happen to agree with (it wastes a lot of tax payers money), but if pushing this particular political agenda is O.K. how do we decide which political agendas are O.K. for the reviewer to push and which are not?

Refereeing a paper not on the arxiv can result in some awkwardness if one wants to use ideas from the paper or build on their work. One has to then wait until the paper is officially published before one can do so in order to ethically keep one's role anonymous. In contrast, if there is an arxiv version, one can immediately cite that and build on that without any worry that they will detect if one was a referee.

But would this be a good reason to decline reviewing a paper?

This somehow gives me a bit of an icky feeling... Like, I get how this is a benefit in general, but is it actually a good reason to decline reviewing? I'm also concerned with the conflict-of-interest possibilities of building on a paper you're reviewing during the review process. Might a reviewer, intentionally or not, be more critical of a result they're improving on the side, such that they might submit their own work somewhere while the original is still in review (either with that journal or another one)?

@WolfgangBangerth Yes, in so far as (at least in math) the process involved in thinking about a paper one is refereeing in a hard enough way to do a good review means one will be at some point thinking hard enough about the topic that one is likely to see other avenues later about it.

@BryanKrause I'm not sure one will be more critical. If anything, I'd expect it to make one less critical since one wants the editors to then accept that paper. I also wouldn't see it as likely for someone to build on a paper while they are reviewing (which I agree creates some definite issues), but that there are often months between when one referees a paper to when it gets published. That means that in that intervening time, the ideas from that paper may be repeatedly bouncing around one's head.

@JoshuaZ but then without the public preprint you will have fewer competitors and more time to follow up those other avenues, so I can't see why you think this is a good reason to decline to review - surely it's to your (personal) benefit?

@LouKnee Definitely to one's personal benefit. But it potentially creates a complicated, awkward situation. So a reasonable thing to do is just avoid the whole thing.

Are you able to move fast enough in your field to have a paper out before peer review is done?

@Azor, depends on the paper and how long the editors take. I know this has been an issue for other mathematicians. I myself am not that fast generally.

" I'd expect it to make one less critical since one wants the editors to then accept that paper." I would view that as equally unethical as it means the reviewers personal gain is affecting their judgement.  "That means that in that intervening time, the ideas from that paper may be repeatedly bouncing around one's head" in my experience allowing ideas to do that for quite a long time is generally a good thing.

@LouKnee Precisely for that reason is working on such avenues before the work is public highly unethical. No such objections exist if the work is already public at the time of review.

The other answers give good reasons -- it supports open science and it avoids confidentiality issues.
An additional reason is that a paper being on arxiv may actually be a mark of quality. At the very least this means the authors think the work is ready to be published and are happy to have their names attached to it publicly. In other words, a paper not being on arxiv could be a sign that the authors don't think it is ready.
A problem in my field (computer science) is that many papers are written in a great rush for the submission deadline, and it shows. Papers that are on arxiv are usually a bit more polished than such last minute submissions. Reviewers don't want to waste their time with submissions that will need lots of obvious revisions.

An different reason to prefer arxiv is that it offers the source code and HTML versions of the paper, which some people may prefer over the PDF. In particular, I'm told this can be important for accessibility -- e.g. people with impaired vision. However, I don't think that it's appropriate for reviewers to read a different version of the paper than what was submitted.

I guess some percentage of rushed submissions are inescapable when submission deadlines are commonplace, so I'm not sure adding a requirement to submitting to arXiv by the same deadline would help all that much.

The notion that it is a mark of quality is so very field specific that your answer should be edited to reflect that. In my areas, there are two main uses for arxiv - to create a pseudo publication to justify grant renewals while the actual publication is underway, or to provide a bit of protection against getting scooped while you attempt to publish in Nature or Science which can drag out the review processes well over a year. One could equally argue that groups who are confident that the quality of their work is high and will sail through peer review without arxiv is also a mark of quality.

"it supports open science" may be a laudable aim, but since I believe that declining to review non-arXiv'd papers is an ineffective and harmful way to achieve this, I would say this is a poor reason for refusing to review. Maybe some of the disagreement here is because not everyone is making that distinction? (Refusing to review for non-OA journals seems to me to be a route that more directly targets that aim.)

@R1NaNo Yes, many caveats, including Goodhart's law apply. I edited my answer to say it "may" be a mark of quality. I think that's generally true in my area, although it may not be in other areas. And I think it's fine for a reviewer to take that into consideration.

@LouKnee I disagree that "declining to review non-arXiv'd papers is an ineffective and harmful way to" support open science. I'm happy to justify my opinion. But that's not the main point of my answer, so please comment on the appropriate answer.

"There is actually a number of good reasons for doing so. One of them being the apparent lack of faith that authors have in their paper"
This is definitely not a good reason for any subject of interest to the general public (including via public understanding of science), and even more so for policy relevant topics, such as climate science.  In climate science there are plenty of papers that are obviously wrong, but nevertheless get the attention of the public, who don't have the ability to judge whether the argument is sound and the evidence satisfactory.  There is a long history of these papers derailing public debate on climate, and the first two IPCC WG1 reports allude to this in places, in one case naming the paper in question.  Publishing contentious papers on e.g. arXiv is a great way of derailing the public debate with ideas that the author is not confident they could get past proper peer review.
So if you are trying to publish a paper that potentially overturns the current paradigm in some particular topic, then please wait until it has at least passed the minimal hurdle of peer review before promulgating it.  In that case you ought to have a lack of faith in your paper, it is called "self-skepticism", and it should be profound for paradigm overturning claims, because the on the balance of probability, it is you that is wrong, not the mainstream.

This is primarily addressing this answer, but it is representative for many arguments made here and by others.
My arguments are in part similar to Lou Knee’s.
I think most, if not all, answers and arguments I have read for refusing to peer-review manuscripts without preprint fall short in at least one of the following aspects:

They are ultimately about avoiding to review bad papers.
I think the scientific quality of a manuscript (presumed or actual) should not affect the decision to review¹.
Bad papers need to be reviewed too.
If every reviewer employed this attitude, bad papers would end up with reviewers who are overly permissive, failed to spot fundamental problems (e.g. due to lack of expertise), are biased towards the manuscript, etc.
Moreover, such reviewers may suffer from a confirmation bias for those papers they chose to review.
As for manuscripts that are so bad that they should have been desk-rejected, this falls into the journal’s responsibilities.
If I find that I received such a paper for review, I usually leave a friendly comment to the journal that there may be a problem with their process.
If it happens too often, I consider stopping to review for the journal altogether.
Moreover, such papers are quick and easy reviews, so the waste of resources is limited.

They are about things that fall into the journal’s responsibilities and capabilities.
If there is anything suspicious in the manuscript’s history on public record, the journal can detect this at least as well and peer reviewers do not need to bother with this.
I expect that this isn’t worth the time, and the best that can be done is journals noticing authors with streaks of frivolous submissions².
Still, if you think differently, take it to the journals instead of policing it yourself.
One reason for this is that the journal may have more information than what is on public record, e.g., the authors may disclose something to the journal that also explains the absence of a preprint and that reviewers never get to know (and shouldn’t).
Journals ask reviewers to evaluate the quality of the manuscript, not to investigate its potential submission history or similar.
Even if you stumble upon something fishy when reviewing, you should let the journal know instead of drawing silent conclusions.

Preprint availability is used as a proxy for quality or something else.
This requires robust knowledge of the reasons why people don’t publish preprints, which I don’t think anybody has.
In particular, it’s impossible to know all the reasons and thus conclude that at least one of them must apply to somebody not publishing a preprint.
While I don’t claim to know much about author motivations either, I am strongly skeptical of the claim that people do not submit preprints for tactical reasons to hide their frivolous submissions².
In my experience and by Hanlon’s razor, most authors of bad manuscripts are just incompetent.
Moreover, proxy criteria are a dangerous path in general, leading to systemic problems and biases.
Think about other proxy criteria you can use in review such as whether the authors are famous, what country they are from, or the quality of English.

They are assuming the wrong beneficiaries of favours and ethical obligations.
Reviewing is a favour to the journal, not to the authors.
You can choose which journals are worthy of your favour and when, but choosing many other aspects would break the impartiality of peer review.
Likewise, when the journal asks you to review a bad submission that it could have filtered out with reasonable care, it is the journal (not the authors) who is wasting your time and not fulfilling its ethical obligations towards you.
If this happens to an extent that bothers you, stop reviewing for the journal altogether.
The authors who make frivolous submissions² are failing their ethical obligations towards the journal, amongst others because they are harming the journal’s reputation with its reviewers.
The journal is and always should be in the middle.
On a different level, peer review is part of an implicit social contract: You peer-review so you may benefit from peer-review yourself (as an author but also by using peer-reviewed publications).
From this perspective, you have the societal obligation to put a certain amount of energy into peer review.
By choosing presumably easier reviews, you are fulfilling less of this obligation – if all other things remain equal.
Of course, you might compensate by doing more reviews, but that does not seem to be the intention here and also does not solve the other issues.
(I acknowledge that the required and spent energy for peer review are hard to quantify, and unfairness happens for all sorts of reasons, but that doesn’t justify adding more to the pile.)

They fail to comply with the basic ethical standard that one should not act how one does not want others to act (Golden Rule, categorical imperative, etc.):
If everybody reviewed like this, we would have a problem.
I acknowledge that peer review is voluntary, but that doesn’t mean it is without standards.
The journal asks the peer reviewer for a favour, but this favour is not simply peer review, but peer review complying with the journal’s standards and general academic standards for peer review.
The same applies to the reviewer’s obligation within the aforementioned social contract.
Not reviewing papers without preprints currently is not a general standard for peer review (and it cannot be one in the current publishing ecosystem, whether we like that or not).
It is similarly problematic as only reviewing papers from famous authors, friends, certain institutions, etc.

¹ This is a bit different with the quality of writing and similar. Sending back a paper because it’s incomprehensible still furthers the review process.
² By which I mean submissions of manuscripts that the authors know are sub par and expect the reviewers to fix or hope that they fall through the cracks of peer review.

(Given that this question was spawned from comments I made elsewhere, I think I should provide an answer, although many of the reasons have already been touched upon.)
First context: Physical Review D (PRD), the journal in question when the comments were made, primarily publishes papers that are in the fields where the arXiv originated, high energy physics, gravitation, and astrophysics. Correspondingly, many of the sub-fields that publish in PRD belong to the fields that have the highest arXiv adoption rate. So much so, that publication on the arXiv is the primary mode of dissemination for researchers in these fields. Reading the daily arXiv digest in their subfield is part of their morning ritual. Priority on results is established based on the arXiv posts. Publication in a peer reviewed journal (like PRD) is mostly an afterthought, pursued mostly to satisfy the requirements of funding agencies and promotion committees.
In that context, it is reasonable to ask what reasons authors may have to not put a manuscript on the arXiv upon completion, despite this significantly delaying the dissemination the results (and therefore citations and other exposure). Some reasons (some given on this site, others inferred from submissions):

The manuscript is not actually fully finished, but still needs the polish. The authors hope to improve their paper further based on feedback from the reviewers before sharing it more widely. Reviewers are not copy-editors, and trying to use them as such in an unethical waste of their precious time.

The authors are unsure that their paper will pass peer review, and are afraid a lengthy presence on the arXiv may reflect badly on their paper when resubmitting it elsewhere. It is worth pointing out the bar for acceptance in PRD is not exceptionally high. Having a result that is correct and somewhat novel (and on topic), and is well written, is usually enough. I'd suggest that if authors are not confident in meeting this low bar that means that paper is not ready for peer review and needs additional polish.

(The more cynical version of 2.) The authors know their paper is crap, and are planning to shop it around different journals until it slips through the peer review cracks. By not posting it on arXiv, they hope to make their scheme less obvious.

The authors hope to boost their publication statistics by throwing a large volume of low quality manuscripts at peer review, and seeing what sticks. By only posting the accepted manuscripts to arXiv they are avoiding all their failed manuscripts showing up in their public records.

Elsewhere in this thread it was suggested: "not everyone has is easy access to arxiv endorsement" The only context for publication in PRD where this might be applicable is if someone does not have an academic advisor in the field. We are then squarely in Why does independent research from people without formal academic qualifications generally turn out to be a complete waste of time? territory.

The results of the paper are under a NDA. When this is the case this is usually obvious. (And forms an exception to the rest of this narrative.)

None of these reasons bode particularly well for the quality of the work, and many suggest the authors are wasting reviewer time. Given that as a reviewer, time is usually scarce, and there are many more review requests than one can accept, it is reasonable for reviewers to triage review requests on the basis of what is most worth their time by declining to review those manuscripts which the authors apparently do not think are worth the light of day. Doubly, so since the reasons above tend to point to lengthy review processes with several resubmissions before final acceptance/rejection.
Note that this is not saying that these manuscripts should be rejected, just that a particular reviewer is not wasting their time on them. This may, of course, delay the peer review process, but since the authors were already willing to delay dissemination they can't be too much in a hurry.
Besides these concerns about quality (and apparent effort of the authors) there are practical factors:

The first and foremost is that a preprint being available makes the manuscript citeable. It is inevitable (especially in theoretical fields) that thorough peer review of a work leads to inspiration on alternative lines of inquiry. Any works coming from this probably need to cite the work that inspired it. This becomes problematic if the original work ends up rejected, and is never published. Having a preprint available shields the reviewer from any such ethical awkwardness.

In the case that the journal does not make the full text of a manuscript available to a reviewer before making a decision whether to accept the review , this allows the reviewer to know what they are getting themselves into before accepting to review that 80 page manuscript. (This is not applicable to PRD, since they do always provide access before making a decision.)

Having a preprint on arXiv available, allows the reviewer to see the (public) version history of the manuscript. Most of the time this does not matter, but can be useful when the reviewer suspects the manuscript is being shopped around.

I will re-iterate that most of the sentiment above, only makes sense in the context of a field where posting on the arXiv is the de facto standard way of making results public. In the context of fields where arXiv adoption is less standard, only some of it makes sense, but there appear many more "not so bad" reasons for not posting to the arXiv.

Thank you for posting this. In regards to 5, it struck me a couple days ago that the fields represented in PRD might also be overrepresented among crackpots.

I would be ok with this iff PRD lists posting on the arvix as a requirement.  Otherwise, this is a barrier from outsiders publishing in this journals.  Not all outsiders are cranks.  Some are chemists.  Some are mathematicians.  This sort of hidden rule is another barrier to people doing work in other areas.

@TerryLoring That would be an issue only if all reviewers do this.

@TimRias: … and hence it is unethical by the arguably most commonly accepted standard of ethics.

@Wrzlprmft this passes the golden rule with flying colors.

@TimRias: As you noted yourself, if all reviewers behaved like you (presumably), this would be an issue. I assume you do not want this to happen. That violates the principle: “Do not behave like you do not want others to behave.” (At this point we might argue whether this is to be categorised as the Golden Rule, the categorical imperative, or something other fundamental ethical paradigm, but that’s not the point here.)

I posted an answer that to a large extent addresses points made in this answer.

The results of the paper are under a NDA. When this is the case this is usually obvious. – I am not in a research area, where NDAs are common, so I have never (knowingly) seen such a paper. However, I would assume that when the authors submit such a paper for review, the manuscript going through peer review and being published is fine by the NDA. As the peer-reviewers themselves are bound by a sort of NDA, there seems to be no reason to inform them about it. Moreover, I see no reason to put this into the manuscript itself. So, how could you tell as a reviewer?

I have seen #3 in action, and it is v unpleasant to witness the author's later success

Probably my answer has a lot in common with the answer of @LouKnee above. But I have a slightly different justification.
It took me a while even to understand the point. In my mind I simply cannot connect conditioning of a review to the fact that the manuscript is or is not submitted elsewhere. No publisher puts such a formal requirement on the author and on the reviewer to check it.
But you can review the manuscript and reject it because the authors fail to provide data supporting their findings. Arxiv can be a good (but not the only one possible) value to share such information. Zenodo would be an alternative.
Concerning the open science that some answers emphasise. Arxiv is not the only way to do open science. There are many options depending on the budget of authors. For instance, they can pay to publisher to make their work open access. Notice, this can be done even after publication.
I strongly oppose to the statement that putting a manuscript on arxiv is a mark of quality. The opinion of referee should be based on scientific facts and not on some indirect indicators. And yes, if the referee cannot decide and uses this fact as the only criterion---it is unethical.

Arguably, arXiv overlay journals do put such a requirement on their authors. But then the submission to the journal is essentially just linking to the preprint.

@Anyon This is new to me. I know that in, for example, APS journals such a possibility exists, but it is never mandated. ACS and IOP journals do not even provide this as a possibility. Can you please provide the source of your information?

I don't think any of the more established publishers do this. APS does indeed have some function for pulling files from arXiv, but that's different. What I meant is something like is described here  https://discreteanalysisjournal.com/for-authors I think it's more common in CS.

@Anyon Thank you, I really learnt something new today. I never heard of such journals before.

If a paper is on arXiv (or otherwise publicly available) a prospective reviewer can look at it and decide if they want to invest their time into it. An experienced reviewer can quickly get a sense of how easy (or not) they will find it to review the manuscript, and assess whether they feel they can add value proportionate to the time required.

I do like having a look at a paper before agreeing to review it, but per Note 2 in the question, I think it's unlikely to be a big factor in the case of APS journals. I find that clicking on the link in the invitation email, having the browser autofill password, and then clicking to open the PDF is at least as fast as trying to locate a public preprint by authors and title (that might not perfectly match the preprint version, if one exists).

If everyone did this, imagine how double-blind peer review would work ...

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


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Should I provide feedback to a PhD application I have received?
I usually reply to e-mails from students asking for PhD positions to let them know if I am interested or if they are competitive / up to standards for continuing with an application but this tends to be more on the admin / funding and suitability to my lab. Yesterday, I received one such PhD application and the project / research proposal was so outside the "state-of-the-art" (effectively the proposal was to research something that already exists as a commercial product) that I think I should also comment on that.
Should I let the student know and give him some feedback (which is going to be on the harsh side) about his proposal. Is it common or should I not bother at all? To be clear, I have no intention of considering the application.

Is it common and expected in your field that students come up with their own projects? In some fields it would be extremely rare, in others it would be the norm. I think the answer to your query might depend.

@Buffy students send proposals anyways, however premature or unexpected these proposals are, if only to signal they have read some papers by the PI.  Of course those who send random thoughts one just ignores.

@Buffy my (little) experience so far shows that it is a field and student "origin" combination - I mean that candidates from certain countries tend to send what they think are detailed proposals with applications while others don't.

There is nothing gained by being harsh. I know that this is a method in some places to discourage people, but politeness never goes amiss.

You will do the student a kindness if you send feedback.  Try not to be harsh.  Perhaps something like, "Did you know that company X already makes product Y that appears to incorporate what you have proposed as research?  That being the case, I'm sorry but your proposal is not suitable for my lab."

This.  Give him a one time, gentle, feedback.  Then wash hands.

Further to Vladhagen's answer, with which I sympathize, you may want to add, "I accept only students whose initial proposals suit my requirements.  I wish you the best as you apply elsewhere."  That ought to firmly slam the door, while still not being crushingly harsh.

Think it is tougher than needed.  Plus it's not really true.  People take students all the time that don't even have proposals.  If the kid were a superstar, you would work with him and change the topic.

Students are not necessarily good at coming up with good proposals, and yet they can be brilliant. If the proposal is indeed the criterium, this is indeed the answer. There is no necessity of you to indicate that you will accept corrected proposals. I have different criteria to evaluate applicants, and, in fact, having a too detailed proposals often tends to work against the student, as I get the impression that this is specifically what they want to do rather than a topic that fits my group's profile. Of course, I try to correct for that, if I think they are interesting candidates.

Agreed @CaptainEmacs and I did go through the CV before I had a look at the proposal. However, in this case, the proposal was so off that simply looking at what was written there, you could tell (again personal opinion) that this person was not PhD material (already had a Master's).

I think you will have to balance the fact that the student's proposal is entirely unfit as a research project and the fact that telling the student how to "fix" his/her proposal may come across as soliciting a re-application.
If you have no intention of considering the application, I would maybe actually shy away from telling the student how to fix their proposal. I have found that too often such suggestions are taken to mean "please fix this and re-apply." And it could sound strange to say "This is already a commercial product. I am not interested in your application regardless." If the student comes back with a new proposal, then you are faced with the dilemma of twice (thrice) rejecting the student for yet another reason.
If you believe that the student could actually become a strong candidate by fixing his/her proposal, then telling him/her how to actually fix their proposal may turn out okay. But this may be a rabbit hole you do not want to go down.

I will admit that it pains me to answer in this way. As someone who has gone through the graduate school and job application process, I wish that I could always know the reason for being rejected. But having also had to deal with students trying 3 or 4 times to get into a my department's grad program after being rejected multiple times, I have sadly found it necessary to be pretty vague as to why I am rejecting a student, but pretty direct about the fact that I am indeed rejecting them.

Well, your feedback is something to make them do better. You could probably say it less harshly though. And reject it nice and slow. But either way, it will hurt. But well, that's life, at least they learned something from you.


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when should I stop searching the literature?
I'm seaarching the literature at the moment to write a literature review but I don't know when should I stop searching and start writing?

you stop when you defend your thesis.. specially if there are other folks working on the same thing. Here is the trick: you either publish along the way (before thesis defense) or you will find your ideas in others papers.

You should write while you search, not after you search.

The facile answer is you don't stop searching the literature. Even as the review evolves, you should be including new references if they are noteworthy in addressing questions within the field. This process should continue as long as you are working in the field of the problem.
Of course, from a practical standpoint, you do need to select a cutoff. There should be a reasonable point in time in which you've set the outline of the review, and decided on the main topics and questions to be discussed. At that point, it would be fair to set aside adding more references, and stick to what's been published. However, you should continue to monitor the field, and if further revisions or updates of the text are necessary, then you should include the papers published in the interim as part of your updates.

Start writing the review before (or at the same time) as you start searching the literature.
I'd suggest to determine the scope of the review before you start searching the literature, and already write it down. This would answer questions like Which problem am I looking at? or Why is this problem relevant now? Answers to these questions will also guide your literature search.
Stop searching the literature when you stop writing.
Writing is not a linear process - it is going from a rough outline to a focussed text. As you go into focus, you will need to research more and more specific references. While you define your questions, search for literature dealing with these questions, and when you develop an argument, search for literature that would support (or contradict!) that argument.

My key suggestion would be to not view the literature search as shopping around randomly, but more like a visit to the grocery store with the shopping list in your hand.
Note that these suggestions apply to writing a literature review. Staying on top of recent literature or reading to get into a new field would be a different story.

You need to be very productive in terms of knowing your area. knowing what is happening is different from understanding it. This includes utilising every available tool which makes it easier to keep updated with what is published. An easy way , in Computer Science, is setting alerts (both on Arxiv and Google Scholar) and following pioneers in your area.
As a personal experience, I spent plenty of time gathering, reading and understanding related papers/books. I came across many interesting ideas. But finally, I found some of my ideas are published in others papers. Some were exactly the same! This is the curse of PhD. Try to publish before others as long as you have the required knowledge and a clear contribution.  The literature is then translated to the cumulative process of publishing different papers related to your thesis problem.  You stop when you do the defence (assuming you will change the area thereafter).


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How to read an article?
I have searched the literature and I'm now have all the papers I need.
I'm reading the papers at the moment in order to write a lit review. I would like to know some strategies to read them, should I read them from first page to last page? or should I read specific sections only?

I'm now have all the papers I need — No, you don't.

I really recommend that you start reading the Abstract, by that way you can get rid of some papers that would not be so valuable for your work. After that try to get a quick glimpse at the theoretical background, just to catch if there is some background that you are actually missing and you will need for understanding the article fully. Take your time to read the experimentation part and feel free to jump to the conclusions.
Remember that you do not need to read some articles from the first page to the last page, except in some ocassions. There will be some sections that you can clearly jump e.g. the theoretical part, if you have the enough background.

There are even papers about how to read papers, e.g. "How to Read a Research Compendium" https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.09525

The objective of reading/review academic papers is to critically analyze research studies.
Critical reading is basically a process where you ask yourself questions as you're reading, such as:

What was the objective of the research study?
Did the researchers accomplish this?
Why or why not?
Why is the study important?
What are the implications of the findings?
How does this paper contribute knowledge to society?
Do I want to borrow an idea from this paper?
Do I believe something can be improved?

Answering those questions will help you figure out what you've read and why it was relevant to you and the research study you'll end up designing. It can also help you as you target each section, it's not always clear cut the order in which you'll read the paper critically.
Now that you know what to look for, how you organize those notes is up to your individual preference. There are many options available: hand written notes, digital notes, laptop, ipad, etc. I personally like to use a matrix format with different fields, such as objective, method, findings, theoretical model, etc.


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Accepted vs. published (for grad math admissions)
For an applicant to a high ranking U.S. graduate program in mathematics, how much more beneficial would it be to have a (coauthored) article published rather than accepted for publication?
(If more details are relevant, without possibly breeching anonymity, there are a few student authors and one faculty author.  The article is on a recreational mathematics topic in an expository journal.)

If the only difference between "accepted for publication" and "published" is whether the paper appeared in the print version of the journal, then there is no difference. Journals often take a few month before having a paper printed, however, the papers are available at their website.

I would just say to make sure to be as honest as possible. If its just accepted, say it's accepted. If it's published, say it's published. You don't want to run into the case where something you assume something will be published, but then isn't.

If "accepted for publication" sounds weak to you for whatever reason (it shouldn't, but tastes vary) then you can use the (essential) synonym "in press", which does a better job at conveying the fact that after acceptance, all that remains is formalities.

@Mark And sometimes, it takes way longer than a few months. But I agree that it makes no difference to how the paper will be perceived (as long as people are able to see the paper and judge the quality themselves).

As an item on your CV, it does not matter at all.
In fact, whether you have a research paper at all (particularly a recreational one), will likely make very little difference for admission to a good PhD program.  (It may help more for less competitive schools.)
That said, having a research experience can make a difference, mainly in how it affects: (1) your letters of recommendation, (2) your academic background, and (3) your personal statement.
(See, e.g., Path to a good grad school in math during undergrad? and https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/44092/19607)

Wouldn't publishing a paper be one of the best ways, albeit a time-intensive one, to demonstrate research experience? Seems that actually having one's research written up for scrutiny (ideally, having already passed peer review) would be more trustworthy than self-reports of the experience. To be fair I know nothing about math as a discipline and ask to learn.

@Philip The point is that for pure math, and undergrad research experience (with a positive outcome or not) provides very little clue as to how successful you can be in grad school.  It may be quite helpful for the student, but is not super useful for admissions committees.

I don't think published versus accepted for publication matters a lot for a PhD position (or indeed any position). The date of publication is determined by the editors (I think) and not by you. If your article is accepted for publication then it is already in final form (as far as the content - which for most mathematicians is the important thing - is concerned). The difference between published and accepted for publication is, in a sense, a mere formality.


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Flexibility of the Newton Fellowship?
I'm graduating this summer (2014) and trying to find a job in the UK so I can go live with my husband. I am thinking of applying for the Newton Fellowship, however, they have a really strange schedule and timing. That is, I wouldn't find out about the award until late October, and the position wouldn't start until January 2015. That would leave me with an awkward six months without a job or funding, unless I managed to get a short-term job. I've decided to start applying for other positions (lectureships and funded post-docs) with an eye toward the more immediate future and because the Newton is very competitive.
My questions are:

what happens if I take a 1-2 year post-doc offer and then find out I am awarded the fellowship?
Am I allowed to use the funds wherever I am?
If I accept a job-offer do I have to notify the fellowship and withdraw my application?

Nobody expects anyone to apply for a very competitive fellowship as their one and only job prospect.  I can't offer any advice beyond this, as I know nothing about the Newton Fellowship specifically.

Just to follow up, I did apply to the grant but I ended up taking a faculty position for this coming fall, so I will update this post when I hear back about the Newton Fellowship in October.

Newton is extremely competitive. You better be extremely successful so far...

I ended up getting it after all! And my current University is letting me take the fellowship (at another university) and I can come back to my faculty position after. Very happy with the deal even though it means half the pay.


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Strategy as to when to apply to PhD programs
I'm a master's student in CS at a top-20 school (in the US), in my second year (although it feels like my first year since I had to play catch-up last year and mainly took undergraduate courses).
My current strategy for applying to PhD programs is to apply only to top-5 this year, and if I don't get in, apply to a fuller range of programs (top 50 or so) next year.
But because I don't have any publications in spite of having worked on 3 research projects, it doesn't sound like I have much of a chance of getting into top-5 programs this year anyway (and applying actually kind of sounds like a waste of time). So if and when I get rejected from them, I would take the next year to try to get a publication and also retake the GRE (my quantitative score is 164--in the 87th percentile when apparently the top programs expect a percentile in the high 90s).
However, although my GPA is 3.9 now, who knows what it'll be next year. Or if I'll manage to get a paper accepted. So does it make more sense for me to just try to get into whatever PhD program will take me now or to take a year to work on strengthening my application? As this post says, apparently the bar you have to clear to be considered an acceptable candidate rises every year anyway, suggesting that anything I do over the following year won't have much of an impact on my prospects.

What have you got to lose by applying to all the programs this year?

@astronat Say I apply to all programs this year and I only get into my least favorite choice. Odds are I'm just going to turn it down because I'll think "eh, I'll just try for better places next year." So I'll have wasted however many hundreds of dollars on application fees and the time it took to apply.

Your chances getting accepted by applying out of the blue to top institutions is close to zero given that your application doesn't sound particular in any way. Most applicants GPA is between 3.8-4.0 and your GRE scores are ok. Start contacting some specific professors you would like to work with, even if not top-5, even top-10 or 20 will be better if you have a good research connection with a professor. Don't be obsessed with these rankings. If you have free time and money to throw away, sure, go ahead and apply now, but don't expect anything out of it more than the learning experience. You will also not get any feedback from the rejections, so you will never know why you were rejected.

In terms of how to reach out to professors, multiple posts on here have stated that you shouldn't bother emailing them. So am I left only with meeting them at conferences? I went to a conference recently and almost everyone was totally unapproachable. Am I supposed to ask my advisor for personal introductions? That seems like an awkward request. Because I've seen posts here that say it's not necessary to have a personal connection to professors at places you want to go to, it sounds like I should just skip applying this year and strengthen my application.

@user124384 it really depends on the field and countries and departments, in some fields you will have much higher chances if a professor indicates an interest in working with you and has funding you will likely get accepted.


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How to properly add "scientific reading" as personal interest in CV?
I'm applying to a Ph.D. program (in the field of robotics) and I have a hard time to fill the personal interests. I initially was going to avoid that section but then I got convinced that it's not a bad idea to have it. But I digress...
One of my hobbies is reading* about science, mostly in mathematics, [astro]physics and science in general. The problem is, I don't know how to write this in a clear, honest and concise fashion. I don't want to simply write "reading" because I don't want to be that generic applicant! Also I want it to be clear that this reading is not related to my professional field. And last but not least, I don't want it to sound fake!

*also watching or listening. Sometimes I also code for fun, generally speaking I fool around the science.

I hope this is not "too localized". If it is please let me know so I can make it a bit more general...

I would say something like "In my spare time I enjoy learning about foo, particularly bar because I am highly interested in quux". If you are specific enough you won't be that generic applicant.

I'd note that expressing an interest in outside hobbies when you want to become involved in academia can work against you in some cases. It shouldn't (IMO), but it does.

There is absolutely no need to put this information on an academic CV. CV should just have a list of your professional accomplishments and relevant skills...what's the point of putting down your hobby? I think that will bring nothing positive.

Just don't.
As an applicant to a scientific PhD program, if you weren't doing a lot of scientific reading, that would just be weird.
Thinking it's something special to be reading scientific literature every day, is a small warning sign in itself.
And the interests section is there to indicate some kind of balanced personality and the existence of a life away from narrow study.

I don't want well rounded individuals as grad students. I want people who are singlemindedly obsessed with their field of study.

@JeremyMiles Were you being facetious or sincere? I genuinely can't tell, and I'd like to know which is the case since I'm planning on going for a PhD within the next year myself.

@G.Bach - I was being (fairly) sincere. I'm not sure everyone agrees with me though.

I believe mentioning that is irrelevant to the contents of a resume. But if you really want to mention it, do so in the hobbies section:

reading science digests every morning
used to reading scientific papers
used to reading peer-reviewed publications

...and then delete the hobbies section.


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Do grad schools need an official transcript from universities where I was an exchange student for only one semester?
I am a European non-EU student that went on an Erasmus exchange for one semester in the UK during my third year. Now, two and a half years later, I am applying to grad schools in the US, and the official transcript in my home university lists the courses taken in my exchange.
However, I was wondering if I need an official transcript from the Erasmus university as well. Getting this would be a big problem, since they only give them in person, and I have no way of getting one. Is it enough that the courses I took on my exchange are listed on my home university transcript, or will I have to do the impossible and get one from the Erasmus university too?

I just don't want to be disqualified by a technicality.

Are the grades of those courses you took in Erasmus university also recorded on the official transcript of your home university?

The courses taken in the exchange were in a pass/fail basis, and the results are listed in the official transcript.

Then I believe the official transcript of your home university is good enough. The pass/fail results are already officially recorded.

On the other hand, I think that you should privide both transcripts of your current university and from the UK university that you spend that semester.

The problem with getting the UK transcript is that I will only be able to pick the transcript up in person. I can't do that, since I live far away, need a visa to go to the UK, and can't afford to spend all that money.

I wouldn't worry about that, the fact that your official transcript lists the courses indicates that some authority has vetted the courses and consider that credit-worthy.

Are you absolutely certain the UK university won't send the transcript by mail, even after you've told them how difficult it would be for you to collect it in person? That's a ridiculous restriction.

I had to get an official transcript from a community college I took a single extracurricular class at during high school to satisfy my (American) graduate school.  FWIW, I think this is typical here.¶  I've never even heard of a university not being willing to send electronic, let alone mailed official transcripts.  If you do end up having to go there in person, do their records department a favor and introduce them to stone tools.

This is likely to be specific to a particular graduate school, but I studied in the UK for a year during my US undergraduate education. The courses and grades were listed on my transcript. The graduate school that I applied to (and to which I was accepted) did not require a separate transcript from the UK university.


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There are any website to review my non native english?
as you can guess I'm a non-native english.
When I write an scientific paper, my major trouble is the language and I'm worried about the review of my english.
There are any website or community, where I can post my full paper or part of it, and receive a peer review for my english?
Thanks a lot.

See also http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12904/good-book-on-english-for-academic-writing-and-speaking-for-non-native-speakers?rq=1

You're asking people to do difficult, specialized work for free. So, generally... no.
Your university may have a graduate writing center where they can help you.
You could ask a peer in your program to help you, in exchange for cooking lessons, baby sitting, or help with their _.
You could hire a professional editor. These can be cheaper than you expect, given the economy, but you also get what you pay for.