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Doing PhD with a 'star' professor
I have recently been admitted to a few PhD programs, and have to decide where to attend. One of them has a massively famous professor (over 50k citations, 'Reuters Highly Cited Researcher'). Other potential supervisors at other institutions are still quite famous (~15k citations). Could anyone share some potential differences in my experiences if I work with someone who is that famous, or not? The group sizes/number of current students are all comparable.

It's a better idea to prioritize other aspects. For instance, how well do you get along with the person? How is he/she as an advisor, despite his/her status or citation counts?

@mm, I have indeed thought about different aspects including the ones you mentioned, but I have no insight about how the professor's fame would affect my experience, and while not the most major issue for sure, it is something I would like to know more about.

Fame is irrelevant. Are you interested in the topic that the prof offers? Would he be able to help you develop? Do you get along with them? Only then, as low-priority target, you ask, do they have a good standing in the community which may help creating contacts in the future? And note, they may be famous because they are great self-promoters, not necessarily promoters of their grad students. Counting citations does not tell you anything about this. You are worried about the wrong things.

I always prioritize only one aspect: the subject. Is it interesting to you? Is it exciting to you? If it is, chances are you will succeed. If it's not, even a star professor would not help.

I knew somebody who started a PhD with a super-rockstar in Computer Science. He told me he met with his advisor thrice in a year or so, once (a short meeting) when defining the thesis topic, once crossed him in a hallway, and came across him at a conference. It turns out the rockstar was on the road almost 24/7. He changed to a not-so-famous advisor, and was much happier.

This has been a similar experience in my own doctoral career.

On the other hand, there are some very famous professors who don't travel much at all.

MY GF is having a similar experience.  She gets a lot more detailed help from the non-rockstars on her committee.

Agreed with vonbrand's answer, but I would like to add one thing.  If the rockstar professor is nearing retirement, he could actually have a great deal of free time to supervise you.
I took a topics course with a "massively famous professor"; there were only two of us in his course.  After classes every week, he invited us into his office for casual conversations about his life in grad school and in academia - and what were the biggest surprises in mathematics during his younger days.  We learned that he hadn't taken on a student in many years.  My classmate convinced him to advise him on his thesis.  The problem given to my classmate is an especially tough one, it seems, but he is thrilled to be working with this famous, yet gracious, professor.
OTOH, if the professor that you are thinking of is still highly active in research, he will likely be on the road often -- he may not even attend many of the classes that he is assigned to teach for the semester.  I've also experienced this, too.
Good luck with your decision.

he could actually have a great deal of free time to supervise you — or not.  If this is the situation, @user51024 should really talk to recent or current PhD students to find out how the supervision is in practice.

I recommend you perform the following experiment.  Choose several established people in your field whom you admire.   Look up who their advisors were.  See whether or not they were, themselves, ``famous''.  Draw your own conclusions.

As indicated in a couple comments, using citation counts (solely) to judge what kind of advisor someone is a bad idea.  First, citation count isn't an accurate representation of how good a research is for many reasons, one of which is citation counts vary greatly within subfields.  Another is that they change over time and comparing citation counts of younger versus older researchers is unfair.  What would be better is to visit the groups and get a feel for them if possible, and find out where the advisor's former students ended up.
However, here are some possible things to consider with rock star versus cover band advisors:

A famous advisor is likely to have a stronger group, particularly if they are at a more prestigious institution.  This can benefit you in many ways (learn more, explore better ideas, stronger collaborators).  Cf: University rank/stature - How much does it affect one's career post-Ph.D?
An eminent researcher may have a more refined/greater perspective on the field, which you can absorb by osmosis.
An eminent researcher may have better connections, providing more opportunities and "advertisement" for you.  This includes benefiting from the chance to meet many established researchers coming to see your advisor.
An eminent advisor may give you better problems/give you better tools to solve problems.
A rock star advisor may not have much time for you, and may not even remember your name.  Therefore, you may be expected to be more independent (but this expectation is not limited to rock stars).

You forgot another problem with citation counts: they include self-citations. This is then easily manipulated.


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Refereeing for American Journal Experts
I was asked via mail (which looks borderline suspicious) to referee a paper for the American Journal Experts AJE, who claim to coordinate the refereeing for a Hindawi journal dedicated to applied mathematics. They offer 50$ for it so I am tempted to apply.

I have a manuscript that I believe fits with your expertise. Would you consider reviewing this manuscript for potential publication in a scientific journal? The title and abstract of this manuscript are provided below. We offer an optional $50 honorarium for a completed evaluation.
We ask that you complete your review within 4-5 days so that we can return your comments to the authors of the paper quickly. Please let me know if you will need more time by indicating a new due date with your reply. Reasonable extensions can be accommodated in most cases.
If you would like to recommend a colleague to review this manuscript, please respond with their name and email address. We'll send them an invitation if they meet our reviewer criteria.

Has anyone experience with that? Is this a serious thing?

We ask that you complete your review within 4-5 days... I understand that these things can be field-dependent, but for me this alone implies immediate binning.

I was able to haggle for two weeks. Nonetheless, even though it's paid, I still have a bad feeling about this.

"the refereeing for a Hindawi journal" Well, it's of course everybody's own choice what to think of certain journals or publishers. For me, the sentence that I quoted would suffice press to the delete button.

To add they can't show the article before I agree and the paper does not seem to be on arXiv (weird). I decided to reject it. Thank you for your input.

I see the matter is now settled, but let me anyway elaborate on what I said before: even if they agree to give you two weeks (or two months) to review a particular paper, the fact that they pressure reviewers to do the job within 5 days is a clear sign to me that they are not interested in meaningful peer review.

Hindawi and paying $50 for reviewing means its a scam sorry

$50 was cheap for your soul.

@LazzaroCampeotti statistics indicate that reviewers take a median of 5 hours (mean of 9 hours) to complete reviews - https://www.stm-assoc.org/2012_12_11_STM_Report_2012.pdf (page 36). Granted, things might be different in applied math.

The request itself is highly unusual - AJE is not supposed to be doing peer review, they only do editing (based on their website). Besides, they are not the journal, so they can't be inviting reviewers for the journal. I would guess that if this is a real invitation, then they're doing pre-submission review, i.e. the main questions they want answered are about structure, language, whether the target journal is appropriate, and so on (which is also why their email says "... potential publication in a scientific journal" and not "our scientific journal".)

Given that this kind of editing is much easier than peer review, I don't see why not do it if the $50 matters to you, but you might want to confirm what exactly it is that is expected.

@Allure reviews for math papers have notoriously long turn around times. Some of that is cultural procrastination, but a good bit of it is also due to the janitor work of attempting to validate the correctness of proofs.

Did they ask for your bank account number to send the payment...?

If interested, I discussed my experience in "working" for AJE in comments to this Academia answer. (Quotes used because, after being one of their freelance editors for a few months and not editing a single paper, I asked them to remove my name from consideration for editing.)

@Allure: I expect that in math (including applied math) the time spent by reviewers is substantially longer than in sciences in general. But aside from that, my interpretation of the document you link is that reviewers spend a median of 5 hours actually doing the review . If you ask me to do something on a random day, the chances that I will have 5 hours to devote to it over the next 4-5 days are essentially zero.

@LazzaroCampeotti then you should decline to perform the review. Still, someone else might conceivably be able to spare 5 hours in the next 4-5 days, so I think the conclusion they are not interested in meaningful peer review is too strong.

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I forgot to remove all authors' names from the appendix for a double-blind journal submission. What are the potential consequences?
I submitted a paper to a double-blind peer-reviewed journal. Unfortunately, I noticed that we forgot to remove the authors' names from the appendix. The submission was very recent, and until now, only the editor has seen the paper and the appendix. I'm panicking a bit right now. What should I expect? Is this a reason to automatically reject the paper, or would a typical editor simply ask me to correct the appendix and resubmit the paper?
Thank you for your answers!

For situations like this, especially in case of panic, it helps to remember that a journal wants to publish good papers.  That's the entire point of a journal.  So they have every incentive to work with you and let you correct this.  Think from the editor's perspective: wouldn't it be foolish of them to reject a potentially great paper for a purely technical issue like this, which can be fixed with practically no effort on their part?

In a journal without fixed deadlines, you may just ask them to correct it. Do so ASAP. In a conference, that may be an outright desk reject without option for appeal, depending on the importance and volume that the conference has.

Most editors will find this understandable. Your best bet is to contact the editor ASAP and explain the situation and give them a copy with the relevant redactions.

Anecdata:  My first or second paper (conference venue) I forgot to remove our names from the title page.  They caught it and asked me to submit correctly, please-and-thank-you.  No harm, no foul.  Other than mild embarrassment.

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Mentor for Marie-Curie postdoctoral fellowship
I'm interested in applying for a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship and would like to choose a host institute in the UK. If I choose a supervisor who is a senior researcher, would it impact my application compared to choosing a senior professor? Actually, I'm interested in the research work of a senior researcher at the university.

Can you more specifically define "senior researcher"? That's not a standardised title, and I've seen places where that could imply anything from a few years postdoc experience up to an established group leader.

@StephenMcMahon, yes senior researcher means the one who has a few years Postdoc positions, and currently a research fellow, has experience Upto an established group leader.

I'm going to slightly disagree with the other answer by BioBrains, conditional on exactly how experienced the "senior researcher" is.
The proposed supervisor's experience in supervision is one of the criteria on which the proposal is evaluated on according to the evaluation guidelines:

Scientific supervision arrangements should clearly define that the  proposed supervisors have sufficient expertise in supervising  researchers at postdoctoral level. Supervisors should have the time, knowledge, experience, expertise and commitment to be able to offer the appropriate support to the researcher and provide for the necessary progress, review and feedback procedures/ mechanisms.

So, if the "senior researcher" doesn't have any post doc supervision experience of their own, that is a clear negative. It's not insurmountable, and can be mitigated by e.g. good support structures and support from other experienced researchers, but it's something you should definitely be aware of.

I would add that a MCF is by scope a top end postdoc fellowship. If you are able to get that, then by definition it takes some fairly senior person to be able to teach you anything. At that stage, another postdoc can be a great collaborator but not a supervisor.

No - it won't. The Marie Curie IF is very much dependent on the proposal and within that the science and the mentoring description. Reputation matters less, which is a good thing and great to also make more junior group leaders more competitive in getting a postdoc with a fellow ship.


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What do I do if I cant find a proper basis for my methods of experimentation?
I am currently a senior high school student whose study is about producing homemade paper using coconut husks and testing for their certain properties. However, most studies that I have come across are vague and or use a document called the TAPPI T 205 which is used for forming test handsheets for physical testing. The said document contains machinery and materials that I do not have access to nor do the facilities around my local area have as well.
The creation of papers as I've seen on YouTube and other non-scientific articles is quick and easy but I simply cannot cite them because they are non-academic and lack specificity for certain materials and methods. In my research, the papermaking process is really arbitrary as my main goal is really to just test coconut husk's properties as a potential paper-making material. The reason for this is that my professor emphasized that these methods should also be easy to perform as to also be of help to any locals as I hail from a third-world country and don't have a lot of access to complex research facilities.
Any advice?

Did you already ask your professor how to proceed?

As @user23644521 mentioned, these are references which can be a sort of comparison - those don't have to line up exactly. Look for any kind of similarity between what's written in academic journals and your project. Even if you are saying something along the lines of "I would use a similar process to 'this YouTube video' but adopt the rigor of methodology used by the researchers in 'this academic journal article'.
I would be of the opinion that if it makes sense, and you are striving to make it academically relevant and citing some academic journals, then including YouTube videos as citations because they are great examples of relevant materials or processes you're using/considering/discussing, there's nothing inherently wrong with doing this. So long as your reasoning is sound.
I've seen kids in US High Schools that have done graduate-school-level work and won national competitions on semester-long research projects that cited YouTube Videos and some even made their own for their papers and presentations. Good Luck!

This is incredibly insightful, thank you so much. In our school, citing youtube videos isn't that common so its quite reassuring that even grad-school-level students do it too.

I think you do not need to find the references doing exactly same thing as yours. There are some journals such as Journal of Natural Fibers that might contain some paper tightly or loosely connected to your research. A quick research gives me this paper that could be cited. You can search similar papers and journals using the right keywords.

Yes, thank you, I have seen that paper before and actually, that paper is the entire basis for our research but the methods of their paper are quite out of reach. Thank you for your comment, will look further into it.


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How would I cite the US Constitution in Harvard style?
How would I go about citing the US constitution (specifically the 1st Amendment) using the Harvard style?
I'd like to add it using Mendeley, but just plain text would be fine.
If someone could let me know, that would be fantastic.
Many thanks.

If you are just adding to Mendeley why don't you find a website (http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html) and adding it from there? Have you tried https://www.citethisforme.com/?

It would probably depend on where you read the constitution document. If for example you used the constitution documents at the archives.gov website from the comment above your citation would look something like below. I've shown it with the bill of rights as that is where the 1st amendment is located.

Bibliography:
  Bill of rights transcript text (no date) Available at: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html (Accessed: 11 February 2016).
In-line Citation:
  (Bill of rights transcript text, no date)

If, for example you have a book that contains the Constitution you would cite the book. The reasoning for this is that someone can then go look at the same source that you did if they wish.
While I haven't seen anything for Harvard style (so it may be best to seek guidance from someone in your department), in both APA and MLA it appears you can just cite the Constitution directly. APA uses the stylation of the legal blue book which would look something like this;

In text: A person can say what they want in the United States (U.S. Const. amend. I).
Reference list: U.S. Const. amend. I.

In MLA;

The 7th edition of the MLA handbook has this to say about citing the
  U.S. Constitution:
"In general, do not italicize or enclose in quotation marks the title
  of laws, acts, and similar documents in either the text or the list of
  works cited (Declaration of Independence, Constitution of the United
  States, Taft-Hartley Act). Such titles are usually abbreviated, and
  the works are cited by sections. The years are added if relevant"
  (205).
Because these directives aren’t very specific, you can use the
  following example as a guide for the Works Cited entry:
U.S. Constitution. Art./Amend. XII, Sec. 3.
You need only provide either the article number or the amendment
  number as appropriate.
The complementary parenthetical citation is written as (US Const.
  amend. XII, sec. 3). You might also reference the U.S. Constitution in
  the sentence itself and only provide the amendment and section number
  in the parentheses at the end of the sentence.

Also, there'd be nothing stopping one from treating it as a plain old manuscript if One doefn't mind ufing weird Spelling and Stuff that'f capitalifed weirdly.

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Recommendation letters for REU from grad student
I am a mathematics grad student who is often the primary instructor for undergraduate courses, and I have been asked by one of my previous students to write a recommendation letter for REUs, which are summer research programs for undergraduate students. This student was in a ``Introduction to Proofs'' course that I taught. I know that recommendation letters from grad students for grad school are looked upon poorly; is the same true for REUs? Applying for REUs is rather different than applying for grad school, so perhaps it is more accepted in this case.
If the best option for this student is to have me write the letter, what should a good letter from a grad student focus on? Since I don't have as extensive a teaching record as a professor I can't realistically compare them to other students I have had-- is it enough to talk about their excellent performance in the course I taught?
In case anyone is concerned about the student, I brought up the issue of me being a grad student when they asked for the letter, and after guidance from a faculty member they still think my letter is their best option (a professor is writing a letter as well). Of course, I'll ask someone at my institution for advice also.

This is an excellent and well-written question.

is it enough to talk about their excellent performance in the course I taught? Did that student have excellent performance in the course you taught?

@scaaahu Yes, they performed excellently in the class, showed a good work ethic and curiosity, and were able to help their peers.

I am the project director for an NSF-funded REU program, so I will offer my thoughts on how the faculty reading applications for my program would respond.
Overall, we will not take letters from graduate students very seriously when considering students for admission.  The basic problem is that few graduate students have the perspective to judge an undergraduate's potential to do research.  When I look back to my own time in graduate school, I know that I would not have done a particularly good job evaluating undergraduates' relevant skills.
While a letter from a graduate student would be essentially worthless when a student is applying to graduate school, an REU program is a more relaxed and lower stakes admission process.  So getting a letter from a graduate student would not necessarily doom an application.  If I received such a letter, I would write back promptly to the applicant asking for another letter from a faculty member.  If we did not receive a replacement letter from a professor, we would not rule the application out automatically, but it would have to be very strong otherwise to make the cut (and students who are very strong applicants would often have little trouble getting a good faculty letter to begin with).
Other programs may be more willing to accept at least one letter from a graduate student, so if you feel that you have adequately warned the student about the risks in having you as a recommender, you may want to go ahead and write the letter.  However, you should definitely look at the admission requirements for the specific REU programs; if they specifically ask for faculty letters, I would suggest that you decline to write.

+1 for students who are very strong applicants would often have little trouble getting a good faculty letter to begin with

I think that you have done all of the due diligence that is needed, and at this point should feel confident to write a letter on the student's behalf.  The key things that I see in the situation are:

You've advised the student of your concern, and after due consideration they still wish to have you write.  Even better, the have consulted with a professor as well, who seems to concur.
The student also has another letter from a professor.

As noted in the comments, a strong letter from a graduate student can often be much better than a weak letter from a professor.  I have personal experience with this as well: even as a graduate student I wrote letters for undergraduates who had worked with me that appear to have helped them (or at least didn't prevent their application to various programs from succeeding). Moreover, since they also have a letter from a professor, they're not without faculty recommendation.
Finally, an REU is a much lower-stakes application than a Ph.D. program: the degree of commitment on the part of the hiring party is lower so they may be more willing to take risks, and if the student misses there are often many alternatives for getting research experience in the same time period.
In sum: you've taken all the cautions you need to take, and can now go write a nice strong letter.

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Is reviewing papers moving away from voluntary community service?
I recently came across reviewing policies which make it a requirement for authors submitting a paper to a conference to also accept reviewing for it. Here is an example:

In order to submit paper(s) to EMNLP, you must nominate at least one
  author to serve as a reviewer, (usually the most senior author) and
  for that author to take on a full load (of up to 6 reviews).

I completely understand the rationale behind such decisions: the ratio submissions/reviewers cannot grow infinitely while maintaining a proper review process. Yet I'm concerned about the implications for the quality of the reviews, since people who are forced to do it might not be as careful as voluntary reviewers. This also feels like a step down from the traditional "community service" philosophy of the peer-review process.
Is this a general trend in the research community, i.e. is this happening in other domains as well?

If yes, does this imply a change in the peer-review paradigm? For instance, as a researcher should I stop doing "free reviews" in order to keep my reviewing time for mandatory reviews?
If no, are there other solutions being tested to the problem of ever-increasing papers/reviewers ratio?

I think it just formally states the community service required, and does state an upper limit on that service.

Seems pretty unusual to me.

just something related https://peercommunityin.org

I'm going to guess the is due to the huge increase in papers and a need to develop a reviewer base to handle it. I'd be interested to learn later whether it is effective in getting quality reviewers. The link you provide explains their need. NLP is hotter'n a pepper sprout.

Definitely a  trend in NLP, e.g. same policy at ACL. By the way, EMNLP 2020 has received over 3.5k paper submissions so far (20h before deadline)!

Another data point: IJCAI had the same requirement for reviewing this year (4717 submissions).

@Buffy Not unusual anymore, unfortunately, at least in fast-growing topics. Getting people to review is increasingly difficult. There are many more authors now who want to publish in good quality venues.

This is also problematic for researchers who aren't supported by R1 resources, e.g. have 4/4 or 5/5 teaching loads and are already less likely to meet the requirements for research and publication. Alas...

is this happening in other domains as well? - To my knowledge it is not happening in pure math.  Note: if you're asking about what is happening in other areas, it would be good to make it explicit in the question what your area is.  (I didn't know what EMNLP was.)

I will address your three questions directly, and in-line:

"Is this a general trend in the research community, i.e. is this
  happening in other domains as well?"

I have never seen this before, and never heard of it. Everyone else that answered and commented, except for one person, has said that they have not seen it happen in their field either. The one person in the comments that did see the trend was Franck Dernoncourt, who says that it's definitely a trend in NLP (which probably means Natural Language Processing, not Neuro-Linguistic Programming). So, it is not a "general trend", but it is happening in some fields (such as yours and Franck's).

"If yes, does this imply a change in the peer-review paradigm? For instance, as a researcher should I stop doing "free reviews" in order to keep my reviewing time for mandatory reviews?"

My answer is "no", but even if it were "yes", I do not see how that means you should "stop doing free reviews". The vast majority (by a long shot) of peer-review is still done for free.

"If no, are there other solutions being tested to the problem of ever-increasing papers/reviewers ratio?"

I have never seen any other solutions tested. The peer-reviewed conferences I submit to, such as QIP (Quantum Information Processing) keep an extremely high standard for who is able to review. There is a committee of reviewers who are selected because they are recognized world leaders in their sub-fields, and each of them reviews several papers. Forcing any random person that submits a paper to review a paper, would lower the standards of the reviewers, and hence the standards of the conference.

More and more reviews are being done by graduate students. This holds for both conference papers and journals.
Sometimes this can actually lead to an increase in the quality of the reviewers, as many graduate students are immersed in the latest developments in their own particular field.
However, one of the problems with less experienced reviewers is that they often have a relatively more narrow range of expertise. They may be fine at reviewing papers in their area but might perhaps lack the breadth of experience to provide an informed judgement regarding work outside of their discipline or field of research narrowly understood.
This may seem off-topic but speaks to your broader point regarding the review of scholarly work being a part of the academic contribution to one's scholarly community.
There is already a division of labour where established academics will often taken on an editorial role and delegate reviewing tasks to more junior staff and graduate students. I think there is an increasing trend toward established academics no longer being the 'gatekeepers' of their discipline through paper reviews. This work is increasingly farmed out. I see the example you offer re conference presenters just being an extension of that.
It's a system. With lots of mythology around it. The esteem given to 'peer review' is one of those myths.

No, requiring authors to review is not a wide-spread practice or trend.


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Can I still claim the novelty of my PhD contribution in later publications?
I understand that it is common to publish a number of conference papers while working on PhD and, then, publish conference/journal articles from your thesis afterwards.
However, when the main contribution has already been introduced in the thesis, can I still claim that the contribution is novel?

A related question, but in the opposite direction is Can I reuse part of a paper for my thesis?.

I think it depends on the venue (if any) in which your dissertation has been disseminated.
However, it is likely you can appropriately claim the subsequent manuscript aimed for a peer reviewed journal is indeed the first report of your claims in the peer reviewed scholarly literature.
However, do disclose any prior dissemination to avoid accuses of self-plagiarism.


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What is the difference between "Author Rebuttal" and "Paper Discussion" in Academic Conferences?
In academic conferences and their important dates, I know what "Author Rebuttal Period" is but it is not particularly clear to me what is meant by "Paper Discussion Period"?
Are authors also involved in the discussion, or is it only between area chairs and fellow reviewers?

Which conference?

http://www.ieee-scam.org/2020/#call

Don't know about the specific venue, but usually it does not involve authors. The reviewers and chairs can take the rebuttal into account, discuss, and come to a decision.

Thanks. This particular venue does not have a period called "rebuttal", and I thought the discussion may involve some form of rebuttalling.

In that case, I think it's more likely that the "Reviews due Date" is an internal deadline for reviewers to submit their reviews, after which they would discuss in the "Paper Discussion" phase and then notify authors. But I am not sure. It is unlikely to involve a rebuttal since 4 days is too short to ask for a rebuttal, get it, discuss, and decide.

Please make your question more specific, by specifying field etc.. The way it is now it sounds like it does not apply to quite a few fields.

@user151413 It's tagged computer science.


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Can I still update my camera-ready submission on IEEE-CPS after the deadline?
I have already submitted the camera-ready version of my paper to a conference within the deadline. However, although it is now multiple days past the deadline, the submission is still open on the IEEE-CPS site with the option to edit my submission.
I would like to update my submission (to correct a minor mistake), but I am not sure if I should do so.

If they permit it then feel free to do so. The worst that would happen is that the update is rejected and the current version is published. Especially so, if they say "option to edit".
Of course, an edit that would seem to require another round of review or that changes a major result will have serious issues. But a "minor mistake" shouldn't disrupt things until they "go to press".


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How to ask for a non passing grade?
In one course I got a lower than expected grade. If the professor wants, he can give me a non passing grade and this won't be on my transcript (non passing grades are not on our transcript). Of course I have to retake the course.
Many of our professors do it, but a few usually doesn't.
How I can polity ask him to give me a non passing grade?

Pretend the professor is a human being and ask politely.

@Davidmh: lol, I like the "pretend".

You didn't specify a country (this might vary between cultures), but it happened to me in Germany that on an oral exam I got an ok grade but lower than how I usually did in classes of that topic. The professor told me he knows that I'm better than this, so he offered to give me a failing grade if I wanted (allowing me to retake the exam at the beginning of the next semester). So I guess it is normal for such things to occur, and if professors make offers such as this, then I guess they wouldn't find it strange if students asked for it.

I cannot say I agree with the practice: students should be responsible to know what they're doing as regards their studies, which, among other things, implies that they must have a sense as to how well-prepared they are for an exam (and they should also bear the risk and the consequences of occasionally making a wrong assessment). By setting a grade-threshold and ask the professor to give a non-passing grade if the threshold is not reached, the student effectively sheds this burden of responsibility off him or herself.
That said, the usual practice is to ask such things before grading (for example if the exam is in paper and not electronic, students note that on the paper they hand in). Asking for it afterwards... well, if the professor is friendly to the practice, start by apologizing for not letting him know in advance and then ask what you want to ask.
But if the professor is not friendly to the practice, consider living with the consequences of a lower-than-expected grade in your transcript.

the usual practice is to ask such things before grading... There is a usual practice for this?

@Kimball, from my experience some open exams allow students to opt in for a "do not report this grade." This is equivalent to do not grade it. I have not seen that in individual academic setting, however. But even so, the non-passing should be asked before grading, asking if I can rinse and repeat after getting a bad grade feels like a grade-inflating illogical system.

There is nothing wrong with asking politely. There is nothing unethical about retaking a course to improve your grade. It is up to the professor then to agree or not. No offense, but the fact that you disagree with this practice is irrelevant.

@Kimball Indeed there is one.

@Alexandros All institutions I know provide the option to improve the grade of a limited number of courses by retaking the course and/or the exam -and there is good reasons why the number is limited. Asking for a non-passing grade attempts to by-pass this policy. As for irrelevance of part of my answer, I don't see my contributions here as a customer-supplier relationship where the supplier has to provide only what the customer asks for. Please downvote my answer if you think that the part making an argument as to why the practice is questionable is not useful content here.

@Alexandros, That is a very harsh last sentence. I would consider any educator's disagreement on this issue relevant. We are educators and this system, right or wrong, was set up by educators. If we feel that it may be problematic we are entitled and should discuss it. One concern is that if this system is done extensively, some schools may intentionally make the courses very hard to fail more students, who will then pay again to retake to improve the grades. For the students that means they will be in heavier student loan.

@Alexandros The ethical issue isn't retaking a class for a better grade, it's altering a student's grade for administrative rather than academic purposes.   This may be permitted at the OP's institution, but I've been at schools where this was expressly forbidden for professors.

@Penguin_Knight Why do you assume that the answerer  is a professor (or educator in general)? There are many PHD students here that state their personal opinion regarding their colleagues, with very limited or partial teaching experience.

If for example I want 8.5 I can get it with 8.3 rounded up. If I write on the exam 7.2 and rounded down I get 7, notice it's only 1.1 grade difference. Instead of getting the desired 8.5 I will get 7 because my judging was off by 1.1 grade. Honestly, no human can predict his grade exactly. Do you have any advice on how to talk to my professor about this? While I agreed that the difference between 6 and 9 should be obvious, in the above case it's not.

@AlecosPapadopoulos the institutions I know only allow for retake if you fail, but once it is passed, the grade stays forever. Asking to be failed is not unusual, and the risk is that the number of retakes is limited. Also, very few of my professors would accept a "please, pretend this exam doesn't exist".

@Davidmh It is good to know that practices and policies vary -otherwise the world would be a very dull place!

@MATH000 it's correct that you can't predict your grade in advance, which is why if you "want" to ensure getting an 8.5 then my advice would be to study hard enough to be fairly confident you'll get at least, say, a 9. You seem to be assuming that you have a logical right to retake the course until you get a specified grade of your choice, and that it's reasonable to ask the professor to subvert his university's policies to help you achieve that, but there is no such logical right. My advice is to accept a grade on your transcript that you're unhappy about, and resolve to do better next time.

@Alecos Papadopoulos  All institutions I know provide the option to improve the grade of a limited number of courses and here I come from a country where it's completely normal to 'cancel' unlimited number of exams after getting the results and also an unlimited number of failed exams. Points of view definitely differs around the world.

@Dan Romik It seems that you're assuming that it might indeed be possible for a student to estimate how well he's prepared for the exam by studying materials. I've had a good number of exams where the things asked were pretty much orthogonal to what seemed to be the focus point of the lectures, unsurprisingly making pretty much all estimates useless. In such case, it might indeed be very logical to retake the course until the student can reach the point where he can estimate the correlation between preparation and received grade. Again, this depends heavily on the academic system.

First, let's clarify the situation here. When you say "If the professor wants, he can give me a non passing grade [...]", do you mean that your institution has a specific policy that allows the professor to give you a non-passing grade at his discretion (based on a specific request from you, I assume) and without regard for your actual performance in the class? I would be very surprised if that were the case, but in the unlikely event that I'm wrong about this and there is such a policy, by all means go right ahead and ask (politely, while doing your best to pretend that the professor is human, as @Davidmh said in his funny comment).
In the more realistic case in which by "If the professor wants" you simply meant that the professor, being the person in charge, appears to you to have the authority to give you a failing grade, I would say that your interpretation of the situation is incorrect. Your request is unethical, and the professor actually has no right to give you any grade except the one that he/she thinks you deserve based on your performance in the class. Doing anything else would be dishonest and unethical. Think about it: what you are asking the professor to do is to

lie
breach the confidence of his employer, who pays him to assess your performance and output a grade that reflects his honest opinion of that performance, and
to subvert the policies of the university, which, whether your professor agrees with them or not, were put in place by people who are in a decision-making authority and it is not his/her place to undermine, certainly not in such a surreptitious, dishonest way.

Given this, I am afraid that your request is highly inappropriate, and obviously there is no "good" way to make it. The policy that leads students to make such bizarre requests may or may not be a sensible one, and it would be appropriate if you wanted to ask the professor to help you fight it by, for example, writing a letter asking for an exception to the policy so that you can try to improve your grade in the class. But I don't see how you think it is even remotely reasonable to ask the professor to submit a dishonest grade. By the way, I had a student once make a similar request of me, and needless to say I refused, with the same reasoning as I explained above.

I've experienced something like this: at final exam, professor announced, "If you want an F in this class so that you can replace it in your GPA when you retake it, write 'I want an F' at the top of your paper and hand in the exam without any answers."

@ff524 It sounds like in the situation you're describing, it's the blank exam notebook that would make the student "deserving" of an F and not the expression of a desire to get an F (which according to my logic shouldn't make any difference). I can see this making sense in a situation where a high performing student could theoretically qualify for a C or D even with a 0 on the final, but where knowing that the student wanted an F could be enough to justify honestly giving them one. In any case, my answer is referring to the very different scenario where the request is made after the final.

It's an example of a professor giving "a non-passing grade at his discretion (based on a specific request from you, I assume) and without regard for your actual performance in the class" (in this class the final exam was a relatively small part of overall grade, so you could pass the course with a zero on the final)

@ff524 My ethical argument could allow some flexibility that lets a professor give an F in good faith to a student who got a 0 on the final exam and is specifically requesting an F. It's still an absurd situation that ideally should not exist - students should not be put in a situation where they ask for their grades to be artificially lowered, and professors should not be put in a situation where students make such requests of them. In any case I don't see too much of a problem with your professor's behavior, and also don't see it as inconsistent with anything I wrote in my answer.

Grading your work costs my time. I am not willing to give you a non-passing grade so that I can grade your exam again. Anyway, who cares about grades? The important thing is what you know, not what grades are entered in someplace.

If only that were actually the case.

Anyway, who cares about grades? I'll have to give a -1 for this. By having any grade other than pass/fail is in itself proof that grades are important to someone, at least the person who wrote the regulations which define the grades. Also, while I agree that the 'knowing' part is important, as someone who tends to do the 'knowing' part OK and the 'getting good grades' part badly I must say that grades do close some doors.


text:
Postdoc without PhD?
I have never been to grad school, but I have several publications, in good journals, as well as planned future projects. Some very prominent experts know me and think well of my work. In this case, should I apply for postdoc or just go to grad school?
If it matters, I am working in a subfield of mathematics.

I cant be sure, but I would think that most, if not everyone, interpret a Post Doctoral Position as one that requires a Doctoral Degree first.

Can you elaborate how those publications and projects came to be without you getting a PhD along the way?

I read or heard (I go to conferences) about open problems, occasionally had an idea as how to solve them, and wrote up the solutions.

OK, and what official qualifications do you have? Also: Why do you want to have a postdoc position? In my field and country, the main difference between a PhD position and a postdoc position is that the latter has a better pay.

Generally, something called "post-X" necessarily comes after X.

Consider a PhD with prior publications — https://brabazon.net/2021/09/06/lets-talk-about-the-phd-by-prior-publication/

At this point in time, a Ph.D. is generally a non-negotiable requirement for a postdoc position.  If you are already carrying out independent research, however, then it might be possible for you to obtain a Ph.D. in graduate school in a significantly shorter period of time than normal.

Even skipping graduate school altogether and just writing up a Ph.D. thesis might be an option if the OP can find a professor willing to be his promotor.

You should consider writing a cumulative thesis to obtain your phd. this cumulative thesis would "simply" consist of the publications you already have. typically you should write an overarching introduction chapter which states how the publications relate to each other, but it should be fine. i am not sure, but in computer science this gets more and more common. maybe also in your field. you need to check with your university and/or supervisor.

What are you hoping to get out of a postdoc? Typically postdocs offer a chance to enhance your research credentials and capabilities before moving on to a more permanent position either in academia or a serious research institution. If you do not have a PhD and wish to follow this career path, the best way to enhance your credentials and capabilities would be to pursue a PhD. A very capable PhD student can certainly do work of equal quality to postdoctoral researchers while also gaining a degree in the process. The only drawbacks to a PhD position compared to a postdoc seem to be somewhat lower pay and receiving slightly less individual credit for your work (in some fields anyway).
To more directly answer your question: Given enough funding flexibility, it's not unheard of for a professor to fill an advertised postdoctoral position with a very capable grad student. It would be very uncommon for a non-PhD, non-grad student to hold such a position.
As an aside, by definition you cannot hold a postdoctoral position without having a doctorate. The term literally means "after doctorate" and therefore requiress first gaining a doctorate. Any position you hold before obtaining a doctorate is by definition a pre-doctoral position.

I upvoted this answer, and I agree completely that the OP should not try to do a postdoc in mathematics before a PhD.  I wanted to mention: "The only drawbacks to a PhD position compared to a postdoc seem to be somewhat lower pay and receiving slightly less individual credit for your work (in some fields anyway)." Most American PhD students in mathematics make $15K-$30K per year; most American postdocs in mathematics make $45K-$60K per year.  I wouldn't describe "probably about half as much" as "somewhat less"....

...In (pure) mathematics, most PhD students will already be doing their own work, not helping with their advisor's project: a very small percentage of such students are supported from their advisor's grant, and even if they are the expectations are no different.  On the contrary, being a PhD student in math means you get substantial research assistance from your advisor.  Most postdocs get less assistance unless they are collaborating with their advisor.  That you get much less help in your work is one of the biggest differences between being an advanced PhD student and a postdoc.

Agreed. The "somewhat lower pay" is understating the situation in most cases. I think math is different than most engineering fields in that the larger effort/projects in engineering tend to be a long-term focus of the PI and his lab whereas mathematics PhD tend to more completely take ownership of their project.

You should certainly apply for grad school!
If your credentials are as you say, you will probably have the opportunity to go to one of the very best universities. Is there anyone whose work you have always admired? You now possibly have the chance to study under him or her. Take advantage of it!

The expression Postdoc is often misunderstood: it is an academic post, a job title - not a degree. In contrast, a PhD is a degree program not a job program.
Post Doc means literally "After Doctorate".
A postdoc positian can be held by anyone with a "Terminal Degree", in the majority of fields, including all sciences, the PhD is the terminal degree. However, some very special majors often in the humanities have terminal degrees at the masters level. These degress can hold post-doc positions without a PhD, and are very rare.

There are some research assistant positions that might fit into your qualifications. Some of the RA positions may only require a masters degree.

Could you provide specific examples? I have never heard of such in mathematics.


text:
Some of the major corrections are already in the thesis
I've passed my viva with major corrections at a UK university.
Upon receiving the corrections, I found some of them were already emphasised and discussed in several places in the thesis.
My supervisor said I should just accept these corrections and work on them.
What should I do? Should I just expand with few sentences/paragraphs? Is it too bad to respond that they are already there?

@NajibIdrissi It's not easy to 'correct' something when you don't know why it's wrong. Contacting the internal examiner would help to clarify what aspect of what is already there needs changing. Guessing wrong could cause problems at this stage.

Consider that if your examiners have asked you to add things that were already there, then either (a) they didn't read the thesis very well, or (b) those things that were already there were not clear or obvious. In the case of (b), you want to improve that.
You could reply to "defend" things as they are - but be very sure of your ground before doing so, and expect that the examiners might respond "change it anyway". Unless there is a good scientific reason not to do the changes, I wouldn't bother - as your supervisor said, just swallow your pride, and do what they've asked. While annoying, it'll be less trouble for you, and also not risk annoying people you might want to work with in future.


text:
Do I have to cite the source of my notes based off of a deceased professor's notes,
Let's say I'm writing a set of notes on a specialized topic, based off of notes from a deceased professor, who he himself had a disclaimer that his notes (theorems, proofs, ideas) were not properly attributed and cited, due to time constraints.  What should I do then, if I plan to distribute my notes / post it on a website?  Should I have a disclaimer of my own?

Citing notes is unusual.  Assuming the theorems were original work by the professor¹, I would either:

Cite it as (P. Rofessor, personal communication),
or add a note to the acknowledgements describing the situation.

My preference would be the second alternative, because the first alternative may imply that P. Rofessor has agreed to transferring this information to you, and he hasn't (unless he told you before his death, or stated it in his will?).
Whatever you do, the most important is that you make it unambiguously clear that the relevant notes are not your original work — otherwise you risk accusations of plagiarism / theft.

¹If they aren't, Johanna's answer applies.

I would also explicitly ask people who think that they might be the deceased professor's source to come out and say so, in order to be able to properly cite them.

Ideally,you should track down the original sources for the theorems. However, I realise that might not be practically feasible due to eg time constraints, so providing your own disclaimer and citing the other professor's notes should be sufficient.


text:
Do Statistics PhD programs require their undergraduate / master's applicants to know measure theory?
I know that many Statistics PhD students come from undergraduate / master's level math / applied math backgrounds.  So, many will have taken a full-year of introductory real analysis and most likely also complex analysis (and lots of linear algebra and linear algebraic courses, such as scientific computing) -- but perhaps not measure-theoretic analysis.
Would you say that it is imperative to try and take a measure theory course to strengthen one's application to PhD programs in Statistics?
A lot of my classmates are fixated on the idea that measure theory is a necessity for Phd admission, while one professor that I spoke with internally thinks that this is a myth.  But, he is a mathematician, so I'd rather ask the question here, just to gather more information.
Thanks,

In the U.S. at least, your first year course work is almost certain to include one year of graduate level probability theory. The class is likely to progress through discrete time measure and probability, to questions in continuous time. As a non stats student, I took this sequence at my school. Prior knowledge certainly helps, but is unlikely to be required. It's been a while, but we worked through Williams' "Probability with Martingales," then about 1/3-1/2 of Karatzas/Shreve. Maybe have a look if Williams strikes you as accessible.

Hi @gnometorule...so would the classes you took be the bare minimum of measure theory -- essentially knowing the lingo and the results needed to understand graduate probability?  Or, was a pretty decent chunk of your course formal measure theory stuff?  Thanks,

Also, I've read through some of Shreve's work, I forgot the title of his book.  But he had a tiny chapter on the very basics of measure theory that would be needed to understand the rest of his book @gnometorule

We did measure theory from scratch. You go over it a bit fast to then use it in probability, but the first few weeks were mostly just basic discrete time measure theory. To follow along, all you needed was a good grasp of common analysis concepts (but fairly basic, it's all about sups and infs, really). No guarantee it's the same everywhere, but it was then how this was commonly taught. K/S (2nd quarter) has an entire long first chapter on continuous time measure theory, essentially establishing what a brownian motion is. Sounds very different from shreve's book you mention.

Ah, ok got it.  Thanks so much for your helpful comments, @gnometorule.

Measure theory is essential for higher level probability.
However, I believe most graduate schools will have a graduate course on measure theory. Thus it is not absolutely necessary to have learnt measure theory before entering graduate school.

I would add also that the OP says statistics and not probability.  While the fields are linked they are not necessarily the same.  A statistics PhD could take a much more applied approach of examining data sets and coming up with new techniques to examine them that don't require a complete grounding in measure theory. Not that I would not recommend doing a course in it if it is an option!

Most statistics doctoral programs don't require their applicants to know measure theory, but then again, some very good doctoral statistics programs don't even require measure theory at all. (Case in point is Virginia Tech, which at least back in the early 2000's when I was there, had a great applied statistics department and measure theory was not required for the PhD program).
Do you need measure theory do statistics? Well, if you plan to work in academics as a statistician or want to do cutting edge research in financial analysis, you probably need it but I would say for a large portion of applied statisticians working outside of academics, the answer is no. IMO, it is not that important for the vast majority of what applied statisticians do (experimental design, data visualization, and estimation). Most of my friends who have high level positions in companies as statistical consultants report they never use it (which has been true for me also).


text:
Travel Grants for PhD student to Present Papers internationally (i.e. Korea) & nationally (i.e. USA)
Do you know of any available travel grants for PhD students (in any field, but if we must get specific -- archaeology/religion) to travel to conferences, both international or nationally, to present their research/papers? The conferences I'm presenting my papers at do not offer such funds and my institution is not capable of offering me enough funds to attend. However, it would be a disservice to me and my future to not attend and receive the feedback needed and expand my networks with other scholars in my field.

This is highly dependent on the field and the university. Your department and your university most likely have travel grants you can apply for. Talk to your departmental administrators and whatever on-campus graduate student associations for more information on these. Professional societies also sometimes have travel grants and this depends on your field, but this is usually tied to their conferences. Lastly, you can always ask for your adviser to help you with grant money. He/she will likely be willing to pitch in if you're promoting his/her work (via your results).


text:
How important are recommendation letters for doctoral program admission?
I am now looking for a new Ph.D. position and as usually I need to provide the contact of the people to recommend me. Most of the time I need to write the letter myself and send it to the person so they can email it back to the university I am applying. As I asked my peers, this is quite a common practice. Now the question is: If everybody knows how the recommendation letters are written, how important are these letters for the admission decision?

What country are you in, and in what country is the university where you are applying? Recommendation letter practices vary widely around the world.

Because I do not think it is that common! I agree some professors (especially if they overseas or know you in person) will let you write your own letter, they will read it, sign it and send it. Others will use your document as a draft only. But, the majority do not do that since it is very questionable and unethical!
Most professors write their own letters. Hence, recommendation letters are still important. Especially in cases where they can express if a student is exceptionally good, or to discuss his contribution in writing papers/proposals or even to discuss why did s/he perform poorly in undergraduate level courses (like me!).

It's probably unethical to take a self-written letter, put it directly onto your own letterhead, sign it, and send it, but I see no harm in asking a student for some salient points that occurred during your relationship that they'd like you mention in your letter. This could come in the form of a bulleted list or as draft prose. You should rewrite this into your own words, but there's no ethical issue in asking for a reminder of some details to go into the letter.

@BillBarth: To me, the difference between having the student write the letter vs. writing the text based on a draft of the letter seems comparable to copying an exam answer verbatim vs. rewording it so the copying isn't as obvious. Personally, in the case of letter writing, I find both practices ethical (provided that the student-written letter only gets signed if the professor agrees with its contents), and based upon other questions on this site I figure customs related to the two practices are culturally dependant. What I find hard to understand, however, is how one of the practices can ...

... be ok while the other isn't.


text:
Is it disrespectful to do research in two labs?
Context: Undergraduate computer engineering student in the US looking at attending graduate school in two years. I’m trying to figure out which research topics interest me—hopefully to find one to pursue in graduate school. I’ve only done one semester of research so far and I’m switching out of that lab because I didn’t enjoy it (unhelpful PI and graduate assistants).
Question: Is it seen as disrespectful to be in two different labs at once when trying to figure out a research topic to pursue? If not, should I be aware of any other conflicts when working for two labs?
I’m concerned primary about how this will be viewed by the professors, not the ethics of being in two labs (the research topics are pretty different).

I doubt they would view it as disrespectful (and if they do, you don't want to be working for that person anyway). However, are you sure you have enough time to undertake two research projects at once?

@astronat I’m intentionally taking a lighter course load in order to focus on research, so that’s why I believe it’s possible

Are you switching or adding?  2 labs sequentially is just fine.  Two at once would seem odd to me.

Are these two labs in the same department?

@FredDouglis I would be switching to 2 new labs

@AzorAhai One CS and one EE is what I’m thinking right now but I haven’t made up my mind yet

We had an undergraduate in our group quit abruptly at the end of the quarter, saying he liked the research better in the other lab he was working for. This is fine, everyone knows some people won't work out for whatever reason.
However, this was the first time my PI had heard he was "two-timing" us, and yes, she was pretty upset.
I do not think it's per se disrespectful to work in two labs at once, but it is certainly rude to hide that fact from one or both groups. That said, if you tell two PIs that you're working in two labs to figure out what you like better, they may be less inclined to help/mentor you because they know there's a big chance you'll drop their lab pretty quickly because you can fall back on the other lab you like more.
I don't recommend this course of action, but as long as you're transparent with both labs, I would not say it is wrong of you to attempt it.

I was going to say something much like this.  If doing it to see which to pursue,  neither may be happy.

@Azor Ahai, "they may be less inclined to help/mentor you": To future readers, I'm actually in this situation. I'm an undergrad working in two labs. The professor in one lab somehow found out and he has been very unhelpful. I notice that he doesn't seem to assign me the tasks or suggest relevant papers. I would say it varies from professor to professor.

This is a relatively common occurrence. Many people work in two different labs but in most situations the research is related to one another (i.e. computational and a medical research that uses the computations). Often times, even in these situations, people doing this end up choosing 1 lab or the other after a year or 2. Having 2 different labs doing different research will be a major strain on your time, so make sure you're willing to put in that kind of work. Most of these kinds of labs require 8+ hours a day when you are in graduate school, and while in undergrad between 3-5 hours a day. This is for each lab so expect 6-10 hour a day of work plus whatever classes you are taking. so having 2 might become overwhelming. I can see if you are taking easier classes you might be able to get away with it but most degrees get more difficult and time consuming as you progress so I assume that's unlikely.
To answer your question, the PIs will have the exact same worry I stated, they may believe you will not have time for both. Some won't even allow you to join if they believe they won't get everything they want out of you. You might be able to find 2 PIs willing to allow you to do this but you'll have to quickly show you are extremely capable or they might get frustrated with you.

8 hours a day? Do you mean per week?

Per day in graduate school, maybe 3-5 per day in undergrad. Unclear if OP is asking for prior to graduate school, graduate school, or both. That's from my personal experience but that's in the natural sciences.

This is while they are in undergraduate ... that is a lot of time

Many professors expect your time, especially if they know you are concentrating on your research rather than classes. I am going under the assumption that this research is for furthering their experience rather than for monetary gain. The 2nd option may require a different response.

Well, is it 3 hours a day (reasonable), or 8? No one should be working 8+ hours/day five days a week while taking classes as an undergraduate.

3-5 for undergrad for EACH lab. Still going to be a lot of time (8 hours, as stated earlier, was for graduate school).

You should edit your post then, because the question is not about graduate school. It will probably confuse others as it confused me.


text:
Is there any API service to retrieve abstract of a journal article?
There are some API services to give title, citation and authors of an article by its DOI. I wonder if there is a service to provide abstract of a journal article by providing its DOI.

For the MEDLINE database, with the E-utilities you can:

Use the esearch function to retrieve the PubMed ID (PMID) of the article that includes the DOI as a term (presumably only one article):
http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esearch.fcgi?db=pubmed&WebEnv=1&usehistory=y&term=10.1021/bi902153g
Then, use efetch function to retrieve the abstract among other bibliographic attributes of the article (you need to pass the query_key and WebEnv returned earlier by esearch).
http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/efetch.fcgi?db=pubmed&retmode=XML&rettype=abstract&query_key=1&WebEnv=something

If you have the PMID, it is one step with efetch:

http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/efetch.fcgi?db=pubmed&id=17284678&retmode=XML&rettype=abstract

The edit is based on this Biostars answer

This is only for the pubmed papers but any idea what we can do with other journals that are not in pubmed.

@ypriverol: That's going to depend entirely on the journal. Give a field, and people can give better answers.

@tonysdy I'm looking for something like crossref?


text:
How to calculate a rough 'chance of admission'?
I am looking to apply for graduate programs for Fall 2019 and I am so confused about my chances of admission for different universities.
I know it cannot be really calculated and there is no such formula (2*GPA+5*publications etc) but I think there should be a way to estimate a rough probability. Like someone with a 3.0 GPA and no research won't in %99.99 of the time get admitted to MIT right?
Particularly in case of international students like me, knowing your chance of admission is the key to just apply for where you actually stand a chance and not to waste money on application fees.
I think I shouldn't mention my own GPA and application material by the rules of SE. So I won't. If I can please tell me in comments so I add them.

The things that get you accepted one year may not be sufficient for acceptance another year. I don't think there's a reliable way of calculating admission chance. A lot of it is based on luck, or "right place, right time".

I think your chances of admission to MIT are near zero. Nothing about you, just numbers. They, and similar places, attract many many many high high high quality applicants. What you need, instead of a prediction formula is a plan to optimize your chances to get into a suitable program - one in which you will be happy and can be reasonably assured of success.
To do this you need a list of reasonable schools that is a little broader than you think your CV and letters from professors will support. Choose some schools a bit more "elite" than you think you would be assured of entry, more in the "mid range" of your expectations, and a few that might not be quite so prestigious. Try not to over or underestimate your potential - get whatever feedback you can from your current professors on that. Perhaps they have a sense of what has happened to students similar to you from their past.
Since you have a year, yet, you can work with a smaller selection of your list, including your top choice. Apply to those first to see what happens. Whenever possible, try to get personal feedback on your application by speaking to people who can affect your acceptance. This might be professors, department heads, admissions officers. They probably won't give you all the information you want to have, but it might be enough to judge whether you are being seriously considered or not. Don't be passive in contacting people if they make that option available, but don't be a pest.
If your first batch seems to need supplementing, you have more for the second round. If it seems like people are taking too long to reply, send out a few more applications.
If you get an offer that is not a high choice for yourself, and if you have time yet, you could try a few more schools that you would find more desirable. Use any offer as a backup rather than immediately accepting it if that is possible. As you get any feedback, and if your situation allows, discuss the results with a faculty member at your current school.
But unless you are the reincarnation of Einstein, don't apply in top-down order from your list. And note that even Einstein got rejection letters. Nothing is certain. You have a lot of competition. Any formula is just probabilistic in any case. Follow a plan.


text:
Is there a term|phrase for a grading assessment that counts the best m of n?
I'm assigning weights to different course assessments.
Assessment                    Weight
============================  ======
Assignments (best 5 of 8)       50%
Mid-term exam                   20%
Final exam                      30%

Is there a word or phrase for a grading scheme that counts the best m of n marks? Example: There are weekly assignments worth 10% each, the best 5 of 8 will be counted.

"Best 5 of 8" seems like a perfectly good way to describe this.

I often see this expressed as "lowest x grades dropped," where x is n minus m.

For example, in the Blackboard LMS interface, the phrase shown is "Drop [x] lowest grades".

Only half serious, but you could try this:

The last 5 order statistics of the 8 assignments have a weight of 10% each.


text:
Paper published in peer-reviewed student journal that appears to have shut down. How should I present evidence of article publication?
While I was in academia, I co-authored a research paper and submitted it to a peer-reviewed student journal for publication. They sent me a PDF copy of Volume 3, Issue 1 in 2014 as proof.
However, the journal itself appears to have went defunct afterwards. Searching for the journal's official websites reveals PDF copies of their issues from previous years, up to 2013, meaning that the 2014 issue isn't even publicly available.
Nevertheless, since the article did get published, I currently have this article listed on my professional resume. In case anyone had any questions about that publication, what proof should I show explaining that the article did get published?

If the paper is not publicly available then it was not technically published. On the other hand, the only reason I can think of you needing proof for is that being accepted to said journal carries some prestige or lends weight to the paper. Unless your field is very different than mine (which is certainly possoble) then neither is likely for a student journal, even a peer reviewed one.

@TobiasKildetoft: Not available online does not necessarily mean not publicly available. There could be printed issues lying around somewhere. Of course, for a student journal from 2014, this seems rather unlikely.

@Wrzlprmft Right, I read it as those issues never having been actually published, apart from copies sent to authors (those issues existing is not enough for it to be published. It needs to be available at some libraries or similar).

A publication in a defunct student journal may not help you much. It's good to keep the PDF around, but why would anybody demand proof? It doesn't appear to be a high impact where someone might question if you are indeed the author of it. But for your own interest, it might be worth finding out whether you are allowed to make that PDF publicly available so that someone can read find these publications...

In the (rare) event of you requiring proof of your publication, you ought to still hold the email communications that connects to the Publisher as evidence; especially the 'acceptance for publication' and 'confirmation of publication' letters.

Your issue volume and number look like it's a relatively new journal to which you've submitted your paper. I sure hope that it isn't a predatory one.

The journal has never asked for money during the publication process, so I doubt it was predatory.


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how much are citations increasing year-on-year?
Increasing citations of an individual or a journal across years is usually taken as an indication that this work is more impactful or gathering more interest. However, I suspect the number of journals, publications, and citations are increasing faster than the amount of publishing scientists, which means that increasing citations may not mean increasing interest. Therefore, is there a way to guess at the amount that citations would have increased over a single year, let's say 2018 compared to 2019, just as a function of increased citation and not more interest in the work relative to the previous year? One simplistic approach would be to multiply the 2019 citations by the proportion of 2018 over 2019 publications (in that field, or overall if that's not available). I welcome other ways to think about this type of question.

The number of citations generated per year is the product of the number of articles produced in a given year times the average number of references per article. Additionally, when it comes to observed citation metrics in tools like Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science, the relevant indicators are the number of indexed articles and their average number of citations per article.
Over time, the number of articles per year has grown as publishing has become easier and as the number of publishing scientists in the world has grown. Reference lists have got longer. And many citation indexing databases have become more inclusive, especially Google Scholar.
Journal citation indicators generally focus on some variant of citations in a given period divided by number of articles published in a period (e.g., impact factor and its variants). On this metric, publishing more articles does not improve the metric, because it increases both the numerator and the denominator. Increasing the number of references per article in a given field will increase impact factor. Likewise, capturing more of the literature in the citation indexing database will also increase measured impact factor. You can see this when you compare Web Of Science Impact Factors with the Scopus Cite Scores. Scopus is more inclusive and tends to return higher values.
Author citation metrics are more complex. There are a range of metrics that get discussed. Prominent ones include h-index, total career citations, citations per year in recent years. If we focus on citations per year, this is  the multiple of the number of papers an author has and the average number of citations each paper is receiving. Putting aside factors that make one author more impactful than others, the average number of citations per paper is driven by similar factors as what influences journal citation indicators (i.e., number of references per article, breadth of coverage of the citation indexing database). We then have the issue of whether authors are publishing more articles per year. My understanding is that they are publishing more per year and that the number of co-authors is also increasing substantially over time (see @anyon's comment: https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.05150).
I also think that several factors have made publishing in well-established journals more impactful over time in terms of citations. In short, as the number of lower-tier publications has expanded, this has increased the relative impact of the more established publications. So, for example, if a journal was in the past ranked 50th out of a 100, it might now be ranked 60th out of 200. Furthermore, a few of these low to mid-tier journals publish a huge number of articles per year (e.g., outlets like Frontiers, Scientific Reports, PlosOne). You could add to this PrePrint servers and the like. In summary, if you are the kind of academic who consistently publishes in top-tier journals, then the relative citation impact of those outlets has also gone up. This can be seen in the rise in impact factors over time.

I suspect the number of journals, publications, and citations are
increasing faster than the amount of publishing scientists

This may be right to some small degree, but in the end, the number of publications can only grow faster than the number of publishing scientists if the average publishing scientist is writing more papers per year than they did in the past. It is possible that that number has increased by a factor of 1.5 or 2 over the past 50 years, but no more than that.
Likewise, the number of citations given is just the number of publications published times the average number of references a paper has. The average number of citations a paper then receives is the number of citations given divided by the number of publications -- that is, the average number of citations a paper receives equals the average number of references a paper has. (That's really only true assuming that references are given in the same year a paper is published; but it's approximately true anyway.) So the question then comes down to whether, over the past 50 years, the average number of references in a paper has increased. Again, it may have, by a factor of 1.5 or 2, but not substantially more than that, and consequently the average number of citations a paper receives will also not have risen substantially.
In other words, I think that the question posed is interesting, but that the conclusions drawn there are not correct.

At least this research puts the increase of the worldwide publishing activity at a much higher figure. Also I'd argue that a twofold increase is not insubstantial, either.

According to https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.05150 #authors/paper has increased substantially, but the number of papers a given author writes per year has grown more slowly. (Fig 2b)  But also look at Fig. 5a, which "shows how the average size of a paper’s reference list
changes from 1900 to 2015". It the data is correct, the average number of references has certainly risen by more than a factor of 2.

@Anyon Very interesting link! From fig 2b, the number of papers per author has really only increased from 2 to 2.5 -- not too much. But the size of the list of references is very interesting indeed!


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What is the appropriate form of address for a university professor to a student member of a royal family?
In the Netherlands, Crown Princess Amalia is attending the University of Amsterdam. I'm curious about the proper etiquette for social interactions between staff and her on and off campus. What is the appropriate form of address for a university professor to a student member of a royal family, in and outside of class? I imagine that the context is important, such as whether the interaction is inside of university functions or not (e.g., during class). What other factors are related to a correct answer, if there is one? Is the answer consistent with other countries such as the United Kingdom?

If you are not sure how to address someone, ask them.  Their royal status does not change that.

“Amalia”. If she doesn’t like it, she can complain.

The Dutch people seem pretty chill with respect to titles.

In practice, I agree that one could a) ask, b) default to the setting, and that c) Dutch people are not so intense about their monarchy as some other countries. But there still might be a formal answer to this question.

does she carry a sign telling who she is? If not, good luck being recognized in first place...

@Mark There are not so many crown princesses in the Netherlands (1) that they are difficult to recognize.

@CameronBrick but at the same time, many people don't care about the royals in the Netherlands, so they might not even have a clue how she looks like. This isn't UK..

The formal answer is given by the website of the Dutch Royal House:

Prinses Catharina-Amalia wordt aangesproken als Koninklijke Hoogheid en aangeschreven als Hare Koninklijke Hoogheid de Prinses van Oranje. De aanhef van een brief luidt: Koninklijke Hoogheid.

So the correct way to address Princess Amalia is as "Koninklijke Hoogheid". This does not change in anyway if the person addressing the princess is a professor or not. Since she is following an English-taught degree (Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics), it is probably also acceptable to address her in English, so using "Royal Highness".
How this works in practice I do not know, but surely her professors will have been briefed on the proper etiquette. Given the Dutch tendency towards egalitarianism in social interactions I suspect just "Amalia" might be fine.

That is a good resource. I was thinking earlier about context, not about the power or role of the professor; in class, I'm imagining other students wouldn't use the formal title. I can speak to the 'surely' comment, as I am such a professor, and I have not been briefed.


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Academic Journal Article Peer-Review Feedback Tips
I've always been dissapointed in the feedback I receive when submitting articles for publication. Even when my work is accepted the suggest given are often vague and unclear.
I know that most journals have some sort of form that reviewers complete but it seems that the form is not followed very carefully.
Therefore,  I was wondering what kinds of expectations others have in regards to peer-review feedback for an academic article.

To be honest, reviews from high quality journals were always helpful in my case. How many journals did you try? Do you always submit to the same journals? One more thing, in my field, we don't follow any "form" for reviewing articles. Every reviewer has his/her own style (most of the time). Low impact journals tend toward have a standard form (again in n my field).

@Fire guy I'm just beginning my career so I have about 12 articles published. I started with the lowest of the low because I actually want to have some success  getting into something. I have been working my way up into stronger journals as I have improved in my writing. So my experience is mostly with weaker journals.

I understand. My advise is to aim high, submit to higher quality journals first. Then, upon you get your review, you re-evaluate and adjust. The main benefit is, you will get mush better reviews (which will hep you tremendously [in your writing, thinking.. etc.). If you start with lower journals, you are most likely to get frustrated (hence your question here!).

This is a very broad and vague question, that IMO risks simply asking for opinions. You could probably reword it to be a better question, but there's a good chance that it would end up as a duplicate of https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/42138/how-can-i-be-a-good-reviewer

Incidentally, what field are you in?  In mathematics, I've never heard of a form that reviewers complete, except in accounts of predatory journals.  Maybe this differs between fields (or my experience might not be representative of all of mathematics), but it suggests to me that you might be publishing in unusual, and possibly predatory, journals.

@anonymous I;m in education

@AnonymousMathematician: I've sometimes filled out forms as a reviewer for some (perfectly respectable) journals in applied mathematics.  In some cases the questions are a rather poor fit for mathematics of any kind, and appear to have been copied over (maybe with slight modification) from journals in experimental science or some other more empirically-oriented field.

Submit your work to high-quality journals.  Those journals (usually) make sure to get high-quality reviews for submitted papers.  In my own experience, the quality of the reviews is strongly correlated with the quality of the journal.


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What do professors do with personal copies of old textbooks?
I've been teaching a few years now and the number of older editions of textbooks is beginning to pile up in my office. There is no policy at my university for disposal of old textbooks. These books were purchase with department funds and it troubles me to throw them away. They content is still relevant as the newer editions are not ground-breaking in material.
My questions are as follows...

Please share how you deal with older editions of textbooks?
Is there a policy at your institution (if so please share) or do you have a personal way of dealing with this problem (again please share)?

You might be interested: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/123244/what-can-i-do-with-like-new-recent-edition-textbooks-that-im-not-allowed-to-se

I keep mine, very handy as some NEW versions drop perfectly good practice questions as part of the new version editing process...

Are there any used bookstores (or even "thrift shops") in your area to which you could denote (or sell cheaply) the books?

Point of information: Is the faculty/department not supplied with gratis desk-copy textbooks from the publisher? I thought that was customary; maybe I'm wrong.

@DaveLRenfro That option might be problematic for books purchased with department funds.

At my school the custom seems to be just leaving them in a stack in the hallway next to one's office door. Anyone walking by can peruse through them and take anything they want. At some point the janitorial stuff disposes of the stack as rubbish.

I've seen this custom too

I've seen this too, mostly when a professor retires or moves office. Then there can be a respectable pile of books with a note saying "free", and often an email to students in the department (depending on the nature of the books, it might only be sent to graduate students).

At my institution the library of the university accepts donations of books, especially if they are in decent conditions. It seems like the best possible destination for your books since it seems that your institution paid for them, and in this way you'd be "giving them back".

I've been teaching a few years now and the number of older editions of textbooks is beginning to pile up in my office. [The] content is still relevant as the newer editions are not ground-breaking in material.

Do you need the latest versions? Perhaps reduce the frequencies with which you acquire textbooks.

There is no policy at my university for disposal of old textbooks.
  These books were purchase with department funds and it troubles me to
  throw them away.

Is there a policy for the disposal of university/departmental assets? That might be worth checking. That said, it probably doesn't apply to low value assets such as textbooks.

Please share how you deal with older editions of textbooks?

Donate them to the departmental or university library;
Offer them to students, especially those that are struggling financially.

Eventually older editions are harder to get for students. So after a while the newer edition will be the one used by students. It is very helpful for me as a teacher to have the same edition as the students. So, yes I often need the newest edition.

@MaartenBuis older editions are harder to get for students that really depends on the material. It is very helpful for me...to have the same edition as the students I don't see why that's "very helpful," perhaps "somewhat useful," but I doubt there is any significant advantage, since---in many instances---much of the material remains the same.

@user2768 it is useful to have the same version, as students now seem to need precise direction to diagrams or topics ie page 44, diagram on top left. In the past one could suggest find the chapter on XXX and the diagram about YYY and they would...

@SolarMike I believe spoon feeding students is a disservice.

@user2768 you may well believe that, but what they demand and what faculty are then told to provide is something else...

@SolarMike I can't believe faculty are told to spend money on numerous textbooks to ensure they have the editions their students have, just to ensure they can provide page references...

@user2768 Do you teach? Do you have a set course textbook? What happens when version 2 is no longer available and the publisher supplies version 3? You have to go with it...

@SolarMike What happens when version 2 is no longer available and the publisher supplies version 3? That's irrelevant to me, my students can buy the latest version, I don't need it. Also, copies of version 2 are available in the library, Amazon, ebay, ...

@user2768 libraries can also dump old versions...

@SolarMike In my experience they keep textbooks listed in the syllabus.

@user2768 so that begs the question "do you keep your syllabus up-to-date" ie latest textbooks etc or are you still "chalk & talk"...

@user2768 Many popular introductory textbooks seem to change problems (or move them around) between editions. If you plan on assigning such problems, the relatively minor expense of getting a new edition is likely justified.

@Anyon Historically (I'm not sure whether it still holds), publishers used to give instructors text books, so the financial expense can be reduced to zero. Other costs remain though.


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Contacting university for potential PhD collaboration without the presence of my supervisor
The question might be misleading, so I will explain in more details:
The company in which I am employed offered me to do a PhD. The subject and everything else has been already approved and funded, the only thing missing is the university to make the collaboration with.
My supervisor already has some contacts and there seems to be a good feedback, my concern however is that, given the fact that in the company itself there is nobody with knowledge on the subject, I believe to be very important to have a strong academic support in order to have a reference if I stumble upon some issue.
Without going too much into details I found the main academic centers advanced in the subject, so I was thinking to contact them in order to see if they are interested in a collaboration. The problem is that my supervisor and the chief of the group are both on holidays, they are unreachable and they will be back in a month; waiting for both of them to come back would mean losing a month in which I could have arranged a communication with the potential academic partners and furthermore the objective is to set an agreement in september in order to begin the PhD in December at most.
I already spoke with my supervisor about this, and he said that eventually I could have looked for something independently, but this was a couple of months ago and before he found some of his contacts; my concern is that even though he is a really cool and relaxed guy I feel like overstepping him and making him seem that I do not trust him on this.
The question is therefore: should I contact the universities and see if they are interested without waiting for my supervisor to return in order to gain some time, or should I just let him take care about all this and eventually look for something together with him later?

That seems like it might be a better fit for the Workplace SE, since it's your boss' reaction you are worried about. From the academic perspective, it's surely best to contact people now.

The initial contact is unlikely to raise any expectations, so maybe you can present it to your boss as "I explored some options, here are some alternatives subject to your approval"? That would come off as "proactive" to me, not as "overstepping".

When you say supervisor, I assume you mean your work supervisor, as opposed to a doctoral dissertation supervisor (the usual usage here).

@Buffy exactly, I am actually looking for the doctoral supervisor.

Actually it seems wiser to go ahead and look for suitable programs and doctoral advisors. It shows initiative that would be valued in most places. You don't need to accept anything, of course. But if people are interested (or not) it is good to know that.
I find it hard to imagine a boss who would think it improper, though I've had some pretty bad ones.
You never know what you'll find until you look.
Moreover, once you are in a doctoral program your work supervisor will play little part. It is your doctoral supervisor who will be your guide.