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Potential consequences of the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) for US job prospects
In answer to a question about moving between employment in the UK and the US, user StrongBad suggests that "the obsession with the UK REF will likely push your CV in directions that are not ideal for getting a job in the US."
This point struck me as interesting, as in some respects it appears counter intuitive. When I asked why this was the case, he suggested that it would make a good question. I'm now asking that question.
For those unaware of the REF, it is a regularly occurring (and not uncontroversial) nationwide assessment exercise which is used to guide the distribution of funding amongst UK universities.
In order to perform well in the REF, there is a pressure on researchers in the UK to produce a number of publications (four, to be precise) which are deemed to be of a high level. In assessing quality, reviewers are guided to consider whether a piece of work is "world-leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour". Furthermore, since the most recent REF another consideration for assessment has been whether research has "an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia."
What's therefore not clear to me is why would building a CV containing publications deemed by peers to be world-leading, and conducting research which peers deem to have benefit outside of academia, not be ideal for job prospects in US academia?

I hesitated about asking this question as I'm not entirely convinced that I wouldn't flag it myself if I saw it being asked by someone else. Any recommendations about how to make it more SE appropriate are therefore welcome

The REF credits departments for grant capture and not the individual. This means that large grants with multiple PIs tend to be prioritized over smaller grants to individuals. In terms of the US job market, being able to demonstrate grant capture at the individual level is important in many fields. For example, generally in the US being the only PI on a $200,000 grant is viewed better than being one of ten PIs on a $5,000,000 grant.
The REF "requires" academics to "produce" 4 high "quality" publications over a 4 year period. Only the 4 "best" publications matter. This results in a push for splashy, as opposed to solid, research. The goal for the REF is to make your work look important to people peripherally related to your field and not the people who specialize in your subarea. Authorship across the 4 publications can also be shared so teaming up with a more senior colleague and being a secondary author is very desirable for the REF. For the REF, someone who is a co-author on 4 Nature papers with colleagues at different universities, and nothing else, could easily get a position as an associate professor, if not a full professor. In the US, search committees want to see a body of solid work that is clearly done by the applicant.
Being able to demonstrate impact is also important for the REF. This requires wider engagement with people outside your field. Having research that can be link to a "change in process" is key for the REF. For example, a clinical trial that shows X is better than Y would be considered "high impact" while the development of X would have less impact. Blue skies basic research has essentially no impact and is discuraged. US job searches do not really care about impact.

I don't think that very high quality papers is meant to be "splashy". It means your paper has to be among the top in your field for that year.

@Dilworth I think you're understanding what "flashy" means here.  Quality isn't a uniform and objective property of a paper.  So Strongbad's claim is that there is a consistent difference between what the REF panel and a US hiring commitee will see as quality.  I don't have the experience to judge whether that's correct (though it's consistent with my limited knowledge), but it's a plausible claim.

@Dilworth the general consensus is that anything published in Nature is 4* for the REF. For US jobs, the journal carries a lot less weight.ď

Nice answer. We have a similar assessment system in Italy, which is very criticized for similar reasons.

I have explained in my answer this point: 4* papers are not meant to be papers that are, say, Nature equivalents. But top in their specific areas. Otherwise, in REF 2014, the number of 4* papers would be much less than 20% of papers for many schools.

@Dilworth do you have any experience with the REF?

---------------  Yes. Do you?

@Dilworth yes, I was on my departments REF 2014 planning committee. Our submissions were internally rated by 3 staff members and externally rated by 2 faculty at comparable universities. There was good agreement both within and across universities. Further, Our predicted numbers of 3* and 4* matched pretty closely to the actual numbers. In general papers in generalist journals (e.g., Nature, PNAS, Royal Society) we 4* and papers in top specialist journals were 3* unless they were really good.

@StrongBad, I have checked further the data (see https://www.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/Attachments/2014/12/17/k/a/s/over-14-01.pdf), and it shows many schools have more than 30% of 4* publications! E.g., Cambridge with 50%. Even in top 10 US schools, achieving 50% of publications in Nature "equivalents" is unimaginable. Note that generalist journals, like Annals of Mathematics, are top, but are not like Nature, because they are technical and contain subject-specific work, and these (and lesser venues) are considered 4* to my understanding, which is consistent with data.

Also, many top "generalist" venues contain not splashy, but mostly technical and subject-specific work.

@Dilworth by definition a generalist journal cannot contain subject-specific work. I think you are confusing what the 30% means. If a department has 2 people both with 100 publications we then and person A has all 2* publications and doesn't get returned and person B has 4 4* publications and 96 2* publications, then 100% of the REF work is 4*.  Additionally if B used to work at a university X and co authored those 4 papers with a colleague there, then university X might also have 100% of their REF be 4*. So 4* papers out of 400 could result in two universities having 100% 4* work.

"by definition a generalist journal cannot contain subject-specific work". That's not accurate. Many top "generalist" journals, like Annals of Mathematics, JACM etc. contain subject-specific work.

Sorry, I don't follow your explanation. You seem to assume in your example a school that submitted only one faculty, right? I'm quite certain that most schools in the list submitted much more faculties. So the 50% is practically impossible to achieve if 4* are all about a splashy "generalist" results.

Look at a random school like University of Roehampton. No offense, but do you think they have more than 20% Nature/splashy publications, even if every faculty submitted only a single faculty member to the REF?

I believe that we differ on the essence of a top publication. It is not meant to be Nature equivalent for which most researchers have not more than one in their lifetime, but an excellent result, that appeared in a top venue dedicated to top field-specific and technical results. Like Annals of Mathematics.

I believe you are correct, and that the statement:
"the obsession with the UK REF will likely push your CV in directions that are not ideal for getting a job in the US."
is mostly incorrect.
On the contrary, the UK REF is likely to have a good impact on the publication habits of UK scholars, as it specifically favors small amount of very high quality (i.e., 4 per four/five years) publications, over high amount of medium or low quality publications.
For instance, to my understanding, for the REF and excellent paper is possibly a technical paper. E.g., a paper that merits publication in the Annals of Mathematics, or Trans. of the AMS in the case of a math department. To my knowledge it is not meant to be papers that are, say, Nature equivalents.
Indeed, you can see that many schools according to the 2014 REF metric had produced many top papers (and had it been required to have Nature equivalent publications this would not have been possible).
Note that in the US you will find it hard to get into a good research school without at least some such top papers.
One thing that may hinder a bit basic research is the need to have "impact cases", i.e., research that leads to practical/social/policy-wise impact. But not every academic should have an impact case, and so this may not be a very big problem.

I think getting a US TT job with a publication rate of one publication per year would be nearly impossible in most fields.

Having enough very high quality publications is in any case a necessary condition to land a TT position in a good US research university nowadays. So this requirement of REF only helps you. Of course, you are free to have more papers as you wish!

No one put the panel members really know, but the general consensus is that papers in top specialty journals are 3* unless they have lots of citations and the research is particularly exciting.

@StrongBad, your criterion would be inconsistent then from many schools having 20% of 4* publications in REF 2014

In any case, REF also encourages 3* papers, so basically my argument stands.

No department encourages 3* papers. The REF feeds into HEFCE funding which gives 4x the weight to 4* papers as to 3* papers. When you consider the 20% number, you have to realize that papers can be counted multiple times if the authors are at different schools and since authors of 4* publications are generally poached, it wouldn't surprise me if the percentage of 4* items was closer to 10% (maybe even less). Further, the percentages get complicated because people without strong enough records do not get submitted to the REF.

Any positive weight to 3* is an encouragement. Of course, 4* is more encouraged. As to the ~10% of 4*, even with your possible explanations of double credits etc., had it been only Nature equivalents that are considered 4*, it would be much less than 10%-20%.

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How can I know if an unranked IEEE conference is good or bad?
I have seen IEEE conferences having A-C ranks in the conference ranks website but I can't find the rank of IEEE INCET. Although all the proceedings are published to IEEE Xplore, I am concerned about the rank and quality. I’ve heard that it’s a red flag when you publish to unranked/bad conferences and you shouldn’t add these to your CV. What about this specific conference, as I’ve a paper there?

IEEE watches for minimum quality of all the conferences it sponsors and will for example not accept papers for publication in IEEE Explore automatically. It is also pretty good at preventing predatory conferences, where people pay to publish, by watching over the paper acceptance process.
IEEE also realizes that for people from poorer countries, like India, travel to Europe or the US, where the majority of class A conferences are located, is difficult and is therefore quite generous to conference organizers from South Asia or Africa to organize conferences of more local impact.
In general, there is no reason to not list a paper at an IEEE sponsored conference on your CV. The advise about bad conferences is for predatory conferences, where the listing admits either that you are a cheat (you knowingly pay for a scientific publication without proper refereeing), or a flat (you believed the organizers of a predatory conference).
Besides being sponsored by IEEE, you also look for publication in IEEEXplore. If IEEE does not trust the quality of the conference, they will not automatically accept presented papers for IEEEXplore submission. This only means that there is one more step of IEEE quality control to be passed.
Second, you look at the technical programming committee. In general, you want people from a variety of places and not of the same background. You can take a sample and look at the qualifications and the publication record of the members.
Third, you can look at the acceptance / rejection rate of previous conferences. Acceptance rates under 50% will make the conference selective.
You can also look at indexing of the conference proceedings by e.g. Scopus or where papers are getting published (e.g. Springer Lecture Notes) as a positive sign. Whether this will do you any good for promotion will still depend on how criteria are evaluated, since there is still a prejudice against conferences.
You should also include the possibility of networking and the costs in your decision making process. For example, if you have a relatively weak, but not predatory local conference, it might still be worth while to make a weaker aspect of your work or a summary of published work with a new twist into a paper to submit there and then attend in person.

IEEE watches for minimum quality yes, sure:
https://retractionwatch.com/2023/06/15/plague-of-anomalies-in-conference-proceedings-hint-at-systemic-issues/

I was just wanting to know if the conference I mentioned is a bad / predatory conference or not since its unranked

Use my criteria while looking at their web-site. I did it, but I will not do the evaluation for you.

EarlGrey: Yes, sometimes things slip by. Usually the culprit is a local IEEE chapter with a few rogue members. But in general, in CS, you cannot go much wrong with ACM, IEEE, or Usenix as organizers. They will at least prevent conference papers for hire.

My downvote is for the first paragraph, which is misleading. The case of an unranked conference (which is the context of this question) significantly increases the probability that it could be a case of "things slipping by".

You might not have had experience with running IEEE conferences. They are not ideal, they make mistakes, but they have gotten more careful about new and old conferences.

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Publishing a paper in a low impact journal when I already have higher impact publications
I am a student who will be applying to PhD programs next year. In my field it is relatively uncommon but not unheard of for students to have publications before applying for their PhD.
At this point, I have three solo publications. The journals I published in are all reputable, and range in impact from low to medium-high, with increasing quality over time (meaning that my last publication is in a higher ranked journal than the previous one, etc.). I can reasonably expect to have another medium-high tier publication by the time I apply (though of course nothing is guaranteed).
(I use the terms ‘impact’ and ‘tier’ to loosely refer to ranking and how these journals are viewed by researchers in the field).
I have an old manuscript which has undergone review in several medium-impact journals. Reviewers’ and editors’ comments are generally the same: the paper is fine (in terms of writing, methodology, and results), but it has limitations in terms of scope, which preclude it from getting published in these journals. The findings are still valuable and do offer a minor contribution to the field, but it’s simply not competitive enough to warrant publishing in these venues.
At this point, I can either forget about the manuscript, or try to publish it in a low impact venue. This would either be a low impact journal (though of course, nothing predatory), or a ‘working papers’ style journal (which is peer reviewed). ‘Saving’ this study and expanding on it in future works is not a viable option for me.
There is a similar question on this (For undergraduates, is publishing "weak" research better than not publishing?), but the difference in this case is that there I already have a relatively good publication record for my stage, and I'm worried that this publication would weaken rather than strengthen my research potential in the eyes of the admissions committee.
My question is: from the perspective of grad admissions (and possibly future career), would I be better off not publishing this paper?
Also if I do decide to try and publish it, will it look better to publish it in a low impact journal or in a ‘working papers’ journal?

Is it possible for you to expand the scope of your paper to increase its contribution, and then resubmit to a good journal?

@beldaz Thanks for the suggestion. While this is certainly a potential solution in some cases, it's not applicable for me here, due to the nature of the experimental work this would necessitate.

You have three solo-author publications before grad school?!

What does an academic researcher do?  They contribute to academic knowledge by (i) doing new research and (ii) publishing it so that others can benefit from it.  You have an academic work that is not only completed but has already been peer reviewed, with the following verdict

The findings are still valuable and do offer a minor contribution to the field

So you've made a minor contribution to the field...if you get the paper published.  If you don't get the paper published, you've engaged in almost the entire time and effort of the research and publication process, but without completing the final, key step of broad dissemination.  Since the next thing you have to do is just resubmit the paper -- apparently without any change at all, since

the paper is fine (in terms of writing, methodology, and results)

from the ground-level perspective of what academic research is all about, it would be pretty strange to stop now.  Indeed I do advise you to resubmit in a lower tier (but still reputable; there are many tiers of reputability) journal.
You ask specifically:

My question is: from the perspective of grad admissions (and possibly future career), would I be better off not publishing this paper?

No, I don't think so.  Some considerations:

I strongly believe that completion rate of projects is one of the things that separates successful academics from unsuccessful ones -- I know some people who are brilliant and hard-working but somehow never manage to finish anything.  Obviously you are not such a person since you have already published multiple better papers, but still you should be thinking in terms of the time you put into various projects and what the outcomes are.  To work on something for months and years and have nothing come of it is a big problem for an academic.  To be fair, to spend time on something that turns out to be mediocre could also be a problem -- it may be keeping you from doing better work.  But that's a great argument in favor of choosing your projects more carefully; it's not a great argument in favor of bailing out on an already completed project.
I want to add that the above viewpoint is not universally shared.  It is much more common in technical, STEM-like areas of academia than it is in the humanities: e.g. many famous writers have novels that they have completed and decided not to publish.  (Sometimes novels get published decades later, and it gets very interesting: in some cases you can see why they were not originally published, and in some cases you really can't.  Most of the work of Franz Kafka was published after his death by his literary executor, Max Brod, against Kafka's wishes.  These wrongly published novels are some of the highlights of 20th century literature.)
My own field of mathematics is somewhere between the humanities and the hard sciences in its publication sensibilities.  Many of the very greatest mathematicians publish much less than second or third rate mathematicians.  Gauss's motto was pauca sed matura ("few but ripe").  I am in the same mathematical field as Andrew Wiles, the person who solved Fermat's Last Theorem in 1994 and recently won the Abel Prize in mathematics.  He is 23 years older than I am, I have more papers than he does, and his mathematical contributions are immeasurably greater than mine.  But "even I" do not publish every result that I get, and "even I" sometimes referee papers and see results that I knew how to prove but didn't find valuable enough to write up.  However, I don't think that applies here, because you already submitted your work for publication.
In the current academic climate, the vast majority of people are served a little better by having one more paper, even if that one more paper is not as good as some of their other papers, as long it is still of sufficient standard to be published in a reputable journal.  If you go on the research academic job market, you will be compared against hundreds of other applicants at every stage.  In order to get a serious shot, there need to be some people in the department who think your work is very exciting, and having one more paper is not going to make much difference there.  However, these people also need to promote and defend you against the candidates that other people in the department are very excited about.  If it's between Dr. A in subfield B and Dr. C in subfield D, after a point it will be hard to tell an argument in support of
the quality of Dr. A's research from a statement about the relative merits of subfield B versus subfield D.  The department members who are far enough away from these two subfields are likely to take other considerations into account: if one of the two candidates has four very nice papers and nothing else and the other candidate has four very nice papers and two solid ones...well, it's obvious.  So yes, even mediocre publications can work to your advantage.
Early in your career is the best time to pick up an additional publication that is not as good as the others.  Most pre-PhD students in most fields don't publish at all.  Most who publish one paper don't publish two.  And so forth.  Having been involved in multiple projects at this stage provides further clear evidence of your ability to do academic research.  Twenty years later that is not so valuable, but it sure is valuable now.  And the flip side: if one of your early papers is not as good as the others, it shows intellectual growth!  That is an argument for not only resubmitting your work but doing it as soon as possible.

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Do European PhD programs have a qualifying exam, and if so, what form do they take?
Now, I understand that European PhDs are far from monolithic in format, and that most quals in my field (physics) can fall into two general formats, as far as North American PhD programs are concerned:

A set of tests covering the fundamental areas of undergraduate-level education in your discipline (I know MIT and Princeton can be quite nasty in this regard for physics, but UChicago phased quals out due in part to student health concerns
A review of the literature in your research topic and the relevant fundamental notions underlying it, which must be explained in front of a jury that will ask questions as well

My question is: are quals present in European PhD programs and, if yes, what are formats commonly in use for that purpose?

Option 3: some US programs have would-be PhD candidates do a small research project (not just a literature review) and give a presentation to a committee + written report as the qualifying exam.

@ff524 That format is not as common as the other two; the only program I know about that operates that way is the UChicago astrophysics PhD

Most central European universities don't traditionally have QEs. However, it seems to me as if it is getting more popular to have something after the first one or two years of your programme. Two data points:

In my current university, PhD students need to defend their thesis proposal after (maximum) two years. This includes writing their proposal, receiving written comments by two other (i.e., not their advisor) professors of the faculty, and presenting and defending their proposal in front of the entire faculty (our faculty is pretty small). Questions are asked in this defense, but not typically about material that is not directly linked to the proposal. In theory students can fail at this step, but is is very uncommon. The goal is rather to force students (and advisors) to have a clear goal of where the thesis is going early on, something that was historically a bit of a problem.
When I did my PhD, we did not really have any sort of entry exam or defense in my alma mater. However, since then, they have switched to a model not unlike what I explained above. The main difference is that proposals are only presented (there is no written document), and that only a small committee is responsible for giving feedback on the proposal (not the entire faculty). This defense has to be taken one year after start of the PhD. Failing this defense is again very uncommon.

Summary: the places I am well aware of don't have stressful QEs. Instead, we traditionally had pretty much nothing. Nowadays, many places have a proposal defense instead of a QE, but this is not a step that students typically have to be stressed out about.

As an expat, maybe a native Dutch person here can confirm this, but as far as I know there are no quals here in the Netherlands either.
It's generally expected that you have a Master's degree (3 year BSc + 2 year MSc), but I know of people who have been admitted as PhD candidates with an Honours degree (3 year BSc + 1 year of intensive postgrad study).
Many PhD projects here are run like job applications. A professor has gained funding for a specific purpose, and the department advertises the position.
After a year of working as a PhD candidate you might have to justify how you can achieve your research goals to finish the PhD in time, but that's nothing like having to put in a whole lot of work for a PhD proposal before having even been accepted.

As far as I'm aware (Germany, sciences), we don't have quals here. If you're admitted, at least one professor considers you good enough and that's it. Your next exam will be handing in your thesis and defending it.
A Master of science degree or equivalent is usually required though - maybe that's why we have no extra quals.
Plus, the defense can include an oral exam on the general field of your thesis.
However, do read the relevant documents of your target university and program (in Germany look for Promotionsordnung).
With the advent of structured PhD programs, things like having to take classes for credits and minimum grades have started to come up at some universities.

Entance exams happen on a per person basis in certain circumstances. Roughly, if someone wants to become PhD student but does not fulfil the formal qualifications (e.g. master's thesis not from university but from Fachhochschule, possibly also university MSc but not with the required minimum grade, or s.o. with BSc from an angloamerican country where you could apply for a PhD programme with that BSc) they may be required to take an exam to prove they know enough of the subject they're applying for.

In Sweden there are no quals per se, but we may have something related. When you have completed 50% of the aims of your PhD (when exactly this happens is decided in conjunction with your supervisor and the Department's PhD program head), you have to write a short version of the thesis, and get a title, "Licenciate", and a raise.
The exact requirements depend with the department. At Stockholm University Physics, there is only a defence with a local opponent. In Biophysics and Biochemistry, there is also an oral exam. The topic is to be decided between the student and an examiner, and has to be related to the research at hand. For example, a colleague of mine, Biotechnologist working on statistical data analysis, was examined on a book on Machine Learning.
In any case, they are never as stressful as the US Quals. Probably because firing a student is rather hard, and no one would take that threat seriously.

This is not true for all universities and departments in Sweden, and from my experience (in biology) it is rather uncommon. You can do a "Licenciate" (and maybe not continue for a full PhD), but you don't have to.

For some german universities (like the one I am doing my PhD at), PhD studies are supervised by grad schools that often have their own entry exam, e.g., in the form of a presentation in front of an admission committee. This presentation has to cover your future project in terms of background, methodology and aims of your study and sometimes also a short part regarding your past work for your diploma or master degree.
At my university, the admission mostly happens after you are already employed by your group leader (and by that, already have a contract). If you indeed fail (or just do not want) the admission to this graduation school, you can still (or also) apply to a more basic grad school that has no entry exam of any kind, but is also regarded as being of a lower quality (in terms of courses, funding options, renown, etc.) than the "excellent" grad school.


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Classifying empirical and non-empirical research in the social sciences
I am looking for a definition or a classification system (or a reference to an existing system) that can be used to reliably classify a very large set of articles into empirical vs. non-empirical research.  The articles are all from the social sciences and represent the full range of study and article types, including qualitative and quantitative research.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it does not appear to be about academia, but about automated text classification.

@gerrit:  Indeed, it is involving text classification, but the question itself is on the definition of empirical versus non-empirical research produced by academics, similar to this question:  http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11267/what-is-an-empirical-study

Then perhaps I don't quite understand your question.

@gerrit: You are correct that automated text classification is not on-topic here, but the subject and manner of the classification of this specific question are, as they are inherently about academia. Thus I consider this on-topic.


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I found out that I have plagiarism in my published journal papers, what should I do now?
I published some research papers in an ISI Journal during the past years. But due to the lack of precise knowledge of the correct referencing, and particularly due to attending an “unintentional plagiarism class” in my university, perhaps in some places of my papers, referencing rules unintentionally do not meet correctly and exactly. It seems that I have to modify some parts of my papers if possible.
Also in some parts of my papers I commit an intentional plagiarism.
Now what should I do? Should I contact the editor of the journal? Do they reject or retract my papers? I am a PhD student and if my papers are rejected or retracted I could not defend my PhD thesis.
Please guide me. I'm afraid of expulsion from the university and loss of honor.

"Intentional plagiarism" sounds indeed bad. What is exactly what you have done? Unintentional honest mistakes will probably be not too bad, specially if they don't affect the general quality of the paper.

I recommend reading through this related question.

I think in this case "intentional plagiarism" means that while the OP intentionally and knowingly copied material he wasn't aware that that is what plagiarism is.

The journals need to be contacted, but I would not do it directly. Hopefully your university has someone, ideally a committee, who deals with academic misconduct. I would approach this panel with a detailed list of the occurrences in the papers where you now believe you have plagiarised. Explain to the committee how you were unaware of the norms of good academic research practice until your recent class on the topic. Have in place a plan that will help you continue your training and demonstrate to them that it will not happen again. While they may expel you, I think most academic misconduct panels would look favourably on a student who comes forth on there own with a plan in place. The committee should then be obliged to bring he matter forward with the presses and will negotiate a settlement.
As for loss of honor, it sounds like you plagiarised because you did not understand the norms. While some people will hold this against you, more will look favourably on your ability to admit a mistake.

As it stands it is impossible to say what can happen. Plagiarism is a serious thing but there are places where copied text is less detrimental and there are places where it is definitely so. If your self-plagiarized parts are in, for example methods descriptions where you are describing similar or in fact the same procedure or method, the issue may not be critical, not good either. So you need to assess, or perhaps better, let someone else assess the case. Why don't you contact the person(s) running the class you mention and ask them for advise with your papers at hand?
As for retraction, I am not sure the journal will necessarily retract your papers. Retraction is usually reserve for very serious cases of fraud. I suggest you carefully look at some of the cases written up on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). COPE is for editors and publishers but their cases may give you an idea of how your cases stands vis-à-vis their published cases.
So, try to get some more experienced people to look at your material and provide feedback. This will provide you with a better perspective than what can be achieved through this site since any answer here will be speculation or hypothetical since we have not seen the publications. Once you have a better perspective from your peers, and your case seem to lean towards there being a serious issue, you can consider contacting editors to hear their view. It is of course not impossible to contact them right away but right now it is not possible to evaluate if this is necessary.

StrongBad's answer is a good one though I would also suggest that when you approach anyone about it: have completed revisions of the papers with proper references on hand.
Going to them with "I just realized I made a mistake, these are the fixed versions I'd like to replace my old papers with" is probably better than just "I made a mistake".
Mistakes happen all the time in all fields but I'd be more concerned about the "intentional plagiarism" in their shoes, intentional dishonesty is much more serious than unintentional mistakes.

See my comment on the original question about intentional plagiarism. I think in this case the OP means he intentionally did something that is typically considered plagiarism, but wasn't aware at the time that it was wrong.


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Is it OK for graduate students to draft the research proposal for their advisor’s funding application (like NIH’s or NSF’s grant application)?
Is it appropriate (I type 'common' in the original post)for graduate students to draft the research proposal for their advisor’s funding application (like NIH’s or NSF’s grant application) ?

in the field of Biomedical research.
major grant proposal, like NIH's or NSF's)
Is this behavior allowed? Although it is OK and somewhat common for graduate students to draft grant proposal in our country, I'm not sure the situation in US or Canada. I do not know if I should write this thing in the personal statement for PhD application.

in what field? what kind of funding application? (In my field, mathematics, the answer is no.)

In engineering, its not that common but I know some professors who ask their students for drafts as an exercise.

In experimental fields, this is not exactly a routine practice, but it is not rare either.  Especially in a sizable lab with a large number of graduate students, multiple grants are needed to support all the work going on.  It takes a substantial amount of time to prepare a grant proposal, and most proposals are not funded, so working to get grants can be a major drain on a PI's time.  If a graduate student can do some of the work, that may be the most efficient use of laboratory resources.
And an experience graduate student is likely to be the person with the best practical understanding of what precisely they are doing in the lab.  The student should understand the significance and the challenges of what they are planning to study further, and including that specific knowledge can help to make the best case for funding a proposal.  That being said, I would not expect a student two write an entire proposal (including all the parts of the proposal describing logistics and budgeting), nor would I expect their discussion of the research aspect to be used without substantial editing by the PI.
Moreover, regardless of what career path they eventually take, it will be important for the students to be able to explain cogently what they are working on and why it is important.  Having a student write a draft describing the research they want to undertake may be a good way of teaching these skills.

In addition, for any student intending to go into research, learning specifically how to write and submit a research proposal to gain funding is arguably an important part of the education which should be provided to the student. As you already mention, the portion of that process which is explaining what they are working on (or are proposing to work on) and why that work is important is a skill which is translatable to most career paths.

I see nothing morally wrong with this. As a graduate student, you need to learn to write papers and applications, and being a part of a writing team for a grant proposal sounds like a great opportunity to learn. That's why I discuss my proposals with all my grad students and postdocs when I write them, so they get to see "how the sausage is made".
I tend to think that if this proposal will fund your own research, then not only is it appropriate for your to participate in, but can even be expected.

There's nothing at all wrong with it. You are part of the lab. It is a proposal to fund the lab (and you, by extension). And really, I've always felt my lab to be really a team-based atmosphere. Sure, the advisor was in charge and had final say and everyone has their individual projects, but they all should be pulling in the same direction.
Furthermore, as a graduate student, the proposal will either (a) be based significantly on the work you have done, or (b) be work you will do. Or (perhaps most likely) both. In any case, you have perspectives and ideas that even the PI does not have, so you should contribute whenever possible.
I was lucky to be involved in several proposals while in graduate school (Including NSF, ARPA-E, so fairly major ones). Not to say I "enjoyed" proposal writing, but it was/is a skill that as served me well in my post-academia career, and really has allowed my to contribute in my current position. And, it's worth noting that the technical writing skills of proposal writing translate fairly well to report writing, and really paper writing. Honestly, reading some of the journal papers out there, I wish more students got more involved in technical writing opportunities earlier in their careers.


text:
Should I include funny pictures in my slides?
I am preparing slides for a short (10min) talk at the group meeting. The talk is about a fairly serious piece of (pure) mathematics, and it so happens that there is a very relevant one-panel webcomic. A thought appeared to me, and got some support from my fellow PhD students, that it would be cool to include this comic, perhaps at the final thank-you-for-your-attention slide.
I am probably not going to do it, so I'm asking mostly out of curiousity: Would this be a bad idea to go ahead and include a comic on the final slide?
Note: The comic is genuinely funny (based on a sample of 6 non-randomly selected students). It is not - as far as I can tell - offensive in any way. It could come across as somewhat silly.

I'm seeing that all the time in presentations, especially in less formal settings (to which I would count group meetings).

This should be relevant: http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2015_10_21/caredit.a1500247

Loosely related: https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/01/stack-overflow-where-we-hate-fun/

This 5 minute talk https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat is very memorable precisely because of all the funny images and the tagline. It differs from your situation since although the talk is about a programming language, it is lighthearted in nature.

Can you be more specific?  What is the field and what is the comic?

@DaveKaye: My field is combinatorial number theory, if it matters. The comic is this one: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2874 . As you might guess, Fourier analysis is essential tool here.

That was indeed funny. I see no problems with that. The only thing I'd do is remove the bottom line about being crazy after getting tenure.

As long as you don't take the Fourier transform of  your cat, you should be fine https://xkcd.com/26/. Seriously though, I see funny comics, and other jokes all the time, including at conferences.

That does not answer the question, but speaking about "a fairly serious piece of  pure maths" in a group of number theorists shouldn't really be a   problem. If you are afraid of this, you may want to modify the mathematical  content of your talk.

@Taladris: It's not a problem at all. The only reason I mentioned that the piece of mathematics is "serious" is to make it clear that this is an ordinary mathematical talk, not a lighthearted one (where jokes would be more appropriate).

Every talk should have one joke and one proof --- and they should not be the same. (R. Graham)

Might be useful to clarify what you mean by "the group meeting." I originally assumed you meant a meeting with your advisor and your advisor's other advisees (the "group"). My PhD advisor had a weekly group meeting like this and it was very informal -- jokes would have been perfectly in context. The other answers to your question make me think that you're referring to a more serious setting, though.

Funny!  I think the XKCD one was funnier but that's outside the scope of the question.  ;-)  No problem including this slide, I can't see a single reason why not.  Agree that maybe you should lose the bit about tenure.

Are you talking about presenting a short-talk at the JMM? If so, definitely definitely definitely include the comic. Levity is almost always welcome among mathematicians, and meetings would be awfully tedious without it.

@PålGD is...is that a joke? Why is it so true?

I'd say that at least one XKCD or SMBC should be made obligatory for any academic presentation. But we're not there yet.

I did this with an XKCD comic at my thesis defense, which I would think is among the more serious occasions at which one might present a talk. (Though on second thought, it might be the opposite) It was well received there, and I would expect that a fun comic would be equally well received in most other talks.

Human cognition is a strange thing, and I won't pretend I know it well enough to give you a guide, but I will suggest that you simply consider your audience and how you want them to move through the information.
A dense, heavy talk with few breaks will tire most audiences.
A light talk that doesn't require much thought will result in many people letting their mind wander.
A talk which carefully weaves the "story" with a variety of dense to light moments, may actually improve retention.
Adding levity in the form of a joke or humor, if the joke is very relevant to the talk, can actually increase retention, as long as it isn't too much of a distraction.  Placing it appropriately is key, though, and I wouldn't do it at the end, because that's what people will remember.  The last few sentences should be a quick summary of the talk and should be memorable.
Placing it in the middle, during a transition - for instance between the problem statement and the methodology - could be good, and allow a release of tension if the problem statement was pretty densely packed.
Starting off with it, as an into to the topic and a method to get attention is also a pretty good choice.
In all things, though, consider your audience first.  What is the journey you are taking them on, and when would be an appropriate point for a rest break, a transition, a wake-up, etc.

Joined Academia.SE just to +1 this post.

Many of the "For Dummies" books include a comic strip at the beginning of each chapter. This seems like a good comparison to your "transition" and "starting off" points.

Wow, we have an answer race here :)

I quite like this answer because of the stress on relevance. Sometimes a comic can illustrate an important point about the topic being discussed, and in those cases it actually helps to use it as part of the explanation, as opposed to a straightforward, dry exposition.

I don't object to have fun, but I would object to have fun when you need to be serious. Because when the audience need you to be serious to your talk, then a funny picture will disrupt the thinking and they will be anxious.
If your talk in short, then I suggest you to put the comic at the end of the talk. If your talk is long, then I think putting it in the middle of the talk is fine, as long as the picture appears when no thinking is required, e.g. the transition between two sections. Not from section 2.1 to 2.2, but from 2 to 3.
(Personally I would put the funny slide after the discussion. Not only saving the best for the last, but also at that time, no one will think anymore, and indeed they are needed to be relaxed.)

I upvoted this because of the funny picture. Which makes it a token case of the larger type: "effectively using funny pictures in serious discussions."

@APrioriRainbows Ironically, doesn't your upvote reason kind of contradict Ooker's point?

@KyleStrand Not at all! It confirms it! It says that in some cases, the use of these pictures can win an audience over. By upvoting I was making his assertions true :) That's how I intended it anyway...

@APrioriRainbows That's....not really how I read Ooker's answer, especially since the whole first paragraph is explaining why the comic might not be appropriate.

He gives conditions. If it's long, then you probably shouldn't. But if it's short, you can do a number of things. Also, he says that he personally likes to put these slides last. I agree with his conditional suggestion. TBH I think that funny slides at the end of long presentation are nice too--especially if the material is dry. It's a good pick-me-up before the Q&A.

A big part of making an effective presentation is understanding your audience. You are going to be the best judge of how a funny slide will be received, since you know your group better than any of us do.
I can tell you that funny slides are not always a bad idea, just like they are not always a good idea - it depends on your audience and the goals of your presentation.
If you do use a funny slide, do it for a reason - but that should be true of all your slides. Every slide should have a clear purpose and be designed to communicate something to your audience (preferably one thing per slide). Funny "thank you" slides are no different. Decide what the purpose of your "thank you" slide is, and whether this comic will communicate that purpose to your particular audience, and then you will have your answer.

Whether you should include funny pictures in your slides has already been adequately answered by others, but I wanted to give you some more practical considerations to keep in mind when making this decision.
when using art from 3rd party artists, whether they are webcomic authors, paper comic authors, artists in classic media (paint, crayon, charcoal, firstborn blood) or another medium entirely, it is important to A) get their permission and B) have proper attribution. Both of these ensure that people who found the image interesting and want to see more can do so in a way that supports the content creator, on top of the more academic reasons for proper permission and attribution.
SMBC doesn't mention how to refer to them, so use your own judgment for determining how to best attribute. Definitely mention the artist (Zach Weinersmith), the website source (www.smbc-comics.com) and the date (2013-02-01).
Some people in comments have said to slightly crop the picture to remove the bit about tenure. DO NOT DO THIS WITHOUT AUTHOR PERMISSION! The work is copyrighted and while there is a fair-use exemption for educational use of copyrighted material, the line about tenure is part of what makes this funny, especially for non-combinational theorists (although I doubt those will be present at your presentation). Without this punchline, the joke kinda falls flat because it is just another completely wrong definition of a scientific term, and there are plenty of those already.

This doesn't answer the question...

@JeffDror The question itself is somewhat too dependent on the situation to give a straight yes/no answer. My answer is less intended to tell the author what to do and more of a "take this into account when deciding what to do".

This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post.

@jakebeal Sorry, but I can't fit what I wrote in this answer into a single comment, or even 2 comments. I mean, if I spent a lot of effort trying to condense it all, I might be able to. However, including a picture is not just "should I", but also "If I do it, what should I take into account. Also, thomij also doesn't have a clear yes/no answer and says "it depends".

@NateKerkhofs I would suggest condensing it then and making that comment.

This came up in the edit queue when I am reviewing. Good to see reminder on attribution but this answer can be improved by: 1) take out the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs as we generally understand the merit of attribution, and 2) provide a more general citation guideline. The OP never mentioned Weinersmith and I'm unsure about so much focus being put on this one particular source.

@Penguin_Knight I put focus on Weinersmith because he did mention that he wanted to share a SMBC comic in one of his comments (http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/57007/should-i-include-funny-pictures-in-my-slides/57031?noredirect=1#comment133067_57007)
. SMBC is created by Weinersmith. Also, what paragraphs are you exactly talking about? I'm not sure which you mean and I don't want to remove the wrong ones.

@NateKerkhofs, oh, I see. Sorry I didn't see that in the comment. That makes sense. For taking out/condensing, I believe the paragraphs starting with "Getting their permission" and "You're a scientist" would be good candidates.

@Penguin_Knight I condensed these paragraphs. I did keep in a reference to supporting the content creator because I think it's important to keep in mind that online content creators usually don't have a traditional paycheck like academics do, so it's an additional reason to do proper attribution and permission.

Thanks! This is off the queue now and I am guessing other editors decided the answer should stay as well. :)

There is a message or several messages you want to get across in your talk. If the cartoon helps to get the message you want to make at a given point in your presentation across (probably not, in the specific case), the cartoon can be useful. Otherwise, the cartoon is noise and dilutes your message. A cartoon will get the attention of your audience- but not necessarily to the message you want to get across.


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How much does a low undergraduate CGPA affect chances of getting a faculty job in a top-tier university?
Your undergraduate CGPA is quite low, but you were somehow accepted into a respected Masters and PhD program, and completed your postgraduate work quite successfully. Your undergraduate major was the same general field as your postgraduate research.
You are now beginning your academic job search. How would the low CGPA affect your chances of getting a job at a top-tiered academic institution in the US or UK?
If yes, then what else can you do in the meantime to counteract the negative effects of that low CGPA?
(btw, I am asking this for a friend, not for me as I am not in academia)

One of our high rep users has low undergrad GPA(2.4/4.0). He is a full professor at a top tier university in the US. I don't think undergrad GPA matters when searching for a faculty job. Your friend's research publications is the most important factor.

Yeah, hi. Not at all.

As you have already done Masters and PhD, your CGPA in undergraduate is least to be bothered. If you are in academia, your quality of research matters more than the grades that you have obtained long back in undergraduate studies.
As your credential will grow, your resume will be filled with much more valued contents rather than just grades.

For applications for faculty positions people would usually state only their undergrad degrees with date, subject and university. For postdoc applications, one could include more detail, but I don't think anyone would get suspicious if no grades are listed.
Thus, having low grades on your undergrad studies would have no direct impact on jobchances after the PhD, because people simply wouldn't know about them.

Thanks for the reply. So is the undergraduate academic transcript never given? Just the degree certificate?

Neither the transcript nor the certificate would be part of the application. It is possible, although not certain, that if a candidate is accepted all certificates are actually checked, but if only the PhD certificate is asked for, that wouldn't be too unusual either.

In fact, I don't even know if we check that the claimed credentials are accurate via a background check. So not only do we NOT check undergraduate GPA (and not care about it) I don't think we check if the student indeed defended a Ph.D in the claimed institution (the letters are enough).

I think we do check the PhD, but nothing else.

What you have done since your undergraduate days is far more significant than how focused/motivated you were at that time. Everyone understands that students are still figuring out their priorities, and that adolescents are insane by definition.
If you're worried about it anyway, you may want to have an answer ready in case someone asks you about them. Mine would be a combination of:
-- I was spending too much time on student activities, mostly on volunteer projects though I admit D&D ate a great deal of my spare time as a freshman.
-- I was still figuring out what I wanted my actual career path to be. (In fact, my degree says EE but I've wound up returning to CS ... my grades would have been better if I'd stuck with my first love, but I felt I needed to balance my knowledge of software with more hardware insight.)
-- I was more concerned with learning the material than with proving I had learned the material. As a result, I tended to work hardest on homework in the classes where I was struggling, and sometimes blew off homework in classes where I felt I didn't need the practice. If you could look at my records in greater detail, you'd see a fair number of courses where my final grade was a B because my homework grade was C but I blew away the final. Obviously, I've gotten smarter about time management since then.
Note that every one of those, while true and admitting a failure, also acts as an opportunity to discuss what I learned from that failure, what strengths it demonstrates to offset the failure, and why I'm a good candidate now. Use it as an opportunity for storytelling and marketing; make lemonade out of the lemons.

anecdote re: "more concerned with learning the material" -- this is a good thing, and what it actually reveals is a failure on the part of the professors to correctly test who knew the material.  With that experience, when applying for a teaching position you'd do well to also discuss how you would structure grading to avoid that.

The best response when someone asks about your undergrad grades during a faculty search is a confused look, followed by "Oh, who cares? Let's talk about research."

My grandfather was famously (within the family) asked just this question (concerning poor undergraduate marks) during his interview an M.Sc. program. His answer was roughly "As an undergraduate, I enjoyed being an undergraduate; now I am ready to concentrate on my studies." He was accepted eagerly, and the subject never came up again.


text:
Applying to summer research project, should I tell prof about mental health issues to explain poor grades last year?
I'm currently a junior undergrad in a mathematics program, and emailed a prof at a different school if I would be able to apply as a candidate for a summer project he advertised on the school's website. I'm interested in attending this school for graduate work, and mentioned that to the prof.
In his response, he was very excited about my interest in his project (work in ocean sciences) and in the graduate program, and asked if I could send a transcript. I'm very happy about the response, because the prof was very enthusiastic, but due to (what I now know was and is) depression, my grades took a dip, which can be seen in my transcript. For reference, I've done poorly in a mathematics class and computer science class in my sophomore year (2 Cs, and a D in a genetics course, but that's unrelated to this project). Since then, I've gotten Bs in Calc III and Adv Calc (the only other courses relevant so far).
I know this is not a representation of of my ability, as I've done research projects utilizing the material from classes I've done poorly in, and have done well in the projects. At the same time, I don't want to make excuses for myself, and I don't know if it's fair to disclose that information to the prof to make him choose between a candidate like me, and someone else who is "normal".
How should I respond to this? Should I tell him I can't do his project because my grades aren't up to par, or should I try and explain myself?

You can explain that you had a grade dip because of either personal issues or health issues, but I wouldn't feel obliged to disclose more unless you feel compelled to. That is, assuming you feel that this situation has resolved or is resolvable.

Also see here

Additionally for your particular situation, if you decide to mention your struggles, although it's possible the professor will want to support you (and a summer project isn't as much of an investment to him as taking you on as a graduate student, so he might be more willing to take the risk), you are probably best off if you can demonstrate some improvement following your diagnosis. Certainly it can take time to work on getting the right medication or therapy to get you back on track, nothing wrong with that, but it will be really difficult to do that while managing new stresses of grad work.

I too had this kind of problem. I even got nil grades for various course in three consecutive semesters because of some depression and lost of purpose (academic apathy?). I then took a leave for a semester.
After I came back to campus, my department head asked me why did I do badly in those three semester while I have a good cumulative grade. I casually told him I had those two dire problems at that time. He accepted my reasoning and even gave me advice to gear up for my graduation. :)

If the lower grades belong to a specific time period, then it might be worthwhile to provide an explanation.  If they are scattered here and there through your first four semesters of college, then maybe not.  Keep in mind that many students have a bumpy start to college, and professors are used to that.
At this stage, perhaps you could leave it rather vague ("health problems") for now.  If you are accepted for the summer project, do mention that recently you were diagnosed and began treatment, so that your professor is aware of the general situation.  Also, if there are any specific accommodations you would find helpful during the summer project, let him know what those are.
Speaking of accommodations, if you are in the U.S., but don't have ADA accommodations (also known as 504 accommodations) set up, this would be something to consider looking into.  If you are interested, you could start by

looking at your college's office for students with disabilities web pages to see what documentation they require;
thinking about what accommodations would be most helpful for you.  Look around on the web at lists of accommodations some people have found helpful, to get some ideas.


text:
What are the important questions to ask during an interview for an adjunct lecturer position?
Preface: I apologize if this is a duplicate question; I've searched for it and I believe my situation is distinct, since the answers I found were for post-doc or tenure-track interviews.
I'm preparing for an interview with the Dean of Instruction for an adjunct lecturer position. I've already had an informal interview with the co-chair of the department and that went really well. I prepared and asked a lot of questions in that meeting (about the student population, class size, departmental teaching philosophy, etc.) but now that they've been answered I'm not sure how to best use this formal interview. What information is useful to know about the institution, that the Dean of instruction might be able to answer? Right now my ideas are:

What skills and qualities make an adjunct successful at [institution]?
What common challenges do new adjuncts face?
What do you enjoy about working at [institution]?

Are these appropriate questions? Are there other things that it would be good for me to know/ask about, that I might be missing?

Some other things you may want to ask, but unfortunately will probably be able to guess the answers to by yourself:

What is the compensation per period/credit? (I waited to ask this until after the whole interview, and it turned out to be so far below minimum wage I almost laughed when he said it. Thank goodness I caught myself.)
What is a typical class size? (To know how much grading you'll have.)
Do you have any materials from previous lecturers that I can use? (Save prep time)
Will I have access to a TA/student grader?
Are these traditional or non-traditional students? (You may be able to infer the student commitment to your classes with this answer)

It would also be a good time to ask about resources, parking, if you get an office or anything, and other administrivia.

Hi! Thanks for your answer, sorry I wasn't clear enough in my question. I already had an informal interview with the department co-chair, where I asked these questions, so I know these answers. I'm wondering if there's anything else I might be missing.

Why "Thank goodness I caught myself."? If they are offering below minimum wage then why worry about what they think?

You could start the discussion by mentioning some of the questions you discussed with the co-chair and giving the Dean a chance to elaborate on some of the points, then lead in with one or two of the questions you mentioned in your post. The Dean may also have a few questions for you, such as what your expectations are, what is your favourite part about teaching, etc.

@emory - I dunno, it's bad form to laugh in someone's face? I may need the job later? That's what I did, you can feel free to laugh at potential employers all you like. 'Tis a free country.

@NMJD - NP, just posting some other stuff that I didn't see you mention. If you already went over all this then awesome, you're probably asking the right things.

@eykanal I agree it is bad form and I would not recommend it, but I also would not sweat too much about it.


text:
Electronic supplementary materials for scientific journals
Journals require certain heights & widths for figures, however, since it's my first time preparing an article with Latex I'm facing some problems.
For example I have a total of 20 maps & I'm thinking of making a grid called (fig7) using Latex for each 8 pair of maps. When I supply
high resolution figures with the final script do I need to combine each map that I use to make (fig7) in one figure called (fig7.eps) or do I just supply each map with its respective subscript (ex: fig7a.eps, fig7b.eps, etc)?

Journal requirements for submitting figures vary. If the journal you're submitting to doesn't make their submission guidelines clear, providing combined figures may be the most organized option.

@Harry thank you for your response.but Im aiming for journal in Springer as main target than Elsevier journal as second option...however i've check guidelines for multiple times but there's no mention to such problem as you can tell I have 20 different maps for the study region that make the independent variables for the study,and assuming I made them in layout of 3×3 or 3×4 that means I resize them terribly in 2 pages due to limited space of the article of course. Then going by your advice the supplementary high resolution figure would be very bad & unreadable  than the one in the article

I cannot tell for Springer or Elsevier, but a couple of years ago I published a paper in an IOP journal which contained a table with several diagrams.
I submitted the diagrams separately and included them in the table's cells with \includegraphics, as I did it preparing the manuscript. It worked.
Each journal has its own idiosyncrasies when it comes to LaTeX practices. When the guidelines do not provide enough information, my strategy is to first try submitting the files as they are, following my workflow, and if it doesn't work I resort to other solutions.

Ok I will I try your idea @Massimo ...i will flag your reply as an answer for the moment if there's anything new I will update the question.thank you Harry &  Massimo


text:
How do I actively learn NEW CONTENT from text based content?
How do I improve my ability to learn?
Here is a similar question. I will tell why it doesn't answer my question here.

Solving exercises is not my problem. My problem is learning the theoritical subjects where it is dense theory only.

I tried teaching to someone else but that still doesn't help me to understand text content. It does help for recall though.

I do active learning while reading textbooks. I write a lot of notes. But I simply can't get a conclusion reading books.

Practice helps but only if I already understood the concept.

I do overlearning. I actually understand everything when I overlearn. i.e first study from videos then from books. But it is not sustainable as I am approaching life after graduation and there are fewer and fewer video content afterwards.

I have goals while learning. I learn paragraph by paragraph. It still becomes hard for me to comprehend it. But if I watch a video or some other source that is not text content, I can easily digest it.

I do spaced repetition but that doesn't help me with learning new content.

Encoding and active recall all come after learning new content.

Deliberate practice doesn't help learning NEW Content but it does help strenghtening already learnt concepts.

At some point every scholar faces the fact that they no longer have a guide and that they are mostly on their own for learning new things. I can make a few suggestions.
If you are learning something completely new, expect it to be slow. If it is deep, expect it to be very slow. It took Einstein about ten years to come up with special relativity.
If you are learning something related to what you know already, try to build connections between the two. Try to get insights into the new topic from insights (and the way you obtained them) from the old.
Some of your approaches, such as #6 seem to be both based on memorization, not learning, and a too small, microscopic, view of the subject. You need a broad view and insight and that is unlikely to be found in any small section of a text, certainly not in a paragraph. Ask yourself constantly "How does it fit?".
Don't work alone. Einstein bounced ideas off of others in his circle during those ten years. And he used very old insights from Galileo to form the foundation. Discuss what you are learning with others who also might be interested.
If you absolutely have to work alone, don't work from just one text. Get a different book and compare what is written in the two (or more) texts. Different authors may take slightly different approaches to a topic and you might gather insight from that.
I'll suggest one simple technique that might help or not. It has two parts. First, as you read, take notes. Don't just copy what you read, but try to capture your understanding of them in a single sentence or two (not more). Take the notes on index cards and number them as you go, since you will eventually rearrange them and may want to put them back in order. You can use different colors of cards for different sorts of things also. Keep the backs of the cards empty initially.
The second part of the exercise is to select a few cards, perhaps at random, not always sequential. Look at those cards and think about whether there are interrelationships between what you have written on the cards. The goal is to use different approaches to try to find a big picture - insight. The backs of the cards can be used during review for notations. And you can create new cards as well.
The advantage of index cards over electronic capture is that you can always carry a few cards with you and spend a few minutes here and there reviewing just those cards. Let the mind work. Let it wander. Intense study over many hours can be self defeating, actually. The mind gets stuck. It gets tired. It rebels.

There is, of course, no plan that will work for everyone.

The card suggestion seems great to me, even to actually see if you understand the topic itself rather than the book presenetation alone.

Some people learn from reading better than others.  I think there is no method that is  best for all learners.  Some of the points in your question are, indeed, good ways to do it for may readers.  Maybe you are one of those who will require a live instructor in order to learn hard material?
Long ago, instructors used (very effective) corporal punishment (such as a ruler to the palm) to help learners; but that is frowned upon nowadays.  I heard of a psychologist using such a method on himself... he kept a rubber band around his wrist; whenever he wanted to make himself remember something, he would pull it out and release, hoping the pain would reinforce the memory.

"no method that is best for all learners" Is often claimed, but rarely tested.  Most tests just show that trying a new method of learning will help you learn.


text:
Why do lecturers give only couple of days to do exercises?
I have always been on a courses where lecturer teaches something and then gives the exercises on that subject. Is that a better way than reveal all exercises when the course begins? I mean, why I should always have only one week time to write solutions and then wait until the next set is revealed? I understand that this gives equal amount of time to think every problem but is it always necessary, as people learns by various speed?

It seems plausible to me that the reason that lectures don't give out all exercises at the beginning of the course is because they don't see exercises as being different from any other course material (e.g., slides, handouts, exercises, reading lists, etc.). Why are these materials not always made available from the outset? Because often they've not been finished.

@Ian_Fin I agree with your conjecture of most of them have not being finished to begin with. But what about MOOCs? In most cases all of them are finished before hand. Although there are MOOCs which allow the students to access all content at once, most only open access on a weekly basis. This even happens in courses which tend to show the same questions everyday. This is quite a good question to ponder.

@ÉbeIsaac I've never prepared a MOOC, so I'm wandering far into conjecture-land, but perhaps those weekly-access MOOCs are emulating real-world teaching, and real-world teaching has materials becoming available on a week-by-week basis for the reasons already discussed. I think my take home message is that while one might come up with a rigorous, valid, post-hoc rationalisation for delivering exercises week-by-week the actual reason may well be a mundane practical one. I may be wrong, but I feel the OP is hoping for an answer grounded in pedagogy, rather than practicality.

I am not an expert, but learning something by working on it repeatedly (with paused) over a prolonged period of time is supposedly better for long term understanding of the topic than doing a "study marathon".

The instructor may not want the students to work far ahead in the class.
If the student does go on ahead and is doing exercises incorrectly (due to lack of knowledge of the subject), then it is may be harder for the student to learn the subject matter correctly due to the bad habits he or she has developed.

Because the time span, and tedium, spent on the subject matters. Cramming, trying to learn as fast as possible, on the other hand does not work well. Our brain just values things by the amount of time and effort we spent on learning it. But also because of practical time constraints.
For example repetition works best if you repeat over many sessions. If I release all exercises in all go I have no way to control over repetitions, you can do them all in one go, which defeats the point.
Second, there might be reasons for the teacher to tell the story in a certain order. In some cases you want to introduce a concept that is superseded by a different concept making the concept obsolete except in corner cases. But since that technique can be critical for something else it is introduced nonetheless. Forcing to show all does not help, as a student might skip this step.
Certainly one of the reasons is that the material is not ready. But even if it is the teacher might reserve the right to change it. They often plan to do so, secretly in their mind anyway. Why dont students return their assignments well before the deadline? Well the reasons are often same.

@BenCorwell not all crammers cram at the last minute some try do as much in one go as possible. If all people would do things at the last minute then i could adjust things by return time. But its true that many crammers are just bad at time allocation and cram because they are in a hurry. Drip feeding things helps in these cases too.

The reason is that the assignments are meant to be closely paired with the lessons.
If a student is going to work through the book and the material far in advance of the lecture, they might as well not even be taking the class. It is quite possible they did all the problems wrong; in this case, after learning more from the lecture, they are unlikely to go back and redo the problems. Even if they did the problems correctly, if it is done too far in advance it might not get paired efficiently in their mind with what they do in lecture. When they are done in close proximity, working through the exercises helps reinforce learning about the conceptual ideas presented in the lecture,
As far as the speed of learning is concerned, a student can always read ahead in the book to be better prepared. But a big part of your education is learning to complete assignments in a timely manner. That means not only meeting deadlines, but also being able to complete them in a given timeframe.

First of all, that it isn't always the case. I've seen many syllabi distributed on the first day of the class in which the homework was assigned for every chapter to be covered. I almost never do it myself though (except the most routine classes that have common final, uniform grading, etc.). Why? Here are my 3 top reasons (not necessarily in order of importance):
1) If somebody wants to study ahead and is capable of it, he doesn't need me to tell him what exercises to try. Normally there are just two or three different kinds after each chapter in the textbook and all he needs to do is to practice each kind until he gets comfortable with it. For some people one problem is enough, for others six may be too few. There is no "one size fits all" solution when the individual study is concerned, so why should I even try?
2) I prefer to have complete flexibility when running the course, so if I see that it is better to skip, to rearrange, or to add something on the fly, I do not hesitate to do it. This, of course, affects the assignments as well. Combined with the students' eternal quest for "fairness" and the crazy administrative idea that "the syllabus is a legal contract", this prompts me to fix in advance or promise as little as possible.
3) Sheer laziness. Preparing a few lectures a week doesn't bother me too much but planning one hundred lectures in a month between the semesters is quite another story, not to mention that I'd rather spend my free time on something if not more useful, then, at least, more interesting to me.
Of course, I'll not be surprised if somebody else comes with his "3 top reasons to assign everything on day one" and those will sound equally or even more compelling. The teaching styles differ and if there is any "general rule of teaching", it is "do what works for both you and your students and don't what doesn't", and that is a purely empirical function of many variables. I am, probably, quite a mediocre teacher myself, but some people around me are really good at it and, believe it or not, they have quite diverse opinions on what is a "must" and what is a "no-no" (big classes/small classes; individual assignments/group assignments; grading homework/doing weekly quizzes; one midtem/three midterms; and so on, including the issue you raised).

Why do instructors allow a short period of time between assignment and due date of homework?  Here are the reasons I am aware of:

The instructor feels that the assignment will not be understood properly if it is shown to the students prematurely.
In my opinion, even when there is some objective truth to this, the instructor could still provide a preview-level version of the assignment ahead of time.
The instructor is not well organized.
The instructor has not thought deeply about how people learn, stress levels in undergraduate and graduate studies, etc.
The instructor is concerned that far-away due dates might contribute to students getting behind.
In my opinion, if this is a true concern, then interaction with the instructor (or with TA's if it is a large course) should be built into the course, to enable problems to be caught and positively addressed.  I am convinced this can be done, even in classes with 200 students.  I had such an experience once as an undergrad, in a large music theory class, and once in a graduate level class in a large film history class.  In both cases, students were enrolled in both the 200-student lecture and in 20-student "discussion" sections led by well-trained TAs.
The instructor has (explicitly or implicitly) bought into his department's or institution's decision to use competition for grades as its philosophical and management foundation.  In other words, give students a short amount of time for each assignment as part of a general effort to crank up the sink-or-swim pressure.
Think about the whole concept of grading on a bell curve.  This builds in a certain expected failure rate.  (Not to mention a mediocrity rate.)
The instructor has explicitly or implicitly bought into the general philosophy so prevalent in higher education of trial by fire.
The reasoning, probably unconscious much of the time, might go something like this: "I survived the pressure when I was in school, look where I am today... therefore academic pressure creates positive pressures on students to work hard and succeed."

I did not mark you down, because the response is informative, but most of your reasons assume negative intentions, with exception of 1. or 4. I am afraid, that plays into the bias that students have, that learning must be easy, and the lecturer has to spoon-feed them and allow them to do whatever they want in any unorganised structure they want, even if it does not work. Sorry, but most students profit from structure. Few don't, and these anyway ignore the rules and move at their own pace (and I am not talking about weak students here). I thus find the response only of limited helpfulness.

@CaptainEmacs Structure is good, and not all students should get A's.  Sorry for my cynicism.  I have seen too many math departments with structural problems created or condoned by administration.  The whole weeder course philosophy really bothers me.  A friend in Latin America in a pre-med program told me his department limited the number of passing grades in their weeder course, Anatomy, by assigning huge groups of students to each table.  Many students couldn't even see the work being done on the table, and some resorted to digging up graves so they could learn what they needed to know.

Wow, that's a Burke and Hare moment. I guess I can never make any statement pertinent to the abysmal situation that you describe in Latin America, my statement is only valid for systems that I've seen or know about, which is Anglo-Saxon and Europe.

@CaptainEmacs - Burke and Hare?  Well, I feel just as sad about the math departments I referred to.  Weeder courses and bell curve grading schemes are just plain unethical in my opinion.

Burke and Hare are notorious graverobbers in Britain. As well known as Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde stories, but real. As for weeder courses - I would not mind them, as long as they measure absolute capability rather than a quantile of the intake. There are strong years and there a weak years, and whatever measure is used should not be relative to the performance of the cohort.

@CaptainEmacs - Yuck.  Thanks for explaining.  Your last sentence is great; I don't understand quantile of the intake.

"quantile" means, say, 20% of the course fail, no matter what, whether the whole course is weak or strong. There are industry management systems like that and they obviously assume that all cohorts are equally good. Of course, that's nonsense, and highly demotivating, except for those who are so strong that they can be confident of being in the top.

@CaptainEmacs - Thank you.  "Highly demotivating" is exactly right.


text:
Referencing images found in public domain
How should I reference images found in public domain in my thesis?
I mean, if it would be copyrighted, I would add a comment a la "reproduced with permission from X". If it would be under Creative Commons license, I would add a comment "licensed under XY license".
What about public domain? Should I add some sort of comment to make clear it is public domain? E.g. if I would like to use something from NREL website (http://www.nrel.gov/).

I'm confused because you talk about "referencing" images, which is about giving academic credit where it is due, but then you go on to talk about noting the license in the paper, which is about copyright. (Note that copyright and academic credit are orthogonal concerns; even if you satisfy your obligations under copyright, you still have a responsibility to credit the original source of the work.)

The images may still be under copyright. I think you have to contact NREL. Here's their copyright policy which states:

Copyright Status
NREL-authored documents are sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy
  under Contract DE-AC36-08GO28308. Accordingly, with respect to such
  documents, the U.S. Government and others acting on its behalf retain
  a paid-up nonexclusive, irrevocable world-wide license to reproduce,
  prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the public, and perform
  publicly and display publicly, by or on behalf of the Government. Use
  of documents available from or referenced by this server may be
  subject to U.S. and foreign Copyright Laws.

So you need to identify the source and copyright status of the document that contains the image.


text:
When referring to races, should 'black' and 'white' be capitalized? (MLA)
I was assigned to write about the relationship between poverty and crime, and in my research, race came up as a factor. I'm supposed to use the MLA format. Should 'black' and 'white' be capitalized when referring to the respective races? I see that APA specifies that they should be capitalized, but I can't find anything for MLA.

Possibly on topic here as per http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3457/why-is-citation-style-on-topic

Retracted my close vote after seeing that I actually upvoted the meta answer saying citation style questions are on topic.

Interestingly, White authors generally use the lower case.  Black authors, or authors who read a lot of articles written by Black authors, generally use upper case.  See, for example, http://journalofafricanamericanmales.com/.

@aparente001 I restored the OP's description of the subject of the research because the capitalization can be field specific (even irrespective of the citation style). For example, in medicine  lowercase is used most often, while uppercase is often used in some social science fields. So the subject of the research can be relevant to the answers.

Firstly, the MLA has the following on its website;

When Merriam-Webster indicates that a term is “capitalized” or
“usually capitalized,” the MLA capitalizes the term in its
publications. When Merriam-Webster indicates that a term is “often
capitalized,” our practice varies. We usually lowercase sun, moon, and
earth, but, following The Chicago Manual of Style, when the does not
precede the name of the planet, when earth is not part of an idiomatic
expression, or when other planets are mentioned, we capitalize earth:
The earth revolves around the sun.
The astronauts landed on the moon.
The space shuttle will return to Earth next year.
The four planets closest to the sun—Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars—compose the inner solar system.

From Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Part of the Definition for black

(1) often capitalized:  of or relating to any of various population groups having dark pigmentation of the skin  (black Americans) (2) :  of or relating to the African-American people or their culture (black literature) (a black college) (black pride) (black studies)

From Merriam-Webster Dictionary Part of the definition for white

a :  being a member of a group or race characterized by light pigmentation of the skin

This makes no reference to capitalization. From the MLA definition it appears that they should be lower case.
This MLA stylesheet also says;

Capitalization in MLA style is mostly conventional, with the
exceptions noted below.  Generally, specific designations are
capitalized, as in the American West. But more general
designations--or designations used as adjectives--are lowercased: The
western United States, eastern Europe.

The names of ethnic or racial groups are capitalized if they represent a geographical region or language group. For example,
Hispanic, Asian, African American, Appalachian.
Terms based only on color, direction, size, habitat, customs, or local usage are usually lowercased

Irrespective of the above, as per guifa, Ben Crowell, and ff524 comments, a number of other factors can also be considered in making a decision to capitalise or not such as

Those that read MLA will be pretty flexible so you can always explain your choice in a footnote. It's actually quite common to do that with certain terminology issues. For example, you could say "In this paper, for [insert reason], we/I capitalize all adjetives referencing ethnic or racial groups."
You could preface an article on this kind of topic with an explanation of your usage and why it suits your purposes.
Capitalization can be field specific (even irrespective of the citation style). For example, in medicine lowercase is used most often, while uppercase is often used in some social science fields.

@Zenon (and @ gman), MLA — or at least those that read MLA — will be pretty flexible.  And especially if race is a focal point, you can always explain your choice in a footnote.  It's actually quite common to do that with certain terminology issues.  For example, you could say "In this paper, for [insert reason], we/I capitalize all adjetives referencing ethnic or racial groups."

@guifa - I suggest making this an answer.  Very helpful.


text:
Is it OK to write first initial of some authors on a paper and full first name of others?
Suppose there are two authors Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton on a research paper. Is it OK to write them as A. Einstein and Isaac Newton or vice versa? Similarly, if there are more authors, is it OK to write initials of some of them and not all? If it is not OK, is it wrong and unacceptable, or bad?
My question is about writing the authors' names on the top, with the title of the paper.

Are you referring to writing their names in the body of the text, as citations, in the references? Do you have a particular citation style in mind? This question is lacking a few critical pieces of information.

@Ian_Fin: ... or in the list of authors of the paper ... (unless you meant that by "in the body of the text").

My question is about writing the names on the top with the title of the paper.

Usually, this is determined by the style guidelines of the journal or conference, so all author names should be formatted in the same way. There are cases, however, where one author consistently uses an initial as his first name, or even, where an author has an initial as his first name, leading
to a non-uniform formatting of authors' names (e.g.,
Deepak Kapur, G. Sivakumar, Hantao Zhang: A path ordering for proving termination of AC rewrite systems or Zhou Chaochen, C.A.R. Hoare, Anders P. Ravn: A calculus of durations).

This is the answer I was about to post.  The most common case in my experience is when someone prefers to go by a middle name: "Lee Carlson" to their friends, "R. Lee Carlson" formal author credit.  (Mr. Carlson was my high school math teacher.  He refused to tell anyone what the R stood for.)

I agree that one should look at the journal's guidelines for references/bib. I do disagree with comments that journals obsessively follow one or other standard. In the title/author list in APS/AIP journals they permit an author list to mix authors who use only their first intiitals and those who try to include the full first name.  (However, what happens in the reference list is that typically initials will get used - but again while I'd have to check, I think I've seen it mixed.

It's OK. It is generally each author's personal decision under which name they are listed on a paper. People have published scientific papers under pseudonyms, abbreviations, and as "anonymous authors". Possibly, some people will find inconsistent naming or deviations from the usual naming scheme weird, but it's really none of their business.

Following @lighthouse kepper's and @Uwe's answers I'd suggest:
If you are author of the article and submitting the manuscript then write full names of all the authors except for ones who want to use different naming. This way, the descision is on the journal's side and the preference was clearly stated.
If you are responsible for the visual style of the article then discuss it with your boss or more experienced colleagues what to do. Usually when there are few authors it is better to display full names, when there is a lot of authors listed, and "et.al." is not an option, use abbreviations. If someone submitted name with abbreviation only, use this name as defalut.
If you are referee and you was given such article to review, ignore it and focus on the article's content.


text:
Who to ask for letters of recommendation when changing fields after PhD?
I want to apply to competitive postdoc programs in a different field than the one of my PhD.  It asks for 3 recommendation letters. What to do if none of my collaborators is well-known in the target field/institutes?
I do have some papers "in between fields", but I didn't have enough opportunity to pursue this interest during my PhD (so neither papers nor collaborators are world-recognized).
Except for advisor, should I aim for:

collaborators in my main field (they won't be recognized in the target field, much less - target institution),
or collaborators from the cross-disciplinary paper (they won't be recognized either, but are from the right field),
or the most recognized profs in the target field (with whom I have been talking, but not collaborating)?

A well-known prof in your target field is not a bad idea if they know your work and are enthusiastic about it. It is generally a good idea to have some letters form senior people (leaders of their fields) who have not worked with you but can evaluate your research in a dispassionate way and place it in the context of the field.

The purpose of letters of recommendation is to confirm your research skills and vision.  Since you're changing fields, you really don't have anybody who can speak to your skills in the new field yet, but you may have people who can speak to your skills in your old field and how they think those may be relevant to the new field.
Much more important than your letters of recommendation, however, is establishing contact with the people that you want to work with in your new field.  Postdoc hiring is generally less like grad school and more like seeking a permanent position in academia or industry: you are not likely to be hired for your potential to develop new skills, but rather for your ability to rapidly start contributing in areas of interest to the lab you will join.
What you want to look for is thus an overlap between the two that will allow you to "pivot", contributing with your old skills while learning new skills. If you're making a complete and total switch (e.g., field botany to femtosecond laser circuits), then this might be pretty hard to find.  More often, however, there is an overlap that can make it beneficial for both you and the sort of lab you want to join.  For example, if your thesis was on mechanical stress models and you want to move into biology, then you might look for people working on anatomical problems where your stress models might be useful to apply.
If at all possible, you should get introductions to people you are interested in working with in person at a conference or electronically by third parties known to both of you.  Any PI is likely to be constantly getting cold-call emails applying for postdocs from dubious applicants, and you want something that will make you be placed into the category of "person worth replying to" rather than "spam folder."  Here is where your conversations with the high-profile professor may be valuable, if that professor is willing to make such introductions.  Your letters of recommendation are then less about making your case than about confirming that you are who you present yourself to be.