text:
3.65 GPA, 1 D on Undergraduate Transcript; MBA in Top 10
Looking to apply to a top 10 MBA program in a few years.
Currently finishing up my undergraduate degree at a top 20 national university. I have a 3.65 GPA, majoring in Computer Science, and have a Business Concentration.
I got 1 D in my second semester of freshmen year in a basic CS class (Algorithms). I've done significantly better in all of my classes with a range of A+ to B across the board. The semester I received a D in one class, I took too many hours and couldn't do well on all my exams. That semester, it was that one class that I got a D in - otherwise I had all As and A+s.
I'm hoping to work in industry for a few years before applying to MBA school but would love to learn what the serious chances/challenges/implications are as I apply to a Top 10 MBA School. I just want to get a better trajectory on where my career path lies.
The dream is to be in technology management - a CTO, VP of Engineering etc.

...which is a duplicate of Will one 'C' grade due to health issues ruin my chances of admission into a top grad school?


text:
Can a university prevent me from choosing any elective module (subject)?
I am a student in an Irish university and I will be going into my fourth year in September. My problem is that I would like to apply for a MSc programme, for which one of the requirements is previous enrollment in mathematics modules, but, unfortunately, my course did not offer any classes in maths. I would like to choose mathematics as a part of my elective subjects, but administrators in my school told me that I am not allowed to do that, since mathematics is not in a domain of my course. I looked up college policies and none of them specifically mentioned that I cannot do that. Though, they indicate that:

The selection of the module depends on the lecturer and the school concerned. The student is allowed to choose a module provided they are capable of profiting by attendance thereat.
Some schools explicitly point out that if a student wishes to enroll in a module not allowed by the regulations they must make an application to the college.

My question is: is it worth arguing with the college administrators to make an exception or should I just accept that I am simply not allowed to do that. I think they rationale is that no-one ever made such a request and that it could become a precedent.

I can imagine some math courses being filled to capacity, and thus not allowing outsiders to enroll.  And I can imagine a student who has done no math for four years not being able to keep up in a math course.  But of course neither of these answers your question.

There is a big difference between not allowing you to take an extra module, not counting the module towards your degree, and preventing from taking a module all together. When exactly did they say?

Have you checked the timetables? I could see having conflicts between the courses and/or exams because most students don't take this combination.

The problem is of a practical nature: we have a limited number of electives to select from. I CAN choose an additional module (with a fee obviously), but it clashes with with the aforementioned electives. I was wondering if I could swap a regular elective available for my course with a mathematics module, but apparently it is not possible. The only possibility for me seems to be deferring the application for the MSc programme until next year when I will be able to take those additional classes.

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sort: votes


text:
Best options for publishing original research without being in academia?
What are the best options for publishing an original piece of research for someone who is not in academia? The main issues are:

zero prior publications, i.e. no reputation whatsoever in the given field,
no contacts, i.e. no-one that can step in as a "referee" or a "supervisor",
no academic titles in the given field (ex. a PhD or something equivalent).

The research is original and does provide new information about a given topic. But given the above limitations the options are not obvious.
What can one do in this case? I heard people who are starting out in publishing can post on arXiv.org, and once they have a couple of "published" papers respectable journals will be more likely to consider the candidate.
Is there any advice out there for people doing research as hobby?

The lack of title or previous publications is not going to be a major problem. Double blind reviewing takes care of that. The biggest problem you will face is lack of experience. Academic articles have a very particular style, which is hard to acquire without a mentor. Also knowing if something is truly new, often requires inside knowledge. Similarly, knowing what knowledge is standard and what needs to be explained needs inside knowledge.
If you do this as a hobby, then it may be more rewarding to get face to face feedback rather than an article with your name on it that collects dust. In that case it would be nicer to try to get this in a conference.

Double blind review is not always used. But even when it is not, having no prior publications or degree is no issue if the work is solid.

I'd add that in many fields double blind review is never used (thankfully, somehow).

My advice: Work on the second point, get contacts.
Send an email to people working on related topics, ask them if they would like to take a look at your work, if you can ask them a question, etc.
If possible, try to contact PhD candidates or recent post docs, as they often have more time available than a professor and might be more willing to look at what you did. For that you should have a nicely written, complete draft available, that is both short and informative and that is nice to read - for example: don't put way to long equations, try to drop these and state that "one can prove, that...", maybe adding that you will send the proof if needed.
Once you have established a contact, the first thing should be to find out if what you did is really worth a publication. Maybe it is already known and you simply don't have access to the journal? Maybe it is not interesting enough, e.g. it might be considered a simple homework exercise for someone who is an expert on the field?
If the expert agrees that what you did is indeed new and a nice result worthy of being published, ask him for advice to proceed. If possible, get him as a co-author or ask him to refer you to one. Such a co-author might take care of things like

Literature review.
Explaining why the found results are important and have an impact on topic X.
Which journal to send to?
Given his (known) name, journals will no longer reject due to unknown author.
...

Of course you would not be the single author anymore and people might think that your co-author came up with the idea. How to deal with this topic depends on what you plan to do next: Do you want to go for an academic career? Do you say you don't care as long as people get to read your results, because you are only doing research in your free time and it will most likely be years until your next publication?

Thank you for your long answer. Would it somehow be possible that some people do not answer, instead they take your work or parts of it (knowing that you're unknown in the field) and use it for their own research?

@Pickle No, this won't happen. Most people you email will not read whatever you send them, and many will simply delete it.

@AndrésE.Caicedo That gives very little chance of actually finding a contact/referee that is willing to take the time to converse with an "unknown"...

Yes, that might always be the case. However, you have to ask yourself: Why should they? If they work together with you, they get a publication with less effort (as you also do part of the work), if they publish it without you they will still get +1 on their publication count, but with more work on their end and they might end up with a law suit etc. So I would say that is rather rare. The case that @AndrésE.Caicedo mentioned is far more common, that is also why I advised you to try PhD students or young researchers, chances are a little higher that they will answer.

I do like the idea of looking for a mentor, and yes, a mentor can help by choosing which journal to submit to; but if your work is complete as is, there is no need to put the mentor's name on it as a co-author.  The mentor could write a letter to the editor in support of your submission, without being a co-author. But you can also submit without a mentor. // Even if you find a mentor, you should yourself be doing literature review and you should be able to explain why your results are important and how they will impact X. // Try to find some seminars in which to interact with others.

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How does one find "suitable referees" for publishing a paper in journal?
In many journals, authors who have never published anything before are required to have two or more "referees" in order for the paper to be reviewed. Who are these referees, and how can one "find suitable ones"?
Also, how does one go about finding referees when one is not in academia (i.e. doing research as a hobby rather than a profession)?

Can you please clarify what field you are talking about? In my fields, pretty much no reputable journal requires you to supply referees---and in fact, author-suggested referees are often considered less reliable than ones independently identified by the journal.

An example is The Journal of Integer Sequences: https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/journals/JIS/

@Pickle The statement on the journal you linked is: "Authors may want to suggest two or three names of possible referees."  In other words, you don't have to: the journal is quite willing and able to find what it thinks are appropriate reviewers for the paper.

@jakebeal OK. But having referre(s) would certainly help towards the publication of the paper. The question is: how does one fund "suitable" ones?

You naming several referees does not 'help towards the publication' - it merely gives a hint to the editor of who you think might be good, and what area you think the paper is in. If those names publish in, and are referees for, the journal, the editor has a better idea of what group of potential referees to dig some names out of.

@JonCuster Aah OK thanks a lot for the precision. I guess I was confused as to the utility of a "referee"

You need to think of the scale of a journal - suppose an issue consisting of ~30 articles comes out once a month. They accept about 25% of all submissions. That means the editorial team has to process about 4 submissions a day, figuring out who would make a good referee. And then you need to come up with more than the minimum number of names to find people with the time real soon now to do it. Most journals also have some breadth in their topics, so an editor may not have intimate knowledge of the current state of some sub-field.

From my experience, most journals do not require you to propose referees. It's more like the journal allows you to propose some names of potential referees. The referees are appointed by the editor and you as author will not know their names.
So the answer to "How does one go about finding referees when one is not in academia?" is
You don't have to.
Just find a suitable journal that does not require that you suggest referees.
If the journal management system does not allow you to submit your paper without suggesting referees, either suggest authors that you cite or authors that cite the same papers you cite (using, e.g., Google scholar).

@Roland Not if you choose the right journals :-).

@Roland I updated the answer in view of your comment.

I think it depends on the field (and potentially its breadth?). My field (geography) is very broad, and though I haven't submitted many articles,  my understanding is that it is very common (often required) to suggest referees.

Typically look at the highest ranking people which you cited.

Highest ranking: since the journal will like that they dont need your citations
People which you cited: most likely they cas easier get into the topic, since they may know the foundations.

What if the highest ranking people cited have retired/died/no longer active? What if none of the citees are available?

Ok. That is a problem - then look who cited these people the most.

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text:
Is it legal to have a collection of interesting articles printed for personal use, in the form of a book?
Every once in a while I come across an article whose quality stands out exceptionally in my field of research. While I don't always have the time to read the full paper (usually tens of pages long), I "mark" it so that I may read it later or refer to it in a future article if needed. Unfortunately my attempts at marking articles have always had several shortcomings:

Bookmarking it: after a while I will forget what I bookmarked, what the title of the article was, the author, and so forth,
Saving it on disk: I never recall I had them in the first place,
Printing it out: tedious, and after a while I am left with hundreds of pages of documents lying around in an unordered fashion.

So I was thinking of collecting my "favorite" articles into a single collection, then having them printed in the form of a book, strictly for personal use of course. Then whenever I am writing on a specific subject, I take the book down from the shelf that corresponds most to my research and have everything nicely laid out in a single place.
Now obviously, this raises all sorts of red flags about printing a large number of people's work, collecting them in a single place, having it bound in a book, ... So I am not sure what I am allowed and not allowed to do in such a context. Legally speaking, can I do this without fear of a backlash?

"Having them printed..." by whom?  A print shop or self-publishing outfit will likely refuse because of copyright concerns.

Anytime you say "legally", you have to specify the country whose laws you want to ask about.  People on this site are generally not experts on law and you may get better answers at Law.SE.

Isn't the normal way of handling this situation to have a physical file folder full of individual printed papers? And possibly several of these covering different projects/areas of research interest? I see no reason to complicate things by proposing a 'book' of dubious legality.

@Bryan Krause: I agree, and I've seen quite a few professors with labeled notebooks in their bookshelves. The labels are on the spines --- you scotch tape a strip of paper onto the spine that has the topic of the notebook written on the strip of paper. In my case, I literally have several hundred such notebook binders shelved in large bookshelves that line most of the walls of a room at home. Of course, I didn't fill these binders in the last few years. This is something I've been doing for about 30 years.

I totally agree with @BryanKrause and want to amend that using file folders allows you to add new papers easily wherever they fit best. If you have a book, the collection and order of the papers is fixed.

I think the answer is probably yes (in the US at least), based on this analysis. Regardless, it is nearly impossible to imagine a scenario where this would get you into trouble. By contrast, the scenario in which you will use the book to make a positive contribution to humanity is quite easy to imagine. So, I know what I would choose to do.

I did this, but very cheaply, with printer paper, a three-hole punch, and ring binders.  A subject label on the spine and maybe some index tabs finishes the job.  You are making something simple into a complex problem.

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text:
How do I reference an unpublished article in my paper?
I am currently writing a paper which is partly based on the unpublished work of a known mathematician. The "unpublished work" is basically a memo that has not appeared in any journal, but has widely circulated since its release and is available on the "Publications" list of the author's homepage.
I would really like to use this article in my paper, but I am usually against referencing an unpublished "memo", for obvious reasons. Since this is a different case (a high-quality paper from a known mathematician), how do I proceed with including it in my paper?

Cite it as an unpublished work or a technical report (if it is available as such).

What does the journal say? Some journals have exact policies on citing unpublished studies.

The worst thing you can do is cite 'unpublished manuscript'. Give full details (title author date and current url) so that people in the future can hunt for it at least. Ideally, contact the department that hosts the web page and ask if they can arrange for deposit in the university repository, assuming they have one. Since the article has never been published, it should (IANAL) only require permission from the family to do so.

Referencing such a document is a well-know proof technique, often stated as follows (cf. proof techniques):

Proof by reference to inaccessible literature:
    The author cites a simple corollary of a theorem to be found in
    a privately circulated memoir of the Slovenian Philological Society, 1883.

In your case, the quality of the work seems to be a non-issue due to the reputation of the mathematician, but what is an issue is the long-term availability of the document.
I ran into references to unpublished works a few times. For a particular example in my mind, everyone could find it, apparently, several decades ago, but now the document is gone. I must say I really hate it.
So, provide the reader with all the information you can find that would help them to get the manuscript. E.g.:

Abra K. Dabra, On the importance of being published, 1883, Slovenian Philological Society, unpublished technical report, retrieved from the author's Web page http://www.example.com on 2018-02-30.

or

Abra K. Dabra, On the importance of being published, 1883, Slovenian Philological Society, unpublished technical report, available from the library of the Slovenian Philological Society, street house-no, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.

or

Abra K. Dabra, On the importance of being published, 1883, Slovenian Philological Society, unpublished, retrieved from jstor.org/... on 2018-02-30.

etc.
In addition, as @darij-grinberg says, you may ask the author to store his/her paper with an independent service for long-term archival purposes.
If you reference hard claims with their proofs, you might wish to copy the material to the appendix of your document to make your document self-contained. Of course, get the permission from the original author first, acknowledge him or her properly, and mark the corresponding part as a citation.

But as I understand it OP does not want to reference something that's (currently) not available, but rather literature that has only been published informally.

@xLeitix The links rot away. Based on my experience, the document is very likely to become unavailable, e.g. with the death of the author. The half-decay time of a random webpage is estimated to be only 2 years. The OPer's concern should be to mitigate the damage caused by this natural process.

Unfortunately I cannot ask the author to store it in another place, as the author is deceased. His webpage with his publications was left untouched.

That "proof techniques" page is hilarious!

@Pickle In my experience, the deceased author's Web page is unlikely to fully survive the next change of the IT infrastructure.

You can help save the preprint for posterity. For example, in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, if you try to access a page that has not been archived, it will automatically ask whether you want the current version to be archived. This isn't fully bulletproof (future owners of the website may make the archived versions inaccessible through robots.txt, which a few universities unfortunately do), and it's sub-optimal for preprints that undergo changes (because you can force the Wayback Machine to archive a non-archived page, but you cannot force it to update an already-archived page if the archived version is obsolete); but it's better than nothing. Another service is archive.is. Sure, these services may disappear one day, so it's best to put your eggs in as many baskets as you can be bothered to.
Sometimes, just mailing the author and asking them to post their preprint on the arXiv will work. If they consider it not sufficiently fleshed out for the arXiv, there is also the Zenodo repository, which from my understanding is less restrictive (although the widespread opinion that arXiv is just for submission-ready preprints isn't true: it's good for everything that is readable, interesting and correct to the authors' knowledge; this includes technical reports, lecture notes and expository work).


text:
As a non-academic, how do I find papers that reference a certain article?
I have recently read an interesting article on number theory, published in a well-known mathematics journal. As a keen amateur mathematician, I have tried to develop some of the ideas presented in the paper. Surprisingly, I have come to a remarkable conclusion that might be worth publishing. Naturally, I first wanted to make sure that this has not been published before, so I tried to find papers that referenced the original article.
The issue is that websites that index or catalog scholarly material are off-limits to non-academics. In particular, in order to find references to certain papers or authors, one must first log in with an institution's credentials, which obviously I do not possess. What are my options? Do I:

write up my research anyway and try to publish it, with the risk of wasting everybody's time if a similar publication has already been made,
waste the original author's time by asking him to send me a list of references to his article (with a high probability of having my request immediately discarded), or
pay a high subscription fee to these cataloging websites in order to find what I'm looking for?

Is there another way for me to go about this?

There's sci-hub... you have to evaluate the legality and morality of it yourself.

@nengel The website has been shot down on Nov. 23 2017 apparently, and the remaining sci-net pages do not work any more

The answer from JayFromA and the comment from nengel address how to get papers but not how to get access to citation databases, which is the main question as I understood it.

@FelipeVoloch Correct

Oh, I misunderstood then. I've never used citation databases beyond google scholar... as for sci-hub, the domain names keep being deactivated, but so far it's always popped up anew (and there's always the .onion, has that stopped working?)

Your local library is your friend.  So is Google Scholar.

@Pickle https://sci-hub.tw/ is still up (also with .tv, .la and .hk). Wikipedia's sci-hub page keeps track of which urls are still valid.

@Zenon enter anything in the search field and you get an error

@Pickle It works with DOIs! I just checked on .tw

If you live near a public university (i.e. your state university, if you're in the USA) then their library will probably be obligated to help if you go in person.  If they don't have a subscription to the right database, they may be able to request it from interlibrary loan.

@Joe: You may also be able to get "community borrower" status, e.g. http://guides.library.unr.edu/libservices/communityborrowing

Keep in mind, sci-hub is breaching the copyright and usage policies of the journals it copies.  I am a giant proponent of open science and open data.  And some advocates may argue that that scientific information must be inherently open.  But unfortunately as of yet there's no legal decision indicating that to be the case.  Yes, use the website as you decide.  But better than "evaluate it yourself", it's important to be made clear upfront when such a link is given: the legality (and perhaps morality) are quite dubious.

Possible duplicate of Access to scientific articles that cite mine after leaving academia

Google Scholar can get you quite far.
Go to scholar.google.com and paste in the full title of the paper you're looking for.  Here's one of mine:

Click the "cited by" link (highlighted) and you'll get a list of works citing the paper you're interested in.  Some of these will be papers, some won't, and Google's indexing isn't quite the same as some of the other sources.  But it's close.  For each of the citing papers, there's an "All n versions" link.  Browsing those versions will often get you to a legitimate copy from the author's institutional repository (see the right-hand column), ArXiv, or various other sources; the Unpaywall browser extension can also help track these down.

Once you've located the paper, searching on the author's name + relevant terms will often find a freely available copy on their web site.

Don't forget arXiv...

Thank you, that was actually exactly what I was looking for: easy to use, and allows to fetch results for non-academics.

@Mehrdad I didn't. I'm in the wrong bit of physics for it to be widely used but have found that Google scholar picks it up quite nicely

http://unpaywall.org/ could be of use to read the papers once you found them with google scholar or something

Zentrallblatt https://zbmath.org/ allows (limited) free access and if you start with the paper that you are working from, you might be able to get some information. Of course, full access to Zentrallblatt or MathSciNet is what you need but it requires a subscription. If you can go to a University library, you can explain your situation to a librarian and they might help you. If you know someone who is a student or works at a university, they can do the search for you.
Edit; You should also try Google Scholar.
An alternative less onerous to the author is to send him an email with the statement of your result and ask him if he's seen it before.

Thank you, that could help indeed. But as you say subscription is required if I want to view more than 3 search results...

@Pickle you can do repeated searches and change the date range and cover more ground this way. Also see my edit and try Google Scholar.

Many academic libraries allow outsiders to go there in person and use their search facilities.

@Ootagu I rejected your edit. If you have a better answer, please present it yourself. Please do not use other's name to answer the question.

Libraries also have the advantage of interlibrary loan -- two librarians can use a copyright exception to share a copy between libraries.  Many special librarians (ie, focused on a specific subject), join mailing lists where someone can request help finding a specific article, and others will send them a scan.

Sometimes regular libraries also have academic subscriptions, i've had luck with the public library (OBA) in Amsterdam before.

Like a comment suggests there are shadow libraries that provide articles for free but are illegal or at least in a grey area in most countries.
You could also visit university libraries near you. Many provide guest access for a small fee or sometimes even free.
Another option would be to ask academics or students if they will give you access to their account or even do it for you.

One emerging possibility for finding citation information is through Wikidata, which is a sister project to Wikipedia that structures public domain information across all fields of knowledge. That includes — as part of the WikiCite initiative — citation information from the OpenCitations project and the Initiative for Open Citations.
With currently 36 million citation statements, Wikidata is still far behind the large commercial citation databases, but beginning to be useful in some areas (mostly biomedicine — mathematics not that much yet), and tools like Scholia can help expose that information.
To search for a scholarly article there, you can type the beginning of its title into the Wikidata search bar (if you are just doing keywords, you will need to hit return and then sift through the search results). If the article is in the database (currently about 11 million are), you should end up on its Wikidata page, which will give you the Wikidata identifier for that scholarly article, e.g. Q27932040 for "A screen for RNA-binding proteins in yeast indicates dual functions for many enzymes".
The Scholia page for that same scholarly article uses the same Wikidata identifier:
https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/work/Q27932040 and can also be accessed via the article's DOI: https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0015499 . It provides some basic information about the article, including (incomplete) citation information from and to the paper.
Instead of starting to explore the literature with a given paper, you can also start it with a given author (e.g. https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/author/Q3063122 for geneticist Pardis Sabeti) or topic (e.g. https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/topic/Q202864 for the Zika virus) or in a number of other ways, as detailed in our Scholia paper.


text:
After submitting my paper to a journal, a referee suggested a better proof of my theorem. Should I publish my original proof, or the better proof?
Basically a few weeks ago I submitted my paper to a journal. It turns out that the paper is publishable, however a referee found a much better proof of my Theorem, and now I'm at odds on how to proceed. Do I:

Amend my paper by substituting my proof with the referee's proof? Doing so makes me uncomfortable as I would not have contributed the most important part of the paper, someone else did.
Continue publishing the paper with my (inferior) proof, but mention the referee's much better proof.
Continue publishing the paper with my proof, but do not mention the referee's suggested proof.

What should I do?

Just say that you had an original proof but have not included it as the anonymous referee suggested a better proof which you have used.

I would choose number 2.  At the end of the day, the purpose of a paper is to convey info. Given the better proof, why not present it?   You do not know which version of the proof will inspire other works.   In addition, the referee will be happy that he/she has been helpful.

Ask the editor, but I would suggest to use the reviewer's proof.
You say that will make you feel uncomfortable because you didn't make the most important contribution to the paper. This isn't necessarily true. First of all, you wrote the paper. Without you, there wouldn't have been any proofs to improve upon. Secondly, you do not know how the reviewer came up with their proof. Perhaps something they read in your paper gave them this idea. Perhaps not. We don't know, so try not to make any assumptions in that regard. They shared the proof with you, put something in the acknowledgements to recognize their contribution.

It is not unheard of that referees became co-authors that way. I even heard an anecdotal story that in one of those cases, the reviewer got sent the resubmitted manuscript again ...

I agree with the others.  Publish the better proof.  Acknowledge it.  But also mention that you originally had your own proof--otherwise readers may think you did not have a proof before you received the referee's proof.  Example:
Theorem. statement
Proof.  [I wish to thank an anonymous referee for this proof, which is better than my original proof.] proof

A quibble - I would be careful saying something is "better" than your published/submitted work. Perhaps "more concise", or something that does not downplay the quality of your own work.

Ask the editor.
But since the referee suggests a better proof, it is probably safe to use it, and acknowledge the unknown referee for pointing it out to you. I would certainly go for improving the paper (=giving the better proof).
But as I said: Ask the editor. They might reach out and check with the referee whether he/she is fine with that.


text:
How bad is it to have your full personal address publicly available in a journal paper?
I've recently published several papers in different peer-reviewed and reasonably high quality journals. Since I have no academic affiliation (I do research as a ''hobby''), I was asked to provide a postal address along with my submissions for the sake of completeness and reachability. I have provided my personal (private) home address, since I have no other.
Now I have about 5 different publications that are freely available on the internet, with my full name and private address on them.
How bad is this? Am I under the threat of identity theft? Or is this OK/normal practice for non-academic authors?

NOTE: I was obliged to provide a complete address in all cases, as a pre-requisite for publication. The journals I submitted to are all well known in the field (and not predatory or scam journals).

Not an answer (and not sure if it would be on-topic here), but a suggestion for the future: You could rent a P.O. box or provide the generic address of your former university (plus your e-mail address). Nobody contacts you via snail-mail anyway.

The bad guys already know your address, phone number, credit score, how much is left on your mortgage, what you were in the hospital for last time.  These publications won't make the slightest difference.

It is unlikely that your name and address will be used for identity theft, unless you are being targeted personally. While useful, addresses are relatively low-value for stealing identities because they are both easy to get and have limited use on their own. Also, it will not be clear to an attacker that this is, in fact, your personal address.
Of course, there is some risk if your research is (or could become) politically sensitive.

That's a great answer. Thanks for that, it puts my mind at ease.

@Klangen: Regarding "It is unlikely that your name and address will be used for identity theft", I hope not! I just googled my name (as given in stack exchange groups, which is also the exact same format that I've used in pretty much all things since the 1970s unless a full middle name was needed) along with the city I live in, and it appears there are about 60 web pages listing my home address. Several pictures also, but FYI none of the pictures are of me. On the off-chance my saying this could lead to problems for me in the future, I'll delete this comment in a few hours.

Agree with @DaveLRenfro: in most cases, one can find someone's home address by googling them.  This is not "protected information."

Can you also not just look in the telephone book (ok people do not have landlines anymore)

If someone owns their home, and you already know what county they live in, you can look them up in the county tax records, which are usually available online.  (As stated this only applies to the US.)

Reiterating: "professional" identity thieves would generally prefer more efficient means of identity-harvesting than looking in professional journals for the occasional home address... But, yeah, if you antagonize governments or major criminal organizations, they'll harm you (whether or not you've protected your personal information).

@paulgarrett Or just unpleasant people on the Internet. "Doxxing" is a real thing with real consequences - and mishandling PII (like names, addresses and phone-numbers) is taken very seriously by companies with functioning legal depts  - so just because some information is ostensibly "public information" like land ownership info, it still should be kept private and un-searchable by default.


text:
How far should I develop the main ideas in my paper before publishing it?
Note: this question was already asked at MathOverflow but deemed off-topic. I think this is a better place to post it.

The purpose of a research paper is to present new results in a given field. But how far should an author go in developing his results? Since the discovery of a single new theorem could affect a variety of other fields/subfields, should the author go a step further by dedicating one or more sections of the paper to discussing several implications of the paper's main result?
Or should the paper "draw the line" once the main results have been established, and let other authors derive its implications in further publications?

The paper should go far enough to be accepted at the submitted venue... If substantially more work is likely to follow, then defer that work to a second paper (possibly at a different venue), otherwise (more work, but not substantially more), include all the results in a single paper.

The "line" I'm trying to establish is this "substantially more"

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

It's really hard to give general guidelines about this, as it depends on the results, their context, the level of journal you're aiming for, the story that you're trying to tell, etc.  Talk to your advisor about it!

One idea per paper, from my experience on AI and related formal work. Implications are typically left for the last part of the conclusions. Look at a typical paper in the area you want to publish in and see how far they go with those implications.
You can write a separate (mathematical) paper on implications across areas. It is not unusual to publish concerning the same idea in multiple fields. This - could be - salami slicing but it can also be extremely useful to practitioners in those fields.
For example, the seminal paper "On the acceptability of arguments and its fundamental role in nonmonotonic reasoning, logic programming and n-person games" by Dung took formal argumentation, gave it an abstract graph-theoretic conceptualisation and semantics, and then showed morphisms between previously separate areas.
If the implications you look into would change the title of your paper or the introduction to include words such as "role" or "link" or "morphism" then that may be a different paper.

"If the implications you look into would change the title of your paper or the introduction to include words such as "role" or "link" or "morphism" then that may be a different paper." -> That is perfectly put. Thank you!

Unfortunately “one idea per paper” is no longer always sufficient for biology papers. It’s often necessary to combine several related findings in one manuscript to make it “interesting” enough.


text:
Is it better to prove a generalization of a theorem before presenting specific cases?
In (mostly) mathematical publications, when proving a theorem that can be generalized to a wider range of parameters, is it generally considered better practice to:

Present a special case of a theorem first, and then prove it in a general context, or
Prove the general case and then move on to present one (or more) special cases?

The first approach makes understanding the theorem easier, and makes the paper quicker to read. The second one looks more "rigorous", but is much more difficult to understand for more complex theorems and formulae.
What is generally considered the better practice?

There is no "general" answer here. It always depends on circumstances:

Is the general proof really hard and difficult to understand?
Is the general proof of interest, or does only the special case have applications (yet)?
Can the general proof be done in the same way as the special case, just with uglier notation, more indices, etc.?
Is the generalization natural or does it require work to actually show that the special case does indeed follow from the general one?
Is the special case the only application of the general theorem, or are there other corollaries of interest?
...

This is just a small part of the questions to consider, depending on what the theorem and the proof looks like. In some cases, it might be good to use the special case to motivate the generalization, especially if this is a new idea and you are the first to look at this general case.
On the other hand, people want to see the benefits of the generalized version, so it would be best to get results from it that go beyond just showing a special case.
I would suggest leaving the choice of which proof to read to the reader. So if you have a really easy proof for the special (and most interesting) case and the general proof is really hard, you should give the special case first and let the reader decide if he wants to skip the general one or not. I sometimes see phrases like "readers only interested in the case ... can safely skip to  section X". Of course this has to be properly organized, such that section X is still readable even if the general proof got skipped. In this way, it is easy to see and understand the basic concepts of your paper and how you showed the special case, and there is always the opportunity to come back later to study the general one (or to give it to a student for a bachelor thesis...). Note, however, that this is only my personal opinion and approach, this is not a general consensus.

"it might be good to use the special case to motivate the generalization" is a very good way to phrase exactly what I was thinking. Thanks for the detailed answer.

One example where the specific case is usually used/taught/shown is the formula for Gravitational Acceleration, where the general case is a curve, and one of those curve's tangents is the case that happens on earth, and as such, for non extra-terrestrial examples the formula for that tangent is used, despite being a special case

I would add: you should think about your target audience.


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What does "Peer review in process" mean in ScholarOne submission?
I have submitted my manuscript to a journal that uses ScholarOne system. After 20 days, the status is still "Peer review in process". I don't know this means the Reviewers are reviewing my manuscript, or it is still on "Editor's desk"?

The phrase "peer review in process" is vague and could mean anything: for example, the manuscript could be with reviewers, or it could be on the editor's desk, or it could even be that the reviews are complete and it's just waiting for a decision from the editor. There's no way to tell without more info, e.g. what the other statuses of the journal you submitted to are.
Either way there's nothing to do except wait. If you're impatient, write to the journal office and ask.


text:
Pay for a Doctorate by working at institution?
A friend of mine was working on a doctorate at a local university, and they offered to hire him as an adjunct so he wouldn't have to pay for the doctorate.  Is there an easier way for me to search which universities might offer this opportunity besides Google?

Were are you from? In Germany this is kind of "standard procedure". So nearly every PhD student is financed by having a job at the university. Some have a stipend but thats more of an exception while working at the university is standard. So at least for Germany I would say this is offered/possible everywhere.

It's a bit more uncommon to be hired as an adjunct, but in the US nearly all PhDs are paid for all or in part by graduate assistantships of some kind. In STEM research assistantships predominate, in other fields there are more teaching assistantships. Typically if you work a high enough % of your time, tuition is covered (this is called "tuition remission"). I would strongly advise against any PhD that you have to pay for out of pocket.

Must universities in the US I've seen allow full-time employees and some part-time employees to take X number of hours for free, often termed as a tuition waiver. That how I did my PhD actually. I don't think there's a centralized list of universities based on provided employee benefits though.


text:
I want to do a PhD in Dynamical Systems as applied to any physical science ; how do I decide where to apply?
I'm at the end of a 2 year post-Bacc at Columbia. My goal when I started was quite clear: I wanted to study atmospheric science through the lens of dynamical systems. However, as I've moved along, it's become clear to me that my interest is really in the approach, and that I care relatively little about the particular field to which it is applied. That is: I'm much more interested in the process of modeling with dynamical systems than I am in what I'm modeling (though I would prefer to stay in the physical sciences). This is great in some senses, because it means that I can apply to a wealth of different sorts of programs, but I'm suffering from paralysis of choice; how can I even decide?
Some pertinent background:
-My undergraduate degree is actually in linguistics from Georgetown (it's how I got interested in complexity science in the first place)
-I've been working with a research team in climate science, although it hasn't been very mathematics heavy.
-My first project has begun to conclude, and so I've recently begun working with an physical oceanography research team doing very mathy stuff
-One of the theoretical climate scientists in the department (who started his career with a very theoretical fluid mechanics/dynamical systems approach) told me that the use of dynamical methods in atmospheric science has been largely mined out: there aren't many tractable questions remaining and it will be difficult to find work doing that even if I do get funding for a PhD.
-My quantum mechanics professor recommended looking into either plasma physics or ion transport in batteries. She says these methods are being used there (and I trust her on this; she has her own lab doing work closely related to the later and is generally quite brilliant all the time).
I really need two things
a) Specific advice about how to navigate this choice and to finesse the applications: Are these fields all equally likely to allow me to play with these techniques? Should I be applying to math programs or science programs given my interests? Are there scientific fields I should consider beyond those recommended to me above (p. oceanography, atmospheric science, plasma).
b) General advice about organizing this choice, selling myself as a legit candidate in a diversity of fields (my background is at this point equivalent to a bachelors in Mathematical Physics kinda; more analysis than most physicist undergrads but less calculations.
Thanks

Dynamical systems crop up a lot in cosmology, if that's of any interest.

If you apply to a math department, make sure it includes applied math.

My suggestion is look at several math/applied math programs as well as science programs, and apply to what seems interesting.  Then when you get accepted, and get a chance to visit, you'll have a better sense of what may be a better fit for you.


text:
How much attention should I pay to developments in other research fields?
I am at the beginning of my Ph.D. My research lies at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience and psycholinguistics, meaning that I will interact with a variety of researchers from several different fields - which should substantially broaden my horizons. However, reading the literature strictly related to those areas means I'm far less likely to keep track of developments in other areas, such as biology, physics, or computer science.
My question: how well aware should I be about major science developments that are not directly related to my area? How useful is this information for your own work?

It depends on your actual research project. Some PhD projects are quite interdisciplinary in the way they are designed (regarding topics, data, method(odology) etc.) while others 'just' talk to their own specific community (although I think, this is rarely the case).  So, to a large extent, it depends on your specific research design of your PhD project how you take into account research from other disciplines. Nevertheless, and based on my experiences as PhD student, I have found it helpful to look into other research disciplines by either talking to people who do research which might be eventually of interest for me or skip through the main journals in the related fields.  For me, (doing my PhD in political science) reading papers from Human Geography, Psychology or Computer Science is quite stimulating from time to time and shows me how other researcher think about issues that I am also interested in. I hope this comment helps you to find a middle ground of helpful interdisciplinarity and getting lost in it.
PS: I found this blog post helpful, reflecting on this issue: https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/feb/19/interdisciplinary-research-universities-academic-careers

Ideally, it would be good to be able to keep up with fields, but practically, I don't see how it's possible. There is so much new work constantly being produced in any one field that it would be quite challenging (though possible) for you to keep up with your two fields of cognitive neuroscience and psycholinguistics, so I think it would be very difficult to keep up with more than that.
Of course, you can skim abstracts in any number of fields that you want, but you have to really decide on how to balance or prioritize depth versus breadth. Yes, breadth is important for interdisciplinary work, but depth is critical if you want to make new contributions to knowledge, as required for a PhD. If you have an insufficiently deep understanding of cognitive neuroscience and psycholinguistics (because you've been trying to keep up with other fields, for which you have only a shallow understanding), I don't see what meaningful contributions you can make to any field. You might creatively try to combine disparate ideas, but you would quickly reveal to experts in the related fields that you don't understand any of the fields sufficiently.
My recommendation is to focus on keeping up with cognitive neuroscience and psycholinguistics and on gaining deep understanding in these two fields. For any other outside field ("such as biology, physics, or computer science"), just be an intelligent, aware person (which you seem to be already), and don't try to "keep up" with them. Rather, enjoy the fact that knowledge is so vast that no one can keep up with everything, but that at least you can meaningfully contribute to expanding knowledge by your deep interdisciplinary knowledge of two fields.


text:
How do I illustrate a postdoctoral professional Masters degree in my title
I am finishing a Masters degree in Educational Technology (MET) and already earned an MA and Ph.D. How do I write this? Ph.D; MET? I am not sure so need confirmation.

I don't know about your culture, but in mine, a Masters is not a title. It's only a degree. People tend to only use their titles as soon as they have one and only list degrees on a full CV.


text:
What role does a PhD play?
My university requires applicants to have some sort of Master's or PhD degree to become a professor and teach.
But really, how is PhD related to teaching? My high school "teacher" graduated with a Bachelors of Science, and he is one of the most knowledgeable and best people I know. His teaching is amazing.
A professor is how different? A teacher marks, a professor may mark, A teacher teaches, a professor definitely teaches, a teacher will create exams, professors do the same.
I don't see how the role of a PhD in order to become a lecturer/professor plays a role? Everything that you can learn is online, and everything that you can teach is also online. What exactly does a PhD prove?
A professor is a teacher at their most basics. They impart knowledge into the students, and a good professor is indicated by their teaching, as a teacher is. So, what does a PhD even mean?
I asked my professor this. I asked him, "what did you want to do after graduating", and he told me "I wanted to become a professor. So I fought through grad school, wrote a thesis that has no impact on the world, and here I am, teaching you as I've always wanted to".
It looks like to me that my professor just did his PhD "because he had to". So,
My two questions are:
1) Why do professors need PhD's, if they are no different from teachers, but only teach harder subjects?
2) Personally I myself think that I can teach and educate students just fine without a PhD. Why the PhD needed?

Closely related: How did modern western post-secondary education become tied up with research and publications?

I saw that but it did not have a satisfying answer unforunately

It seems to me the answer by Hunse answers your question very well.  It's pretty much what I would write as an answer to this question.  If you're looking for something else, can you clarify your question?

@NateEldredge
According to the answer:
"One (advantage) is that students are being taught by an active researcher in the field, someone who is presumably up to date on the state of the art."
This is not always true though, professors are either researching or teaching, only a few do both at the same time

@KSplitX: I'm not sure where you got that idea (unless by "both at the same time" you mean literally within the same hour in the day).  My own (state research) university has hundreds of faculty members devoted to both research and teaching.  Almost every tenure track faculty at a "research university" (of which there are hundreds in the US alone) spends substantial time devoted to both.  I wonder why you think otherwise: what experience is this based on?

1) Why do professors need PhD's, if they are no different from teachers, but only teach harder subjects?

If you start from the premise that professors "are no different than teachers", then guess what, your conclusion will be that the qualifications required to be a professor are the same as that for a teacher. This is circular reasoning, so one answer to your question is that your premise is wrong. Professors are different than teachers in that they both teach and do research, and (some, though not all of) the subjects they teach are sufficiently close to the forefront of human knowledge that to teach them effectively actually requires being an active researcher.
Another error your question makes is that you say professors "only" teach harder subjects. That "only" hides a major difference between the subjects that professors teach and the subjects that schoolteachers teach, and having a PhD is precisely the sort of qualification that makes it possible for someone to teach well at that "only harder" level. The term for the kind of fallacious rhetorical device that you're using with your "only" (and a few other parts of your question) is loaded language; you might want to avoid using such language in future questions.

Why do professors need PhD's, if they are no different from teachers, but only teach harder subjects?

While your question is (understandably) from the student point-of-view, I have to wonder: have you thought about what PhD holders bring to the table for their academic employers?
Now, while some institutions hire those with only a Master's degree into faculty positions, quite a lot of tenure-track positions require a PhD. For those that require it, institutions benefit from hiring PhD-holding faculty in a variety of ways; here are a couple to consider:

Tenure-track hires can boost their department / institution profiles by being awarded competitive research grants, publishing groundbreaking results, etc. How do you become a competitive, successful researcher without a PhD? (Not impossible, but not likely, either.)
In some disciplines, it is desirable for academic departments to seek accreditation of some sort for their programs of study. I realize this is a big [citation needed] moment, but (at least in engineering): departments with faculty having PhDs are not scrutinized by accreditation boards as heavily as those that don't. (I'm on the tenure-track in an electrical engineering department, and have participated in several rounds of accreditation activities.)

Personally I myself think that I can teach and educate students just fine without a PhD. Why the PhD needed?

Alas, teaching and educating students is only part of the position requirements for professors. Other answers have addressed this point fairly well, so I refer you to those answers.

For teaching it isn't enough to be one lesson ahead of the students, you need to know how the material you are teaching will be used in practical terms to give the class the right focus.
In principle, you may think this would only be necessary in the most advanced courses, say the last couple of years of the whole degree; but the truth is that ideally, this should start from the first courses. As an example, the most fundamental mathematical tool in quantum mechanics is the decomposition in eigenvectors and manipulation of subspaces. So, a first year linear algebra course for a physicist shouldn't just teach eigenvectors to an operational level, but it should give them also a good intuition and understanding of how this plays together. The same course for a mathematician or an engineer would have to be different, because their requirements are different.
Another part of the story is that from the first course, students have to learn how to think. In my case, the course that taught me the most how to think like a physicist was calculus in one variable, first semester of first year. A mathematician, an engineer, or a good teacher could have perfectly taught me as much calculus as my professor did, but they wouldn't have been able to teach me the physics intuition behind it.
What is the role of a PhD behind all this? Being an active researcher is a way of ensuring that you know the end goal of your course, and you can teach the students how to think. And by the way, in more applied fields, like engineering, I think not everybody should need a PhD, and some of the instructors should come from an industry background (as it happens in many universities).


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Is undergraduate research worth it?
I'm studying Bachelors in Computer Science.
I've taken a course this semester where the professor requires us to write research paper inorder to complete the course. High quality papers from this course are published in journals like Springer.
So I was wondering - how will undergrad research effect my application for masters or my career further down the road?

I am very sceptical that an undergraduate student with no prior research experience can do proper original research on any subject and document it in a paper in a single semester, or even two semesters for that matter. It may be a good learning experience, but you may also pick up some bad habits along the way (due to the unreasonable expectations).

Also, Springer is not a journal.

I don't know about Computer Science, but in general I can hardly imagine an undergraduate writing, alone, a paper worth of publication in the timespan of a course.

@101010111100 A common form of these papers are essentially reviews. I had written two of them by the time I was done as an undergrad, one of which was submitted. 10 years later, it remains my highest cited publication. Arguably one of my most prestigious publications was also done as an undergrad. It was arguably a special case, but it's far from impossible.

Is undergraduate research worth it? -- If a course offered at your undergrad institution has a track record of providing students an opportunity to get published in legit venues, then, yes, absolutely, research is worth it. (That's a big, ol' fat "if", by the way.)

It's always hard to tell exactly what people think of your application, but I was accepted to a masters (and PhD, one semester later, after I dropped the masters) in chemistry, and I am reasonably confident that I would not have been if not for the 2 semesters of research I had on my resume, as my GPA was kind of weak (2.95, but 3.3 if you ignore the first year).
It's a common saying that "GPA keeps you out of a graduate program, but doesn't get you in; something else does", and depending on what your field is, that "something else" could be research.
Also, it sounds like your course will give you excellent writing practice, which is often unfairly delegated as low priority.

In every program I've been involved in, undergraduate research in some form has been considered a positive, and often the most compelling single piece of an application (the other being letters...especially letters discussing undergraduate research).

It is undeniably a positive, but perhaps not for the reason you think.
If your undergrad project is similar to the research of someone you plan to apply to, that is certainly a benefit, but more importantly: it demonstrates you understand what graduate school is about. PIs like to know that the students they hire have an idea of what they're getting themselves into. To the extent your project accomplishes that, you will have a leg up

Undergraduate research always looks good when you're applying for graduate school. If you already have a research paper, then even better! Everything  you can do to separate your self from the pack is good to do. If you do some undergrad research, it can look good on a job application as well because it shows that you were capable of handling many projects at the same time.


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Can you do a phd in maths at Cambridge university without an honours degree?
I graduated from an australian university last year with a bachelor of mechanical engineering with first class honors and a bachelor of mathematics. If I want to get an honours degree in maths, I need to study for an additional year.
I wish to apply for phd admission in pure maths at Cambridge university. The admission webpage says that the minimum requirement is a first class honours in mathematics or a related area. Am I eligible or I have to study an extra year to get my honours in maths first and then apply to Cambridge? I am interested in analytic number theory if it makes any difference.
Note: I emailed my question to people at Cambridge university but I have not received any replies after a week.

I would wait a while longer to hear back from the Graduate Admissions Office, they are typically very busy around this time of the year.

You might need an equivalent of a masters however. As far as I know, it is expected of European students to have a masters before starting the PhD.

Have you considered doing Part III before the PhD? I gather that particular course lends itself well to those wanting to do a maths PhD at Cambridge.

The answer to this question is "You can if and only if Cambridge says you can."  So you have to ask them.  I've voted to close.

The definition of an honour student, honour course, etc. might differ between universities, some universities don't have this concept at all. So your degree from your home university might be enough for Cambridge or not, maybe even a honours degree from your university might not be enough.
Who did you email at Cambridge? You might want to try to contact something like an international office, they might be able to tell you the exact requirements for an international student applying.


text:
Who does a university answer to if their staff and academic advisors make mistakes that cost you time and money?
I am in a situation where my university has made countless mistakes with their new online program.  Professors are "no-shows", do not instruct at all, and advisors have incorrectly registered me in their new program which has now delayed my graduation date and has cost me money.  Who do you report a university to that repeatedly makes so many mistakes but has no problem taking your money?

Ombuds Office, student union representative, an administrator (department chair or dean) of the unit where the mistakes were made would all be reasonable options. If the institution is sufficiently poorly run and unresponsive (which sadly sounds like it may be the case here), unfortunately the only option likely to yield any sort of real results is hiring a lawyer and filing a lawsuit.

Every University has a Grievances Redressal Mechanism. Usually, it is a form online that you fill where different types of grievances/reports/complaints are handled by different committees/bodies. e.g. Sexual harassment, Discrimination based on race, etc
Information on how to ask for support or file a complaint and the escalation process is usually detailed in the Student Handbook and on the University Website.
Try having a look at your handbook or search online. And if it is no secret, you can let us know the University name, and somebody here might be able to help locate the right office you can approach for help.
Edit: Although writing directly to the Provost/Vice Chancellor/President, etc or airing your grievance online on social media is frowned upon without exhausting established avenues of help, since you mentioned 'online program', you might want to try to write a polite email asking for this precise information to your program coordinator.

"Every University has [...]" is quite a strong statement given the variability of university structures and customs around the world.

I was referring to the universality of complaint resolution mechanisms. I get what you are hinting at, but It was not a generalisation and should not be read as one.


text:
Is there a rank for theories?
I have been reading about many theories, some are more solid that the others.
I wonder if there is a way for non-professional to know the rank ( how trusted) this theory?
Example Strings Theory, i read that it is not proved yet and there is a good chance it could be wrong.
there are other theories like White Holes
How can I as non-professional know how trusted this theory without doing all the research?

Do you want to understand particular scientific areas without having formal training in them? That's really what popular science literature is for. There's no way of "ranking" different theories in different areas by how closely they fit the available facts - it's like comparing apples and oranges.

No, there does not exist any ranking and you may be confused about some things.

A theory is a contemplative and rational type of abstract or generalizing thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking.
A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can be repeatedly tested and verified in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluation of results. Where possible, theories are tested under controlled conditions in an experiment. In circumstances not amenable to experimental testing, theories are evaluated through principles of abductive reasoning. Established scientific theories have withstood rigorous scrutiny and embody scientific knowledge
Scientific laws are descriptive accounts of how nature will behave under certain conditions.
A hypothesis  is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon.

That is in broad.
To determine how trusted something is, it means it is widely accepted because it has been widely tested. If you want to know how 'trusty' something you read is, you can revise how many times it is cited, how widely is accepted, who are its detractors and why, how where there tests done, etc.
There is no easy magic ranking and I hope you see why. However, I think your question is important for the professionals to read and remember that some people might be very confused on some stuff as they have become quite distanced from the general vulgo/mases.

No, there is no rank for theories.

And there should not be.

Actually, if you imagine theories to be similar to Bayesian constraints, and parameters modelled by priors, you could have various measures which indicate the statistical validity vs. modelling costs. In fact, this is what statistical learning/machine learning is much concerned about. So, if you are interested in how to rank "theories", that would be an approach to start with. It is not trivial to do that for fully developed, say, physics, theories, but it is not, strictly spoken, impossible. The main challenge would be how to cost the complexity of a "theory" appropriately.


text:
Send a second follow-up to inquire about interview success?
I interviewed for a lecturer position a month and a half ago, and was told that the decision would be made about one month after my interview.  I was also told that I would be informed either way, but have yet to hear back.  A week ago I sent a follow up email, asking if a decision had been made, but didn't receive a response.  Is it appropriate to send another follow up, or should I just sit tight?  I have a feeling I didn't get the position, but I'd like to know for sure so that I can start planning other options.

Why the downvote?  If the question is inappropriate that's fine, but please let me know why

You won't accomplish anything by sending another email. The department hasn't forgotten that they interviewed you.

Probably not. But they might have forgotten to send him the information they promised.

They probably drop balls there regularly and don't want you to know that! Why can't you send a hand written note thanking them again and singing their praises? They will remember you if their pet candidate pulls out for a better offer. Their pet candidate may be stringing them along, hoping for something better. Don't appear to be in a rush or say they did not follow through. Appear eager and not stressed out. They know why you are sending a snail mail... because you want the position! There is no shame in trying everything. You are getting a taste of the disorganization of the organization you hope to join. Knock on the back door and say hello and thank you again for the honor of being interviewed by someone so prominent who has such an amazing job at such a prominent place. Was it an honor to get the interview or not?


text:
Is it a good idea to introduce myself via email after submitting application?
I am asking this question on behalf of my brother, who has recently submitted applications to several Physician Assistant programs around the U.S. For various reasons, his GPA is close to the minimum level; but he has strengths elsewhere. Therefore, he is worried that the schools may discard his application in the first round, without getting the full picture.
In order to improve his chances, he is considering to send an introduction email (or any sort of email) to the schools in order to introduce himself, so that they don't see him as Applicant # 3143.
Would this be a good idea? If so, what sort of email would be good to send?
Thank you very much.

"He has strengths elsewhere": hopefully the information sent in the actual application reflects this? Also, what kind of information does he plan to send in such an email?

@GoodDeeds His strengths are indeed reflected in the rest of the application; but he's worried that they will throw it out before reading further, just based on his GPA (which is close to the minimum required). He doesn't have a concrete plan of what to say in the email. He just wants to know if it's a good idea in general, and if so, what would be best to include.

What exactly do you mean by sending mails to the 'schools'? Mailing potential supervisors may/may not work. Many supervisors strictly forbid such mails, while others encourage potential candidates to contact them if their research interests are aligned with them. Such faculty can be contacted personally. And always remember to send personal mails, not a generic, one-fits-all mail  to all the faculty. That would surely get ignored.

I think that in most US places, such a letter is likely to be ignored. The application itself should be used to show such strengths, perhaps in a personal statement. But a university with a large number of applicants has fairly strict rules about addenda to applications. I doubt that it would improve the chances, but would, most likely, not harm the case, though it might if he seems desperate.


text:
What are these mathematical groups in U.S. universities?
I have just finished my bachelor degree and I will be entering a PhD program in mathematics. On the home page at my schools (and others) I have seen that there are various groups, composed of teachers and students, who study a subfield of mathematics. For example, I have seen "Mathematical Logic" groups, "Mathematical Physics" groups, "Dynamical Systems" groups, etc. What are these groups for? My view of a PhD was like this:
1) You take a couple years of classes and pass your exams.
2) You find a professor and do a thesis.
How are these groups involved here? Are they just for students in the same field to hang out and talk in general about the field?

Just adding to other answers and comments: it'd be unfortunate in several ways if a PhD student didn't talk to anyone other than their own advisor. For one thing, they'll need a PhD committee of 3 or 4 people who're willing/able to endorse the thesis, and also hear the defense.
Oh! And the letters of recommendation to get a job!!! You'll need at least 3, and after your advisor that leaves 2 more. If you've never talked to any other faculty at your home university (or anywhere else) you'll get lukewarm letters. Truly, you'll want some other faculty to be aware of you and what you're working on!!!
And getting a broader education/exposure in your general subject is a good thing... and perhaps the most convivial for beginners is a seminar run by and given by beginners... "from your group".
Finally: as with many human activities, while one may find reason for it, to be "without a group" is generally dangerous... since one has no support, no encouragement, no validation, no sanity checks...

You need that many recommendation letters for an academic job, not for every job.

The groups are a bit more serious than what you suggest. Generally they consist of a few professors and their doctoral students. All are interested in some fairly narrow range of questions. Often they are led by a senior professor. They pose research questions to one another (long term research ideas, not simple exercises) and explore approaches. Often the doctoral students get their research problem ideas from the seminars held by these groups.
Perhaps they discuss papers and work in progress. The currency here is ideas, approaches, insight.
It is a good idea to get attached to one of these relatively early on so that you get some sense about the research that is done and how people approach it. Don't wait until you've passed qualifiers to start narrowing your focus to a professor and a potential topic. These "seminar" groups can be valuable for that.

Thank you! If I may ask you a few follow up questions: By the second or third year, are (virtually) all graduate students (and their respective advisors) in one of these groups? 2) Does it happen that you want to do your thesis in a subject nobody else is doing, and therefore you do not have a group? 3) Do the students generally share the research they are doing? I am asking this final question because my TA in undergrad would not tell us the specific topic he was doing, he said he didn't want anyone to take his idea.

Your TA was a bit paranoid. Maybe with reason, but most people share within a group. Your research us usually guided by an advisor who may be in one of these groups or not. A few people can work without advice, but it is rare, and harder. I doubt that all are in a group, but it can be helpful if you share interests.

Groups are exactly that: clusters of people usually with common interests.  They can be important for graduate students as it can allow students to share expertise, try ideas (of proofs if you are in math) and broaden the knowledge base if only because others will have a different background, will have read different books/papers etc.
The same holds for faculty.  Some groups will have specialized seminars and share in the cost of hosting such seminars (formally or not) etc.
Basically it’s an easy way of pooling resources to the benefit of all.


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What's the chance of a lecturer in foreign country to obtain a teaching job in US community college?
I'm asking this question for my mom, who has been a college lecturer for 20+ years in communication study related field in non-English speaking country. She got her master degree in US back in 1990.
My parents received their green cards(US permanent resident) about 3 years ago and are debating between whether to completely stay in US (so they can satisfy the requirement of applying for citizenship as soon as possible) or to stay in US just enough to keep the permanent resident (so they can still work in the home country for a while).
The issue is, if both of them quit their jobs to completely settle in US. In the next few years the only income of the family will mostly** be my* TA-ship as a Ph.D. student (in math), which can hardly support the entire family.
Therefore, my mom contacted me and asked me this question recently. I have little idea about it, so I'm looking for help here.
Thanks for any suggestion in advance.
*I'm a US citizen who was born in the US.
**My dad can work online, but the income will drop significantly.

The safe thing to do is to assume, for the time being, that their stay in the U.S. should be minimalist, and that they should hold onto their existing jobs in their home country.  However, your mother could certainly apply for some teaching positions in the U.S., and if the job search goes well, your parents could change plans at that point.  (However, even in that case, I would advise them not to burn their bridges right away.)
Community college jobs do not necessarily pay very well, and there is no guarantee of getting such a position, for anyone, at any given time in any given location.


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Is it correct protocol to be able to split a bibliography into more than a single column?
I've been informed by my peers that a bibliography must always be presented in a single column i.e. each item spans the width of the page - even if the main body of the document is presented in more than a single column. Is this correct?

What's the downvote for? The answer may seem obvious to us, but it is conceivable that the OP has not come across a two-column bibliography yet, and specifically searching for examples of a given formatting is not one of the strengths of catalogues like Google Scholar.

It really depends on where you're publishing. Two-columns is mandated in some venues, in others one is. I suspect that there may be a few rare venues where there is no single style, but that your field usually uses one column.
If you are writing a paper, then you should look at the style guide for the venue you are publishing in, if there are none (which would be surprising) try looking at past papers published at that venue. Many venues simply supply the latex class you should use and examples. If you are writing a book, then a single column is usual from what I have seen. If you do not have a venue in mind yet, then you can just use a single column and change it easily later.


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Would the professor be annoyed if I failed two grad school applications in previous year?
I applied to two places last year; both failed. I am not sure if I ask the professor to write a letter for me again, would he be annoyed? How should I tell him?
If I tell him that I failed, would that cast a negative impression of me on him?

The best thing you can do is ask him. We have no way of telling how strangers will act.

Graduate admissions is not an exam.  You can't "fail".  You weren't admitted to the two programs you applied to, but that's not "failure".

I would view it rather as the institutions you applied to failed to see your talent and drive or that there is a better fit institution for you out there. I am making good progress now with my supervisor and there were some professors in the past who thought I was incompetent. But first impressions are equivalent to judging a book by its cover.

Two rejections are not so many, especially if you applied to highly competitive universities/departments. Some suggest applying to as many as 10 different places (of course, assuming you find so many research departments that interest you).
Just ask your professor again, I would not expect him to be annoyed. Even though we cannot know for sure how he will react, the uncertainty about his reaction should not block you from pursuing your academic goals.

as many as 10 different places — In my experience, 10 is a bit below average for computer science, at least in the US.

I doubt your professor would be annoyed enough to deny you a letter (or several), but you also need to evaluate your plans for advancement. While two applications that aren't successful isn't a large number, and you may have been shooting at too high a target, you may be doing something wrong in your applications.
An application for an academic program, as for a job, needs to show both a suitable background and a strong likelihood of success. If you don't show both of those you won't be successful.
I would ask someone, perhaps your professor, or perhaps some office dedicated to advancing student careers, for advice. Take them everything you have used in your applications and ask them for advice in refining it. Also, as for their advice as to the kind of institution you should be applying to. If you have only applied to Cambridge and MIT and have not been accepted, then you are obviously aiming for too tiny a target. A broader approach is much more likely to be successful. If you have the background and good letters then applying to top universities is probably worth it, but if you apply only to such places your chances diminish. Greatly.


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How to politely, mildly, and tactfully ask for a minor revision before the presentation of the conference paper?
I just have a paper accepted at a very selective conference but now I am going to make a minor revision before my presentation because I found a few grammar errors. The organizer seems unaware of my errors.
What is a mild and roundabout way to inform the organizer that I would like to "update" the paper? I do not want them to think that I was ignorant or negligent.
Does saying something like "I would like to do a minor revision" sounds too formal and could potentially scare the organizers, making them double-think about the acceptance?

I'm no journal editor, but the following seems like it would do the trick:

Are you accepting any revisions on accepted manuscripts? I've noticed a few stylistic things that I'd like to fix (nothing that impacts the results or the page count).


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What if I misunderstood something?
I am writing literature review at the moment
I read many papers trying to understand the topic i am writing about and put what I have understood in my literature review.
sure i reference every thing i write and proper citation
sometimes I feel that what I have wrote is wrong and that is not what the original writer meant and i have misunderstood the topic.
what is going to happen if I finished the research and these mistakes were found?
what shall I do to avoid that.
I am thinking of giving my research to someone to review it, but my supervisor is not an expert in this area, so he won't be able to help.
who can I ask for help?

If you don't understand the topic, how can you define the research question?

@SolarMike I am reading and learning. i haven't got to the research question yet. i am reading what has been done so far.

Even if your supervisor is not an expert and experienced, he can help you with your doubts, I am assuming that you haven’t selected your supervisor who is experienced in biological science and you work in pure mechanical; although they are cross-disciplinary.

@user199 it is not he does not know at all about it. he is electrical engineer, while my research about AI. he knows about AI but not to the level that he can find detailed mistakes if existed

Most of us want to get our hands dirty with AI. Walk slowly and steadily. Read more on these emerging learning solutions. Note that everyone is struggling with own research.

What is the purpose of your review? I f it is for internal learning than this is  physiological

If you are writing a thesis, it is highly unlikely that someone will find an inaccurate statement, let alone act on it. People have more important things to do than reading student theses and correcting mistakes in them. Even if you grossly misrepresent someone's research in your thesis, and if he learns about it, there is practically nothing he can do about it. Even examiners read theses quite superficially. Essentially, writing a thesis is a training for you and is perceived by others as such.
If you, however, are writing a research article and will publish it in a journal, any inaccurate statement about someone's else research may well lead to him publishing a comment in the same journal. You have to be very careful when you write an article. Make only those statements that you are sure about.
If you want to refer to someone's else article, but do not understand it, you can try to make a generic statement without specifying any concrete details, e.g., "Goldman et al. recently published a paper about X." If you do not understand a paper, but know that it is about X, it is okay to make a statement that the paper is about X. After all, it is a valid statement.
Never write anything you do not understand.

I like this answer except for the first paragraph. It seems to imply that because a thesis is probably not going to be read widely, it doesn't matter if a student writes nonesense, as long as their supervisor doesn't catch it. Yet, the last sentence of your answer contradicts that idea. Your answer would be helped if you would edit it to not give that impression.


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PhD intellectual property
The Australian government pays for the research study fees.
Who will, in such case, have the intellectual property rights for the research: the PhD student or the university?

Laws vary and I am neither a lawyer nor Australian. But in general, unless the grant or university rules say otherwise, things you create are (or at least should be) your own. Some universities try to make a claim (various places in the world) and you may have signed away some of your rights previously, but in the absence of that the IP is yours.
Check locally for the correct answer, of course. If the rules seem arbitrary or unfair, you can explore, locally, what it would take to counter them.

I agree. I'll add: any "sign[ing] away" most likely appears in your employment contract, so check that. Also, "rules" is perhaps a bit vague, "law, contract, or similar," is perhaps more appropriate.

Although I don't want to get bogged down in the legal details here, I take a bit of exception to "unless the grant or university rules say otherwise": grant or university rules often say otherwise, and in my experience always say otherwise.

To add to what @BryanKrause (correctly) said, it’s also the law in the United States, and possibly elsewhere, that the rights to any work for hire is owned by the employer. So Buffy, your statement is factually dubious. Even when the grant and university rules say nothing, your work may be owned by your employer as a default legal status. I am not a lawyer btw.

@DanRomik, I interpreted grant funded research as not the same as work for hire. I don't know how things are interpreted in Australia, of course.

@Buffy At least in the US, grants are almost always to the institution, not the individual (not even the PI). The only exception I am aware of are fellowships that are treated as scholarships. Everyone else is employed as an agent of the institution to work on the grant. I also don't know the details of funding in Australia.

I think that characterization, @BryanKrause, would imply that every paper written by every academic is the property of the university. I know that some universities take that position, but I also think it can be challenged.  Another interpretation is that the university administers the grant on behalf of the agency and the recipient.

@Buffy In either case, the researcher is the employee of the university, not the US federal government.

Universities could legally argue that faculty papers are their property. They don’t do it because of tradition, not because they lack the legal right. They do in fact regularly exercise that legal ownership right with respect to patents on faculty inventions. Again, I don’t know the answer to OP’s question, which is why I’m not posting an answer, but I do know that your answer includes a statement that is unhelpful at best and outright misleading at worst.

@DanRomik, I think that universities who want to claim patent rights are very explicit about it. Contractural agreements. Usually including sharing of proceeds if any.

As with most things when it comes to the question of intellectual property (IP) ownership, the question to ask is: Who is paying you to do the work?
If it's a general PhD stipend scholarship from the government then the default position is that the student owns all the IP and the project is classified as a "Student Project". Some government contracts may have a clause which stipulates that, if challenged (i.e. in a court), then the government provider will have the final say on IP ownership, however this is extraordinarily rare. In the case of a Australian government scholarship, I believe you can be assured that you own the IP as a student.
If your stipend is funded by an external company or cooperative research centre (CRC), chances are your PhD project is classified differently. As examples, the university may declare your project is a "University Project" or "External Project" as opposed to a "Student Project"; this is usually declared in the fine print for your Milestone 1 position or Intellectual Property student deed poll which either the university or the external will want you to sign. Once you have signed that document the default position most likely is that the external company owns all the IP. You may have partial ownership or some sort of inventor rights but, at this point, your IP "default position" is more akin to that of an employee (i.e. where the paying employer owns all IP) than a student despite the substantial pay difference.
(My experience here is as an Australian PhD student here who paid $X,XXXs for an IP lawyer after my external company gave me quite a colourful IP deed poll to sign which needed some amending...)
As a bonus tip of advice, make sure to READ the IP deed poll (most academics, staff and students very foolishly don't and sign away a LOT of their own power and hard work). Check also for clauses on Background IP, as you may not even be allowed to sign background IP which you're claiming is yours but legally isn't (i.e. if you've come from another university or company and are using their IP).

Contact the specific University office of commercialization (or whatever name it goes under, sometimes paired with business, sometimes paired with research etc...). They will tell you the explicit rules.
A quick google comes up with:
https://services.anu.edu.au/business-units/innovation-anu/office-of-business-engagement-commercialisation
https://www.sydney.edu.au/engage/industry-business-partnerships/license-our-intellectual-property/contact-the-intellectual-property-team.html
https://www.monash.edu/monash-innovation/about/our-people/commercialisation

I have recently had to consider similar issues as well in regards to a top up scholarships related to a CRC.
The IP agreements for CRC's often have a clause similar to this:

Subject to clause x all Intellectual Property developed as a result of the conduct of the Project is owned by the CRC.

Such IP clause are highly burdensome on the student. A PhD is a period of 3 years of research where you the student are relatively likely to discover something of potential value compared to other periods in your life. So many students end up forfeiting the opportunity to own IP of value for something in the range of ~45k if getting a top up (~15k x 3 years), or 105K for a PhD scholarship (~35K x 3 years).
Just to clarify how bad of a deal this is, a full AGRTP scholarship of ~35k per year is already quite low (in my opinion) for the work done by a PhD student, but you the student own the IP. Now consider the CRC version were you get the same very low wage for the work done but on top of that you lose the ownership of IP, one of the potential options for a career path and significant financial upside from a PhD, and you have quite a terrible deal.
For some students with absolutely no ambition of entrepreneurship it might be ok. But often I don't think students know where they want to go after their PhD and don't quite understand the IP agreements and requirements so they end up losing a significant pathway available, before they know it.
On a societal level I actually think it is quite tragic, as Australia would be well served to have more PhD students trying to turn their research into startups.