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Nature of pure mathematics research
For a little background- I'm a 3rd year engineering student, planning to do masters in pure mathematics. I've been studying abstract group theory and real analysis, although I'm extremely interested about these kind of thinking and reasoning what worries me is that during my high school days there were a lot of problems where we didn't have to do a lot of reasoning rather we had to come up with clever tricks to reach a solution. Honestly I wasn't good at this and thought mathematics isn't much fun.
So my question stems from this worry that how much of pure mathematics research is about learning abstract topics and do reasoning with them? Or is it mostly coming up with clever tricks from scratch?
In a way I want to ask what kind of skills are absolutely necessary for professional pure mathematicians?
I know perhaps it has to do with the problem one is working on but if it's possible to answer generally, please do.

Step 0: are you sure you can get admitted in a graduate program to do pure math with a background in engineering?

"I've been studying abstract group theory and real analysis" ... taking courses in them? (good) or just reading about them? (perhaps not enough to get you admitted to a math Ph.D. program).

As @GEdgar asks, if you cannot give some sort of evidence (for example, by confirmation by letter-of-reference writers) that you have self-studied usefully, simply claiming self-study of this-or-that is much weaker (in terms of persuading admissions committees) that having corroboration.

No, just not reading about them, studying them. I have to appear for entrances before getting admitted to a masters program.

"what kind of skills are absolutely necessary for professional pure mathematicians? "  -> being way above average in maths is a must-have. Being patient is somehow useful compared to applied maths.

By “coming up with clever tricks”, do you mean inventing new tricks, or learning and applying other peoples’ clever tricks in new situations?  Because the former is considerably more difficult than the latter.  And you could probably be a pretty good mathematician just employing the latter.

I meant the former. Yes it's reasonably more difficult hence I asked, if pure mathematics research is basically this then I'd have to think otherwise about my future endeavors.

I feel like I'm in the infancy of doing pure mathematical research starting all over from scratch. I will always be able to slowly keep discovering something I haven't discovered before. I don't care if it has already been thought of by others before. I do believe it is possible to adopt a new and different highly advanced research technique that's highly collaborative and passes on the relevant information to each person to figure out something that has not yet been derived using that advanced technique before. Maybe for a really long time, they will keep deriving stuff that has been thought

of before but not yet rediscovered using that technique. Later, they will go so far with it that they keep using already existing results to keep deriving more and more. Some people scramble to discover something that hasn't been discovered before but it's a more simple to derive thing that's new only because of the exponentially growing growing number of possible problems that can be described within a given amount of information and they're really completely missing the point in discovering something that hasn't been discovered before which doesn't actually help the world at all. Maybe they

could find a complex way to relate that problem to so many other problems and use it to derive a highly advanced technique for starting mathematical research all over again from scratch in a new and different way.

It is not really clear to me where you draw the line between "reasoning" and "trick". I can assure you, though, that pure mathematics gets very abstract and very theoretical very quickly.
What skills are necessary: First of all, you will be frustrated very often and you need to "like" that (a mathematician is somebody wants to be frustrated, rather than bored). Many theories take years to understand (at least for most human beings), and you may spend months without really understanding anything.
Secondly, you need to really enjoy that "pure reasoning" because the reason you look at a particular question is usually just that it is "interesting", not that it has any connection to "reality".
Let me add two further pieces of advice:

Pure mathematics is an area that is very hard to enter as an "outsider", and there are reasons why many trained mathematicians change to computer science or engineering, but very few go into the other direction.
It is not likely that you find a job in pure mathematics later on. The area is really competitive. That does not mean that you will be unemployed, but your future job will probably not be doing research in pure mathematics.

Tricks: Coming up with clever ways to prove certain things/attain certain results. Common example is high school combinatorics. It's not built upon rigorous structures. Different problems using same principles often require clever "strategies" which are difficult to think of from scratch, the leaps here from problem to the trick that solves it is not exactly explained, always. Whereas take for example Isomorphism theorems is built upon definitions and smaller results, there's nothing mysterious or unexplained about it.

S_Mitter: Math research has no grunt work.  There are no experiments to do.  Once someone figures it out, it's been figured out, and there is no more research to do on that question.  So topics that have nothing mysterious or unexplained about them tend to be solved, and are not research questions anymore.  Now it does frequently happen that a subject that originally looked like a bunch of tricks gets organized and becomes something that doesn't look like a bunch of tricks anymore, and that is part of the work of research in mathematics.

"An idea that can be used only once is a trick. If one can use it more than once, it becomes a method.” --George Pólya and Gabor Szegö, Problems and Theorems in Analysis, 1972.

@Alexander Woo: "Math research has no grunt work." --- Well, at the beginning there's the sometimes lengthy "library research" on a certain problem/topic (now mostly done outside the doors of an actual university library) that might need to be undertaken, and at the end there are the many successive theoretical refinements that one considers once the main method/idea is established/proved in the most important special case(s) (although given present-day publication quotas, these might be left for follow-up papers).

@AlexanderWoo Math research has no grunt work. - Really?  I feel like a lot of PhD theses, and about half of the work I do in my own research, are grunt work.

Maybe it's a problem of definitions. What percentage of your phd thesis is work you were competent enough to do also when you were 18, after a little training?

Welcome to the forum! A mathematician, I forget who, once jokingly remarked that applied maths was like the dark side, because applied mathematicians had more money and dressed in cool clothes, whereas pure maths, well, you get the drift, I'm sure. (I think he was joking, at least).
Studying pure maths can be extremely satisfying, intellectually if not financially, but it can also be endlessly frustrating; pure maths is actually intensely practical in nature - there is always good, practical reasons for why a concept or a method has been developed, in my experience, but it can often be hard to see, if this isn't pointed out clearly, and good mathematicians can be amazingly poor at communication. The solution to this is to keep asking until you are completely satisfied.
As an engineer you will have experienced that you are not expected to actually understand maths at a deeper level - you need to know how to use the tools, not how to manufacture them; thus, you learn to rely on the results: the theorems and the formulas. In pure maths, what you need to learn is the methods - often the proofs are more important than the theorems. This is so you can go on and discover new theorems and/or develop new methods.
So, to sum up, slightly tongue-in-cheek, engineers/applied mathematicians are the tool-users, whereas pure mathematicians are the tool-makers.

Great answer. What would be your advice if I tell you I aspire to be a pure mathematician?

@S_Mitter Well, I'd say "Go for it - but with a whole heart". Also, don't spread youself too thin - pick a favourite subject and get good at it; later, you can pick up more subjects, but you can't become an expert in all of algebra, topology, formal logic, category theory, .... And finally, keep bothering your professors, tutors and everybody else with questions. I think most mathematicians enjoy talking about and explaining their favourite subject.

Thanks for your encouraging words.

Here’s how to determine if you’re an applied or pure math person.  What is 7/5?  if you’re applied math, you answer 1.4.  If you’re pure math you answer either a) over what field? or b) it’s equivalent to 14/10.

The best short answer I can give as to the nature of pure mathematics and what pure mathematicians actually do at the highest levels is exemplified, perhaps best, by David Hilbert in proposing a set (23 or 24, depending) of problems worth studying: Hilbert's Problems.
He looked at what was known to be true in math around 1900 and what was not known. From all of that he looked for things that were interesting and worth studying. He had no proofs of any of the things he was proposing. Of the problems, some are still unresolved 120 years later. Some have been proven impossible to resolve. Some have resulted in (proved) theorems. Some have partial results.
Look at what is known and where the holes in knowledge are. Think about what is interesting and think about what is worth the effort of further study. Then, get to work to determine the truth of what can be learned of those things. Some of this study results in proposed Theorems. Some of those can actually be proved.
Mathematics is a search of the unknown and an attempt to make it known. But there is also a filter of "meaningful or interesting" things that might be worth studying.
Tricks and methods and proofs and all come later. Sometimes much later and sometimes not at all. It is pure mind stuff.

What in your opinion beginners should strive to achieve during their coursework?

The correct answer is insight, but that only comes from hard work. Solve more than the minimum number of exercises. Maybe a lot more. Even variations on the same exercise. But it is the same for professionals also, not just beginners.

Although this is not directly answering the OP’s question (I agree with a previous answer that the question presents a false dichotomy of mathematics), my answer aims to shed light on what mathematics is and is not.
Mathematics is an art-form and at the heart of this art-form is proof.
Whereas science relies on evidence and the scientific method, mathematics relies on argumentation to establish results.
The only requisite imposed on these arguments is that they logically follow from agreed-upon axioms. This is where the creative aspect of the art-form appears: many mathematicians place a premium on proofs that shed light on the problem and make connections to other areas of mathematics (Google the phrase ‘a short proof of’ or ‘an elementary proof of’) and it is quite often the case that there are many proofs of important results (for example, the infinitude of the prime numbers or the fundamental theorem of algebra).
These skills can only be acquired and honed in much the same way that a painter or musician acquired their skills: practice. Prove everything.

Can you please elaborate on how the creative aspect mathematics emerge? Is it during judicious creation of new axioms/structures?

@S_Mitter: as an art, it is creative by definition; there are many proofs of the same result and deriving these proofs often requires inspired thought and effort.

Actually, this gets it a bit wrong. There are steps that come before proof and that are, possibly, even more important. Mathematics existed before Peano. The OP asks the critical question in the comment just above. The important issue is: What do you prove? But it would take a book to elaborate that. Was Hilbert not doing mathematics in his famous questions?

What is your purpose with your pure math study?
If deepening your math knowledge, that's OK. Still, you can have struggles as your classmates will be having math bachelor degrees, they know a lot more about mathematics and see mathematics from a different angle than you. Proofs everywhere.
Pure math students live 24-hours for mathematics, it's their religion.
Pursuing a pure math career is a risky business. Especially if you are after a PhD. You need to absorb large chunks of mathematics and find some research topic that is interesting, doable and yet contains novelty.
But if you successfully attain a master degree in pure math, it's definitely a good starting point with your engineering degree to an applied math or computer science phd.

My first purpose is creation, it just took me some time to realize what kind of creative process will satisfy my hunger.  After that I delved deep into pure mathematics, I was in a way roaming around it, all my life but this was the first time I actually took it up very seriously. Since then I figured out I had to learn a lot of tools in order to finally do some serious mathematics at some point of time in future. Besides I find the subject very enjoyable, getting comfortable with abstractions is perhaps the most fun and satisfying experience I have ever had.

This is a good motivation. If you are into abstractions, I suggest you to touch interactive theorem proving. My personal taste is the Isabelle theorem prover with lots of abstract mathematics formalised at https://www.isa-afp.org/

Also of interest: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~lp15/Grants/Alexandria/


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How can I better equip myself early on for pure mathematics research?
From discussions about the nature of pure mathematics research I reached to a conclusion that it requires both- theory building; that is to create rigourous concepts relevant to the problem one working on and then building upon it, as well as usage of clever, ingenious tricks to obtain certain results. There's no real dichotomy in here.
If this is the case then I'd like to know how can I do certain things or develop a few habits that will help me or atleast equip me to tackle the challenges professional pure mathematics research poses before an individual?

Arguably, doing a PHD is supposed to be exactly the preparation you speak of. It is the first time in your education when you are most certainly expected to transform from the mere consumption of Mathematics to also producing new results; the general idea, however, is not that you simply start doing so, but rather that you have an advisor who guides this process. I mention this because you'll do well to remember that your advisor has this responsibility towards you, as you have the responsibility to invest time and effort to make the transformation, which is not an easy one for most people.
That said, here is my list of tips:

You may find yourself under a lot of stress to produce results. Unless (maybe even if!) you are an absolute one in a billion genius, the results may take quite a while to come, months, maybe years. Prepare yourself mentally for this fact. Although, I am afraid, I was told the same thing in advance, took it serious, and I still was absolutely unprepared for the reality of it.
"Having a new idea" is what you rarely learn in undergrad courses, where most people puzzle together theorem statements from the lecture to prove exercise results. This is not a bad thing, you will need this skill to make your ideas work, and you will also need this skill to get into new fields where new ideas are needed. However, having an idea is different and how exactly you come to have ideas, noone can tell you. I have known many different mathematicians and their minds all work in different ways. However, there is one thing they all have in common: They have their best ideas when they are relaxed and at ease. Find ways and time to be relaxed and ponder about Mathematics without feeling stressed out. How exactly you do that will be up to you.
Work with other people whenever you can. Collaboration is extremely powerful both to keep you engaged with a problem and to overcome obstacles.
Be enthusiastic or have the ability to get enthusiastic about your research topic. Without that, you are unlikely to muster the mental endurance required to actually do research in it.
At the beginning of your PHD, you must listen very carefully to your advisor. Towards the end of it, you must make sure that your advisor is listening very carefully to you.
Make concrete examples. I explained this at length in a Math.SE answer. This should work even in very pure fields, even though "concrete" may mean something else for you than for others. The important part will be that it is concrete for you, i.e. that it enriches your intuition.
Find a good balance between intuition and rigor. Relying too heavily on either will get you stuck. I believe that the more experience you have, the more you can rely on your intuition; but for someone starting out in Mathematics, I believe it is healthy to go with a 50/50 approach here.

While it is not my tip, I would like to include this excellent suggestion from the comments:

Keep a notebook of ideas that might result in fruitful explorations. Review it periodically. These are the ideas that you don't have time to develop now, but might lead to something when current projects come to fruition.

Nicely said. I like 5. and 7. especially. Hell, all of it, especially.

I would add: keep a notebook of ideas that might result in fruitful explorations. Review it periodically. These are the ideas that you don't have time to develop now, but might lead to something when current projects come to fruition.

Thank you for the kind words! I have included your excellent suggestion in the answer to make it a little more visible.

Rigour is something necessary and obvious for someone to develop to even do stuff on usual basis,  how do then one should approach developing intuition?

@S_Mitter: The three things I know that have been proven to work are practice, practice and practice. A lot of intuition is just having done something similar many times before. But while you do so, always try to keep in mind the why, i.e. don't blindly smash formulas together until you arrive at a proof, but always try to think about it on a more general level. E.g. for a longer proof, try to summarize it in a few informal but useful sentences. Intuition often is just thinking of those few informal steps, while at the same time being practiced enough to know you can execute them.

This will be of much help, thanks again.

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Do I need to be in a constant touch with the community to get the admissions?
I just completed my masters degree. Some of my seniors are constantly advising me to "increase" my touch with the academic community. They say that this increases the chances of getting the admissions. Per se I have no problem with maintaining some contact with the academic community, but what irritates me is the second part of this advice. I am of an opinion that I will or won't get admissions on the basis of my work. If somebody likes my work they will accept me as their student, otherwise they won't. Probably this is my romantic idea about the doctoral studies as a new student. Is it really necessary to constantly attend conferences, mail the professors, be in someones good books to conduct a good doctoral study?

What do you mean by "the academic community"? Conferences are good because you can learn something and make contacts, of course, but beyond that, what?

Academic community meaning professors outside my department, seniors and so on. I am not saying conferences are bad. I personally like attending conferences, but for the subject covered in them. I have not really tried to build and maintain contacts yet. Is it a bad practice? Is it really necessary to maintain contacts for doing good researches?

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Can I have a diagram from another book in my work with proper credits?
Is it a nice practice to use diagrams from another work and mention the name of the author? If yes, what is the correct way of doing it? Citing the author in the footnote or an in-line citation?

Are you using Harvard, APA or some other system - reference it correctly.

I am using APA style, but shall I reference it as a footnote or endnote or just mention it in the acknowledgements? What is the better way?

And first of all I also wanted to know whether it is a good practice or not :)

@Niranjan The APA style guide includes guidelines on how to cite images. You include a caption below each image with the citation information, and then add the full reference in your References.

As with many questions here, there are two issues: plagiarism and copyright infringement.
By citing the work of another you avoid plagiarism, which is claiming the work of another as your own. So you have no issues with that.
Copyright infringement, however, is governed by laws that vary by jurisdiction. Normally (i.e. most jurisdictions) you can copy (with quotes) some words from the publication of another as long as you cite it. But there are (weakly defined) limits to that. Copyright law is usually civil law (I know of no exceptions) so infringement is subject to lawsuit and in a lawsuit a judge or jury gets to decide what is reasonable and what is not.
But in copying diagrams and images there is a special consideration. Even when produced inside another work, an image might be interpreted as a "work" in itself. So, copying it might be interpreted as copying an entire work, likely a violation. Another thing to think about is that "A picture is worth a thousand words.". That is more than just a cute saying as it has some truth. So, if it would be improper to copy a thousand words from another work, an image might just might be considered as "too much" to copy, even if cited and "quoted".
But let me give an example that might help you see the issue clearly. Take, for example, the book The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. If I were to produce some work in which I quoted a complete chapter, it would very likely be considered infringement. But, as you can see, Wikipedia has provided a synopsis of the entire work without infringing copyright. The linked article explains the entire plot in some detail and lots of the reasoning and structure behind Atwood's work.
More deeply, however, suppose that I copy a complete chapter, but change a few words. Change names, perhaps, or locations, or phrasing of some parts. This is still almost certainly infringing.
So, in your case, if you take a figure and "change" it in insignificant ways, moving a few elements then you are on shaky ground. But if you take the ideas underlying the figure and produce your own, from the ideas, not just modifying the figure, then you are, in some sense at least, paraphrasing. But all that means is that you have a defense against a charge of infringement. Possibly a solid defense. So, if you do that and also, as you suggest, say that it was adapted from ... (avoiding plagiarism) then you are probably fine. But in the last analysis, neither you nor I get to make the final judgement if you are challenged. But do more than just mention the name of the author. Cite the actual work.

And you can avoid the issue entirely by asking for permission as GrotesqueSI suggests here.

Much better than my answer! +1 from me :)

I have no intention to paraphrase or infringe the idea already explained beautifully in another work. Hence I am willing to acknowledge the actual work with the author's name. This is a very good explanation not only for the question asked, but also for things which I had not asked. Thank you so much :)

Speaking generally diagrams are the creative work of the original author and you should not reproduce a diagram in your published work without permission from the person who created it. If, however, the diagram was published under some sort of license that allows reuse (e.g. CC BY 2.0) then you can reproduce it along the terms of the license. If there is no indication of what license the diagram has been published under, you must assume it is all rights reserved.
If you like a diagram and want to use it in your published work, seek the appropriate permission.

The appropriate permission may be, for example, the publisher if the author transferred their rights during publication.

Ok. I understood your point, I just want to be more clear about one point made by you. By reproduction what do you mean? Reproduction of that idea or copy-pasting the actual diagram from the book? Can I make a similar diagram on my own and mention that this diagram is adapted from this scholar's so and so work?

@Niranjan Potentially, but maybe not. And even then the right thing to do is to ask the author of the original work for permission.


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Is it fair to not transliterate non-English sources in the bibliography?
I am a student of linguistics who works on Marathi. A lot of literature on this topic is available in Marathi language which uses the Devanagari script, but in the academic literature, I have seen many researchers transliterating the original title, author name in the Latin script (with English conventions) e.g.,

Damle, Μ. K. 1970 Shastriya Marathi VyaakraN [A scientific grammar of Marathi]. K. S. Arjunwadkar. Pune, India: Deshmukh & Company.

for

दामले, मो. के 1970 शास्त्रीय मराठी व्याकरण [A scientific grammar of Marathi]. कृ. श्री. अर्जुनवाडकर. Pune, India: Deshmukh & Company.

I personally don't like this practice. Here's why.

It's not about the pronunciation at all. If it really was, people would have got uncomfortable with Jean, a French name too as it should have been John as per the English conventions. I always used to mispronounce it as jeen from jeans without the s ([ʤiːn] in IPA). This clearly means that people are just not happy to see a script other than Latin in academic writing which I feel is very unjust in a multicultural and multilingual world.
If I am citing a work in a language other than English anyways the reader will have to read it in that language. If they don't know the language, they will probably need a translator for accessing the work. So anyways just transliterating the title is not going to help them in any ways.
If a reader knows that particular language, then it is even annoying for them because there is no "universal" transliteration scheme available. Different researchers follow different conventions without even giving the rules for parsing them. It obstructs the reading of the person who is actually able to read it without any aid and comprehend the language in which the source is written on the cost of the so called "comfort/convenience" of a person who is not able to (or probably going to) read the actual source.

Can we just start getting comfortable with scripts other than Latin in the bibliography?

I am confident that you would very easily be able to answer your own question if, instead of focusing on the case of a script that you can read and on your frustration with having to accommodate readers who cannot read it, you focused instead on a script that you cannot read, such as (I am assuming) Chinese or Japanese characters. I do not for a single second believe that you do not see what the benefit is of referring to, say, Genji Monogatari as opposed to 源氏物語, or to the book Sanaaq by Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk, as opposed to the book ᓴᓈᖅ by ᒥᑎᐊᕐᔪᒃ ᓇᑉᐹᓗᒃ.

Can you explain "It's not about the pronunciation?" This seems like an argument in search of a critique

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I'm in a very different field, so take what I say with a pinch of salt, but when I check a reference, pretty much the first thing I do is read the title to get a sense of what the paper is about and whether it's relevant to me. Only then do I decide whether to look the paper up. If I can't read the title (or if, as in some physics journals, it's not included in the reference) then I'm deprived of the ability to do that, and have to do a lot of extra steps just to figure out if it's a relevant paper or not. Hence I would advise including translations as a courtesy to the reader.

@AdamPřenosil when the subject of the paper is a language written in that script (as is the case here) it becomes somewhat more reasonable to expect readers of the paper to be familiar with it

@AdamPřenosil זה באמת

@N.Virgo but the question is about transliteration, not translation. The example provided by OP still provides a translation even in the non-transliteration version.

Ironically, your second reference shows up as "[bunch of rectangles] 1970 [more rectangles] [A scientific grammar of Marathi]. [even more rectangles]. Pune, India: Deshmukh & Company.". If the question is "is the first reference better than the second?" then my answer is a clear YES.

I am quite comfortable with the existence of scripts other than Latin which I do not understand. With my entire lack of understanding, I get utterly no information from them... which is too bad, but I can't know everything. They are beautiful and mysterious, though. For folks like me, think of your transliterations as serving the purpose of seducing us into learning your script.

@AdamPřenosil - please put it in the answer box! This is clearly a popular answer and would have been well-received, but as you see, putting it in the comments has derailed this thread -- now the comments are debating your answer rather than the actual post. Further, no one can downvote, which is unfair to the actual answers (of which there are now ten).

@cag51 I understand your point about derailing the comment thread and not being able to downvote comments, but I disagree that my comment constitutes an answer. The question itself, if one ignores the specious arguments the OP uses in support of his position, is reasonable and it deserves a well-thought-out answer spelling out what exactly the point is of romanization in the bibliography (of which there are now several, so I see no need to add to them). My comment is nothing more than that, a comment on the OP's attitude.

The first consideration is always going to be the requirements of the journal you publish in. But given you're asking this question, I will assume the journal's style guide is silent on that point.
Reading the other answers, it occured to me that even when the reference is in English, it's often true that neither the author names, not the title is very helpful in finding the reference. If I'm looking for a paper called "Search for the Decay K+→π+νν¯¯¯" by "J.Smith et.al.", I'd really prefer to have an arxiv ID or DOI. There are too many "J.Smith" authors, and the title contains lots of characters that will be rendered variably by different software. Even pasting it in here is enough to mess it up (I know I could write it in LaTeX, but I'm making a point about variable rendering).
I think the provided 3 conditions are satisfied, the reference is fine without transliteration.

The original wasn't transliterated. If the original paper/book (or it's author list) was transliterated, then you will make it harder even for a reader fluent in both languages if you refuse to follow suite. So in that case, the same transliteration as the original would be required. This would be unchanged even if different references used different transliteration schemes.
The inline reference contains only characters native/comprehensible in the the language of the paper. For example in physics an inline reference is a number in square brackets, the third reference would be [3]. This matters becuase if the reader struggles to parse the inline reference, they will struggle to find the full reference in the reference section. This also allows the reader to make a verbal statement about the reference when discussing the paper without needing both languages. People often read papers in groups, so that's important.
Your reference section must contain a DOI, URL or other widely recognised unique ID for every reference. This is by far the easiest way to find a referenced publication even if you can read the whole long reference. Author name and year is tedious, most authors publish many things in one year. Sometimes a title and author name is ok, but in your case the title likely contains characters that were written with LaTeX macros (or just are not ascii), and so are ommited, or rendered variably in many databases. This is a problem with maths in paper titles too. So even without another language involved, a DOI or url is normally the fastest way to get the right reference. These things are language agnostic, so you sidestep the question of transliteration.

If someone retrieves a reference and is really confused as to its relevance, then they can (with a little difficulty) make a visual comparison of the title you gave and the reference title. Sometimes we mess up when copying a URL, so that check can be needed. But it's unusual, so I wouldn't see that as too onerous.
Edit; @DikranMarsupial raises the point in the comments that an authors name after transliteration is more memorable to those who only know Latin scripts. As such, transliteration may increase the reputation of the author, and in turn improve understanding of the academic strength of their culture. The drawback being that some people don't want their name transliterated. At least for living authors, we should probably follow their example (as in point 1.). For dead authors, it's difficult to guess what they would opt for if they knew the culture of today, and I'm not sure there is a right answer to this dilemma.

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You’re right, it’s not about pronunciation at all. It’s about the reader being able to actually do things with the citation, such as remember or copy the name so that they can look it up later. I can’t type or write using devanagari (so my only option to copy your citation would be to copy and paste it), I can’t remember things written using devanagari (so even if I could type devanagari characters, I wouldn’t be able to copy down the citation later). In other words, even though I would need to find a translation of the paper to read it, I would have to take extra steps just to copy down the reference in many cases, which makes it even less likely I’ll actually benefit from it. Adding to this though, recognition is important. I can remember the transliterated name of the author well enough to be able to easily recognize other works in the citations by the same author, but the devanagari would require me double checking a couple of times to confirm that they are the same name.
Put differently, consider this from the perspective of scripts you cannot read. For example, who is Ива́н Петро́вич Па́влов? Or Ἀριστοτέλης? Or محمد بن موسی خوارزمی? Or 孫子? Of those, I had to copy all of them but Ἀριστοτέλης (and that one I can type only coincidentally, I don’t actually speak or really read Greek, either ancient or modern). All are major names in their respective fields of study, but I’d be willing to bet you have to look up three out of the four just to see who they actually are. In contrast, listing the names as Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, Aristotle, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, and Sun Tzu makes them readily recognizable (well, three out of four, not all of them are exactly household names in all parts of the world.).

But by using Aristotle, you are already anglicizing the name, not just transcribing it. The Cyrillic for Pavlov looks a bit less complicated without those unnecessary diactitics - those are only used for learners in dictionaries and textbooks (even though Google does also show hits for "Iván Petróvich Pavlov".

@VladimirFГероямслава If we want to be picky about transliteration, then strictly speaking Sun Tzu is wrong also (correct Pinyin would be Sūnzǐ). In both cases, I went with the well known names among native English speakers with the intent of ensuring recognition. Also, point taken about Pavlov, I did not know the diacritics are optional (I’ve never been as well versed in usage of Cyrillic in any languages, and in this case just copied the Russian form of the name directly from Wikipedia)

A nitpick (and again shows how culture can differ), al-Khawarizmi is more-or-less household name in where I live. Pavlov, not so much.

@AustinHemmelgarn Adding another nitpick, Sun Tzu is a legitimate transliteration, it’s just the older, less common Wade-Giles system.

Unless there is a compelling reason to the contrary, academic work is written based on the language of the journal and its readers.  So for an academic journal that is written in English, we would not usually presume that the reader has knowledge of another language.  In certain countries where the general population is bilingual there may be journals that accomodate two languages, allowing some wiggle-room.  Similarly in cases where the subject of the journal is linguistics, or some similar field, you might find that the average reader is multilingual and in some cases it may be reasonable to assume knowledge of a secondary language.  While this is possible in some contexts, it is relatively unusual, particularly in English-language journals.
Now, suppose we are dealing with an English-language journal where it is not reasonable to expect the reader to speak any secondary language.  In this common case, while an English translation/ transliteration (hereafter just "translation" for brevity) is often imperfect, it will generally impart more information than the untranslated language to a reader who knows only English.  For a reader who only knows English, the character string शास्त्रीय मराठी व्याकरण is essentially just gobbledegook, whereas its English translation (however imperfect) at least gives some understanding of the words in question.
You are correct to note that if you are citing a work that is only available in Devanagari then an English-speaking reader would need a translation anyway, in order to read the cited paper.  While this is true, you are still giving that reader less information about the paper than if you translate the bibliographic information into English, even if this translation is imperfect.  You are also correct that the translated version might be annoying to a person who speaks the language of the paper at issue.  While that is also true, such readers may be quite rare (depending on the journal, the subject matter, country, etc.).  Writers usually try to ensure an adequate read for the majority of their readers, rather than imposing a language barrier that caters to a small minority.  If you have reason to believe that a substantial number of readers of this paper would speak Devanagari then you might make the decision to include both citations --- e.g., use the original citation in Devanagari but then add a translation below.

Thanks for your answer, but I see one important point being missed. Some fields, like say, comparative literature, linguistics essentially deal with multiple languages. One just can't say that I will only access the literature available in English in the field of comparative literature. So while what you said is mostly true and agreeable for disciplines which have readers as described in your answer, some fields just require the knowledge (or the access) to the sources written in other languages where my question still remains.

I've amended the answer to note these types of cases.

Thanks for the amendment. I still don't agree with you. Having some idea, a little understanding, an approximate of the real pronunciation is nothing but the unwelcoming position to accept works in their original form. Also you seem to miss the difference between a translation and transliteration. If you look at the way I have written the citation, I still have the translation included, i.e., "A scientific grammar of Marathi" and I agree that to get an idea of what the work is about, this might be helpful. I have only excluded the transcription as it really feels a pointless activity.

Of course "[...] is nothing but the unwelcoming position to accept works in their original form." this statement is also not completely true. People do accept French "abcd" which means "pqrs" in English.

@Niranjan I wrote an article for the American Journal of Mathematics, and one of my sources is "Euclid, Elements". But I'll cite it as "Εὐκλείδης, Στοιχεῖα", and then call anyone who has difficulty with this 'unwelcoming'. Though to be fair, I didn't read the Greek original, I read a Chinese translation. So it would be more appropriate to cite it as "欧几里得, 幾何原本".

"unwelcoming position to accept works in their original form." isn't it unwelcoming for the author not to consider the needs of the reader?  The purpose of writing a paper is to communicate information, and the writer needs to consider their audience in order to facilitate that communication.  In the case of the reference, it is to allow the reader to identifiy the original source and acquire it (or a translation).

Being "fair" is not at issue. Being accessible to the audience of that publication is the issue.
As a professional technical writer and editor, my advice is: Do not make your writing needlessly complicated for the expected readers. If you make it less accessible for the readers, they will be less likely to read your publications. If they don't read them, they won't cite them, and your academic career will languish.
If I am reading a journal where the masthead is in Spanish and the publications are in Spanish, I expect the bibliographies to be in Spanish or at least in Latin alphabet. If I'm reading a journal in Korean, I expect Korean with bits of Latin alphabet.
In some journals I have seen the equivalent of this when the source was not in the journal's main language, sometimes with a link to an online version of the source or the publisher's listing:

Damle, Μ. K. 1970 A scientific grammar of Marathi. K. S. Arjunwadkar.
Pune, India: Deshmukh & Company. (source in Marathi)

That is convenient because it lets me know what language I will encounter if/when I take the link. Although I don't read Marathi, I might decide to scavenge that work's bibliography to trace back an idea to its origin. I can search for a translation of the work and for others who have cited it (what did X say about it, versus Y?) i.n a language I can read.
With this form, on the other hand, even if I search for "a scientific grammar of Marathi" the first three pages of Google results have a whole lot of things about Marathi and Marathi Grammar, but no links to this book. I'm having a hard time finding your source.

दामले, मो. के 1970 शास्त्रीय मराठी व्याकरण [A scientific grammar of
Marathi]. कृ. श्री. अर्जुनवाडकर. Pune, India: Deshmukh & Company.

I don't agree.

French is completely different. If the article is in English, then all readers can more or less read and approximately pronounce the French words. If it is in a non Latin script, many of them can't. Nobody minds seeing non Latin scripts, but they do want to be able to read the information in some form, so transliterations or translations are necessary.
Transliterating the title gives readers an exact or approximate version of the title in the original language. You do need to tell readers the basic information about the publication, including the author and title, in a way that they can understand, as far as possible. They might not be able to read the publication itself, but they need to have some understanding of what it actually is, and be able to refer to or cite it themselves (citing things without reading them is not good practice, but sometimes it is necessary).
See answer to 2. For people who can read the original language and find transliterations annoying, you can include the information in the original language as well. And some languages do have almost universal transliteration schemes.

"If the article is in English, then all readers can more or less read and approximately pronounce the French words." Did you just forget me? I said I couldn't read and pronounce the word correctly and well you can't say that I don't know enough of English as I didn't get a French word right ;-) Your response to the first point sounds very assuming that everyone knows x whereas it is clearly not the case.

"(citing things without reading them is not good practice, but sometimes it is necessary)" I don't and probably would never agree with this and therefore I don't agree with this entire point. If the reader needs to cite x; they have no choice but to read it.

How many transliteration schemes are we supposed to know? e.g., the one used for Marathi, doesn't apply to Kannada. A language spoken just a few hundred kilometers away. If that is the case with a neighboring language how am I supposed to understand the scheme used for, say Japanese? After all what am I getting out of this pointless exercise if the concerned work isn't at all accessible to the reader who doesn't know the language and doesn't read the script?

I said "more or less read and approximately pronounce", not "pronounce correctly."

This was not my main point. My main point was that readers need to have some understanding of what the publication actually is.
Some transliteration schemes are almost universal, and some are not. What you are getting out of this exercise is being considerate to the readers, so they can have some idea what the publication is, including the title and author.

@Niranjan "2. "(citing things without reading them is not good practice, but sometimes it is necessary)" I don't and probably would never agree with this " does this mean that you would not acknowledge the original source of an idea because it appeared in a paper written in a language you did not understand?  Consider the fairness of that practice if anglophone authors did not give due credit to academics outside that sphere.

@gib Written language does not necessarily specify pronunciation anyway.  I have a French friend who's name I cannot pronounce correctly (it contains sounds that do not occur in English).   However their name is written in the standard Latin alphabet without diacritics.  It is possible to read and appreciate a text in another language without getting the pronunciation right, at least for some languages (for example English)

@Niranjan Re "3. How many transliteration schemes are we supposed to know?" - None. The point is that a transliteration provides some indication of pronunciation, so that we don't need to know about some other script. Imagine everyone using their own preferred script for their name when publishing (in English language venues). On the other hand, following your line of thought: How many scripts are we supposed to know?

The example of Jean and John is not the same as transcribing a name into another alpahbet, is is a translation of the name, and might therefore make the author harder to find. You would not write a German Frank Müller as Frank Miller but rather as Frank Muller following your reasoning.
Using non-latin characters makes a paper less accessible and thus less inclusive. Think of blind people using screen readers. While it might please a minority of readers able to read that script, it will be burdensome to most others.

I would write Frank Müller only by my logic, I don't get it why you think that I would write Frank Muller. "Think of blind people using screen readers. While it might please a minority of readers able to read that script, it will be burdensome to most others." We are in the Unicode age. Everything is machine readable these days and by the way if at all something is not machine-readable at the moment; it will only become readable when people start using it! Discouraging people from using their scripts is highly authoritative and disrespectful (and by the way exclusive).

The matter isn't of pleasing majority/minority. IMO it is a purposeless convention we are following. My point was if a source is supposed to be read (which is ultimately the motive behind citing) and it is written in some other language and script, the reader is obliged to have a translator and in such a case, it is really pointless and unjust to Latinize the names and titles is what I feel.

@Niranjan  Getting people to read the source is not the only motive behind citing

@Niranjan, to put it bluntly, the considerations of what bugs us as being "authoritative" or "exclusive" when we write are largerly irrelevant. We write for our readers, so please think whether you are doing any favor to your reader (or to the author you cite, so to speak) by doing what you are intending to do.

You should give bibliographic information in a way that makes it easy to find in standard search engines. In math at least this means including a transliteration with Roman lettering. If you look up say papers written in Russian in zbMath or mathscinet they will have Roman transliterations that allow you to find all the other papers by the same author.
This has literally nothing to do with pronunciation, and in fact if the standard transliteration used by librarians is “wrong” from a pronunciation viewpoint you should use the standard one and not correct it.
People need to be able to easily locate the author and the author’s other works.

Fundamentally the most important consideration is the journal's rules/expectations on citations and referencing.
If there is vaguity, the best approach would be to focus on providing transliterated options as Latin script is the most prominent script-form in academia and makes it easier to search for the citation. Whilst the consideration of respect and not making a butchering of someone's name in a transliteration is well and good, having just the non-Latin script name and title can make the reader's life hard if your paper is not in Marathi language and Devanagari script (i.e. the target audience is English speaking or another Latin script language).
For example, the source I am referencing is in a hypothetical language that uses Wingdings to show you how it feels to an audience that cannot read something that isn't transliterated into a script they understand:
☠♓❒♋■♋■ (2022) ❄♓⧫●♏ □♐ ♋♍♋♎♏❍♓♍ ◻♋◻♏❒

See how that means nothing to you and how it would complicate the reader's ability to figure out what article in your bibliography you're referring to?
Whereas a transliteration into the target audience's script (e.g. Latin) makes it easier to understand what you are referring to:
Niranjan (2022). Title of academic paper

If you so wish (and the journal allows double listings in this situation), you could list the transliteration of articles as the primary way of mentioning it and then provide both the transliteration and also the original-language script version of it underneath in the bibliography:
Niranjan (2022). Title of academic paper
[☠♓❒♋■♋■ (2022) ❄♓⧫●♏ □♐ ♋♍♋♎♏❍♓♍ ◻♋◻♏❒]

Hope this helps!

If the paper is written in the Latin alphabet, then that is an indication that the reader will be comfortable with the Latin alphabet, but may not be able to read text in the Devanagari script.  The purpose of giving a reference is to specify a source and allow the reader to locate it, so giving the reference in the Latin script makes it easily available for the whole audience.  Giving the Devanagari reference would make it more difficult for part of the audience that could not parse that script.  Note that automatic translation (e.g. Google translate means that a Devanagari text may be understood to some extent by readers unfamiliar with Marathi)
If the paper were written in Devanagari script, it would make more sense not to transliterate the title as doing so could only obfuscate the source rather than identifying it for the reader.
The key point is that the purpose of academic writing is to communicate information, which requires respect for the needs of both the author and the reader and this may require compromise.  Sometimes there is no perfect solution to a problem, and I think this  is an example.
Of course if the source has an ISBN or a DOI or a URL etc. that makes things much easier.
The other consideration is making the reference accessible for automatic indexing systems (it would be better if the indexing systems were able to perform that transliteration).  Also academics get recognition by their field via citation of their work.  If I see a reference to an work and I can associate that citation with the author then that has enhanced the authors visibility.  If the reference is in Devanagari script then I will not make that immediate association, which is to the author's disadvantage.
FWIW I would have no objection to my name being transliterated using Devanagari script in a paper written in that script.

Having just looked through a few East Asia-themed books at home, the norm indeed seems to be that the author's name is transliterated and then the title of the work is also transliterated. Sometimes, there is a translation of the title after the transliteration. I could have sworn I have seen works where the titles of sources were given in the original script, but that must have been in a library or so. I have found one Russian book that has cyrillic transliterations for Chinese and Japanese titles and no transliterations for titles in Latin letters.
Being somewhat able to read a few languages with non-latin characters, I tend to agree that transliterations of article titles are often of very questionable value. If you do not speak the language, they do not give a lot of information anyway. And if you speak the language somewhat, they make mapping the citation to the actual title of the work harder (similar to your point 3). I believe this is not so much of a problem in cyrillic scripts but it quite definitely is for Chinese.
On the other hand I feel quite strongly about transliterating the names of the authors (so readers can recognize them, as pointed out in other answers) and I am a big fan of translating the titles of such works.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
Economic Reviews/Journals for High School students
I am a 10th grader and I am looking for a journal/review to publish my paper in the subject of macroeconomics. Is anyone aware of any journal/review that would allow me as a highschooler to publish such a piece?

Welcome to Academia.SE. Unfortunately, your question is likely to be closed, as we do not recommend journals. Still, this question may be worth reviewing.

Also -- you should try the economics forum here on SE.

This is possible. And any journal, in theory, will accept your work. However, I think you should seek out some feedback from an economist in the related area. Also, it is an unfortunate reality that econ journals are very 'clubby'.
As an aside -- i am a PhD student studying macroeconimics. If you want to try and provide some idea of what you're doing, I can try to give you advice about journals etc. And feel free to be however vauge you think you need to be to protect your idea.


text:
Why are dates (of writing or publication) missing in scientific papers?
When I read a scientific paper I usually would like to know the point in time when it has been written or publicized. I would expect such a date written near to other meta data like the the author's names.
Unfortunately often these papers lack in such a date. I can't see why. Okay such a paper may be the work of years, but it is publicized at a single point in time. When I wrote my thesis I wrote down the date when I have submitted it to my university for approval.
Such a date is very useful for finding, classifying and evaluating papers.
An example would be this:
https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/files/6487/pwvault.pdf
The papers I read are in the field of computer science. This may be different in other areas.

Scientific papers are usually published in journals and conference proceedings. Publishers report at least the publication year and month, but may also report more information, like the submission date, the revision date and the date of the first online publication.
Your example is just a preprint, not the publisher's version, and does not contain any information. However, you can find the published paper at this link, where you can freely download the pdf with the publication year. You can also read the front matter of the proceedings to find further information.

The particular paper you linked is a conference paper. Its date of publication will be the date of the conference, which in this case was ESORICS 2012, held September 10-12, 2012. One suspects that what you have linked is a preprint - that is the form of the paper submitted to the publisher before it is published. Computer science is often communicated through conference papers, rather than journal papers.
Journal papers almost always do have a date of publication on them, and often a date received. But again, it could be that your are generally seeing the officially unpublished version, rather than the publishers version.


text:
Who decides authorship order?
I completed my Ph.D. a few months ago, but it was 4 years of a living hell. My PI was super abusive, I had severe depression and when I said I wanted to defend (6 months earlier than the deadline) because I couldn't bear it any longer she said: "you will only defend if I want you to".
Anyway, I spent a year abroad, funded by an agency, and when I came back with the data she said it as bad work and unpublishable. I still wrote a manuscript (after the Ph.D. ended and I no longer had funding) draft without any participation from her and any result coming primarily from her lab. I recently shared it with the authors and she is taking it as if it was her work, sharing with random people and claiming she is senior author, which I don't agree since she didn't contribute at all (not even with experiments planning).
My question is: do I have a saying on the authorship order? I feel like it's my work and I should be able to decide that, especially after everything she put me through.

*I would list the supervisor from the lab abroad as senior author

Do I read correctly that you have finished your degree and she has no power over you, academic or otherwise?

yes, I have finished the PhD already

I'll add a bit of advice later, but for now, have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_authorship to see the range of possibility.

thanks! I am not opposed to having her as an author (even though she didn't contribute and according to a lot of articles, she shouldn't be), but I don't think it is ethical for someone who tried to hinder the development of the project to get benefits from other people's work.

The answer of JeffE is the morally correct one. The answer of ZeroTheHero is the political one.
I'll give the self defense answer. If your advisor has power over your future, then I advise you to go along. But move away from her orbit at your first opportunity. What she is demanding is unethical and seems to be trying to boost herself at your expense, rather than supporting a former student as she could.
But if that power is there, and she has a grudge, then she can use that power to affect your future. You probably don't have any countering power to contest it, though some do.
The order of authorship, I'll add, varies greatly by field. In some fields there are tremendous fights over it (lots of evidence in posts here). In other fields we just list contributors alphabetically, but they need to contribute. Some with very minor contributions show up in acknowledgements, but not as authors. My advisor (mathematics) helped me a lot and did, in fact, contribute to my dissertation, but no one would have thought he should be co-author. But he was acknowledged and cited.
In other labs, the PI is always listed (often last) and people make different assumptions about that. Some have said they always assume the last author did all the work. Others assume the last author provided funding and encouragement, nothing else.
But, in your case, think long term about your career and protect it. This paper may wind up with, to you, an unhappy listing of authors, but it won't be your last work, nor, one hopes, your best. If you need to submit to protect yourself, then do so, but, as I said, move away quickly. Don't look back. Find a better circle of collaborators.

The authors agree on authorship order (as well as the requirements to be an author at all), preferably before the research actually begins.

The authorship order should reflect respective contributions or achievements. How is it possible to agree on the order before authors have contributed anything to the research and have not achieved anything?

I agree... in this case, she is getting authorship because I grew cells in her lab and sent the pellets abroad. No figure/result came from her whatsoever, and she thought it was bad and unpublishable until yesterday when she saw the draft.

The answer reflects an ideal world that we all wished we lived in. But it ain't so, I'm afraid. We should, of course, try to make it so within our own orbits.

Authorship is a delicate issue, and students have limited leverage when it comes to author lists.  It may be that your supervisor was not involved in the writing of the paper, but she apparently contributed to the work so she should probably be an author.  Usually the senior researchers will just who has contributed enough to be co-author.
Just like in a parade, ther are two prized position in an author list: first and last.  If it’s politically tricky to be first author, then be last author.  Indeed, “the boss” i.e. the person in charge, is usually last (although that may depend on the lab).
There really isn’t much to do when you fall out with your thesis director.  In the long run I still believe it is self-defeating for a senior person to mistreat more junior persons, but this does not help you with your situation.

While first authorship is almost universally acknowledged as a distinguished role (exceptions exist in Math and Theoretical CS), that's not the same for last authorship. In my field, it's common practice to have the person with the smallest contribution as last author.


text:
Should an undergraduate summer research project be put under "employment history"?
I am currently filling out an application for gradute study, which includes a section on employment history.
During my time as an undergraduate, I carried out two summer research projects in pure maths. One of them was based at my home institution, for which I obtained a monthly stipend from an outside organisation (a research bursary). For the second project, I was on the payroll of the university at which the project was based.
The application asks for details of "work experience, internships or volunteer work". Do either of these count?

I suggest that employment history should probably be reserved for situations in which you were actually paid for your work. You will have to think about whether a "stipend" qualifies. But "payroll" certainly would.
But such things are naturally work experience and most people might agree that they are internships (or at least similar).
I think volunteer work would be different unless you were using your skills (academic or otherwise) in support of the mission of some (charitable, governmental, ...) agency.
I think the only real error you could make, based on the description, is to label them "volunteer". Well, leaving them out, would be an error, also.

Yes they count.

"work experience, internships or volunteer work"

is clearly more broad then just regular employment. Just make clear what type of position each role was. If there is some other section that allows you to report other types of research experience you could be free to classify these either way, it wouldn't affect much. The people reading your application just what to know what you've done.


text:
Academic Event corpora
For my research I need to find academic event corpora. Unfortunately the question Computer science central source for CFPs was closed as a "Shopping list question". In my case I am interested in datasets that link

Call for Papers
Conference Home Page
Papers published for a conference e.g. via proceedings

So far I found (on top of the list in the other question):

http://www.openresearch.org
http://portal.confref.org/
https://scholia.toolforge.org/ (based on Wikidata)

I am not asking to make a choice ... i need a list for my research. I am not interested in the rating in the options - i just want to know which options are out there. How could i rephrase the question to get the wanted scientific result?

What is your end goal?


text:
Is it worth trying to get into a decent PhD programme with subpar BSc grades? (UK)
I am currently a final-year student on a BSc Mathematics programme in the UK. For the first two years of my degree I've mostly adopted a '2:1 will do' approach and didn't focus on my studies all too much, sometimes even cramming in an entire course the night before the exam. As a result, my grade distribution is extremely uneven: for example, last semester, my lowest grade was 40% and the highest was 89%. I'm not sure about other degrees, but from my experience people tend to score fairly consistently in maths. Overall, I currently have a 60% average.
Last semester, however, I took an introductory logic class and was really intrigued by the subject. The 89% referred to earlier was for that logic course, which was otherwise considered fairly demanding. It may sound somewhat cliche, but I believe I've found my academic 'passion', however niche it may be. Over the summer I've worked my way through a couple of mathematical logic books, and am currently in the process of writing my bachelors thesis which is on a fairly advanced topic in model theory. With that my attendance has improved and I've found other maths classes more enjoyable, too. I'm rambling here, but the point is that my interest in this particular area is pretty serious.
Now, to my question: with this in mind, I've started thinking of possibly going on to do a PhD in the future. Problem is, I'm afraid the first two years of my Bachelors will drag me down to the point of not being able to gain acceptance into a decent programme. I will most likely end up getting a First Class degree in the end, and the university I go to is in the Top-100 across all major rankings, but then again I know people who have close to a 95% average. Would you say it's still worth trying, or should I just take the safe route and re-orientate my studies towards something more practical?

Why not apply to PhDs and Master's? Then, if you are unsuccessful with PhD applications this time around, you will be able to strengthen a future application with the Master's. A Master's would also give you more time to develop your research interests.

Ask your university, though undergraduate grades probably won’t matter because you’ll probably need to complete a Master’s Degree first.
Generally, there are two different methods for PhDs to be structured- ones that take 5-6 years to complete and include a coursework component and can be entered directly after finishing a Bachelor Degree, and ones that don’t include a coursework component, take 3-4 years to complete, and require you to have completed a Master’s Degree first.
The latter structure is more common in Europe, though I admit I’m not completely familiar with the system used in the UK; I do know that it is used in some Commonwealth countries like Australia, though. As a result, when applying for this sort of PhD, it’s likely that the admissions office will put a lot more weight on the results you got from your Master’ Degree than the ones from your Bachelor’s.

I know a couple of people who went straight into a UK PhD (ie a pure research PhD) after their BSc, so anecdotally speaking a Master's is not strictly necessary.

In your final semester, it may be exceedingly difficult to show a solid change in your habits and work ethic that I would say would be good for convincing others if you turned it around in the last 2 or 3 semesters.
However, you say possibly doing a PHD in the future.  If that doesnt mean immediately applying, then gaining relevant experience at work and continuing your studies after receiving your degree could help you if you choose to apply a few years down the road.
Good scores on the GRE (or the UK equivalent, whatever that may be) could also help a candidate seeking to have low grades overlooked.

There is no UK equivalent to the GRE.


text:
Can a person with IQ of 130 contribute big contribution?
I was tested and my IQ was at 130. I am currently PhD student studying mathematics. Will I be able to contribute to mathematics?

People ask a similar question to this on Psych&Neuro every so often. IQ scores don't work like this, it's not what they are validated for. Stop using IQ to compare you or anybody to anyone else.

Michael Faraday is one of the greatest scientists (an exquisite experimentalist) of all time. Though routinely considered to be a genius, admired by Einstein, Faraday attributed his enormous success to living in accordance with his simple motto: "Work. Finish. Publish." So maybe forget the IQ stuff and best of success!

I agree with Faraday. It is also a motto I will live by.

Have a read of the following blog by Terry Tao: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a-genius-to-do-maths/

No, I haven't. Thank you for sharing this. I read it and I agree with everything that was mentioned.

I’m voting to close this question because it is out of scope because mathematicians do not use IQ scores.

It is ok. I don't think it is useful as well.

I don't know but with such an IQ you should figure it out yourself.

There is always that doubt in your mind @Alchimista

IQ means less than you think it does. Yes, you can contribute if and only if you study hard, work hard, and seek math insight into one or more specialty areas.
Excellence comes from hard work, nothing else. Plenty of "smart" people waste their lives. Plenty of average people excel because they don't let obstacles get in the way.
And don't neglect the need for working with others, even with those who don't have a 130 on some test.
There isn't a short cut. There isn't a magic bullet. Work.

Thank you for those wise words.

At the same time, I think you would need to have a certain minimum level of cognitive function to be able to contribute to mathematics. If you've got an IQ of 70 or less and you have difficulty spelling your own name, let alone writing academic texts, I think mathematics are probably not for you.

@nick012000 Sadly, an IQ of 70 does not keep politics out of reach ...

@EdV Can you give an example of someone with clinical intellectual disability (formerly called mental retardation) who has managed to achieve high political office? Neither Trump nor Bush count, despite assertions by their political opponents, because they have IQs of about 130, IIRC.

I was joking, but, given the horrible state of politics these days, I see no compelling reason that people with 70 IQ cannot go far in the field.


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Should I be an author on another PhD student's paper if I went to their meetings and gave advice?
My PhD supervisor (in the field of artificial intelligence) invited me to several meetings with another PhD student. Since I have more knowledge than my supervisor in some topics, I made many suggestions about how this student could improve his methodology. In total, I went to 5 meetings of 3–4 hours each. I could have used this time to do my own research.
When the other student started to write his manuscript, I asked to be an author, since I had contributed directly to the research, but he felt I only deserved to appear in the acknowledgments. So I asked my supervisor to be on the paper and even volunteered to help writing it. My supervisor said “Don't worry about his paper, you have your own things to do, and he is not going to submit this work anytime soon”.
One week later, they submitted the paper to a major conference without my name on it. I felt really insulted that they used my time and skills with no credit to me.
I didn't actively do the research or help write the paper, but I felt I was supervising the student since I have the most experience on this topic. Many academics in my field get their names on papers by just giving suggestions.
What should I do? I am planning on taking it to the head of department.

I don't think this head can or will do much

I'm surprised by the various answers suggesting that actively participating in multiple discussion sessions of several hours (in which you brought in your special experiences) would not justify authorship. I do agree to the general sentiment that talking to the department head would probably be a bad idea, but I would definitely seek clarification with the PI, and avoid a similar situation from happening again by explicitly discussing authorship explicit in the first extended discussion meeting.

Your body says "major conference," but the tags say "paper submission." Those would be of different levels of concern to me. Which is it?

@Azor, in some fields, including OPs, conference proceedings are what people care most about.

If 15-20 h of work (which is what the author claims to have contributed) qualify me for authorship in a major conference submission, I am so going to change fields.

You should say what field you are in. I research molecular biology and attend 1h+ lab meetings every 2nd week , and I certainly don't expect co-authorship when I only contributed to discussion on analysis and methodology.

@user1998012 next time. if you want to be co-author tell them that in advance, before you give the advice. and expect no one to help you for free! many people are helping me and non asked to coauthor.

keeping in mind that training/mentoring junior colleagues is a part of your PhD training. Not everything you do during your PhD has to get your "name" on a document.

I just want to add support for your point of view, that you were wronged, and that your advisor deceived you.  I am also relieved that you selected an answer that acknowledged that fact, and that also advised you not to risk your PhD by trying to "fix" this situation.  It's painfully ironic, but, in an area where you would think logic must certainly apply--because everything you are doing is based on coming to logical conclusions from evidence/reasoning--logic does not, in fact, apply.  Academia is a corrupt, flawed, human thing.  You have to learn to navigate it defensively.

You're a coauthor if and only you wrote some of the text. Otherwise you should be credited for say 'many valuable conversations'.

Very field-dependent. In my field, even official supervision doesn't entitle you to authorship.

"suggestions on methodology" could mean almost anything, was it standard stuff or did you contribute anything particularly novel? Unless you claim you did, I'm not sure you have much ground. But yes they should have acknowledged you.

@smci I didn't suggest anything necessarily novel, but I spotted many mistakes, improved his methodology, fixed his code, told him how to do correct evaluation. Mostly "supervisor's" job.

You look like you are an expert on a field that your supervisor isn't, and that expertise is necessary for a collaborator to make progress on his thesis. Therefore, I would expect that your supervisor would motivate both of you to work together, so that the other PhD student can benefit from your expertise, and you could benefit from working on a related subject you know about. In that case, co-authorship would be reasonable and come of naturally. I also believe that you would generously offer co-authorship to your collaborator, if things had happened the other way around (i.e. he had provided advice the way you have).
But things evolved differently, so:

Do you deserve to be a co-author?
In my opinion, yes.
Judging from your descriptions, it looks like you've been doing lots of "supervisor" work here. As others have noted, a supervisor is anyway included regardless of their contribution.  To my understanding, and based on my academic experience as a PhD student, this is not just a "typical" practice; since the supervisor is expected to get co-authorship, they should provide actual supervision (advice, intuition etc). Providing it through a delegate is fine, but I would expect that the delegate receives proper credit.

Should you take action?
No. Unless you don't mind hurting your relationship with your PhD supervisor and possibly triggering a conflict with him. Given the circumstances, I'd suggest you give up on co-authorship, but express your feelings to your supervisor.

Is this fair?
No, at least in the way I perceive academic ethics. Unfortunately, ethics and rules in academia are easily violated in subtle ways. If you are not the one holding power, there's very little you can do without risking a conflict with people who have huge control over your academic future.

I already triggered many conflicts with my supervisor, but always internal conflicts, but I never took it further. Once I was telling him that he was not being supportive and I would face difficulties in finishing my PhD on time and he said "If you think you don't have time, you should quit". I almost took it to an external staff during that time, but I thought he could make my life harder and he wouldn't let me get my PhD. After this paper conflict I am planing to take it further, my relationship with him is already damaged. I think it can't get worse than that.

I sympathize with you and can really feel your frustration and disappointment. However, think about it: what are you trying to achieve here, apart from satisfying your long-accumulated frustration? Do you trust that the head of the dept (who is also a professor and a PhD supervisor, wink-wink) will take your side? How will you provide proof, if needed? Make sure you understand what it means to accuse a professor of academic dishonesty. PS. I am pretty sure it CAN "get worse than that".

This is solid avdvice. Me, being slightly more childish and spiteful would probably also never help any of them again (after completing the phd naturally). Build connections and relations with those that are generous and fair, it is good for both your career and your life. These two obviously signed themselves off.

Does 20 hours of meetings warrant co-authorship into a paper that takes thousands of hours to develop?

It depends. I have considered co-authors people who have provided their expertise for less time than that, and I still think it was the fair thing to do. But then again, you could ask "Does simply reading a paper and proposing ideas warrant co-authorship?" Again, "it depends."

@corsiKa I have never seen a definition of authorship criteria that includes "invested amount of time". I have seen "substantial contributions to conception and design of the work" (ICMJE guidelines). Being the sole contributor with a particular type of expertise in 20 hours of discussions makes it more likely than not that this criterion is fulfilled.

Actually, I think you should relax and take your advisor's advice. Collaboration is a good thing, and it is a two-way street. You give a bit and you get a bit. I assume you got an acknowledgement in the paper for your help. I don't think it would be appropriate if you weren't. But authorship is a different thing.
You contributed ideas. Research seminars are often organized to give ideas to researchers but the members don't become co-authors in the normal case.
Congratulate your colleague and, as your advisor suggests, spend your effort on your own work, not raising an objection to someone else's.
But, it is good that you contributed ideas. Do that a lot and you will have a lot of people willing and happy to work with you. Occasionally you may need that help.
Pay it forward.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

I am planing in taking it to the head of department.

Let me assure you that this is a bad idea. 99 times out of 100 the department head will not intervene in these matters. Moreover even if they do (again, super unlikely), and you get things your way with this paper, I assure you that this will forever mar your relationship with your advisor. I would be extremely upset if one of my students went over my head like this.
How about you have a discussion with your advisor about how you feel? What constitutes author worthy contribution highly varies between research groups, so I would not be so quick to decide that your contribution suffices (nor am I in a better position than your advisor to make this call). Maybe you can be more involved in follow ups? In relating this work to your own? As Buffy mentions, you’re not just letting it go because that’s the way it is, it’s also because being adversarial will have far reaching repercussions beyond this one paper!
In my experience, a collaborative approach pays dividends in the long run: Be the person people want to talk research with!
EDIT:
To clarify: It is impossible to judge whether X number of hours warrants coauthorship status, as this is very discipline/relationship related. Some PIs think that even a short conversation about the paper and some suggestions warrant coauthorship, others think that unless you actively participate in writing you shouldn't be a coauthor.
Unless something outright unethical is happening (e.g. the OP made major contributions, which is not obvious from the OP), I don't think they have a case, certainly not one department head I've met would intervene in..

Yes, bad, bad, idea

+1 for the last sentence alone - the more you talk with other people the more they will talk with you, and often just the talking will prod some part of your brain to reconsider a problem in a new light, whether you were talking about it or not.

I think its a bit weird and pretentious that "you woould be extremely upset if one of your students went over your head like this". So then what should a student do if they feel you are bullying or otherwise mistreating them? You want to scare them into staying quiet? Thank God Im not your student.

I don't think that is a comparable situation directly with what is known, they're just saying to bring it up with the supervisor first again. The point is to not pull the trigger too quickly else cause some irreversible problems. Especially since there seems to be an argument on whether he even was mistreated. Either way, can't get the best of both worlds. Have to decide which you would prefer, the other post/comment seem to just be giving which choice ends up being better for him in their opinion, not necessarily the most moral choice.

@user32882 let me be clear: students absolutely should approach department heads, ombudspersons etc when the situation calls for it. An authorship dispute is not one of those situations, in my opinion. It’s an overreaction that’ll have very negative consequences. It’s not the department head’s job to intervene in these situations.

@Roland I’m not even starting to get into the low standards of authorship that PIs set for themselves. Sometimes the standard is: “existing”

When the PhD student started to write a paper about it, I asked him to be on the paper, since I felt I contributed directly to his research. But he said I just gave him suggestions and he could add me in the acknowledgments, not as co-author. And he said I should ask my supervisor if I deserve to be on the paper.

As a general rule, contributing ideas, providing feedback, inspiring others does not qualify a person for authorship. During such discussions, we think and state our own views and ideas without paying much heed to the legwork involved for implementing the same.
Making those ideas come to life are an entirely different thing.

One week later, they submitted the paper to a major conference without my name on it. I felt really insulting that they used my time and my skills with no benefit for me.

You have gained plenty from these discussions. You got to parade your knowledge and mind before others. You draw inspiration from them and later on you may gain a formal collaboration. Also, you gained an acknowledgement. Anything more, would be injustice to the authors involved in the paper.
Science rarely progresses without discussion with people from diverse backgrounds. That is what makes science inter-disciplinary.

So my supervisor also shouldn't be on the paper by this general rule, should I said it to him? My supervisor invited me for the meeting since he doesn't know about the topic and wanted someone else to help to "supervise" the PhD student.

In some fields, the supervisor is on every paper no matter the specific contribution. Not necessarily the best practice, but it is very common and accepted/required in some fields. Especially if the PI has established a lab via grant money.

Whether or not your supervisor should be on the other student's paper is a different question. They are your direct supervisor, not theirs. And I am very sure, this person does in no way fulfill the role of a supervisor for that student. Because, "supervise" is a very broad term for defining the role of a supervisor. For academia, it includes providing resources, mentorship, presentation skills, constructive criticism, meltdown control, an idol (sometimes), praise and funding. That is the tip of the iceberg for what a supervisor is.

"You got to parade your knowledge and mind before others." This only help when they are grateful for your help. Otherwise you're just another repository of information and a free one at that. If you aren't being valued, then your time is of better use elsewhere. Also, being listed on a paper is a bigger "parade", as well as more permanent/less easy to forget.

@user1998012 You can also consider having your supervisor's name on your paper as a privilege, since your paper now has a reputable name on it. I'm sure you have done some literature review where you looked up papers by a specific professor. You wouldn't easily have found papers written by their PhD students, if it wasn't for the fact that the supervisor's name was on it.

In the future I’d suggest being clearer about whether a project is joint work earlier in the process.  It doesn’t sound to me from your description that you deserve coauthorship, but I do see why you feel shortchanged.  The earlier on that you have this conversation the less chance there is for miscommunication and hurt feelings.

The one part I do find concerning is that your advisor may have lied about when it was being submitted.  If it were me, and probably a wiser person wouldn’t do this, I’d ask what happened with the submission when they told me it wasn’t being submitted soon and if I didn’t feel like I could trust the advisor after their response I might consider switching advisors.  Not in the main answer because it’s probably bad advice.

But don't assume there was deception. A change of plans can arise naturally as well.

There are plenty of answers already, so there will naturally be some overlap between mine and what's already said, but I hope to be able to give some food for thought anyways.
First of all, judging by the way you express yourself, both on the OP and the comments, you seem to be quite agitated by the situation. Before you do anything, you need to find a way to calm down and try to think straight. Don't take any rash decisions, in the heat of the moment. As others have also eluded to, it might have detrimental and unexpected effects down the road. That's step 1.
Then let's unpack the situation, you are in a lab where there is some research is carried out. On this one project you feel you have more hands on experience on a field/method than the PI. The fact that your PI trusts your knowledge and brings you in is a very positive sign. Second positive sign, I believe, that you are in a lab where expertise is shared and people contribute to each other's projects. I have worked in intellectual isolation long enough to appreciate how valuable that is. Try to reflect on that a bit, that's step 2.
I think your frustration is justified. However, it is not uncommon that situations like these happen. What counts as authorship varies ALOT between labs, and even among the research groups at the same place. That is just a fact. It's a bit of the culture that the PI fosters (or allows) within the group. Also, don't even question on why the PI is on the paper, that jsut is the case, s/he pays for all of you, and has likely contributed to writing the paper. You might disagree with it, but it simply is the case. I think it would be fair to say many users here at AC.SE have experienced one or more cases like this.
Once you have calmed down, what can you do? The way I see it, you have two options:

Accept the situation and commit to the existing culture. Again, you don't need to agree with it, you just need to get through. Play the game with the rules others are playing, if you want to keep playing. Next time you get called in for your expertise, establish the mode of collaboration as the first thing, before you commit. Otherwise, learn as much as you can, get your projects done and move on. Next place you go to, you can (and likely will) pay more attention to these kind of things.
If the situation really doesn't sit well with you and you don't think you can work effectively in that place anymore (in other words if the bridges are burned from your end) then you can certainly complain and "fight". I think you can make a case, but my guess is that nothing will really change with respect to this paper. But you might seriously hurt your position in your group. If being right is the most important thing for you, then surely whatever we/your PI/head of the dept will say won't make it better.

This reminds me about that silly joke, if you are in a fight with your spouse you can be either right or happy, both not both. Choose what matters most for you, and go that way. There will be consequences either way, I feel.

I more or less gave up about this paper at the moment, and I already said that I won't attend those meetings anymore. But I am willing to take it further since it is not the first time my supervisor haven't been supportive. I started to take a different research path that my supervisor never liked, and more people in my lab is taking the same direction as me at the moment. It was 1-2 years of intensive arguments (that slowed a lot my research) to make him accept that this was the best path. That is why he was inviting me to his meetings since more people are taking my research direction.

Then I wish you the best of luck pursuing this issue, and I mean that genuinely. I'd just advise to tread carefully as you take this issue up the ladder

The other answers cover most of the points but I’d just like to add that submission doesn’t necessarily equate with acceptance. They may have rushed this paper slightly to meet a conference deadline and neglected you in the rush to submit. They may be planning a journal submission after the conference and would like to collaborate with you on this. The supervisor/student may have decided to "take a punt" on this conference, knowing that the paper will be reviewed quickly and that reviewers' comments will be useful even if it is a likely rejection.
Bottom line: don’t take it personally. Consider if you want an authorship on a paper that you have had no direct control over.

There are some formal rules around academic ethics in relation to authorship. Vancouver Protocol states that authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to:

conception and design, the acquisition of the data, and/* or analysis and interpretation of data
AND
drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content
AND
final approval of the version to be published.

Conditions 1, 2, and 3 must all be met. Specifically, general supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship.
These are actually tough requirements that many authors do not seem to meet, so the reality of ethics w.r.t. authorship is less perfect than it could be. But when complaining formally, you should perhaps refer to formal rules in addition to (or even in place of) citing similar cases where a person that did as much as you did got an authorship regardless of whether he/she was actually entitled to that according to the rules.

You have numerous replies. I will simply say "no, by my and what I believe are reasonable standards, you are not qualified to be a co-author" and "no you would be very unwise to involve the department head/chairperson." If one of my Ph.D. students felt the way you do, I would counsel them appropriately. If they subsequently went to the Head/Chairperson, I would sanction them (such as tell them to move to a different advisor).

If my advisor tells me to move to a different one, this would be the best outcome! My advisor is slowing me down and he has minor influence on my academic development.

I have a bi-weekly meeting with my MSc and Ph.D. students that some time is 6 hours long. We discuss ideas and brainstorming solutions; they work on different subjects.  When I was doing my Ph.D, I designed an algorithm from A-Z gave it to an MSc student to implement, he published a paper I did not co-author it and did not ask to be a co-author. Why that? because I was a fully-funded Ph.D. student, this is my work I was hired to do that and this was part of my training.
Now, I am a supervisor, and I am on every paper of my MSc and Ph.D. students work. I secure funds for all of them to work on their research.
Are you a fully-funded Ph.D. student? If yes then do not complain, as you are a professional researcher, not an undergraduate student working on a group assignment.
If you are not a fully-funded Ph.D. student, then I do not understand why you are doing a PhD. Because, if you are that strong and more knowledgeable than your supervisor and at the same time not funded, then I would strongly suggest that you switch your supervisor.
In the future, please tell your supervisor you are busy with your research point and do not go to these meetings.

a SIX HOUR biweekly meeting!? Do your students tell you that they are busy with their research and will not attend? :-)

Of course :) sometimes. Usually students are looking forward for those meetings. We go for 6 hours when there is a major tging like prepare for defense, conference presentation, an industry partner visiting our lab, etc

If you designed the algorithm, you definitely deserved to be co-author of the paper. Research is about developing new ideas, writing code/paper is a smaller scientific contribution than developing the idea.