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Will an assistant professor take on new students at the end of their assistant professor “term” if they are unsure of whether they will get tenure?
I’m wondering how well professors know whether they will get tenure or not, and if that will affect their decision to hire a new student? I figure that if a professor needs new students they wouldn’t just stop hiring students because they aren’t sure if they be able to continue at their institution, but then I’m not sure what would happen to the students should the professor be asked to leave the institution after their time as an assistant professor is up.

As to the last part, if the professor doesn't get tenure, or leaves the university for any other reason, the department will normally try to get some other professor to take on the student.  However, as the new professor may not be an expert in the student's original research area, this may require the student to work more independently, seek outside assistance, or change research topics.

It's also sometimes possible for the professor to keep serving as the de facto advisor, even if university regulations requires someone else to be the titular advisor.

The simple answer to your direct question is yes and no. Some will and some will not.
But the problem is probably less than it seems for a variety of reasons, not all of which apply in any given case. Some universities tenure people only rarely so most assume that they will be moving on. Some universities tenure most of their candidates, being especially careful when first hiring. In the first case, a professor probably won't want to hire and in the second, probably will.
Moreover, if you are denied tenure, you still have a year before you leave. If the decision is made in the 7th year, you leave at the end of the 8th, not immediately.
In addition, in places that make more individualized decisions, it is likely that the candidate has had quite a lot of advance notice that their application is in trouble. And the reasons for that imply that such a person isn't likely to be the first choice of students looking for a supervisor. Either they have evidenced poor teaching or inadequate research. So a person headed for the door isn't the one you are interested in supervising you in the first place. The person likely to be tenured is also more likely to be the one you would consider as a supervisor.
But, there are exceptions. Some people fail to earn tenure for purely economic reasons when interest in a field wanes as it periodically does in some fields. The person will need to leave, but with good prospects elsewhere through letters explaining why. But even in this situation, there are fairly clear warning signs that the person is leaving as the trends take a while to develop.

Not all universities are as lenient. In some, faculty who are denied tenure must leave at the end of that academic term.


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Asking current advisor whether they have funds for remainder of my degree
So in my first year of my PhD I was strongly encouraged to apply for fellowships. I submitted fellowship applications happily, but at some points was concerned about how urgent it seemed to my advisor for me to win a fellowship. Examples of this behavior would be saying its very advisable for me to apply to certain fellowships that frankly wouldn’t be worth the effort it takes to apply. This and some other comments leave me wondering about how secure my RA position will be for the rest of my degree. Maybe its just the quarantine making me crazy.
What is the best way to ask an advisor about the funding situation, and would such a question be inappropriate.
For context, I’m in a usually well funded field, where it is common for advisors to be able to fully fund their students, often without them having to TA every semester.

What do you mean by not worth it to apply? They're less than the RA/TA rate?

Yes. I guess all money is good money but if something covers only a quarter of my stipend it makes me consider whether the time spent applying is worth it. Especially in the scenario where I do have funding

Money begets money. The more fellowships you have, the easier it is to get more. So typically it's a worthwhile investment.

Things are in flux, but you have a right to plan your future with some confidence. I suggest the direct approach. Ask him if there is any funding risk and how to quantify it. If your advisor thinks there is any risk and advises you to seek funding, then you need to just do it. Even if you fail, but show diligence in the search you will probably be better off if funding gets tighter.
You probably have several years to go, so prediction is an imperfect thing. But the further you go, the closer you are to the end, and so the easier it is to keep your funding stream.
Hope for the best that the current problems are temporary and that the world returns to normal. But don't depend on that happening. Work with your advisor as much as possible.
Just ask. Express your concern. If your advisor is at all reasonable it won't be an issue.

Thanks. I think the direct approach is the right one. I’ll add that my concern isn’t related to the pandemic but in general. I’ve had these concerns previously.

Furthermore, I’m glad to apply for funding. But it is a different outlook if I NEED to find my own funding vs whether it would just be nice to have.

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Changing field and master in mathematics
Now I am studying engineering.But i want to do master in mathematics in Europe.The only math classes I've taken are linear algebra and calculus.Where should I start and what should I do?

Would you consider an applied math field that could be a little closer to engineering?

It seems to should reach out to the university you aim and ask at which year they would take you in. It could be second year of B.Sc, but it would depend on the actual content of your courses and grades you got. I would not expect to enter in Master before having first taken up studies in mathematics.

Thank you for answer.I want to learn math topics online and get  certificates.Is it bad idea?

Warning: I am judging from my Math course which was finished 10 years ago well before introduction of the BSc-/MSc-system to Europe. German Diplom holder here.

You would miss quite a lot.

Firstly, I'd think that your calculus course might not be on par in at least some areas. "Calculus fit for MSc" means for me Calculus I, Calculus II, and Calculus III with less emphasis on it.
Algebra. All of it. To give you a simple test, "what is the actual reason, polynomial equations in single variable of degree higher than four are not solvable in radicals?" Does it ring a bell? You should be able to name a very concrete reason as a math MSc student. Heck, actually, as a second-year BSc student, too.
Applied maths. You might know some of it through your specialisation, but your destination university might want proofs. Typically, it's either Statistics or Numerical Mathematics.
Some kind of a deeper application course, like Differential Equations, Geometry, or Number Theory. Advanced Algebra, more Numerical Maths (like Approximation theory or something) might also work.

What you seem to have looks to me as an equivalent of a minor in math. While it's Ok, and it worked out for some, you might want to deepen your knowledge.
In a somewhat relatable effort, I dived into a PhD in computer science after what would be now a MSc in Applied Mathematics (with a minor in CS). It was doable, but in parts tough. Still, be different background gave me an unique view on some things, so there is some good side to it too.

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Online research projects
Are there any research projects in mathematics,data science etc undergraduate students can participate online? Have seen something like that?
Well, I googled it and found something,but I need more information.

What do you mean by "participate"? What are you prepared to contribute? How long for? What do you want at the end of your time or the end of the project?

I  want to improve my research skills.I don't have any straight answer for these questions.

Please explain what you found by googling, so that there is no duplication of effort.

One option I can think of is in engaging in writing open source software related to such fields. You can gather experience in setting up goals and realizing them and you will work together with academics, students and hobby enthusiasts in the open source community.
A scientific/research project is often not very different to a open source software project with a experienced PI/group leader and PhD students, undergraduate students.
Github or scicomp/datascience/stats.stackexchange could be a good starting point or this citizen science register.

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A seminar about women in STEM fields
I'm attending a talk that will be given by a professor that runs a social-cognitive development lab at our school, and the topic will be about his work that attempts to explain why women are less represented in STEM fields and how early in life this occurs.
I suspect that plenty of STEM faculty and students will attend; moreover, I expect there to be uncomfortable topics regarding gender and race.
To what extent should I participate in question and answer with the speaker, if I see my own colleagues in the audience?  I would like to participate actively if I feel I have something interesting to add but that could necessarily be a question about gender and race.

You are basically asking "Should I ask this question?" --- well, it depends on the question, on the content of the seminar, on the audience. It's difficult to give an answer in general, I am afraid.

@noahsnyder you approved and pushed for the reopening of the transgender women in math question, then why would you vote to close this question?  I don't get you.

Do you have any goal or criteria that could render this question answerable?

@user83667: Said question and this one have very little in common except being about gender, so why should decisions about their closure be correlated?

@wrzlprmft, both questions are similar in that both ask about how to approach dialogue about gender issues in STEM safely.  The closure of this question makes it seem that when Herero men ask for advice on safe dialogue it is ignored but when someone is LGBT and asks for advice there are good answers provided and the question remains open.  Straight men need to / want to learn about safe dialogue too, and when you remove that, one less group of people learn about these issues in STEM.

ask about how to approach dialogue about gender issues in STEM safely – Well, to start with you never said anything about safety or what your intentions are. Hence my first comment and hence probably the closure. — when Herero men ask for advice on safe dialogue it is ignored – Unless I missed something, you did not specify or even hint at your gender or sexual orientation (not that you have to).

@wrzlprmft I think my last paragraph very clearly conveys a concern of safety; that I would have to jump through so many hoops than someone who initially declares himself or herself a trans-person to get a productive and important dialogue going is ridiculous.  I apologize for not being a trans-person, but I do genuinely have a question about safe dialogue, which is clearly asked above.  I will not revise it any more.

Honestly, I don't understand why this question has been closed. Voting to reopen.

I voted to close as “unclear what you’re asking” and I stand by that.  I can’t figure out what you’re asking.  Also I’m not sure why you think it was obvious that you’re a “hetero man” and I’m ignoring you for that reason when your question says nothing about who you are.

@noahsnyder so you can't figure out from the last paragraph what I am trying to ask?  hoops, Noah, I get it.  I apologize for not declaring in my question that I am LGBT; somehow that declaration would magically make you understand the question being asked and would result in helpful answers and comments.

@user83667 Welcome to AC.SE. Please take a look at our [help]. I also do not understand your question. Please be considerate to our users, they are in fact trying to help you get an answer. I am not sure what the transgender women in math question is, but in general we frown upon using the existence of a single question as justification for why another question should be allowed.

@user83667 In reference to my answer, jumping immediately from your question not being accepted to "I would have to jump through so many hoops than someone who initially declares himself or herself a trans-person to get a productive and important dialogue going is ridiculous. I apologize for not being a trans-person..." would be an example of what not to do.

Coincidentally, a few days later, this question asked about a very similar topic by a male asker (of unknown sexual orientation) did not receive a single close vote but was very well received. Maybe you should start considering that your question was closed because it was really unclear. — I think my last paragraph very clearly conveys a concern of safety – Honestly, what makes you think so? You neither use this word, nor a synonym, nor any other word or phrase somehow related to the topic of safety.

I have been to seminars like that, including ones where large numbers of my colleagues are present.
So long as you have meaningful and productive questions (i.e. don't ask a question for the sake of asking one) and ask them as respectfully as you would any other topic, there isn't a problem.
I will note that choosing not to attend is also sending a message, and in the seminar I was in, a number of colleagues expressed disappointment that the room was nearly entirely women (in this case it was about the status of women in the field).

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Regarding applying to another university for PhD during the first year PhD program at a top research US university
I've received my Masters from one of the best universities (may be the best actually) for my area. Moved to another top university as my professor moved.
However, during this process I realized that my advisor can do a better job at handling the lab and careers of the graduate students. The current graduate student is in depression because of the work pressure and never spoke about it until recently. PI had instances of graduate students leaving the group because of the same issue.
The project I'm working is just fine and doesn't seem to be worth all the mental turmoil. Feeling a bit uncertain about the future of PhD with the PI.
Thought of transferring to another lab, but certain collaborations of the PI with other profs wouldn't facilitate that. I'm left with options of a change in the area of interest or move to another major or university.
So, for me to apply to another university or another professor, the major concern is the reason behind the move. I'm not quite liking the toxic environment in the lab and the way the PI advises and want to move out of it. However, the concern is that I do not want to mention about this directly in my SOP and in my meetings with other professors. As this might reflect badly on me in return. So I would like to know what is the best way to deal with this situation. Thanks.

Although more experienced heads may give alternative advice, my recommendation is to focus on what you want to research rather than the personal relationship reasons you have.
Remember what the SOP stands for: Statement of Purpose, why are you pursuing a PhD?
Professionalism aside, ad hominem attacks are not the subject of interest when you meet with potential advisers: you are the subject, what you are interested in, where you’d like to go, how you would approach a problem or issue.

Hello Frank!! Thanks for the comment and suggestion.

Any more suggestions or comments from people in academia would be appreciated


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How are reviewers rated by editors after a peer review proccess?
I am aware that some journals ask the editorial board to rate each reviewer, and use these ratings to select reviewers.
So, my question is: how does this rating proccess work? With respect to what are we reviewers rated? How are these ratings used and are they shared between different journals of the same publisher? Is this practice common for all fields? Details are welcome.
I am aware that there are multiple questions, but they are correlated and a comprehensive response can answer all of those questions.

Some answers can be found in https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/31364/after-long-time-without-three-review-invitations-in-two-weeks-coincidence-or?rq=1

@Mark Thanks, it does seem that some issues are at least partially answered in the quoted question.

You can probably guess how reviewers are rated. Did you provide a good review (as in, read the paper and provide constructive comments)? Did you provide a review on time? Did you write a biased review (a giveaway would be to say the paper's acceptable if and only if the author cites your papers)? If you wrote a good review then you get a high score, otherwise you get a low one. If you get a high score then editors are theoretically more inclined to invite you in the future; the converse is true if you get a low one.
Whether or not ratings are shared between different journals of the same publisher depends on the publisher and the editorial boards of both journals. Obviously, journals can only share reviewers if they have some overlap in scope. There're also technical limitations to linking reviewers. Different journals use different systems, and while it's theoretically possible to link all of them to the same database, it's not always done. Beyond that the editorial boards must also agree. If an editor is relying on his or her personal network, (s)he might be less willing to share. Comparatively, if an editor is using Google Scholar, Web of Science, etc to find reviewers then (s)he might not object.

I would add that assuming the reports are of decent quality, a referee who never or rarely decline invitation will tend to get an "exponentially" growing number of papers to review.


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Editor invites many reviewers simultaneously
I have been reviewing for a particular prestigious journal in my field for some time. I noticed that the editor invites a significant number of reviewers (4-7) simultaneously. In most cases, not all reviewers submit their reviews in time, but in one particular case, 5 reviewers submitted a review, and the paper was rejected.
While I understand that it is common to invite a number reviewers because many end up declining or not submitting a review, I feel like it is unethical to do so simultaneously, and is a situation similar to an author submitting to multiple journals, as it "wastes" reviewer-hours. In the particular 5-reviewer case, the paper did not need 5 reviewers to be rejected.
Is this kind of practice common and/or is it considered ethical in general?

That does seem like a lot of reviewers but I would hate for reviews to take twice as long just so each reviewer could decline/accept in turn.

Why would it be "unethical"?  An editor may ask for more reviews or fewer reviews, depending on the paper.  Maybe he wants to get perspective from several different areas.  If the paper is potentially very important (or very controversial) he would ask for many reviews immediately.

@GEdgar that's a very good point.

As a possibly interesting datapoint: In fields such as CS where conferences are the prevalent venue of publishing peer-reviewed work, getting more than one review per submission (usually rather 3, possibly more) is the norm. Several requests for review are sent out simultaneously for each submission, and it is actually expected that all of them will be responded to roughly in time (granted, the process is slightly different as these reviewers had been asked before to signal their readiness to participate in the reviews). Nonetheless, it is very much expected that several experts spend ...

... time reviewing the same manuscript, indicating causing this situation as such is not considered unethical by any means.

It's quite common to invite multiple reviewers simultaneously, though 4-7 is on the high side in my experience (yet sometimes, even 4-7 is not enough!). The numbers quoted in the details below are for physics, and might differ for other fields.
Regarding whether or not it's ethical, it really depends on tradeoffs. The tradeoff for not inviting multiple reviewers at the same time is that your paper will take longer to handle. It's not just submitting reviews on time. Not every reviewer invited will agree to review it! My personal guideline when I was an editor was that, each time I invited reviewers (3-5 at a time), I would budget one month till I receive reviews. That itself is an optimistic budget - 6 weeks is closer to the average, since there's a long tail in the distribution.
The alternative to inviting multiple reviewers at the same time is to invite one at a time, and wait till you hear back from the reviewer if (s)he is willing to review. This leads to the following problems:

How long are you willing to wait to hear back from the reviewer? Let's say a week (which was also my personal guideline). Since you might have to invite 6+ reviewers before someone actually agrees to do it, you could easily be waiting 6 weeks before the paper starts being reviewed. If the reviewer takes one month to complete, that's at least 2.5 months before you can make a decision, not including any administrative time (i.e. you and the editor-in-chief both make decisions immediately).
What if your journal requires two reviewers? You can invite two at a time, but there's no guarantee that both of them will agree to review. Maybe one will, the other won't. You could end up with one review submitted with the next one due in another month.
What if the reviewer you invited writes a poor review (happens more often than one might think)? Sure you can blacklist the reviewer, but you still need to make a decision for the paper. If you invite more reviewers, again, that's another 1+ month till you receive the reviews.
Nightmare scenario: what if your reviewer agrees to review but then does not actually submit a review, in spite of multiple chasers? If we take the worst case, you've already waited 2.5 months and then discover that you have to start from scratch, which can lead to another 2.5 months before you can make a decision. Ouch!

In the end it comes down to how long authors are willing to wait for their papers to be reviewed. If authors are willing to wait 6 months, then yes, editors can invite one reviewer at a time and waste fewer reviewer-hours. On the other hand it's common for authors to start worrying if they don't hear back in two months, in which case the editor really cannot invite one reviewer at a time.

Exactly as @user3727079 mentioned, the editor-in-chief recommendations / guidelines in many cases is to invite multiple potential reviewers. If many of them accept, then I do not see an issue with sending a follow-up e-mail to those who have not accepted and "Thank you but your review is no longer required. We are looking forward to your future contributions in our peer review....." and move on.

Option #4 is probably made more likely when choosing to referee is "opt out" - if the reviewer does nothing, it looks a lot like they've accepted. (In physics, many Phys. Rev. journals seem to do this.)

One journal I regularly review for does as noted by @o4tlutz, they invite reviewers until 'enough' accept. If the first 2 reviews back make similar comments, the editor makes a decision quickly (same day) as to whether to wait for more. If not, the decision is made on those 2 reviews and the email out to the authors is copied to all who accepted, letting the other reviewers know that their review is no longer required.

@AJK If this is the case, the journal's interface is to blame. Pull your weight as editors and demand a better system; otherwise you are wasting the time of everyone in your field.

Editors are creatures of habit, just like the rest of us.
If they’ve been on the job a while, they generally have a good idea of how many invitations they need to send to get the desired number or reviewers. Sometimes, though, they end up with more than they expect. It happens. But I think the occasional example of this happening is better than inviting only a few reviewers at a time, and waiting for responses before continuing to the next group. That lengthens the time needed for review and slows down the cycle.

I've seen this in cases where referees were slow to respond, did not respond at all, or promised to write a review but never did.  In the example below, that happened with anonymous referee #2.  By the time the editor gives up on ever receiving a promised review, months may have passed.

If you give people a week to respond to an invitation, then three weeks to write a review, it may take a long time if many people do not respond to invitations quickly.  Suppose 20% accepts a referee request and you want 2 reviews, then it makes sense to ask 10 people immediately, just to speed things up.

I've never seen this before so it doesn't seem common but an editor can solicit and pass forward as many reviews as he or she feels is necessary... Definitely not unethical.

Here is a more modern answer. The modern peer review system at Springer/Nature and Wilely allows the editor to specify the maximum number of reviews they'd like to receive (I usually choose 3 in case someone who agrees does not send one in).
In this system, the editor can then send an invite out to many people e.g. 5-10 at a time, even. Once 3 spots are filled, all other potential reviewers who have yet to accept the assignment are automatically notified that they are no longer needed. This prevents wasting 5 people's time but allows for faster acquisition of reviewers.


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Unequal pay between grad students, enforcing a more egalitarian policy
In my department, students can be paid quite differently, and accumulate multiple fellowships and assistantships. Departmental fellowships are provided upon acceptance to some top applicants. Students can also be hired as RAs by interested faculty members. RA stipends are also not fixed by the department, and vary quite widely depending on the advisor and on the funding body. On top of departmental fellowships and RA, some students also accumulate external fellowships that they earned independently.
One direct consequence of this approach is that some students are paid market-competitive salaries, whereas many other students end up not being funded at all (especially Master students).
On one hand, faculty who can afford to pay large stipends usually bring a lot of money to the department, can attract a large pool of very qualified students, and are very productive.
Most departments, on the other hand, have much more restrictive policies (some universities even set institute-wide stipend rates), and seem to be doing well.
I was recently on a committee that is trying to rethink these policies, disallowing the possibility of a combining an assistantship/external fellowships and a departmental fellowship, which will enable us to fund more students. However, one of our main concerns is that future top students may be more inclined to attend elsewhere (we lose a lot of excellent students to top schools abroad). Faculty who can pay better rates are also not satisfied with a possible change in policy. (My group is one of those that can pay competitive rates, but is willing to discuss.)
My question is: what are some issues to consider when transitioning from our more liberal student funding policy, to a more "egalitarian" policy? Anecdotal evidence is also welcome.

The more competitive and prestigious the school, the easier it is to be egalitarian, because you can always get students to enroll there. When you have trouble attracting students, incentives that may lead to an unequal playing field may be needed to get better students.
For instance, when I was applying, there was about a 50% spread between my lowest and highest offers. However, some of this was handled not by awarding an RA on top of an external fellowship but a “merit prize” of several thousand dollars as a reward for bringing in the fellowship. That might be a way to offer something substantial for people who have their own money without making things too far out of balance.

Some observations from a single case study from a school that had a fairly "unegalitarian" approach to grad student pay (I was there as a PhD student, and I definitely was on the upper end of pay, so take this with a grain of salt):

Forcing equal pay is great, if the pay is still reasonable to good for everybody. If you end up giving everybody so little that they won't be able to really live from their salary or stipend you are not really improving the situation. Be especially careful to look at current living costs in your city, not what your grad student salary or stipend was many, many years ago. Also take into account that not all students are independently wealthy, and some students may have dependents (spouse, children, etc.) that count on them.
Consider that oftentimes in practice not all PhD students do the same job. In my school, people who made more money often carried a huge fraction of the teaching load or were involved in the most annoying, side-tracking projects (or both). If you want to give everybody the same pay you need to make very sure that they end up doing the same amount of "not-my-core-research" side tasks. This is very difficult, but not impossible, to juggle.
You mention being able to hire more students. This honestly does not sound like your goal is to increase fairness, but rather to hire more students with the same money. Be aware that the end result may be that you have more students who are, in total, less happy than before (and potentially less qualified, see below). I honestly suggest not doing that, but looking into ways to distribute the existing money to the existing students more fairly.
Having outs to pay individual applicants more increases your chances of actually hiring outstanding individuals. Again, not all students are the same. A motivated fresh graduate can maybe be attracted with a small standard stipend, but if you occasionally want to attract people with industry experience (as I like to do in my field of research) you will almost certainly need to meet somewhere in the middle between "grad student stipend" and "industry salary".
Forcing equal pay may sometimes lead you into problems when you want to fill special roles in a lab. For instance, we sometimes needed to hire software developers for projects. There was no real official job role, so they were officially "research assistants", which put them on the exact same scale as PhD students. However, a PhD student research assistant is implicitly paid with the promise of getting a PhD - a developer in a project not so much. If you can't make up for this with higher pay, you will end up in troubles.


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Should mathematical symbols and equations be included in a word count?
I am currently in the process of finishing up my Master's thesis which requires me to disclose the exact word count.
My thesis contains a lot of mathematical symbols and equations and I am not sure whether those, together with table and figure captions, should be included in the final word count or not.
I know how many words, inline math and display math (in LaTeX terms) elements my document contains, but I am just not sure whether to count them or not.
My university has not given any guidance on what to include in the word count, so I am wondering if there are any general rules that apply in this situation? The only thing I could find on the internet was from APS Journals:
 "The word equivalent for displayed math is 16 words per row for single-column equations. Two-column equations count as 32 words per row."
Any guidance on this would be greatly appreciated!

I find it astonishing a university asking for the word count of a thesis, whatever the level.

To me, the key question is this: what is the purpose of the word count?
If the purpose is to fill in a blank that says: "word count goes here", then just take the simplest approach that will give you a number and don't sweat the details.  Personally, I would run "wc" on my LaTeX source in such a case.
On the other hand, in some cases word count is being used to determine how the length of your document relates to a minimum or maximum length.  If it's actually strict, then they'll generally provide clear guidance; if it's an approximate guideline (which is usually the case), then again, just take a reasonable approach that will let you conform and don't sweat the details.

A small tip: you may be interested in using opendetex on your LaTeX source to strip all LaTeX constructs before piping the result to wc. So something like delatex <your LaTeX file> | wc.

I use the texcount tool to do the word count. It also strips all the LaTeX commands and returns a breakdown of words, display math, inline math, footnotes etc. Thanks for providing some perspective on the word count issue!

The best thing to do is count all the words including those in the table and also count the words again leaving those in the table and include all of them in the thesis report.


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If there are two published versions of a paper, which one should I cite?
While writing my thesis, I have encountered the following situation:
My thesis is based on the work of Gourieroux et al. (1993) who, as part of the text, cites another paper, Gourieroux and Monfort (1992). In the references to the 1993 paper this paper is listed as having been published in "CREST-Départment de la Recherche INSEE, DP No. 9214". I also need to cite this paper, but can only find a version which was published in 1995 in the journal "Econometric Theory".
My question is therefore, should I use the original citation from he 1993 paper: Gourieroux and Monfort (1992), or go with Gourieroux and Monfort (1995).
I am inclined to go with the latter, but worried it would be considered strange if I write something like "Gourieroux et al. (1993), using theory developed by Gourieroux and Monfort (1995), show...".
Thanks in advance for your help!

The one you actually read.

I favor acting in the following way:

If you've only read one of the versions, cite that one. God knows what's in the one you haven't read.
If you've read both versions:

if they are identical relative to the information you need, publication in a journal or proceedings volume takes precedence over (re)publication in a career collection (e.g., "Selected works of Jones"), which takes precedence over arxiv, which takes precedence over non-arxiv manuscripts.
if they are not identical relative to the information you need, cite whichever one contains the best version (where best probably needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis).

I've only been able to find the 1995 version online, so I'll go with that! I guessed that's what would be the best thing to do, but I just wasn't sure. Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it!

It looks to me like the 1992 paper was initially published internally, as the publisher is the research centre. Then in 1995, it was published properly in Econometric Theory.
But anyway, I don't see any reason why you should cite the 1992 paper, if you haven't read it.
And yes, the dates do look a bit strange, but hey, it is what it is. I've actually seen citations like these in relation to dissertations.

Sometimes I cite two versions to give a time line to the reader.

I agree with 101010111100.  It appears that when the 1993 paper was published, the 1992--subsequently 1995--paper hadn't yet been published, so the authors couldn't cite it as such yet.  It might be helpful to add a footnote pointing out that the 1993 paper references what appears to be an earlier version of the 1995 version of the paper that you discuss.  Koldito is right.  You have no idea how the authors might have changed the 1992 paper before it was published.  There's a good chance that the 1995 paper avoids problems in the 1992 paper, for example.


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Ethics approval for an independent project akin to a survey
The self-funded project being planned involves participants doing a variant of a Random Number Generation task, involving just typing "randomly" for a couple minutes on a computer program to study/cluster the bias in what was thought to be "random". Since currently the authors are not affiliated to any university, how would they (if needed) get an ethics approval for such a project?
The project involves no intervention, no risks to the participants, the informed consent form includes a fully disclosed data handling policy and the materials are "open", i.e. open source program, open source analysis scripts (after the completion) and the like.
Would an ethics approval still be necessary for such a project? If so, how would independent researchers go about getting one?
I am also curious behind the logic of an ethical approval in such scenarios; all the "best-practices" guidelines available from many good sources are already being followed, and would an ethical approval add any extra layer of surety of adherence to these guidelines?

The answer to this question depends on the country (because laws vary) and the purpose of the experiment.  What will you be doing with the data?  Will the results be public?

Don't tell the review board you have no risks.  Risks include electrical shock and terminal boredom.  It doesn't have to be probable to be a risk.

@AnonymousPhysicist Thanks. Got the necessity part. What about the second part of the question, how would independent (non-affiliated) get an ethics approval?

Let an IRB or equivalent make the call on this, not random strangers on the internet. I suspect, but haven't seen the research design, that you would get permission. But if you don't ask them, you don't have permission.
But, if you do it without permission, and are asked by a journal for your documentation on ethics approval but don't have it, you are a bit stuck as retroactive permission is (many places) not permitted.
It isn't you (or us) that gets to judge this. It is whatever ethics board is appropriate and whichever journals you might want to submit the research to.

For the record, there are some exceptions under the law (some places) to the requirement of getting permission, but most things require it whenever human subjects are involved.

I get the necessity part. How would non-university-affiliated authors get an ethics permission?

There are other companies that will do this, I assume for a fee. A web search should turn up someone. I don't know if any university would do it for someone not affiliated, but it is doubtful.


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Permissions required for using an app for a study
What kind of permissions do I need to obtain from the developer of an app if I am planning to use it in a study?
The study primarily aims to look at how different students learn mobile games differently, and what factors determines their score.
Since it is relevant to the study, we would also have to analyse the game itself, quantify how the difficulty evolves over time, and what amount of randomness is involved in each gameplay (to get somehing like a stochastic index).

So, in case this ever goes to publication, would mentioning the app-name be necessary, since its characterisation would already be a part of it?
Do we need to obtain permission before even using it, since it is already a free app in the play store? Doesn't its free status give us permission to use it in a study (at least an unpublished one)?

There are no commercial interests in either of the cases. I am not sure if it is okay to mention the name here too. Sorry if I seem to be over-thinking but I am new to the world of academia! Any guidance is appreciated. (Unsure of the tags too)

Yes, of course you should mention the name of the app. You have to provide details of your methodology. You should also cite the app (I see this commonly done by citing the app store page for it, but maybe your field has a different convention).
I have never heard of a researcher obtaining permission to run a study involving particular software. I have led or collaborated on about ten human-subjects studies involving a variety of free and commercial software.

Importantly, you should cite the VERSION of the app as well as its name, and if possible make sure that it is possible to obtain that version, for the sake of reproducibility (though this may conflict with copyright considerations).

Here is the App in question. This game will be given to the participants, and their gameplay recorded and then analysed. My only issue was copyright, since I am analysing the way the game works also.

I don't think you need permission, nor do I think there should be any ethical issues in regards to the application. So long as:

you are not decompiling,
you are not going to cause it any undue criticism or show the application in bad light.
you don't give the appearance of association with the developers if it isn't the case
you are also not going to compete with the application and that,
you don't breach copyright by using logos etc unnecessarily i.e. outside fair use.

The people in the study and their use of the application will however have some potential for ethical issues.

There are many, many published papers out there that decompile and criticize software (freeware and commercial) in software engineering conferences and journals. Why do you think people shouldn't decompile software?

The idea of not overly/unduly criticising the application is there because of the offence it might cause the authors. It's not the strongest reason I admit and only is worthwhile if what is said becomes libellous. I accept decompiling as a relevant investigative technique, but it must be used carefully, I can see how it could be drawn into ethical issues, depending on how the output of compilation is used i.e. breach copyright.

@AustinHenley decompiling or otherwise reverse engineering is against the EULA of most non-open-source software, so it may be a breach of contract. Which may or may not be enforcable. (IANAL)

Here is the app. I am new to this legal jungle. How do I ensure that my methodology does not violate the EULA? I am not decompiling per se, I am merely analysing the way the game works, so as to be able to standardise the score across time, and level complexity.

I think from what I've read the application in question is more of just a tool used to perform the study and that all will be ok. Your scoring system I assume is more of a standardisation used to compare players and explain parts of the game, in particular how users interact with the game and thus the interface and levels/problems it defines. Seen as users will be interacting with the game how the original authors envisaged I don't see any EULA issues.


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How to include a paper presented by someone else on CV
As part of a project (I work for a research org, not at a university) we submitted a paper (technically we actually submitted a panel, with our paper being one of the papers in the panel) to one of the big policy/social science conferences.
It was accepted and someone else on our team presented at the conference. I'm listed as the second author on both the actual presentation itself as well as the paper. There is no conference proceedings or anything for this conference, so it wasn't peer reviewed and isn't publicly available anywhere. But I'm an early career researcher and still hope to include it on my CV somewhere, because it is a major project and was at a prestigious conference.
One other factor may be that this project is unique in that it does not actually have a guaranteed report coming at the end (long story short, we're building a database of sorts). So there may be a future paper submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, but potentially not. What's the best way to list the conference stuff? Or should I really, really not include it?

"There is no conference proceedings or anything for this conference" Not even a list of abstracts?

There is a list of abstracts online I believe, yes.

Everybody scrapes the barrel in the beginning, and everybody knows, no shame in that. Just make sure it's clear in your CV who gave the actual talk.For example you can split the list into first author papers, other papers, first author conference contributions, other conference contributions.

So you would only do the presentation, not the paper?

In your CV, you could write your name in bold in the author list of the paper and also make it available in a preprint repository. That way the paper will get a doi and will be freely accessible.

Making it available in a preprint repository is an excellent suggestion, but I'd avoid writing your name in bold, because the reader will assume that your name appears somewhere in the list of authors, there's no need to highlight that fact.

The preprint repository is interesting and would probably work in most cases, but I actually don't think the team wants it to be public, at least not for awhile (if ever, like I said, the point of this project is actually to build a database, not write a report). And I'm the most junior person on a 4-person team so I don't think I would want to be the one to broach that anyway. Thank you, though!


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What is the definition of guest lecturer? Is it worth putting on CV?
I'm a couple years out of undergrad, have my Master's and work at a research org. A former professor from undergrad invited me to come teach a class with him next month--I told him I'd be in town for a day, just thinking we'd get coffee, but he invited me to come teach and talk about some of the relevant research I'm currently doing.
Is this "legit" enough to mark down on my CV as being a guest lecturer? If so, is it actually worth putting on my CV, will it hold any weight whatsoever when I apply to PhD programs in a couple years?

If your CV is on the short side, why not add it?

I just didn't know if this was legitimate enough of a situation to constitute calling myself a "guest lecturer", and if this might be seen as unnecessary CV padding that PhD application reviewers would not view favorably.

Well, it's always a good idea to show your CV to a couple people you trust before you send it out....  A very short CV would be a bit embarrassing and I think everyone recognizes that; therefore I don't think people are going to judge a young person for padding a bit early in the career.


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When to get rid of undergraduate stuff on CV
I'm applying to PhD program. I'm my 4th year out of undergrad, I have a masters and am currently midway through my 3rd year at a research org. At this stage, can I get rid of stuff (like summer internships, clubs, etc.) from undergrad on my CV that I submit as part of my application? I guess I should keep the awards, but that might be it.
I was going back and forth about debating a (very mediocre) summer internship from my "relevant experiences" section. Is there any rule of thumb for this?

Some places expect school grades to still be included... So very location dpendent...

@SolarMike I always feel that is a sign not to apply...

@user2768 then choose where you wish to apply.... Of course, if you don't follow what they ask, then they may not accept you...

@SolarMike Indeed, "choose where you wish to apply," I certainly wasn't contradicting your advice and I recommend supplying information when asked. To elaborate, I think any employer that asks someone with a PhD to provide their childhood grades, isn't someone I want to work for. (Possibly, in part, because I feel that they aren't used to hiring people with PhDs, since they surely wouldn't be asking for such grades if they did.)

Often a transcript of your grades will be requested separately so it is not necessary to include on your CV.

@user2768 Why is something asking for your grades a sign not to apply?

@AzorAhai Childhood grades, not grades in general. Why? Because I find it irrelevant to consider education prior to university when a candidate holds 2-3 degrees.

@user Oh you're right, I completely glossed over "childhood"

I do not think there can be a generalised answer to your question, however there are multiple factors to consider about what you might want to put on your CV.

As Solar Mike mentioned in the comments some programmes have certain requirements. These should obviously not be omitted.
Some programmes might have preferences about their applicants, e.g. valuing research experience, volunteer work, social engagement or experience abroad. Such preferences might become obvious from the descriptions on their website, advertisements or alumni interviews. You could try to tune your CV according to these.
You can also choose how you want to portray yourself. Maybe you want to show extra enthusiasm by including that besides coursework and research you have even spent summers doing internships? Or you want to focus on just the hard facts?
Which leads a potentially very important point: The length of your CV. If you think summer internships do not add anymore weight to your research experience and rather obstruct the reader from getting a quick overview of your education and work experience, then there is little point in keeping it on there.

What is “most relevant” is your experience as a researcher. Of course, your masters course should be included, especially since this is how you know your referees. However, in this respect, summer internships may be more relevant than other activities on your resume. They can show relevant experience in industry or a research environment.
If you did menial jobs during the summer, this may not be as relevant. If you can include it, it may still help to explain the “gap” in your resume and why you weren’t involved in research or volunteer activities at the time. We can’t all afford to live without income for an extended period of time. You should not be disadvantaged for this and it arguably shows your work ethic as well.
Of course, any way to show that you’ve had interests relevant to a research career helps but is not essential. It is understood that many students only realise that a research career is suitable for them once they’ve experienced a research environment. That is part of the purpose of summer internships afterall. Many first generation graduate students do not know what academia is like until they experience it and aren’t expected to. There are supervisors who are understanding about this (although not all of them are unfortunately).
I no longer include my non-research jobs on my resume, unless they demonstrate experience in teaching, academic writing, or similar skills. I don’t mention awards (everyone gets them anyways) unless they held a monetary value such as a competitive scholarship. Competing for grant funding is a major part of an academic career any experience at securing funds on your own is worth including.
However, as a postdoc, I still include my summer internships. These establish that I’ve had a long relationship with my previous supervisors and maintained a good relationship. It shows that I’ve changed research topic and managed to learn the necessary new techniques for the new field. It shows that I can work in different environments on my own and in a larger collaborative team. Most importantly, my summer internship project ended up being published which demonstrates that I can as see a project through to completion. As such, these positions are relevant to your application but you should think about their purpose before including them. They will not spend much time reading your resume so everything on it should be there for a reason.
Of course, every country and every institution has different requirements. Your experience may vary. Do pay attention to the guidelines of the institution and if possible contact a prospective supervisor for their support and heed their advice since they should know the system.


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How to format a paper accepted to a conference?
I was second author on a paper that was accepted to a large and somewhat prestigious conference--the first author was the one who presented it (as part of a panel, not a poster), but because I'm early in my career I'd still like to highlight it somewhere on my CV. I think I'll create a section like "Other Research" or "Other Papers" or something so it's not misleadingly put with peer-reviewed publications.
Does this sound like a good strategy? And how should I actually format the citation itself? Do I put "accepted at Conference X, presented by Name"?

I'd add for the completeness that there are peer-reviewed conferences in the other fields.

Of course you should list a conference paper as part of your CV. Just make sure that, as you suggested, that it’s separate from peer-reviewed publications. Usually, “conference proceedings” or “presentations” or a similar section heading is used, depending on what records are available.
As for format, use whatever is the accepted practice and format in your discipline.


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What is the ideal age to get a PhD?
There have been a few "how old is too old to get a PhD" questions, and I don't intend this to be a duplicate--they were more focused on age from an actual admissions standpoint.
While I'm interested in general to hear people's thoughts on the question I posed, I'll also give my own current situation, in case anyone has thoughts here:
I'm currently 25, 2.5 years out of undergrad. I got my MS degree directly after undergrad, which took 1 calendar year/3 semesters. So I've been at my current job at a research org for 1.5 years now. My current plan is to apply for my PhD at 27, so I'd be starting at 28. I think this is the ideal amount of time to improve both my skills and my CV, but isn't too long that I will be middle-aged when I finish and have a more difficult life adjustment as a PhD student, and have less time in my post-PhD career. If it makes a difference, I'm in the social sciences/public policy field.
Thoughts? Am I dumb to wait until my late 20s? Should people all be waiting until they're 30 because they're too young and unexperienced out of undergrad? Is it undergrad-PhD straight through or bust?

I've voted to close this question as opinion-based; it isn't really possible to answer a question like this without a substantial influence of a opinion, and it's been decided that such questions not be supported in the stack exchange format.

That's ridiculous. Are current top questions such as "How can a TA help a student who is certain she sucks at programming?", "My student's family won't let her study what she wants", "Upset by fellow students' comments on my attractiveness; how to react?", and "Cheated on an exam when I was eight years old. Should I tell graduate admissions?" able to be answered without a substantial influence of opinion?

My advice would be the younger the better. Think also that you'd probably want to start a family at some point (if not yet), and PhD scholarship might be not the time to have kids due to all the stress.

I don't make the rules @Blaise, you can take it up in Meta. Like many of the SE close reasons, "opinion-based" has a little different meaning here than on its face. You might be able to improve your question if you instead asked for "negatives about postponing a PhD" - but it seems like you already know those negatives so you aren't asking about that. All you are asking is for someone to weight the negatives and positives for you, which is completely opinion.

Right, that makes sense. Thank you for the explanation. Would it not be possible, though, for someone to offer some research that's been done that people who finish their PhD before X age make more money? Or to get insight from someone who works in admissions that they don't consider older applicants, or from a professor who says they will only take students < 25 years of age? I think there are some objective thoughts that can be presented--both positive and negative.

It is absolutely necessary to avoid puberty during your first postdoc, when the pressure is highest.

"What are the extent of financial benefits to postponing a PhD by 5 years?" would not be an opinion-based question, though it would have other problems of breadth, and it depends a lot on your current position. If your PhD is going to lead to a career as a professor (no guarantee of that) then you are going to miss out on career-pinnacle salary years and instead sit at your current pay. If you plan to work outside academia, getting your PhD anytime might not be a financially sound decision. SE doesn't really like just "make a list" questions either so it's best if you can give some direction.

Perhaps a better question (for you and this site) would be something like: how helpful is it to have X years of work experience before applying for PhD programs in field Y?

The ideal age to get a PhD is 3-4 years after you start one :)

There is, frankly, no "ideal" age for starting a Ph.D. There's not even a "better" time. All that is really important is demonstrating that you have an aptitude for doing research in the proposed field of study. If you can demonstrate that at age 20, great; if you've had a change of heart at 30 or even 40, and decide you want to go back to school, that's cool, too.
However, there is an advantage in doing it sooner rather than later—adjusting back to "student" habits is easier when you're closer to finishing your undergraduate than when you're older. It's also usually easier to move around when you're younger than when you're older and might have a (larger) family to worry about.
But from the perspective of someone who reviews admissions applications, I'd say the single most important factor is demonstrating your potential to be a PhD level researcher. If you can do that, I'm not nearly as concerned about someone having a 3.4 versus a 3.6 or a 3.8 GPA, or a 155 or a 165 on the GRE.


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How is it like studying a Masters in Germany?
There is a masters in hydrogeology at the University of Gottingen that I am considering applying for. Are professors helpful in general? I know it’s hard to generalise but what are your experiences like?

Welcome to Academia SE. Unfortunately your question is not a good fit for our site for several reasons: 1) It’s a poll. 2) Most people with a personal experience cannot compare (on what scale do you measure helpful). 3) We do not like to evaluate individual programs or countries. 4) Evaluating individual countries is pointless due to academia’s inhomgeneity.

I studied in Germany, but a different master. However, giving a general answer to your question is very difficult, especially whether the professors are helpful.

You may end up in courses which are so large that the professor might only know a couple of students by name.
There are also other courses with only a few students where you are in closer interaction with your professor.
Please note that there may be a large number of courses which are taught not by the professor himself/herself but by employees of his chair, e.g., by PhD students.

I had courses from all those three categories listed above. This does not only depend on the university (some might have smaller groups than others), but also on the courses you decide to take.
It is accepted and encouraged to ask questions during or after the lecture.
However, interaction with your professor may not be that important in total and you should also be able to solve most issues on your own.
Even for your master's thesis this may apply: Some professors want to be involved in their student's work but I have seen different behavior: For example, the first and last time I saw the professor during my bachelor's thesis was during the final presentation. The work was supervised by an assistant and he was very good, so I was OK with this!


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Filing discrimination claim against my department
I am a graduate student and I believe I was discriminated against by my department. I am pretty hurt by it, but I do not want to give further details to protect my identity. I spoke to a lawyer and he said I have a convincing case and I would likely get a settlement.
I am curious about the non-legal consequences of doing so. I believe my department was legally and morally wrong. However, the people involved may have believed they were doing the right thing. I want to take action to claim my financial damages and to ensure this doesn't happen again, but I don't want to be blacklisted or see any sort of retaliation.
Has anyone here filed a discrimination complaint against their university? Should I expect retaliation? How can I protect myself?

Do you intend to remain at the school?

Certainly dismissal might be construed as retaliation?

Yes. Ideally, I'd claim my settlement and I will graduate and have a successful academic career, with this issue put to rest.

How controversial would you say that your position is?  I mean, no one likes getting sued, but on a scale of "just barely enough of a case to have some questionable legal standing" to "so obviously correct that almost everyone would agree", where would you say that your position stands?

My lawyer says the case is pretty clear cut, based on my account. I read the relevant law, and it makes clear what happened to me was wrong, but I'm not an expert.

Some questions: What country is this? State school or private school? Big or small? And does your lawyer specifically have experience successfully suing such schools for discrimination against students?

@Nat Discussing the case like that at this point would probably be something the lawyer would advise against.  "Those involved" are called witnesses, and you don't want to be tampering with them or otherwise providing any openings in legal technicalities that can hamper your case.

I suggest you think about the lawyer’s code : “A man is innocent until proven broke”....

Hard to say without knowing what your advisor’s involvement/opinion is.

“I want to take action to claim my financial damages and to ensure this doesn't happen again, but I don't want to be blacklisted or see any sort of retaliation.“ Which one is more important?

Have you attempted to go up the "chain of command", so to speak, to explain to the leadership and the people involved that you feel like your rights have been violated and given them a chance to make amends outside of the legal system? If no, that might be a way to make things right without ruffling more feathers than necessary. If you have done that and it didn't help, then it does seem like your only further option is to at least threaten a lawsuit.

Filing a discrimination complaint and suing are different, at least in the US. If you've taken the steps @ToddWilcox mentions and it hasn't worked, can you file a complaint with some relevant government body? That's generally less antagonistic than a lawsuit, so you'd probably get less blowback.
In the US it could be the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for employment discrimination, the Dept of Ed's Office of Civil Rights for sex discrimination against a student, etc.

I agree with what @Nat said about objective observers. Two times now you have said that your lawyer thinks this is pretty convincing, but I find myself wondering if most folks at the university would view it in the same way. Lawyers sometimes have a knack for seeing things a bit differently than laypeople. I might advise asking some other folks to see if they, too, read the situation as clear-cut discrimination, in the same way your lawyer does.

You could be fine, but sometimes people switch schools when stuff goes down. You haven't given enough details to say, but if it is to the point where you are literally suing the dept for money, then I'd say it must be pretty bad. Why would you want to stay there? And if it was a misunderstanding and they meant well, is there another option than a lawsuit? That is really extreme. Again, there are simply not enough details about your situation I can't really judge it.

What's your ideal end-result here?  A monetary payout?  To have the perpetrator fired?  To have a wrongful decision/action reversed?  A change in procedure to ensure the issue doesn't happen again?  The latter two can typically be resolved internally without too much blowback.  The first will unfortunately make you some enemies, as will the second (unless the offense is sufficiently egregious).

Ofc your lawyer will say this... they want to get a customer

If the lawyer is working on contingency then it does no good to get a customer who won’t win.

Remember to not trust a lawyer too much. If you contract him, you will have to pay him regardless if you win the case or not, so he may be just selling himself to you.

You might consider meeting with your university's ombudsman, if there is one. His/her job is to listen to concerns brought by any member of the university and to keep them confidential.
In particular, you could explain the details of the lawsuit you are considering, and ask what the possible non-legal consequences might be. This is likely to depend on the specifics of your situation, and h/she would be bound not to disclose these specifics to others.
The ombuds might also be able to suggest an alternative to a lawsuit. This would presumably not involve compensation, but the administration might be willing to take steps to prevent similar discimination from occurring in the future. Depending on your priorities, this is something you might consider.

This feels like the right next step... if "the case is pretty clear cut" as you report your lawyer saying -- to the point where the university would recognise they'd probably lose if you did sue -- then they may be willing to settle out of court in some way. Possibly still some risk of "cold shouldering", but probably greatly reduced if it avoids bad publicity. (Whether you want to avoid publicity may depend on the precise nature of the complaint).

Assuming you intend to stay where you are, you will be far better off if you can settle this matter internally.

It's important to note that one way or another the ombudsman works for the university.  Not for you.  It is not your interests he works in the best interests of.  OP's already got a lawyer.  He should listen to that lawyer on who to talk to and what to file, etc.

Just my two cents - I once had some problems with a university I was at. It wasn't discrimination or harassment or anything like that. It was a "problem" that the university Grad School management has essentially created for me due to their incompetence, and they wouldn't admit it was their fault. Anyway, I talked to the ombudsman and it was a waste of time. First he seemed very nice and seemed very concerned. But when I went to follow up he basically told me to go away and talk to the Grad School. Which I actually did, and was predictably a waste of time.

Universities are often very corrupt places, and you may find out that the ombudsman is just interested in looking out for the university and not at all in helping you. I'm not saying you shouldn't take to him/her. It's worth a shot. Just be prepared for it to go nowhere. Actually, now that I think about it, the ombusman refused to talk to me - when I called to make a followup appointment, his secretary gave me the message. I suppose the jerk was too embarrassed to speak to me.

Basically, I think you will typically not have too many troubles finishing your degree, as attempts to stop you from doing so will easily be constructed as retaliation and a rational department should typically decide that there is little to win and much to lose for them in such a situation.
However, as you say you want to remain on an academic career path - well, the reality is that this usually requires significant support (by your advisor and other faculty mentors) above and beyond just letting you graduate. I wouldn't worry too much about being "blacklisted", but in reality, most of us need somebody actually supporting us in our career - nobody explicitly throwing stones in our way is usually not enough.
You don't say who you are actually planning to sue, but if your advisor is not on board with these plans, or explicitly one of the involved culprits, it is difficult to see that he fully supports you in the way that is required going forward. It may be possible to find new mentors, but they would need to be people who agree with your decision to sue and who were largely unaffected by it. I don't think it's likely enough that the involved people change their minds and agree with you sufficiently that they become effective mentors down the road.
At the end of the day, I would assume that your decision to sue negatively affects your career planning at least to some degree. You will need to make the decision whether that's worth it, either because your compensation will be sufficient or because you can't let the discrimination stand.

This sounds like an awfully optimistic point of view. Depending on the people involved, it's very easy to get permanently blackballed in the entire industry by suing someone.

There will be no physical black list (as such things tend to eventually leak and would cause way too much trouble). However, most disciplines are like small villages, and people in villages like to gossip and every villager has a reputation. The story of someone suing is way too "good" a gossip to be easily forgotten, and will remain part of the reputation of the OP for a long time. Whether that will be viewed positive or negative depends on the specific circumstances. But in general future employers don't want to be sued, and may view this as a risk.

re "but in reality, most of us need somebody actually supporting us in our career - nobody explicitly throwing stones in our way is usually not enough" --> i second this. a successful career REQUIRES support other than just your work/merits/self... going it alone means a middling/flat career trajectory or being passed up many many times.

"...as you say you want to remain on an academic career path..." That's true but OP could maybe pursue this path also at another institution. Maybe you could also comment on how legal action would affect his/her choices elsewhere.

@Trilarion I assumed that OP wants to pursue their career at a different university. To do so, one in practice still needs support from the currently place of work, unfortunately.

The only way I can see a "happy ending" here is if the people involved in the discriminatory incidents meant well but realized they screwed up. In that case, there's a chance that they won’t cause any further problems, although as xLeitix mentions, they certainly won't be "in your corner" anymore.
Unfortunately, in most such cases, if the people involved don’t think that they did anything wrong, though, you may have to expect that there will be blowback.
However, retaliation is normally grounds for further charges and damages, so the best way to ensure there are no further incidents is for the university’s lawyers to talk to everyone involved and to indicate that retaliatory behavior will not be tolerated.
I’d love to be able to say there won’t be any future problems, but the truth is, every situation is unique, and you certainly can’t dismiss the possibility of people giving you a cold shoulder (or worse) if the lawsuit becomes public knowledge.

Also note that cold shouldering is impossible to outlaw 100%, even if to some it might be considered retaliation.  If people like you and want to help you they can always bend rules or go the extra mile to help you.  This is something that cannot be legally required.  Point being that if the "retaliation" just consists of doing nothing extra or unusual to help you beyond exactly what is expected/required of them, it may still hurt you (by the absence of extra help).  But frankly, that's something you should expect when you resort to legal charges against anyone.

I like this answer, but I don't think there is a very realistic case where OP sues and the involved persons are like "it's true, we screwed up bad here, thanks for notifying us, no hard feelings". In reality, the people that OP sues will almost certainly feel very negatively about the incident, and I would not expect to ever get anything above and beyond what you formally need to get from them in the future.

Retaliation can be very, very subtle. People that normally go out of their way to help students suddenly doing stuff only "by the book" for you etc.

I acknowledge that. But to assume that there must be retaliation is excessively cynical.

Has anyone here filed a discrimination complaint against their university?

Personally, I have not, however, in a recent issues of Science describes sexual harassment at a remote field station and the resulting investigation that got the professor fired, pending any appeals.

Should I expect retaliation? How can I protect myself?

Historically (and sadly), many academics have been fearful of retaliation. The articles I linked to describe how a researchers waited until after she had tenure to report her major advisor for sexual harassment during graduate school. She waited until post-tenure because she was afraid of her advisor ruining her career if she spoke out before tenure.
I would consult with your lawyer about how to document retaliation. Sometimes retaliation can be easier to document and prove than the original crime. Anecdotally, I recall training on discrimination that warned us not to retaliate because the agency had no successful discrimination cases filed against them, but did have successful retaliation cases.

After the #metoo Twitter movement last year, seeing this is somehow very disillusioning. I don't think your answer is wrong but I think it's very sad that we are still at that stage.

@Trilarion I agree. If I recall correctly, Science had a few more articles on it as well. Also, their back page career column had a couple of articles on people who reported problems and had their careers sidetracked.

As I understand it, the present case is about discrimination, not harassment or sexual assault.

@aeismail As I understand it, the present question is about retaliation. The specific crime is irrelevant; it could be outright theft for all OP cares ("the president of the university stole my lunch money and the university supports the action, so I'm suing to get my $5 back"). Since retaliation is the subject, retaliation for action on other crimes is very relevant.

@aeismail I focused on the question Should I expect retaliation? Also, discrimination and harassment, although different, can be administratively similar and often handled by the same people (e.g., EOE, HR, ect).


text:
Responding to emails from strangers outside academia asking you advices
I work as assistant professor in a STEM field. I have been receiving a large number of emails from professionals, usually from government organisations and companies, asking for various advices and information.
One example is about asking me which software product is currently best at accomplishing the task X in the Y setting. These are usually short emails which take no more than 10 minutes to process (reading, searching, and replying).
I think I have responded to over 100-200 such emails so far, and now I am at a point of asking myself whether it is worth to continue. Academics do a lot of uncredited and unapreciated work, but I feel that this is especially pointless and even harmful. Initially it felt good to be an internationally recognized expert in academia and industry, which is very encouraging and important for an early career researcher, but now I am evaluating whether I should start ignoring them.
I am here to ask opinions and experiences of fellow academics on this matter. When I think about disadvantages and advantages of replying to enquiries, these are…
Disadvantages:

They take time. Each may take less than 10 minutes, but accumulating a large number of emails means lots of time that could be spent on something else.
They entail responsibility: I don’t think that I get anything by giving a correct answer, but once I give a wrong answer leading to a bad decision my reputation can be put at risk.
They don’t seem appreciated in industry. I never got any follow-up or feedback on what happened later. Replying never led to anything for me. Also, I don’t think I learned much (only in 10% cases I learn things like “Oh these people are working on that, cool”, but that’s usually it)
These things don’t go on your CV (let’s be frank).

Advantages:

They can help building one’s reputation as an expert outside academia
They can extend one’s network
They can lead to a relationship bringing new projects (never happened to me personally)

Alternatively I was thinking about starting a part-time consulting service, but it doesn’t look viable.
So the question is it worth responding to emails from non-academic strangers asking you advices?

Straight to the spam folder. This is not your job.

Since you are getting so many of these requests, you might want to consider adding a note to your webpage about what types of questions you can help with and what you expect the outcome of such Q&A interactions would be.

Perhaps I should have said: This is not your responsibility. (And I have notification emails turned off.)

I would second @MadJack : the question is not if you should do this or not, but what are your better options. Making a good q&a website can be something you are more recognized for with  the same effort

An example of how super-famous academics can handle this: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/

Why don't you start a blog? An FAQ and a few posts might be enough to address the vast majority of questions without costing you a ton of time.
You can then refer any inquiries to the blog. In time its popularity will grow and people might go directly to it instead of sending you emails.
You can highlight you research, grow your professional network, lead to collaborations AND save time by not having to answer the same question a million times.

As someone who has written a few such emails while working in industry I really appreciate what you are doing. That said, you cannot be expected to answer each and every email you get. I would try to answer those emails that you think are worth your time or interest you. For the others, a simple canned email that you are receiving way too many such requests to answer them, with a list of books relevant to your field would IMHO be the polite thing to do.
As for getting feedback from industry: Keep in mind that most engineers would love to talk with you about all the details of their work and how to make the product better. But unfortunately, the company does not pay for this. They are pressured to make a product that can be sold and make it fast. Hence they are pressured to spend as little time with you as possible, once they get the answer. Maybe adding a line that you would like to get some feedback would make it more likely for someone to send you an email later, but I wouldn't hold my breath if they don't.

I suggest approaching this question from the point of view of “selfish altruism”, which is the philosophy (whose name I just invented, although I’m guessing it‘s already known in one form or another) of a person who wants to do good in the world but also understands that caring for oneself and putting a high priority on one’s own self-interest are important and are part of what makes it possible to make the most impact on the world in the long term.
In practice, what this means is that before spending significant amounts of time helping someone for free, you should not be ashamed to ask yourself, what’s in it for me? If you cannot give a satisfactory answer to this question, then it’s likely that answering the emails is not a good use of your time - it may feel like you’re doing something good by helping someone who asked you for advice, but when the opportunity cost (the things that you could have been doing with your time instead of answering the email, but didn’t) is taken into account, probably the net effect is negative. In essence, by answering an email that takes away your time without giving you anything in return, you are sacrificing your long term career success and happiness (which are important both for maximizing your own self-interest and your future ability to help others) for a short-lived emotional satisfaction of helping someone who asked for your help; or worse, it may not even give you much satisfaction but would simply allow you to avoid the feelings of discomfort and awkwardness that come from refusing someone’s request for help.
I should emphasize that when I talk about asking what’s in it for me?, I’m not talking about money. Money is good and useful and if you have opportunities to supplement your income with a bit of consulting, certainly that is a perfectly good reason to help people from industry. But there could be other good and valid reasons to answer these sorts of emails (e.g., as you mentioned in the question: networking, learning useful things about what people in industry are doing, etc). The point is that as long as you can articulate a rational reason why answering the emails will bring you some tangible benefit that matches or outweighs the opportunity cost of the time you will be spending, it should be fine answering the email. Otherwise, you should be wary of acting based on purely emotional motives that ultimately will not serve either you or the world well.

maybe, Dan, if you're looking for a label for your "selfish altruism" concept, a similar to a term in wider use is "Enlightened self-interest".  seems to me to be similar concepts.

This seems a slightly surprising perspective from someone who has answered over 350 questions on academia.SE! Is it really a waste of time to do something just for the satisfaction of helping someone?

@robertbristow-johnson yes, that seems somewhat similar to what I was describing - thanks!

@user2390246 haha, you got me there... I guess I am full of contradictions. But really, I do think I get some things out of posting here other than emotional satisfaction. And to the extent that I may not always be following my own advice, I should!

@user2390246 There is subtle difference between the two activities: with online communities, you choose what to answer and when; with emails you're invited to answer questions of any kind, even those you would totally ignore online. Emails are more invasive. Between here and other communities, I posted online around 8k+ messages, mostly answers to technical questions, but I'd find annoying receiving questions by email and I wouldn't answer, unless they come from someone I know or is connected to me in some way.

Unless the email is from a person or organization that you strongly support and don't mind giving free advice to, then you should delete these emails on sight. Otherwise, they are trying to mooch free advice off of you to avoid paying a fee to a consultant, and I can almost guarantee that they care nothing about adding you to a network or expanding the contribution into a paid gig (because why should they, when they can just email you for free?).
In my experience, 99% of these emails have nothing to do with getting answers to questions but are rather attempts to open a conversation that ends with the other party trying to sell me something. Again, delete on sight.
You could alternatively make up a form letter to send back to those who are making these requests that clearly states your hourly fees for consulting, and invite them to connect with you if they are interested in hiring you to get your advice.

-1; i must really disagree.  it is certainly not obvious that one will always be acting in their best interests (Mr. Talbert doesn't even know what the OP's interests are) by deleting emails on sight (presumably unread).  use your spam filter.  tune your spam filter (if you can) to weed out egregiously bad solicitations.  but if some organization does not appear, at first glance, to not fall into the set of those you strongly support and you summarily delete that email unread, you may very well be acting not in your own best interest.


text:
Contacting a Professor about a possible Ph.D.
During my Masters I wrote and published a series of three research papers, which I presented at 3 different international conferences.
After my last presentation/talk at the 3rd conference, a Dean from an Australian university approached me and after talking for some time he gave me his business card and told me to send him an email if I'm interested in attending a Ph.D. programm at his university.
Now (4-5 months later): I will start my master's thesis in the summer and after talking to a lot of people (friends, parents, etc) I decided to contact him and ask about specifics. Turns out, I don't even know what to ask. (I havent sent the email yet btw).

In my eMail I start off with how we met (so he might remember me?) and then go on to say that he mentioned the possibility of the Ph.D. program at his university and gave me his business card.
I then mention that I will presumably finish my studies Nov/Dec 2018.  (so he knows a possible timeframe)

I would like to ask him questions about the possible research fields, finance possibilities, etc - but our conversation was so short back then, I'm guessing I can't just ambush him like this.
So what can I write between mentioning that I will finish my studies and writing

"I am looking forward to hearing from you, Best Regards,xxx"

Also:
What would be something a professor might want to know about me (should I include my CV already?), and what questions show that I am interested, without ambushing him completely? Should I write an "apology-sentence" that I am contacting him 4 months later and not in the following weeks?
Any suggestions are welcome! Thanks in advance!
PS: I am from Germany and currently also study at a German University.

Three peer-reviewed papers as a German MSc (i.e. not as a part of a failed PhD attempt for the anglophones) is an exceptional feat. I have someone with similar achievements and it's both exceptional quality and exceptional luck.

I formulated my mail as a "letter of motivation" - Just in the same way you would write an application in Germany. You could start with something like

"Thank you for the nice discussion about the open PhD position in your
  research group at the XYZ conference in October 2017..."

Then, you should mention that you had a very close look to his/her research and that this perfectly fits your interests because of "this" and "that".
In any case I would already attach the CV with all certificates and required documents.

So basically, an application - but to him personally, because we met before?

Thats what I would suggest - or is there a reason to give the documents to somebody else? Maybe you can check, whether there is already an open position mentioned on his website, which fits to you. Then I would follow that.


text:
PhD Application, Mention of published Papers
I am considering applying to a university for a Ph.D. The university wants to know about papers I published - I heard that traditionally the first author (of e.g. 4) is often considered the main one.
I published 3 papers - I did have guidance by a Professor on how to choose a structure, but in the end I wrote it on my own. For some "internal" reasons, the university did not allow me to put my name first - and there were other names (next to my Prof's) added as well.
On each paper there are now 4-5 names and my name is either 2nd or 3rd place.

How do I convey that I am the main author?
How do I convey that I did the work?

I dont want to deny the effort of my Prof guiding me and helping me with questions, but I also dont want to make it sound like it was "a collaborative effort" by all authors.
Basically, I dont want to sound like a jackass.

Where you the corresponding author on one of these papers? In my area of CS what counts "per default" is either first, or last, or corresponding. Adding a statement what exactly you did would help, esp. in all other cases. See, e.g. https://publicationethics.org/ or http://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/article-submission/authorship-contributorship

I have seen different ways of this being handled but one way could be to write in brackets that you done around (50%) of the total work for the paper.
It is more common than you think, many published PhD thesis have papers in which the PhD student is the final author in all of the papers inside the thesis, but they include a note that they where responsible for 50% of the work.
Having papers published will look great regardless.

Possibly there is some other part of the application where you could detail your contributions on these papers - again without putting down your coauthors.  This would be more helpful than author order (which is always a tenuous measure of author contributions as you now well know) in showing your independence on this work.


text:
What to do after failing out of grad school?
So I'm technically a graduate student. My school allows people who are studying a certain subject apply to the graduate program early, so if you get in, you get to work on your master's at the same time as finishing your bachelor's degree. Anyway, I applied and got in. I am also only 20. So the plan was to graduate with both degrees by the time I was 22. Here's the thing though, I think I'm going to be academically dismissed. The rules are that you cannot a C in more than one class. I got a C in my last class and it looks like I'm going to get a C in this class too unless I somehow get a 98% on the final. Unlikely, but I guess anything is possible.
So my question is, what do I do if I fail out? I don't have my bachelor's yet. I'm only 20 and if I'm being completely honest, I don't think this is something that I want to do anymore. I'm just not passionate and my level of caring is so low. It's probably why my grades are so bad. I just don't care anymore. I just can't deal with the fact that I'm probably going to fail out.

Can you still finish your bachelor's degree?

I'm not sure that there's a question we can actually answer here.

Seems more likely you would be dropped from the special bachelor/master program back to a bachelors only normal track. Talk to your advisor...

If I understand you are correctly, you do not care because you expect to fail and you may fail because you do not care. This sounds like you should talk to a suitable advisory service, if your institution provides this.

I have sat on a lot of hiring committees.  The academic transcripts of some of the best candidates were pretty average (if "average" in a particular course is a C).  Find out what courses, if any, you still need for the Bachelor's, and crank those last credits out.  You can probably get those few credits online.  The Bachelor's will open a lot of doors for you. // Also, negotiate with the university that your academic record not reflect the incompleted master's. // Focus on the accomplishment (the Bachelor's).  Not everyone has to get a master's degree.

And you know, I would be very surprised if the university gave you a hard time about this.  Example: I once negotiated with a community college to convert a slew of F's to W's (W=withdrawn) for a young man who landed in jail during a personal crisis.  The dean was fully supportive of our thinking -- that someday this young man might be doing better and might want to go back to school.  This way he can.  Your situation is not comparable of course.  I just wanted to show you that the dean will likely want to support your ability to get a job that requires a Bachelor's degree.

Welcome to the real world.
If you can still get a bachelor's degree, I strongly recommend you do it. The number of jobs that require a bachelor's degree is much larger than the number of jobs that require a masters (which is in turn larger than those that require a PhD). If you can't get a bachelor's degree, you'll really have wasted a lot more years of time and will probably be forced into an uninteresting low-pay job.
The next thing to do is look for a job. Use your local job repositories or job search portals. Figure out what you want to do, and approach the companies in that area to see if they're hiring. If you don't know what you want to do, then look for jobs that require the skills you have. For example if you're trained in psychology, look for jobs that require a degree in psychology. You should also use your network. When I left my previous job, the vacated position literally "fell into" the lap of my replacement. I told my Honours supervisor I was resigning, and she recommended my replacement.
Then prepare a CV that caters to non-academics, stressing what you learned in university. Especially emphasize the transferable skills. For example if you learned the programming language C++ during your university days, and the job you're applying to needs programming skills, you're in business. Be aware that you'll likely be interviewed before getting hired, and one question you are odds-on to be asked is "why did you not finish graduate school". I would recommend preparing a good answer.
There's a lot of advice out there on how to find a job. It's up to you to look for it. Unless you stay in academia forever, you'll end up in a job search eventually. If your university has a career center, absolutely visit them. They're a great resource.

PS: Cynically speaking, the whole purpose of university study is to prepare you for a job. If you chose a discipline well, you should be in high demand and can command a high salary. If you find nobody wants your qualifications, that's what people are referring to when they say there's a disconnect between the academics who encouraged you to choose that qualification and the real world.

The purpose of university study is to prepare life-ready citizens, not job-ready graduates.  Where I taught, I threatened to throw up in the lap of any administrator who said, "Job-ready graduates."  (Could that be why I don't teach there any more?)

@BobBrown We might be on opposite sides of the disconnect then! I view universities as a place where students spend $100k++ and a significant fraction of the best years of their life in return for a certain skill set and a diploma saying they have that skill set. If the skills learned are unnecessary, they could save the money and time by going directly into the workforce from high school. Perhaps most undergraduates don't think in terms of "I'm-here-to-get-a-job-eventually", but if I could go back and do it again, I would absolutely think that way.

There are places like that.  They're called "trade schools."  By your analysis, the Western Civ. and English Lit. courses that undergraduates are generally required to take are a waste of time.  If, however, the goal is to prepare the student for a useful, productive, and rewarding life, then they're essential.

We're approaching off-topic territory, but still: I'm unfamiliar with trade schools. Do they award degrees? The job advertisements I see mostly ask for degrees. If trade schools award degrees then I think more people should attend. As for Western Civ / English Lit, I think about them like any other subject. Students taking them should know why they're doing it, e.g. there's a job out there they want to do that requires them. "I can afford it + don't mind spending a few years" is also fine. I just find it a pity if someone realizes the degree's actually useless (but only after graduation).

I would agree with Allure (+1 Allure), and I'd suggest that you follow that as a contingency.
In the meantime however you are acting passively rather than actively in your situation.

Have you talked to your advisor as to what options you have?
Have you talked with your current professor for the C class to see if you can earn extra credit?
Have you talked to your dean about your performance and proposed a plan where you would not find yourself needing to be academically dismissed? Such as retaking those classes?

There is always something that you can do about your situation that I don't think you've considered. Before well... giving up... and failing out, why don't you take a moment, pick yourself up, and act how a mature, responsible, adult would do?
Just as you don't want to be academically dismissed if you don't want to, I can reasonably presume that the academic board of your institution doesn't want to kick someone out who realizes that they screwed up and is taking responsibility for their shortcomings.
My words seem harsh but as Allure said,

Welcome to the real world.

You are your own best advocate, your parents aren't going to make sure everything is alright for you. You have to take responsibility and make things happen.

+1, your advice is better! Salvage a bachelor's degree if possible, then think about getting a job.

No... salvage a bachelor and masters. This is your best outcome on your education given the amount of years you've put in (sunk cost) as well as highest ROI (return on investment). Masters > Bachelors. The second best outcome is just the bachelors. The third best is simply to withdraw rather than be academically dismissed, this is equivalent to resigning instead of being fired. The absolute worst is to be academically dismissed.


text:
What happens if you use the wrong reference?
I recently submitted an assignment but realised a week later that one of the sources I have used in the essay and bibliography was wrong. I'm not sure how it happened I'm guessing some mix up with the citation software I used but I'm really scared that my professor will be able to tell. Does anybody know how thoroughly lecturers check the references used?