text:
How should I refer to the presence of racial slurs in data presented at a conference talk?
I am preparing a presentation for a mathematical modeling conference soon, involving online discourse which contains racist and other slurs as one of the prominent features under study. The specific slurs used as keywords are not an insignificant part of the experimental methods.
I would like to deliver a talk that respects the conference-goers and everyone involved, while not alienating or offending anybody. However, the data itself is highly offensive and this is a basic premise of the research.
I am unfamiliar with the standard practice here; I have seen computational social science conferences where they simply list the words fully spelled out, but that audience was probably much more familiar with this type of data.
I should note that while this work is well within the scope of the conference, it is a slightly irregular source of data and many in the audience may not be familiar with it at all.

This might be country dependent. In the UK it's frowned upon to say the words, even if they are in the text: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-65410599
Tangentially related: This is also how it is handled at my daughter's London(UK) secondary school.

In the US as well, and this is a very international conference.

While I agree with avoiding it in a spoken presentation, I'd definitely ensure that your presentation slides contain a link to the raw, un-Bowdlerized data, so that people can properly reproduce your work.

Since nobody seems to have said it yet: whatever your decision, you should start with a content warning (so that people who might be harmed by hearing/seeing the words can prepare themselves or make the choice to leave).

I just want to mention this because I didn't see anyone else say it - the most obvious thing to do is to ask the people organising the conference what they want you to do! It may be that they have established procedures, or at least can agree on some sensible stuff to do. There is absolutely no reason for you not to email them.

If you decide to show the words, a content warning is the bare minimum. But it still excludes people who can't stand slurs. This means they are deprived of the chance to hear your research and you're missing their perspective in the discussion after your talk.

So, I actually just figured this out for my particular case.
What I forgot to mention, which is crucial, is that the research method in question doesn't begin with the set of slurs as keywords a priori but in fact selects them from another dataset using an automated procedure that also picks up a few words which are not slurs but are generally representative of the word list.
What I decided to do was just to omit the offensive keywords and report only the procedure by which the words are selected along with a sample of the keywords that does not include any slurs and then mention that the algorithm also produces some extremely derogatory keywords which we do not print.

That makes sense.  I was on the fence about this but I am also new here.

@aome both ways are ok - https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5281/are-lengthy-update-edits-appropriate

Since it contains new information relevant to the question, this is probably more useful as an update to the question rather than an answer.

I think you should be able to select the checkmark to highlight that this approach solved your problem.

@Ben You are right that we generally try to add new information helpful to answer authors to the question post, but here I think that a "So, I actually just figured this out for my particular case." constitutes a genuine new answer and it's also okay to post as such and (after a bit of time has passed to consider any additional answers) it's even okay to click the "this solved my problem" checkmark and accept it as (at)henning mentions.

Indeed, but I'd recommend adding the "I forgot to mention..." information into the question.

As a person of color, I would much rather even the most offensive words be spelled out on the screen rather than misunderstand the research. There is an understanding that this is a research context and no one is called anyone else at the conference that name. This has also been standard practice in the (admittedly few) times I've come across this. People refrain from saying the words out loud in the presentation, although I suspect this is due to the presenter perceiving a stronger stigma against it rather than other people minding.

There are certainly debates about this; your perspective is valid but doesn't capture the potential risk when there is not unanimous agreement: https://academychronicle.com/6545/school/using-the-n-word-in-educational-settings-is-it-ever-justifiable/ https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/dispatches-academic-freedom/academic-freedom-and-the-n-word/ https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2022/11/princeton-professor-editorial-n-word-scanlan https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/02/01/professor-suspended-using-n-word-class-discussion-language-james-baldwin-essay

Absolutely. Papering over the offensive history doesn't help.

I agree, but if there are going to be offensive and uncensored words, it would certainly be worth giving a brief and tasteful warning at the beginning so people know what they should expect (and potentially have a chance to leave if they feel the content would upset them)

@BryanKrause - Conceptually, if the quotation of a slur is hurtful to many students, it probably should be avoided, in much the same vein that depictions of horrific mutilations would probably be avoided in most history classes unless absolutely necessary. It does seem curious, though, that directly quoting the most vile (but slur-free) expressions of hatred and even showing equally unambiguous symbols of bigotry (swastikas, Confederate flags) in the course of discussing them in context usually meets with a far milder reaction.

In other words, while basic politeness should always have priority—including not using language that is likely to offend when it is not absolutely necessary for some greater purpose—if one considers that, in a course on racism, someone would probably arouse far less controversy by quoting from Mein Kampf to establish Hitler's anti-Semitic aims or showing pictures of rioters with Confederate flags than quoting from a song that used a slur in a non-derogatory manner, it seems to weaken any argument against quotation that is based on the bigoted semiological content of slurs.

Linguist here. I don't work on hate speech specifically, but the issue is important and a matter of active scholarly discussion. I'm going to talk a bit about the literature, and then a bit about my own experience. The short version is that I would recommend erring on the side of caution wherever possible.
"We can distinguish two different questions here," say Cepollaro and Zeman (2020) in their introduction to an edited volume on issues in the meaning of slurs. "[O]ne is whether or not slurs are derogatory when mentioned; another is whether in certain contexts mentioning slurs is justified by an important purpose: such contexts may include theoretical and experimental investigation on epithets, activism against bigotry or testimony in court."
There is no consensus yet, at least in the literature (I continue paraphrasing Cepollaro and Zeman here). Earlier work on the question (e.g. Schlenker 2007) proposes that slurs can be rendered inert by being isolated from the original context. More-recent studies (Anderson and Lepore 2013a, 2013b; Anderson 2016) say the opposite - that those words are still volatile and harmful even when they are in a laboratory setting. Cepollaro, Sulpizio, and Bianchi (2019) do a perception study that finds a middle-ground but is perhaps closer to those urging caution: they find that reported use of slurs carries a lessened degree of offense, but it's still very much nonzero.
My own opinion is that, by analogy, bombs in the laboratory are still bombs. The fact that we understand them and want to study them doesn't mean they're suddenly innocuous - especially if there are people in attendance who are targeted by a slur in question.
In my experience, one of my Black colleagues (a raciolinguist specifically) took me aside once and very patiently explained that it had been a major problem for me (a white woman) to have left an in-group reclaimed slur essentially unchallenged in a presentation. It was in there because it was in a table of big-data results from a study of emerging words on social media. I'd noticed this term and thought about it and decided to say nothing, which was the wrong call. I was happy to apologize, but I regret that I made anyone present have to figure out how to explain this to a white woman who might have flown off the handle for all they knew.

Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

Ask yourself "Do they really need to be shown to understand the research?" Be honest here. Just because it is common in your field to display the words, that doesn't mean it is necessary to understand. If you redact racist slurs, and just state there are racist slurs in many studies you could still understand the talk. You can even take 10 sec to explain why you are not including them on the slides.
Alternatively, if the slurs are needed to understand the talk, one option is to pre-empt the slides with a warning slide stating that "the following slides will contain racist and inflammatory slurs. These can be triggering, I struggled thinking about whether to include them, but ultimately I need them displayed for the audience to understand the methodology, please feel free to leave the room or look away. I will give a few seconds now for anyone who wants to leave the room to do so." I'm not sure that wording is great but that is the idea. You can even post the warning on your first slide, which might be a less awkward time for people to leave the room. The important thing is that you've demonstrated to the audience that you have thought about it and are making an effort.

Good ideas.  What do you think about the idea of partial redaction...for example, writing 'mathematician' as :m*********cian', that sort of thing?  One issue with fully redacting all the slurs is that I have a list of about 150 keywords and approximately 80 percent are offensive.

@KevinDaley a list of keywords that long doesn't seem like presentation material.  Even in a paper, if there's an option for supplemental information, that would be a better place.  So you're probably dealing with a smaller set in your talk/slides.  If partially redacting, be sure to avoid ambiguity, and note that relying on counting asterisks to disambiguate similar redactions is likely to distract your audience's attention

Th-s is an i-ter--ting appr--ch, bu- ask y--rself, do --u ever r---ly n-ed to b- sho-n a-l -arts of non-cen---ed tex- to und--stand -t?  Ju-t b- h-nest h-re.

If the terms are key to the research, and especially if the research is into something like linguistics or specific word frequencies, then it seems odd to redact them. I can't imagine that someone who would experience extreme distress at reading the word "spider" would be perfectly fine if it were redacted as "sp*der". If the words are key and part of the research, then I'd leave them as is and treat it as a data point (though be tactful in describing it or when giving a speech). If they're part of a quotation and incidental to the research, then redacting it seems fine.

Suppose that you actually include, say, the "n-word" in your slides. It's certainly possible that no-one in the audience will object if you explain your motivation clearly enough. It's also possible that, no matter how clearly you explain your motivation, some people will still come up to you after the talk and tell you how hurtful it has been to have seen that word and how you cannot possibly understand the hurt that the word has caused because of this or that reason. How are you going react then? If you're going to react with a contrite apology, you definitely shouldn't have displayed the word in the first place. If, on the other hand, you are willing to stand your ground in the face of a person telling you how grievously they have been hurt by seeing a certain sequence of letters in your slides, then I sincerely applaud you, but that's only the first hurdle for you to clear.
The next hurdle is that it's possible, depending on the size of the audience, that you will get someone going into full outrage mode and sharing it on social media. Just because 9 people here will tell you that it's okay (because they want to believe the others will be equally reasonable) doesn't mean that the 10th person, the one that actually sits in on your talk, will share that perspective. Then you may well get a mob of strangers who know absolutely nothing about the context in which you displayed or mentioned the word forming strong opinions about what an awful person you are and how they need to make sure that your institution and collaborators know about this. If you think that in such a case your instutition and your colleagues will have your back, you are most likely wrong.** You will most likely get some private expressions of sympathy but very little public support, no matter how well you explain your motivation for displaying the word. Are you willing to stand your ground in the face of this type of outrage? If you are (in which case I applaud you in the strongest terms), then you can begin to think about whether including the word in your slides is the right thing to do or not. But if you aren't, then you probably shouldn't include it. Note that once you use the word, this is something that anyone can use against you at any point in the future in any context. Is this something that you are okay with?
Finally, in the matter of whether including the word is the right thing to do or not, you will have to make up your own mind. The idea that you can delegate this kind of decision to "experts" is mistaken (although certainly reading what people who have thought about the matter more deeply can be helpful). The main question is, do you think that there such serious harm is exposing adults to something like the "n-word" given its history that no amount of explaining can give you the right to mention it during your talk, or do you think that the idea that even mentioning this word in a context such as yours traumatizes adult humans is at best a superstition and at worst a pretext under which to force others to at least outwardly display conformity to the dominant ideology of the highly educated cosmopolitan class on pain of career consequences? I personally am much more sympathetic to the second perspective, but the point is that this is up to you to decide.
You may espouse neither of these two perspectives, but from your question and comments it seems almost certain you are much closer to the first than to the second. In that case, you should exercise a great deal of caution and ask yourself very seriously what you are going to do if someone comes up to you after the talk and claims to be deeply hurt by seeing the word. People who are prone to react like that no matter how much explanation you provide do exist, and it's anyone guess what the chances of one of them showing up to your talk. Are you going to apologize and "do some extra reading about the slur in question", like trikeprof did? In that case you shouldn't include it in the first place.
Even if you do share the second belief, you should do a cost-benefit analysis of whether it's worth it to you, given that there may well be people in the audience who passionately believe that there is an obligation to shield adults from seeing and hearing the word and who will stop at nothing, including actively working to damage your career, to achieve this goal. For example, I would very much have liked to include the "n-word" in this answer to illustrate my point, but the cost-benefit analysis is that the benefit would have been negligible (especially given that it would have been edited out in a matter of minutes) and almost equally well achieved by spelling out that I would have liked to do so, while the cost of doing so might definitely be non-negligible. The same applies to your talk: if you think it should be okay to include the word in your talk, it's still probably a better idea to avoid it and instead make clear your disapproval of theatrical and tribal reactions to any mention of the "n-word". This will suffice to make the point and will not jeopardize your career to the same degree that actually saying or displaying the word might. In the current climate, unless this is a hill that you're 100% willing to die on, I recommend that you don't.
** I am too lazy to google examples right now, but in any case, anyone with the slightest amount of familiarity with the matter is aware of such examples, while people who profess not to be aware of examples of careers being senselessly ruined by the moral panic around the "n-word" will not be convinced by any number of examples.

I am downvoting this answer because it doesn't really answer my question.  I am not here to determine the ethics of referring to racial slurs without regard for whether people are offended, that is outside the scope of the question.  What I was looking for is a way to convey the same information , or as much of it as is necessary to understand the math, without offending anyone needlessly.

@KevinDaley I address the question of how to decide whether or not you should redact the relevant terms in some way or another. Surely this is part of your question? If it isn't, did you also downvote the answer of aome, who addresses exclusively this aspect of your question (should you or should you not redact the relevant terms) and unlike myself actually recommends that you do not redact the relevant terms? (Moreover, I do not understand how you propose to decide what constitutes "offending anyone needlessly" without considering the ethical aspect of things.)

Yes but his answer was less confrontational and obnoxious.  I considered the ethical implications of wantonly refering to racial slurs without considering the audience before I asked the question and don't need to revisit that.

This answer is needlessly inflammatory and opinionated- it says right there in the **.

While I don't agree with every part of this, I am one of the upvoters of this post (+1).  Particularly valuable is the first paragraph, which points out that people should take an approach that they are willing to defend later if challenged.  As to the notion that this post does not address the question, it is perhaps more expansive than the question, but it does give some valuable advice on the matter at issue.

DV because the question isn't answered in good faith but rather taken as opportunity to post a long rant about political correctness.

@henning The vast majority of the answer is in fact written in good faith: I do genuinely think that if the OP follows the advice from the most popular answer (aome's), they may get into serious trouble, or into a situation where they may later regret their decision. The much shorter part where I express my own opinion is indeed not crucial to answering the question, but it serves the purpose of publicly expressing an unpopular opinion. This is imo a very important thing to do and I do unapologetically and consciously take opportunities to do so. Apart from the footnote, no ranting though.

@henning What makes you think this answer is in bad faith or inflammatory? I found it to be a very helpful and clear analysis of the situation. It seems that it's saying "The majority of people might understand the rationale behind the use, but that doesn't preclude some from being offended. You should do a cost-benefit analysis, and if you're not willing to defend your use of the words, even against significantly emotionally-charged or publicized backlash, then you shouldn't use it at all." That seems perfectly logical and reasonable to me.

Let self-selection effects do the heavy-lifting here --- In your title and description of your presentation (and maybe also in its abstract if it has one), make it clear what the topic is and that it contains racial slurs.  If you want to add extra precaution, you could repeat that information at the start of your talk and give people a chance to leave if the topic or content is something that would upset them.  You needn't go so far as to add "trigger warnings", but I'd recommend that your description of your talk be clear that it includes rracial slurs, so that there are no surprises in content.  If a person turns up to an academic talk on the analysis of data relating to the use of racial slurs (and this topic has been clearly advertised as such), it is unlikely that they are the type of person who is offended by reading racial slurs in an academic context.
As to the substantive issue of whether or not to censor the terms, my recommendation would be to use the non-censored presentation of the terms at issue.  In my view, it is good to preserve the use versus mention dichotomy clearly, and to reinforce this by taking the view that mention of racial slurs is appropriate in these contexts.  Moreover, there is a lot of research suggesting that academic practices that encourage "safetyism" (e.g., sensitivity and offence to words and ideas) are a cause of poor learning outcomes and psychological dysfunction (for an overview, see e.g., Lukianoff and Haidt 2018).  Of course, if you do this you might run across an audience member with an opposing view (and even one who is upset by seeing the uncensored terms) so you should be prepared to explain why you choose to use the terms in this way.


text:
Is it okay for a recommendation letter to be written by a professor in a different area of expertise than the target PhD?
If I am going to apply for a Ph.D. in Computer Science, with a specialization in programming languages, is it okay to use a recommendation letter from other areas of Computer Science, say cryptography?
Thanks.

There is no rule against this unless it is explicitly stated in the conditions for application. Assuming that the person in question knows you and your research potential well (or say better than others who you could've asked), this should be fine.
Note that it cannot be said in general how recommendation letters are used when assessing applications as this hugely depends on the admission process, which differs between universities, countries, subject areas, and the people who make the decisions.
Recommendation letters may or may not play an important role in the process (I think they shouldn't, but unfortunately I have seen it happening), so it is a good idea to arrange for letters of people who can write something informative. This usually means that they know well how you work and about your academic potential. In principle such people can be found outside the area where you apply, but chances are that a certain connection should exist, otherwise the commission (or whoever makes the decision) may think that the experiences of the writer with you may not be relevant. However in my view the connection can be rather loose; the skills required for cryptography are not totally different from those required in theoretical computer science (as far as I know what I'm talking about here), so I don't see a problem there.
Also it may help if somebody in the commission knows the writer or their work (at least if this is in a positive way), and chances for this are bigger in the same area, but neither are they 100% there nor 0% if the writer comes from a different field, so this is generally something the student can't make sure. It is rather something of a random experiment from the student's point of view (which is one of the reasons why I think recommendation letters shouldn't be a major aspect of making admission decisions).

Yes, that is fine.  More important than the academic specialty of the referee is what they can say about your skills and experience and your research potential in your area of interest.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
Cover letter for a postdoc position
I want to write to a professor for a postdoc position (advertised). I have read her recent paper that I wish to discuss in my cover letter. Is it ok to write her about additional experiments that could make the paper more meaningful?
I have gone through many online resources, on how to write a cover letter, and from what I have gathered, there should be some discussion on the work the professor has done to show genuine interest but I don't want to sound like I am giving her advice. Can anybody guide me?

Well, you wrote to apply for a position, even though none are advertised. And you wrote on the 9th of this month and it's now the 14th.  Regardless of the contents of your letter, I think what "needs to be corrected" is your expectations.  I would be somewhat surprised if you heard back at all, much less in 5 days.

Thank you for your response. I will be thankful if you let me know about the content of the letter. I m going to use this for advertised positions.

This is technically from/for UK positions, but is a very useful starter guide to writing academic cover letters (https://www.jobs.ac.uk/media/pdf/careers/resources/how-to-write-a-cover-letter-for-academic-jobs.pdf).

Thank you.. I will be thankful if you can comment on my write up

@mini As per the help centre (emphasis mine): "for an overall assessment of your profile or odds of admission. We do not offer individualized advice;" You should update your question (or ask another) about a particular point you would like an answer about. Additionally if you wish general template/guide, there are plenty online such as the one you got linked above

@PeterFlom Why do you say none are advertised?

@mini Your letter demonstrates you know how to write in English. Please usually those same conventions for the rest of your post.

Thanks for the suggestion. I am typing using my phone and sometimes errors do happen.  I will make sure that I review every time I post any comment.

@AzorAhai-him- The question was changed after I answered

Yes because while you were writing comment , I was editing the question, as suggested by Mr Jack Red

if the position is advertised, are you sure there are no research proposal asked among the documents you should submit (such as cover letter, personal statement, resume, etc)

Several things to keep in mind. What is the nature of the advertisement?
Is it (A) an actual position which you have to apply to through either a University hiring portal, or (B) by initiating contact with an application package to the PI... or is it (C) a broad statement on their website saying interested postdocs should contact the PI?
If (C), then you should not submit any formal cover letter but rather a brief professional email with a CV and 1 or 2 representative papers attached. In that email you should mention you are looking for a postdoc, a short statement that you are interested in the research area the PI is working on and leave it with an open question as to whether they have any upcoming postdoctoral positions, and if so, if they want to discuss further.
If (A) or (B), submit whatever application package is requested to the appropriate email/application portal. In your cover letter provide your brief introduction and statement of purpose.
In my opinion, there is no need to discuss at length a particular paper, and certainly no reason to discuss what you think are "improvements" to that paper to make it more "meaningful". You can dig yourself a hole in many ways; the PI is no longer working on that project; your suggested improvements are wrong; you come off looking as if you think you know better than the PI and their team, etc... besides the paper is published, it is what it is. Once you get an interview or are hired, and assigned a project, if appropriate, you can bring up potential follow up works which may improve that line of research.
The appropriate discussion is you addressing that you find the work interesting - please NO PRAISE of the PI (I know this is cultural, but in the US a letter with lots of praise about how esteemed my research group is.... is just awkward). Then say you have read some recent papers, you can list 2-3, and say you think you could both contribute to this general line of work and grow your expertise and career by joining the group.
Then list your relevant skills, in brief, and where you can see them fitting in with the group. Here you can identify briefly something you can add to previous work which has been lacking... e.g. if you are good with theory and the prior publications lacked it, you can say that is something you bring to the group. This is different than insisting that the specific prior work was less meaningful without theory, but rather that it is an extra dimension that makes you stand out.

Thank you . I appreciate your help.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
What exactly is meant by research statement for postdoc application?
I am a PhD student in mathematics and have started applying for postdoctoral positions. There are, mostly, three types of requirements:

a research statement and a research proposal,

only a research proposal,

only a research statement.

The first two options are clear to me: research statement means the research so far done, while research proposal means the proposed projects that I would like to work on if I am selected for the position.
But the third option is not clear to me. Because in my opinion, the research statements for the first case and 3rd cases are not equivalent.
Do I have to add both the research proposal and the previous research report together when only the research statement is required?

"research statement means the research so far done" False.

@AdamPřenosil, thanks for the input. So I guess, you are suggesting to incorporate both "previous research" and "future research plan" in the research statement.

@TheDoctor, Yes, it is a similar question; however, there are only two answers. So I think it is good to leave this question here so that more people can share their opinions.

@learner If you are applying for a research position, presumably you need to tell them somewhere what your research plans are. I suppose if they have both a "research statement" and a "research plan" (I have not encountered this situation myself), then you can split it the way you suggest (past vs. future research), but otherwise you should tell them about your research plans in whatever research statement/plan/thing they request. Edit: sorry, I might have misread, I guess you are basically saying the same thing in your OP.

@AdamPřenosil, thanks for sharing your opinion and confirming my intuition. I agree with your reasoning.

Generally the research statement for a postdoc position should specify the topic of interest and research which will be worked on during the tenure of the position. Generally new PhDs aims to continue their previous research work as they have publications and thesis in them but it is not mandatory in any way, you can present a purely new topic but will need to show publications or other validations that you have experience in that topic to be accepted.

Thanks for your input. I agree


text:
How to effectively deal with Imposter Syndrome and feelings of inadequacy: "I've somehow convinced everyone that I'm actually good at this"
Imposter syndrome is a psychological phenomenon wherein an individual is convinced that they do not deserve the success that they have achieved despite (perhaps extensive) empirical evidence to the contrary.  Some people with imposter syndrome doubt their own ability level. For me, this usually manifests in the thought:

I've somehow convinced everyone into believing that I'm actually good at this.

followed by the horrifying notion that eventually I'll be found out and my world will collapse.
I believe that the imposter syndrome is not uncommon in academia. I'm interested to know how other people here have experienced and dealt with it.

In particular, I'm looking for actual tactics that someone might
use to combat imposter syndrome.

Why I asked this question:
Beyond the obvious reason that this is something I have struggled with for many years and only recently gotten a handle on myself, there's also some evidence that merely realizing that other people experience imposter syndrome helps fellow imposters. As a grad student, I've managed to meet a fair number of people who are in their own struggles with imposter syndrome; however, the tactics and self-trickery that have helped me don't always speak to them and perhaps someone else's methods might.

Of course one manifestation of imposter syndrome is that I'm unwilling to answer this question for being called out as the one person for whom imposter syndrome is NOT imaginary.

There is a TED talk about this exact subject, titled "Fake it until you become it"

Remember that this is hard. Everyone is bad at this.You're not good at this, your just less bad at this than everyone else!

I agree with recursion.ninja. Although openly expressing it to people who don't have the same kind of humour could make you sound quite negativist, depressed or even misanthropic.

I'm surprised that Dunning-Kruger effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect) hasn't been mentioned.

See also this recent article (https://80000hours.org/2022/04/imposter-syndrome/) over on 80000 Hours.

I found two practices helped me a lot:

Reinforce what you know. The biggest problem with being an academic surrounded by other academics is that you're constantly being confronted by things you don't know. Even worse, it often seems like everyone else knows something that you don't know.
You don't need me to tell you how demoralizing that is. The fight is to go back and review what you do know, and reinforce your expertise in your subject area. Most academics are polyglots; choose some random thing you've studied, learned, or even just considered previously, and review it every now and then. It'll help you view the progress you're making.

Engage non-academics. You don't realize how much you know until you talk to the other 99.99% of people who don't know what you know. (Confusing sentence...) Write blogs, offer to give visiting lectures at a school or workplace, work as an intern or consultant in industry, champion a political cause related to your research. There are so many ways you can make use of your knowledge, and doing so will definitely help massage your ego which has been bruised by many semesters of feeling inadequate.

Ref. "engage non-academics": pick a SE site of your area and help those who know less than you. :-)

Returning a few years later: I can confirm that (for some) this feeling never goes away, no matter how much external validation you receive. Don't let the feeling get in the way of doing awesome things.

I was about to write what @eykanal just wrote in this comment.  Perhaps the best way to feel like less of an impostor is to be clinically narcissistic, but that's probably not something you could change without gene therapy or experimental drugs or something

It's hard to even think of a time when I didn't feel like an imposter. I would tell myself constantly that I was succeeding only due to luck, or having spent more time working as opposed to having any actual ability, or the fact that as an international student I had a very different background from my peers and therefore had an unfair advantage, and so on. At some point in graduate school when I came across the phrase 'imposter syndrome' I finally realized that I am not alone and started to get over it, to some extent.
Here are some things that have helped:

Knowing that this is a real thing (I'm not alone!) The mere fact that there is a name for what I was feeling was a big deal. Imposter syndrome is a documented phenomenon that many people have to deal with. I sometimes go back to the wikipedia page just to remind myself of this.
Knowing that several bigger, brighter academics have felt (or feel) similarly inadequate on occasion. It's easy to convince oneself that while imposter syndrome is common among grad students, maybe only the 'non-imposters' actually go on to succeed - knowing that even the academic superstars I look up to sometimes doubt themselves helps to remind me that this is false.
Forcing myself to look at the empirical data. I imagine some other grad student, with exactly the same achievements as mine and ask myself what I think about them.

However, honestly, this is very much work-in-progress for me.

"The mere fact that there is a name for what I was feeling was a big deal."- aptly said. thumbs up

Also, honestly, you just have to keep trying things.  Everyone has felt like this, and it's tempting to wishfully think some magical "strategy" is going to cure all pain or some other person would magically "just know it because they're smarter than you," but the way those other people "just know it" is simply that they've tried that particular thing

I am confused that this answer was posted almost simultaneously with the question. It seems like the whole thread was, perhaps, a chance by the OP to opine on this topic.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/self-answer

@DavidWhite thanks for your comment! I posted a link above to the Stackexchange FAQ about self-answers.

Also: “To be crystal clear, it is not merely OK to ask and answer your own question, it is explicitly encouraged.” From the Stackexchange blog https://stackoverflow.blog/2011/07/01/its-ok-to-ask-and-answer-your-own-questions/

The Harsh Reality: They Do Exist
Before I met my roommate, I thought that I was one of the most intelligent people that I've ever met, pretentious, I know, but just being honest.  When the material was upper-level undergrad or graduate level, I studied, but even at a top tier university, I got amazing grades with much less effort than most of my peers, which was convenient but in an odd way depressing and isolating; however, my grades dramatically changed after a lot of personal losses (this is relevant, see below).
I'm sure a lot of us are in awe of well renowned professors--if you're an academic, they're like rock stars, at least to me they are.  I've always looked up to these people, they make me feel like there's a place for me in this world.  Anyway, as a result of being extraordinarily depressed, I lost almost all of my confidence.  Unfortunately for me, this was when I met my (now) roommate, which made me feel so much worse.
There are people who say that they don't study when they really do.  There are people who appear to be really smart when they're really not.  There's a major difference between knowing a lot of facts and actually being intelligent.  My roommate is quite literally the most brilliant person I've ever met, including several Nobel laureates.  After living with him, I discovered that he actually doesn't study, at least not like most people do.  He can read something once, at a ridiculously fast speed--quite literally he can read a full textbook page in under 20 seconds and comprehend everything.  This is not limited to any particular domain.  There are countless times that I have gone to him with high level mathematics problems from disciplines that he's not too familiar with, and he's able to not only understand everything almost immediately, but he can synthesize beautiful solutions and explain the concepts to me better than my professors who've been in the field for years.  I know it sounds unbelievable, but I assure you that it's true.
My roommate was a major stumbling block for me.  After meeting him, I began to doubt my intelligence even more.  If people like him exist, what the hell am I going to do?  How could I possibly compete with him?  I went to speak with a few of my professors to essentially ask them if they were like my roommate.  If they all were, then I knew that I had no place in the academia.  Fortunately, out of all of the professors that I talked to, every single one of them said that they struggled a lot.  While some of them knew one or two people like my roommate, they reassured me that not only did they put a ton of work in and struggle, but they also doubted themselves all the time, and most still do.
I guess what I am saying is that sometimes it can make sense to feel like an imposter.  Some people are just geniuses, and I do not use that term lightly.  In the end, 99% of the best of the best of the best still struggle a lot.  It's okay to struggle, it's good.  It means that you're learning.  For what it's worth, if you're accepted into a PhD program or lab or what have you, the admissions committee/PI made a conscious decision to say that they believe that you are good enough.  I don't care if you think that you got in because you knew someone, and that person recommended you.  (A) that happens all the time, and (B), they actually went out of their way to recommend you.  They put their reputation on the line for you.  They wouldn't do that unless they believed in you--these are really intelligent people, you didn't trick them.  Finally, for the people who only think that they got to where they are because of hard work and not natural intelligence, I say to you (A) that's probably not true (smart people tend to think that because they struggle with stuff and finally understand it, that everyone can and that's patently false) and (B) you're more likely to be successful than someone smarter who doesn't put in as much work.  Sorry for the really long answer, but I hope it helps someone.  It made me feel better just writing it.  Cheers!
EDIT:
One last thing, the more one travels down the rabbit hole, the more one realizes just how little they know.  This can lead people to question their intelligence.  It's pretty ironic, you're becoming more informed and because of it you feel less informed.  In this case, you just need to take a step back and realize that true mastery is impossible.  It should be a good feeling to learn that which one did not know before.  It's doesn't mean that you're stupid, it means you're getting smarter.  If you think that you know everything or even can know everything, then perhaps you are not that intelligent.

The story about your roommate makes me think "superman exists"

@AbrahamGuchi Yeah, he truly is an academic superman.  People don't believe me, then they meet him and they're like: "Oh my gosh, you really are the smartest person I've ever met."  He's very humble, though.

I would really like to meet your room mate one day

@user774025 Good luck.  He doesn't really leave our apartment.  He's a very special person...

As the old saying goes, "if you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room".

It took me till my early twenties to recognize that being of "above average intelligence" really just means you're smart enough to be painfully aware that you're trapped somewhere between being frustrated by the average person and not being able to hold a candle to the flame of the geniuses you encounter.
I've struggled to come to terms with it ever since.

I studied BA in Graphic Design first time round at uni and got so bored after I realized the main point of it was to 'sell things to people who don't want them' I didn't even bother finishing it. I left uni and got a proper job and realized I loved computers. I learned everything I could about them and am now getting top marks on an MSc in Comp. Sci (with no BSc). The point to this tanget? The more you enjoy what you do and the harder you work the more you will become like your roommate. Like everything else, the more you do something the easier it becomes: including learning stuff.

@Styne666 very true, I could put a ton of effort into studying things I like and consequently be IMHO quite good at them, (Maybe I am blowing my own trumpet here), But I find it difficult to give even more than an hr to learn things that I don't like. Forcing myself to do things I don't like makes me veer off into such qasi productive stuff like browsing Se sites like this, Some times it may even  lead me on

to totally unproductive things

What is your roommate doing today? Btw the more you struggle the more you value the end result.

The roommate might also get so used to having everything come easily that he can't deal with setbacks when he faces really really big problems.  There's a story that Von Neumann himself once spent his whole day doing some math and throwing all of the pages in the trash afterwards.  If it happened to John Von Neumann, who cares whether you have a roommate who can read really fast?  The point is that somehow you can succeed if you really put your mind to it

Come on @SteveP. don't keep us hanging here - what's the latest with the roommate?

Personal take on this, or why I don't feel quite as much like an imposter these days.
I've spent years toiling away in the salt mines of my choice convinced that I was just scraping by at every stage that didn't involve a formal "exam" (I'm good at those). Certain that I was surrounded by my betters. Because I'm in big science I got to do this in settings that involved a lot of close work and socializing with my peers; I've worked closely enough with scores of people at various points on their career arcs to get to know our relative strengths and weakness.
And I've slowly come to a realization which has taken (some of) the pressure off:

Yes, I suck and I'm really only good at a couple of the bits of this job and other people make me look like piker in almost everything involved in this work
... but ...
with only a couple of exceptions1 they suck too.
I really am better than average (even among my peers) at a couple of things. They are not big flashy things, they don't draw the admiration of crowds, but they are things that need doing and I'm pretty good at them.

So, I've become content (at least some) to be a worker bee: I've got a part to play in this enterprise, I know how to do it and people will ask me to do it because in these little corners they are even worse.

1 The only thing I can say about these folks is that they are few and far between and there aren't enough of them to keep me from getting work. And I try not to think about them. And I think I'll have another drink.
But it is inevitable for most of us. If you are N sigma above the norm, then there is one person who is N+2 sigma for every ten people like you. Unless you one of the ten smartest in the world there are going to be people who make you look like you can barely walk and chew gum at the same time. That is just the way it is.

This answer isn't quite as bleak as the Lego Grad Student, but it's close.

As Aru Ray said, knowing that this is actually a quite common feeling is helpful in overcoming it. Ways you can achieve that include discussing it with others, including accomplished researchers, and reading about it. Here are a few texts and resources on the topic, which I recommend heartily to both students and faculty:

A recent article in the Chronicles of Higher Education, which sums it up nicely. And also, some reactions on the web: 1, 2
A personal experience is related here
The references over there make for pretty good reading too…

This question struck a nerve...I didn't know that this feeling is an actual diagnosable syndrome! As an undergrad who is attempting an ambitious course load, including research projects far beyond what most undergrads in my school tackle, I often struggle with feeling that the praise, recognition, and high grades I receive must be mere kindness on the part of the professors, who surely are just impressed by the amount of effort I put in! I know I am not a genius, so those who say I am must be mistaken.
Remembering what the famous inventor Thomas Edison said is always helpful when I begin to feel like an imposter. "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." Knowing that I have put in a large amount of 'perspiration', I realize that even if others are being generous in their applause, I have earned most of it through sheer hard work, and I can accept the rest of it being providence or luck or whatever it is to which you want to attribute unearned success.
In short, realizing that most success is due to hard work, and accepting that a small part of success will always be unpredictable and unearned has helped me deal with Imposter Syndrome. I realize that depending on the situation and the severity of your symptoms, this may be of no help at all...

The way you have phrased your statement "I've cleverly fooled everyone into believing that I'm actually good at this." makes me think of two different situations.
The first is when you have low self-esteem and simply do not think you are worth much as a person. With low self-esteem comes also low self-confidence, which is a very common situation in academia -- I recognize it from myself. Self-esteem can be a sign of depression and can in such cases be medicated. Self-confidence is something one can build through positive feedback from others so that the value of ones work is seen. It is possible to have reasonably good self-confidence but still have poor self-esteem. In such cases you have to keep up a facade to seem confident although you do not feel as such.
The second case I think of is more of a psychological (permanent) condition, akin to narcissism where you deliberately thrive from deceiving people that you are more than you really are. In such cases you thrive to fool other into thinking something and the goal is the manipulation and nothing about the truth. I think we can see some of this as well (of course since it is a human aspect) in persons who try to cheat more or less successfully. I would not be surprised if some of the more famous scientific cheats suffer from this affliction although peer pressure could certainly play a role.
So in the end, regardless of type, you will find these feelings/afflictions because they are all part of the human psyche and becomes a burden if not in balance.

I agree that the phrasing of the question was somewhat ambiguous and I've changed it to reflect the question better.

However, I'm not certain that this answers the question. For example, you say that 'Self-confidence is something one can build through positive feedback from others so that the value of ones work is seen', but imposter syndrome is exactly when positive feedback is deemed meaningless by the 'sufferer'.

The more productive question may be, "Is the present situation better with me or without me?"  If you believe your participation is actually detrimental, step aside... but in most cases you'll realize that, whether or not you're the Platonic Ideal of whatever you're striving to be, the situation is still better with you there making that effort.
In other words, worry more about the world and less about yourself.  Like paranoia, self-doubt is itself inherently somewhat narcissistic.
Or to put it another way: That which we would become we must first impersonate.  Viewed in that light imposture isn't necessarily such a bad thing.  We all have to fake it till we make it.  And a robust appreciation of our ignorance is the foundation of wisdom.

I must disagree with everything in this answer, hence the downvote. Regardless of whether you think you contribute to the present situation doesn't matter, Worry about yourself, the world will get on just fine. FITYMIT only works for certain viewers, and if you are already not happy faking it, then it's not going to help. I hold that 1) I am supremely unimportant but 2) everybody else is supremely unimportant too. Therefore, I am just as important as the next person, just as worthy of the attention and praise that arrives at their door.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
What makes a good recorded video poster presentation for an academic conference?
A "video poster presentation" sounds like a logical impossibility, but now that conferences are online, they seem to be a thing.  What makes one effective?  How is this different from a recorded conference talk? What makes for good content?

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2330/what-are-some-general-good-principles-for-creating-a-poster-for-a-poster-session

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/116055/what-is-the-optimal-way-for-poster-presentation-in-conference

What in your view differentiates a "recorded poster presentation" from a recorded talk? To me, what makes a (live) poster presentation different from a (live) talk is the asynchronous nature (no start/stop, people come up at different points) and the interactivity (much more question-asking and tailoring presentation to individuals present versus a lecture-style talk). It seems like you need an answer to that before someone can answer your second and title question.

@BryanKrause I'm not sure what you want me to answer, but I am sure I don't know the answer to it.  Asking because I have zero experience with this format.

I am currently organizing an onljne conference that has a virtual poster session, but it is not acyncronous -- we put up the posters a week ahead of time and let folks write questions, then they can ask and be addressed during the session. This could be modified by gathering questions ahead of time and sending them to the presenter who can address them during the recording. This has several drawbacks though...

I am specifically answering the question of video poster presentations. This is not advice about making good videos or demos in general.
An in-presence poster presentation is a short oral presentation in front of a poster, with questions. The poster itself is a large surface usually divided into a small number of panels that the presenter can point to. You can functionally replace the oral poster presentation by a pre-recorded video, replacing the individual panels by a matching number of slides, and shedding a tear for the lost opportunity to answer questions.
Our practice therefore is to treat video posters as 5-minute oral presentations.
We find that the hard part is fitting a high-impact presentation into that time frame, whether it is for a poster or not. For guidance we use Christopher Lortie's ”Ten simple rules for short and swift presentations” from PLoS Comput. Biol. 13(3), https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005373.

Plan a clear story
Provide only one major point per slide
Limit use of text
Use simple visuals
Develop a consistent theme
Repeat critical messages twice using different visuals
Use the principle of parsimony in explanations
Allocate more than one slide to effectively end the narrative
Use the final slide for contact information and links to additional resources
Use timed practice

What does this have to do with video poster presentations?

"Plan a clear story" I've heard advice about "stories" for years and it's never once been useful.

When we make video poster presentations we treat them as recorded short oral presentations. How do your students do it?

OK, the edit made the answer much more relevant.

First, this answer isn't based on experience of creating such things, but just on general principles. I assume that you want an audience to actually watch the video to the end and that what you have to say isn't so earth shatteringly novel and important that they naturally will. But also, I assume that what you want to say has value in itself, though more for some than others.
First, I think you have about 15 seconds at the start of the presentation to answer the viewers question "Should I continue with this or not?" But the answer has to be obvious from the presentation, rather than just saying outright "This is why you should watch." If you aren't immediately compelling, people will hit the "next" button. It isn't like a class where students are forced to sit and watch.
The last 15 seconds are probably also very important so that people have a succinct message to carry away - make it memorable.
Talking heads are boring. A video has an advantage over a live talk, of course, since interested watchers can hit rewind if they miss a point, but still, do something to avoid the talking head issue. An overly pedantic presentation will probably also induce watchers to move on.
I assume that the most interested people will have some way to contact you after the presentation so that you can get follow up. The format suggested by walkar in a comment sounds like it might be very good, so that people can ask questions after viewing and possibly get some synergy going. But I also assume you don't have control over format.
I'd suggest, actually, that you take some inspiration from an early science oriented TV show intended for children: Watch Mr. Wizard. It was a half hour of simple science done live. The wikipedia article points to some similar things that this show inspired. Some of the shows are available on [YouTube[(https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mr.+Wizard). And note that by using another person, in this case a youngster, as an assistant, Don Herbert avoids the talking head problem. You can have a "conversation" with an assistant that you can't have with the audience.

Background: I'm an old guy with hearing problems. I don't watch TV or depend on video much. When I do, I'm looking for visual impact and am quick to move on if the presentation starts out too slowly or gets boring. On the other hand, I'm interested in lots of things. If you catch me early, I might stick around. I don't need to take notes anymore, so won't, but a clear message about the key insight (the last few seconds) will stick with me and make you memorable.
Oh, and I never missed an episode of Mr. Wizard.

Online poster presentations are displayed on a small screen.  Usually the user interface makes it hard or impossible to zoom and scroll.  Therefore, poster graphical design does not work.  Instead, large fonts and a much smaller number of images should be used.  Essentially, the poster should look like a slide instead of a poster.


text:
How far ahead should you search for a faculty job?
Suppose you want to obtain a faculty job at a particular time.  When should you start searching for job ads?  When are they advertised?
Answers describing different customs in different countries and disciplines are encouraged.

Similar question that is very popular:  https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5301/how-long-before-phd-graduation-should-i-start-applying-for-post-doc-positions?rq=1

The field of academia is hypercompetitive due to the excess amount of PhD-students and Postdocs vs a low number of faculty positions (read this). Even people doing postdocs at top places have difficulties finding faculty positions and apart from a network also luck becomes an important factor if there are >100 applications for a faculty position.
Therefore you should start searching for a faculty position at least 2 years ahead (no, this is not a joke).

But don't apply for a job you couldn't accept because of start dates. You will just be an irritant.

@Buffy I think pretty much any well-meaning PI will let a postdoc go at any time if the postdoc gets a faculty position offer - so I would think that the start dates are not that much of an issue ...

I think you mis-parsed the comment.

Explain it to me then ;-)

While correct, I think this is too broad to be helpful.

@lordy, Buffy means that people have reasons for keeping their postdoc job other than what their PI wants.  Maybe their spouse/child has commitments.  Maybe they have visa restrictions to honor.  In some countries they might have been conscripted.

The word was couldn't. Don't apply for a job you can't accept. Can't.  Couldn't. Clear now?

Actually @AnonymousPhysicist, there are other reasons. Not everyone is a postdoc, for example. Not everyone will meet the minimum requirements by the start date. And, don't mislead a potential employer.

Starting earlier gains you addition time (say if there's a limit on how may years you can look for a job due to personal or financial reasons) but it typically costs you in that you have a less competitive application. And once a department has considered and rejected you, they may not be willing to consider you again the following year, so you have wasted the opportunity when you weren't ready enough yet.

In the United States, many permanent faculty jobs are advertised around September.  Applications are due in December or January.  The positions start in August, nearly a year after the position is advertised.
Lest prestigious universities advertise later.  In some cases they may advertise only a few months before the job begins.  Temporary jobs also have reduced lead-time.
Practices can vary widely.

As you mention, practices vary widely. I would recommend you mention what field you are talking about, because not all fields have similar timelines.

In Operations Management, for US universities (or Canadian, European and Asian universities following the US system), most jobs are advertised in forums and websites (like Operations Academia, the INFORMS communities, the M&SOM forum, and the POMS society website) mostly from August to early October, for tenure-track jobs to begin on the following July to September. Our big conference, INFORMS, where the short interviews occur, is in late October or early November. Applications are due a couple weeks before this big conference. Most campus interviews occur from early December to late February, and most offers occur in February, but some offers are given in December and some are in late March. This is a field where there are almost as many tenure-track jobs as there are job market candidates, so we usually only go on the job market on our last year in the PhD program.
Now, this timeline varies hugely by field and country. (Even within my field there are huge variations, like late April job offers.)


text:
Which writing style for uncertainties?
There are different ways of writing uncertainty.  The siunitx manual says "In some fields, it is common to give the uncertainty in a number in brackets after the main part of the number...  Alternatively, the uncertainty may be given as a separate part following a sign."
Examples:

1.234(5)
1.234 ± 0.005

Which academic fields use which style in their journal articles?  Does it depend on the region?  Is there any agreed upon standard?

Use the one matching the standard in your field and don't worry about the other. Ho w does one know that (5) is 0.005 and not 0.05 ?

@SolarMike presumably because the uncertainty applies to the least significant reported digit.

Yes, there is an agreed upon standard and it is specified in the Guide to the expression
of uncertainty in measurement (GUM), section 7.2.2, prepared by the Joint Committee for Guides in Metrology (an ISO committee).
Both forms are equally valid, and people use them indifferently. The first form is just more compact and it is particularly useful in tables, abstracts etc.
For an uncommon usage of the first form, see also this answer of mine on Physics SE.

Your reference says "The ± format  should  be  avoided  whenever  possible."  Fascinating.

@AnonymousPhysicist iirc most of the engineering texts use ± , and in some cases that is not good enough as the tolerance can be greater in one direction compared to the other...

@AnonymousPhysicist I'd say that that note is usually ignored also by those who work in the field.


text:
During copyediting, journal disagrees about spelling of paper's main topic
Let's suppose my paper is about icebergs.  The paper is accepted to a quite well known journal on a broader topic.  The copy editor has changed the word "iceberg" to "ice-berg" everywhere in the paper.  I have requested twice that the hyphen be removed, and the copyeditor has disagreed.
A clear majority of scientists in my field use the spelling "iceberg" but there is a minority which uses "ice-berg" in their published papers.  It is easy to produce several lines of evidence that this is true.
How should I respond to this situation?  My primary concern is that I want my paper to be easy to find.  I do not think people are searching for papers using the term "ice-berg."
Update:  As suggested by the answers below, I tried to contact the editor.  After waiting a while and getting no response, I tried again.  And I waited, and tried a third time.  Subsequently and without explanation, the copy editor made the requested changes.  Overall, I had to check five proofs.  In summary, I was successful but I am not sure why.

Is the editor giving any explanation or reference on why he decided for this spelling? How is it spelled in other papers of the same journal/conference?

@J-Kun The copyeditor has referred to "journal style" or "journal preference."  Most of the papers in the journal have the hyphen, but the total number of papers on the topic is low.

@Roland Google is not so good with hyphens.  I checked.

I had THE same issue with a highly reputed journal in materials science. I had to 1) involve the EiCs, and 2) provide 6-7 papers that were highly cited (and used the term without hyphen) for the EiCs to agree. Fyi, this was an Elsevier journal.

I so love that the title of this says "copyediting" and the tag says "copy-editing"... pure gold :D

Is the alternative spelling in the dictionary? Or is it something silly like i-CeBerg?

I hope your next paper is about icebergs in the vicinity of pen-island.

I assume this is from the Physics field?

Hyphens reduce citations: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=8708940

Putting style above content and reducing the ability to find the paper does not help anybody. My experience with copy editors is that they make and introduce far more errors and problems than they solve.
Anyway, I would discuss this with the editor that accepted your paper and give him/her the scientific reasons. This might help more than discussing the issue with the copy editor.

I have also made the experience that copy editors may cause errors and I would discuss the issue, if it is important. Maybe the findings discussed in DOI: 10.1109/TSE.2019.2915065 also help make a point, even though there seem to be some issues related to them.

This reminds of the time that a copy editor changed "1 degree of freedom" to "1° of freedom" and I only noticed when the paper was already published. :(

@jkej °F redefined.

@jkej "1° of Freedom"  sounds so... American. Doesn't help that °F has connotations of  America as well :)

I wonder if that copy editor would write about 7° of Kevin Bacon :)

@jkej: They changed it to freedom units.

@Mehrdad the unit of freedom is designated by the  symbol.

I once wrote about typesetting and mentioned that in some fonts the symbols for ell and eye lI are difficult to distinguish - giving graphic examples. And the copyeditor changed the font because the l and I where difficult to distinguish.

I have had this issue in the past. As a first step, look through past issues of the journal and see if they consistently apply their style guide. If they don't, provide them a few references to their articles that use your preferred version. If they consistently apply the style, your battle will be harder. Go through the articles in your reference section show them that your usage is preferred. Finally, provide them references to highly cited articles in other journals that show your usage.

Personally, I'd push-back on the copy editor's choice of "ice-berg". If you're unable to convince the copy editor, then as other's have mentioned, speak with, or exchange email with, the editor for your submission, if that's a different person than the copy editor. If you don't get satisfaction from the editor, you can raise the issue with the publication's Editor in Chief. Obviously, your final recourse is to withdraw your paper. Only you can determine how much of an issue this is for you and how far down that road you want to go.
In discussions, I usually find that it's important to have evidence to back up your choice.1 It would be good to have a sampling of papers in your area showing which version of "iceberg" vs. "ice-berg" is predominately used. I also find that for this sort of discussion, it's often convincing to use information from Google Book's Ngram Viewer (info).
For "iceberg" vs. "ice-berg", Google Book's Ngram Viewer shows that "iceberg" was used 344 times more often than "ice-berg" in 2008, and has been the dramatically predominant form, at least in Google Book's corpus, for more than 200 years:

You can also look "iceberg" up in various dictionaries. All of the ones I checked didn't even give examples of the hyphenated version.

1. Something just being your preference is also valid, but that's not the case for this issue.

Don't worry about it. If your paper is on a topic suitable for the ArXiv, just use your preferred spelling in the ArXiv version, which is more likely to be found by google search anyway. This way people are likely to find your article regardless of which spelling variant of the keyword they use.

Upvoting, since anyone submitting to a journal good enough to provide copy editing should have the reasoning skills to understand whether this answer applies to their field or not.

You might consider voicing your concern to a member of the editorial board -- probably whoever handled your paper.
If they agree with you, then they will probably contact the journal on your behalf and request that your preferred spelling be allowed to stand. Conversely, if they think that your concerns are unwarranted or unnecessary, then you should probably drop the matter.

Sounds good, but didn't work because they didn't answer.

I suggest not worrying about it. First, even if a clear majority of the scientists in your field prefer "iceberg", the journal still has to stick to its own style. Second, it's not like people will confuse "iceberg" with "ice-berg".
If it really bothers you, then there's no point arguing with the copyeditor - they don't control the journal's style. You will have to convince the editorial board. Contact the editor who accepted your paper; he/she should know what to do.

I strongly advise allowing the journal their style, since you already put up an argument.
A physics journal change $K$-theory to K theory in one of my papers. I investigated, and found the same publisher did the same thing to a Fields medalist.  At that point I figured I had a funny story to tell and let it go.


text:
Should acceptance letters be answered?
If somebody receives an email from a journal stating that their paper is accepted for publication, should they write back?  If so, what should they say?

There might be exceptions of which I'm not aware of, but usually, no, you don't reply, unless there are specific queries from the editor.

Usually, together with an acceptance letter, there are instructions of what you should do next.  Like: make any final edits, sign these copyright forms, etc.

It depends on the nature of the email you receive.
Needless to say, if you are asked a question in the email, you will want to reply. Moreover, if you have any questions related to how things will continue past acceptance, this can be a good occasion to raise them.
Yet, given your question, I assume neither is the case and we are in a situation where you are asked no questions and everything is clear to you.

If the email is auto-generated by an editorial management tool and/or pure boilerplate text there is no need to reply and I would advise against doing so.
If the email is a personal email written to you by a (scientific) editor I recommend to reply. Just thank the editor for the information and express some appreciation. If the process was quick, you could mention this. If the report was detailed, say something positive related to this. If there was a lot of back-and-forth and the editor was helpful and patient, thank for this. If there is nothing specific or you are unsure, just go with "thank you for the good news" as suggested in another answer.

There are some gray-areas, such as email written by technical staff. In doubt, I'd go with a brief reply.

The courteous thing to do is to write back and say "Thank you for the good news! -- Best, Anonymous Physicist"
There is no need to write back, but being nice is never a bad idea.

You don't need to reply them back, and most probably it will be bothersome to read every email receives from the author which is not relevant to the progress of your paper. But, if they ask questions etc, then you need to reply.

See what are we generally looking for in answers. Generally, answers should contribute something new; if there is an existing answer that is essentially the same as what you want to say, you should vote it up rather than posting another answer that says the same thing.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How often is a paper, that once had been forgotten and rarely referenced or regarded, rediscovered many years later and referenced heavily?
Before the internet, especially a few centuries ago, it was quite common to rediscover a work even post-mortem. Some authors were unfortunate and didn't get to see recognition of their contributions.
Sometimes research pauses due to limitations of technology which are broken decades later. For example, a theoretical model that requires a huge amount of data to be processed (a task that may be done today, as done at CERN) to have an actual application, but was proposed a hundred years ago to be dusted off only nowadays.
How often do we get to see some unrecognized work from the past suddenly being rediscovered and exploding in references to it? Do you know of examples from different disciplines?
What would be the different reasons for this phenomenon? Is it usually a technological or a budget barrier that gets in the way, or is it also often a political (sometimes there is an overlap between budget and politics, of course) or a societal barrier, even in the personal sense (think of Faraday and Ramanujan if they weren't given a chance)?

A classic modern example of this is Horndeski's paper. This 1974 paper describing a certain class of theories deviating from general relativity, went pretty much unnoticed for the first 3 decades of its existence, acquiring no citations at all. Then the paper was rediscovered in 2011 and highlighted in this PRL, and has accumulated over 2300 citations.
The reason? As far as, I know this was a case of nobody taking notice of a paper that was on a niche subject at the time of publication. When interest in the subject picked-up decades later nobody knew there was something to look for (and the author had long left physics to become an artist).

Wow! I wish someone curates a list of such papers. Are there any available tools that may help to identify those?

This suggests a way to find such papers, eg, those that are now heavily cited but received few or no citations in the first years after publication. A related method is the use of a term such as "Blank's Method" in pring. Gregor Mendel's papers don't get cited much but his work was lost and now his name is used frequently.

I think by definition, the answer is "seldom", though I'll assume there are a few examples. But if you are thinking of pre-internet publications the answer is probably even "very seldom" due to the difficult of finding such papers if they are, by definition, obscure.
More likely, in fact, is that the old results will be rediscovered independently at the historical point at which the results become necessary. The new discoverer may have no notion that the work was done previously. Such work is ethical and doesn't imply plagiarism.
Once a rediscovery is published, people may search for earlier instances and they might resurface, in which case citations of the old work might increase, but only if the ideas are significant enough to drive future work. There are a lot of "ifs" involved, leading to the conclusion that such is rare, but not impossible.
I don't have examples of this phenomenon. Perhaps others can supply a few such and perhaps some of them will be significant.
If you go back far enough, lots of obscure publications were lost when libraries were burnt, perhaps in wartime. Such things are lost forever unless rediscovered, as they might be when and if the need arises.

One example:

The modern geometric interpretation of complex numbers was given by
Caspar Wessel (1745-1818), a Norwegian surveyor, in 1797. His work
remained virtually unknown until the French translation appeared in
1897.

https://www.cut-the-knot.org/arithmetic/algebra/HistoricalRemarks.shtml


text:
Note-taking software that is conducive to images?
Due to the lack of graphic tablets like iPad, I write my notes on paper, scan them, and keep them in obsidian. But I've realized that this is not the best way for some reasons:

Exporting to PDF is dirty, the scanned page breaks a lot.

And in general, I don't find it very conducive to image-based notes. I write them and publish them to GitHub. If there's still something that I can do, I'd love to fix this issue.
I write a title of the topic that I am explaining, then post an image of it.
I'm doing this because unfortunately, I lost all my old notes made at my university. So, I am digitizing my notes as I've opportunity to re-study the computer science topics.
Any software?

One question is just how useful are any notes from last semester or earlier. You have the book (or a different text) to skim through if needed. Perhaps I was weird - the value in taking notes was in writing things down which helped set things in my brain. I never used my notes for studying from.

Good point raised. I believe it's useful. I have forgotten everything that I need to learn like I am a new uni student.

I get it. I need to go back and dig deeper into or relearn stuff, now some 40 years on. My notes from then would be useless. Reading a (different) text helps. Your learning/study style may differ. But you could just use your written notes like we did in the old days…


text:
Should I quit the present Ph.D. program after 6 months?
I am a first-year Ph.D. student in an engineering field in my home country, and my Ph.D. supervisor is my master's supervisor.
The central problem is that he is very busy with administrative work, thus he has no time to guide his students. I must emphasize that this is very common, at least in my school (though I don't consider this to be right), so other students in the research group seem to accept the fact.
Also, there are other problems:

I don't like the environment. I used to be a master's student for the same supervisor, but I was basically guided by another supervisor in another institution since I was working on a cooperative project. Thus I was not familiar with the current research group when I applied for the Ph.D. candidate. The supervisor has more than 30 students with around 10 Ph.D. students, thus the resources are very limited, and everything can be competitive (this is quite common in my country). The master's students seem to be very antiforeign for some reason. Though I don't really have to be close to them, it kind of irritates me.

No money, the dormitory sucks, and the administrative department is not helpful.

Actually, I have reached out to the supervisor that I decided to quit after two months since I got in. But he persuaded me not to do that and promised me he would make some changes.
I have talked to one of the Ph.D. students in this group, and she also persuaded me not to do that because there are plenty of ways to get instructions. So anyway I decided to stay at that time.
But the central problem cannot be solved, and I have to be on my own to start my project with very limited help.
All I want is to get basic and systematic scientific training from a supervisor who is prominent in my field. The current situation is quite the opposite.
If I quit, I would apply for another Ph.D. project in another country (I am so sick of the environment in this field of this country). I want to know the situations in countries other than China: the majority of supervisors would give basic instructions or not, and how they treat students.
I'm almost 24 years old, and I think I can afford to quit and wait for another year. Anyway, there are plenty of struggles for me, as no one would support me to quit, and the language barrier (I have never been abroad), and whether I am qualified to get into a project.

I think this is an open-ended question that can receive answers ranging from not quitting to quitting and from moving to another country to staying. The situation you are describing can happen in any country. I had friends (in the US) with supervisors serving as Deans or presidents of colleges. You can never receive mentoring from supervisors like that (because they lack the time). Plus, learning to work independently is the whole point of a Ph.D. education so you might as well take that as a positive :)

Thanks for sharing your experience @cconsta1, which kind of comforts me that it's not the only situation in China. And really appreciate your positive attitude!

Hope you're doing well.
(Sorry for the length of my intervention)
I won't advise you to quit or stay, but I can just tell you that you're the only one who knows what is good or bad for you.

First thing first: As a PhD student you must have or build the ability to work independently (for most of the time without supervision). Since the moment you start your master, you must start build this ability or improve it.
Here in my country and particularly in my University, a master student who doesn't know how to work independently will probably never defend his end of study dissertation because about 90% of supervisors will never ask you what level you are with your dissertation or how you're progressing. The student is the one who must contact him to show the progression of work and even suggest improvements .

If you aren't comfortable with the environment and your security and/or health can be in danger, then you know what you have to do.

Don't already stuck on the idea that language is a barrier. As far as you can learn new concepts and notions in your field of specialization, why not do the same for a foreign language?!

In all cases, take the right decision (the one you think is right) for your good.

Thank you for the huge help, ADJ. Point 1 seems to be very important as presented in every answer to my question, and I highly agree with that. Actually, I have intentionally tried building my ability to work independently since got into the Ph.D. program. But it was so hard as I am completely new to this field. Anyway, I will persist in doing this for your encouragement, and see what will change.

And Point 3 in your answer can be very illustrative for me. As from a non-English country, things used to be difficult for me in reading, listening and especially speaking, but I appreciate your idea that language is not a barrier but a new perspective to learning new things. Thanks a lot.


text:
Mental calmness during timed test taking
I am preparing for a timed post-graduate test (for example, GRE, GMAT etc.). I get hung-up on questions where I don't immediately find a path, and then beat myself over not doing it fast enough while I am still on the question. This further increases my time on the question by taking focus away from the problem at hand.
Additionally, the above gets compounded with thoughts of inadequacy- "I am dumb" etc. etc. This adds to the time guilt and takes away from thinking clearly about problem solving.
If you've had a similar experience, what did you do during test taking to overcome it?

Considered counselling?  No insult intended.  Cognitive therapy would work well to remedy this.  Otherwise, the only suggestion I have is practice, practice, practice, so that seeds of self-doubt are harder to plant.

How much does this get in your way?  A fellow student in grad school went straight to the emergency room with chest pain and suspected heart attack, from a qualifying exam.  I'm asking because the what-to-do-about-it depends on how it is affecting you.

I would suggest getting used to self-proctoring practice exams within a certain time limit. Keep at it until you figure out how to determine when it is fruitful to skip a question. Come back to it later when you have an ah-ha moment or finish the exam. As for worrying about spending too much time or self-depreciating yourself, try to minimize it. Remember your successes. Take time to build up your confidence both inside and outside academia and strive to do the best you can do.
Think of every difficulty as a chance to be humbled, and use that outlook to find wisdom in the experience. In grad school, I'm sure you'll encounter this same feeling just by speaking with people whom are your senior.

In fact you can. You can even mark a question left empty to more easily find it later

@ThreeDiag I stand corrected about whether you can skip a question and come back on the computerized GRE, thanks! I couldn't remember and I had thought it would mess up the branching algorithm behind the computerized adaptive test, but perhaps they just treat a skip as "no new information, give a question on the same level."

Honestly I have no clue about that. Are you somewhat involved with the working of the gre behind the scene? (just out of curiosity)

@ThreeDiag I've studied the stats behind tests like the GRE, but my main info on exactly how it works is my memory of taking it before grad school. :)

I've done the GRE with a decent score.
Here is the deal: you ought to realize that the type of difficulty you are facing now are the real test in there. No one cares if you know triangles, but can you conquer the stress of the test? That's what you will be training.
So, here are some tips. You can score greatly on the gre by skipping some questions and, actually, it is almost mandatory that you guess some. Why? Because answers for which you don't know the solution (or a reasonable path to the solution) are subtracting time from questions you know how to do or for which you can work out a solution in a reasonable time.
So, do practice :

Assessing whether you know the answer right away after reading
Assessing whether you can reasonably work it out in a short time. This is the hardest bit, and it's a bit trying to answer and a bit guesstimating.
If you can't, can you reduce the answer pool by a couple of patently absurd answers ? If you can, then guess and move on. This is a crucial skill: a question that you get right half of the time is worth half a point. Don't think it is worth half a point on average, think that is worth half a point, period. In fact, by saving time and energy for other questions it is worth much more than that.
if you can't, skip it and don't waste other time on it (unless you have spare time at the end).
Find a strategy that works for you to minimize aggressive thoughts: it might be de escalating with a recurring mental joke ("Well, I guess I will be a baker in the end, at least dad will be happy!"), it might be just pushing back ("Not now brain, test!"), it might be focusing on the content ("Sure, brain, but what's the sum of the angles of triangle again?"). If you find this hard it's because it is. But remember : this is a skill just like multiplication, you have to train that too and you can and by training it will improve!

Let me add that these kind of thoughts you are having are rather normal, but depending on the severity of your aggressive thoughts you might want to have some counseling.


text:
Am I being ignored after an interview?
I have had multiple situations (ok, well only two) where after what I thought to be a positive Skype postdoc interview (in one case, two interviews), my follow-up questions/requests have been completely ignored. I've sent 2-3 follow-up emails spaced over weeks with nothing in reply. In one case it's been over a month. The weird thing is that the email exchanges prior to the interview(s) to set a date/time happened very quickly and were enthusiastic. I thought the interviews went well and they said certain phrases like "you seem to have very relevant skills and interests." I made sure to thank them in follow-up emails and I asked a few more logistical questions about their group that time did not permit in the interview. But nothing in reply.
Maybe they decided they didn't want to hire me. That's fine, I get it. But I'm very frustrated with this because its seems to be so unprofessional. If they don't want to hire me, why not give me the courtesy of saying no so that I can move on? The field is not that big, so it is very discouraging that I would now have two groups that I need to avoid.
My question is if this is typical for a group leader to just ignore emails like this if they don't intend on hiring an applicant? Or is it possible that they suddenly became very busy and aren't able to answer emails?

If they decide to hire someone else they'd rather not give you a definitive no in case things fall through. It is very normal to not actually ever get a strict no.

It's unprofessional of you to send follow-up emails, unless you've got some valueable information to transmit. There's enough time to ask questions when they come back to you with a "yes we want to hire you".

I’m not understanding how it is unprofessional of me. For postdoc positions, the interviews have to go both ways. I am asking valuable questions to them (I’m not just following up by asking them if they’ve made a decision) so that I can understand if I want to work with them as well while expressing interest. Besides, this would only be the first step in an interview process, so I need to know if they would like to proceed.

@Voltaire what is subject? major? field?

@SSimon biomedical sciences

Receiving several emails from an applicant asking for more information seems annoying for me. Why is so urgent for you to ask for more information since you even don't know if the position is yours? I agree with @Karl , you can ask the questions you need after a positive result.

@TheDoctor In one case the interview was cut short because of time, hence an additional email. In another case, information was asked of me to provide later, which I did. I'm not incessantly emailing these people, I'm just verifying that their research would be a good fit and I'm inquiring what they recommended to proceed in the interview process.

people are being way too harsh in scolding you for the follow-up emails . . . but i agree that expecting people (especially PIs) to respond to non-essential emails is expecting way too much.  i'm already a postdoc and my own PI doesn't respond to my emails.  i could support sending a short follow-up email to say thanks, but not to ask questions about the lab.  that said, it's not unprofessional and i doubt anyone took offense to the follow-up.  they just don't have time to reply.

@Voltaire what happend? did you got possition?

Well, I had quite a few postdoc interviews and I can tell you that it is NORMAL for a PI not answer you back. Of course it is a shitty situation, even more when you thought the interview was good, but that's how life is when you are searching for postdoc positions.
1 email as a follow up or an update is ok. But don't insist on it. The truth is: you know as soon as you finish the interview if you would hire the applicant or not, so if you don't hear from them after a week consider it a no.

Fully agree, unless your number one candidate has multiple options. Then you want to be able to still hire your number two if number one takes the other job. Quite often the PI waiting for their preferred candidate to make up their mind is behind the radio silence.


text:
How to get postdoc funding without a mentor
I see that many people say the easiest way to get a postdoc position (in US) is to come with your own funding. Some postdoc "openings" are only contingent on self-funding. But all the postdoc fellowships I see require a mentor to design a project with, so I'm confused about the process here. Where can you acquire postdoc funding without having a position already?

Generally you would select a few professors whose work you admire and write to them to say you are excited by their work, explain how you would fit in and ask if they would be willing to discuss the possibility of applying for a postdoctoral fellowship with them as the mentor. When you do this it will definately be in your interests if you were to mention specific fellowships you are thinking of applying for. It has been known for well funded professors in the US to offer to fund an exceptional candidate for the first year while they apply for funding, but I wouldn't assume this.
If the professors were positive you would then generally have a discussion about projects that would fit both of your interests. I would guess you would then write the application with their help, and cross your fingers while you waited for a response.


text:
Mentioning resolved illness to statement of purpose?
I had hyperthyroidism which is now resolved. It didn't affected my performance.
Do I have anything to gain if I mention on my SOP that this condition caused me mental symptoms that made it harder for me to study - and despite that I did well?

I wouldn't put it in writing as it is too easy to misinterpret. If someone thinks that the condition might return it won't work in your favor. Other people have situations that make it hard to study also, medical and otherwise.
I would be less concerned with mentioning it in an interview if it would be a natural part of the conversation, but even then, will require explanation and possible misinterpretation.
Represent yourself as a hard worker who gets things done and performs at a high level. The rest is unimportant.


text:
How long does it usually take to get an offer letter after a confirmation for a postdoc?
I was interviewed for a postdoc position in the USA and got a confirmation mail 2 months ago. It's been 2.5 months not getting an offer letter yet. How much more time would it take?

Why don't you email them and ask? Also, your question is unclear: did they say that your interview was successful and that they will be making an offer?

What did they say in the confirmation email?

They have confirmed a position in their lab in mail clearly 2.5 months back. I have emailed them last month about the hr process and updates but there is no response from that side. I want to know that how much more time it would take to get the offer letter?

It takes what it takes and while 2.5 months seems long it may be because they think you are satisfied with the status quo and all else is but a formality. You can ask them, especially if you have any doubts about its eventual arrival.
But it might just be that the season implies that they are working with reduced staff and have what they consider more pressing concerns to get ready for the coming academic year.
It could also be that the formal process requires several signatures and some of those folks are away for a bit.
Ask and ye shall (probably) learn.

They have confirmed a position in their lab in mail clearly 2.5 months back. I have emailed them last month about the hr process and updates but there is no response from that side. I want to know that how much more time it would take to get the offer letter?

Only they can answer that, @qwerty.

I can't speak for how it works in the USA, but in my experience the key parameter that governs when you get the formal offer letter and contract for a postdoc is amount of time remaining until your start date, not the amount of time since the informal offer. If the start date is still some way off, even if it has been months since you had a positive outcome, the person whose responsibility it is may well regard it as not being urgent.
Of course, you can reasonably ask them when you can expect to receive it.


text:
How can you find papers that have the largest bibliography (i.e., the highest number of references)?
Does anybody keep track of such things? How would one go about finding out about something like that?

Why would you want to?

Do you mean the absolute largest, or are you thinking more along the lines of the number of references per page (or word)?

It sounds like something you would have to write a custom program. But then it'll be challenging cause there are billions of papers out there and more of them are closed.

Usually surveys, by definition. But how to find it specifically... I am not sure.

"The article with the most references at 3,112 is World checklist of hornworts and liverworts in the journal PhytoKeys", containing 12,274 in-text citations.
Source: Daniel Himmelstein, "On author versus numeric citation styles" (12 March 2018), Satoshi Village (personal blog), at https://blog.dhimmel.com/citation-styles/
The reference list is 160 pages long.

If you have some programming skills, there may be some APIs for Google Scholar that would allow you to search for papers with large bibliographies.  See e.g.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62938110/does-google-scholar-have-an-api-available-that-we-can-use-in-our-research-applic
I suspect the papers with the largest bibliographies are likely to be reviews, which are likely to cite very well established papers, so start by finding papers with lots of citations (which should be easier to find) and then search the papers that cite them.
(but +1 to @anpami ;o)