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What does this kind of ”Decision Pending“ mean？
I submitted my manuscript to Talyor Francis and it went to “Decision Pending” directly after the “With Journal Administrator” stage. Is it likely to be rejected? author dashboard screenshot
Thanks a lot!

Does this answer your question? https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/153925/can-i-predict-the-fate-of-my-manuscript-from-information-other-than-a-decision

I know that this is hard, but this takes time and there is nothing you can do about it. So just don't look at the progress, and focus on things you can have an impact on like writing your next article, or further improve a course you are teaching, or cook a meal for a loved one, or ....


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Do mathematicians really publish less often than (other) scientists?
I have heard from at least two mathematicians now, that mathematicians in general publish less per person per year than (other) scientists.  This is anecdotal, so I looked around online and all I found, really, was this Reddit post; that's hardly evidence.
The Question:

Do mathematicians publish less per person per year than (other) scientists?

Let's define "mathematician" as anyone who has ever published in a peer reviewed, academic mathematical journal. Feel free to use your own definition but please state it in your answers.
Thoughts:
I would be surprised if they didn't, for reasons outlined in the Reddit post above. In summary:

The comment, "mathematicians aren't allowed to publish their mistakes".
Along the same lines, the subject is "not empirical", and so there's less emphasis on building evidence for & against hypotheses, other than computations.
Meta-analyses are rare in mathematics (allegedly; I don't know).
"The amount of material available": this one, I don't like. But the point is that scientists have more real world applications to work on than mathematicians.

There's more but you get the idea. There isn't much use in listing all the reasons why it might be true,  if it's actually false.

I'm interested in the evidence, one way or another.

Obligatory link: https://www.ams.org/profession/leaders/culture/CultureStatement06.pdf

What counting method is to be used? If it is a paper with 10 authors, do you count it as 1/10 of a paper for each of the authors?

That's a good question, @GEdgar. I don't know. Perhaps there's a good weighting we could use. Maybe a naïve way would be to simply count as you suggest, though I would be a little content with the coarse measure of one paper per paper authored, regardless of how many coauthors.

You need to divide by the square root of the number of authors, I would think, to account for the fact that more authors doesn't divide the amount of work evenly. But don't forget to sum up the number of pages rather than count papers. I would hate my 220-page maths paper to be found to be same as some chemist's three-page leaflet.

You might want to specify what fields you are comparing to. For a biologist, for example, publishing once a year is already not bad. If you work with species that take a long time to mature and reproduce, it can take more than a year to even collect the data.

Related/near-duplicate discussion on MathOverflow: Publication rates in Mathematics

@terdon what sort of journals do these long-term studies get published in, and how long are the papers? A pure mathematician writing a 50-page paper is somewhat analogous to an experimental scientist running a two-year experiment. But I suspect the experimental scientist is hoping to publish something less than 10 pages long in Nature, whereas very few mathematicians set out to get an Annals paper.

@DavidRoberts it varies enormously since such times are the norm in the field. I am not the right person to ask since I'm a computational biologist, and don't have to deal  with living things. However, my peers who work in the wet lab regularly spend months or years working on a project before managing to get a publication out. The length depends on where you're submitting, but I've never seen more than 10-20 pages (if that, journals like Cell have some such long papers) and I would expect that most biological papers run to single digit pages (excluding supplementary files, of course).

Empirically it is true: Mathematicians publish less than, for example, computer scientists or chemists or physicists. But even within mathematics, there are substantial differences -- in pure mathematics, 1-2 papers per year is the norm, in applied mathematics it is 3-4. Of course, then there are other fields (for example in the liberal arts) where the standard is to publish books rather than journal articles, and how you want to compare that is probably a whole 'nother discussion.
I don't think it is useful to figure out why there are differences between mathematicians and others. At the end of the day, how much you publish comes down to how long it takes to work out the details in a paper. So if a field has meta-analyses, then the people who write these meta-analyses presumably publish less "original" work because they are busy doing the work for the meta-analysis. Conversely, in a field where you can't publish meta-analysis, you'd work on other things and publish those instead. I think it's probably also true that mathematicians do not work less than other scientists, and so the difference must simply come down to the fact that (i) it takes more time to get the material together for a paper, (ii) mathematics papers generally do not have as many authors as physics or computer science papers.

The long time between publications is also a "feature" of other pure theoretical research fields, such as, say, theoretical physics. It took Einstein ten years of work to work out Special Relativity.  Such research can't be scheduled and incomplete results are often (usually?) worthless.

@Buffy I believe you mean general relativity. I also think you may be underestimating the importance of the papers Einstein published "along the way" in 1907 and 1911. Sure, they didn't have the field equations, but the equivalence principle and the prediction of deflection of light by gravity are not small potatoes by any means.

@Anyon, no, actually. He started to consider special relativity in about 1895 and published in 1905, IIRC.

Thank you. I will wait a few days before accepting, in order to encourage more answers.

@Buffy Sure, he said he arrived at the "chasing light" thought experiment at age sixteen, which would have been in 1895 or 1896. But that was years before he first studied Maxwell's equations, so it seems a bit much to characterize that as ten years of work. Anyway, thanks for elaborating.

There should also be qualifiers for R1/R2/non-R in this discussion, but it is generally accurate. Pure mathematicians at an R2/non-R probably publish one article every 1-2 years as compared to their R1 (2-2 or lower teaching load) counterparts.

1-2 papers a year is a high publishing rate compared to some fields. My group in molecular biology is generally regarded as publishing pretty well, but it takes us about 5 years to complete a paper (we may have 2 or 3 on the go at once).

@Buffy I think pointing at a rather famous physicist's productivity from 120 years ago does not inform very much a discussion about the productivity of average mathematicians today :-)

This answer entirely fits my own personal + anecdotal impressions — but on a question of the form “Is X commonly-believed thing really true?”, it would be really nice to have an answer backed up with some evidence.

Regarding (ii), I wonder how the statistics would look if each paper was weighted by the inverse of the number of authors.  I have a feeling mathematicians would start to seem a lot more productive.

@WolfgangBangerth I agree that we should probably stop talking about Einstein as an example to follow, he was working more than a hundred years ago and the field of theoretical physics at that time was completely different.

There are a lot of misconceptions about Einstein, to the point that whenever Einstein is mentioned, something wrong is said about him. The big one here is that he was producing 3-4 papers per year, at least, see a list here:
https://einstein-website.de/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2022/06/AEWisPub-22.pdf

This answer is written knowing mainly about differences in the two subjects in Germany. My definition of mathematician is "anyone associated with the department of mathematics at their university" - by your definition, I would be a mathematician because I once was co-author of a paper published in an AMS journal, although I see myself as a communications engineer and my official degree is "Dr.-Ing.".
I did my PhD in information theory; in my field, it was common to publish 3-5 papers per year as a PhD student. My brother was doing a PhD in mathematics, he was happy if he managed to publish 2 papers per year.
The main difference I noticed when digging deeper is that my my brother only counted journal articles as publications, conference contributions were not "publications" for him. In IT, on the other hand, all conference contributions were counted as publications. Sure enough, my brother did give talks at conferences, but those were not counted as publications, why, I do not know. On the other hand, if I had been counting journal papers only, I would have published 0-1 per year, the remaining 3-4 papers were conference papers.
Another big difference: a conference paper in IT was usually limited to five pages, a length that would have been considered short for a journal paper in both IT and mathematics. Each of those conference papers had to stand on its own, so if I wrote 3 papers on the same topic, the first page was typically spent defining symbols and parameters - of course, in a longer paper, I would have only defined them once, not thrice. The bibliography also would have a significant overlap. So I think it's pretty obvious that three papers with five pages each did not necessarily contain more "original" content than one paper with ten pages.
So my conclusion is: No, mathematicians don't publish less than other scientists, but the way they do it and the way they count their publications leads to smaller numbers, to a point where they can be pretty misleading.

As usual, the apparent sense of "publish" in the question is about "status-gate/keeping-passed" documents. Which I'd object to, as some times before, in the sense that it does not mean that people are not working, finding out new things.
At the same time, yes/no, most mathematicians (in my experience) do not imagine to write up a report of their last week's experiments, and make it into a "publication".
That is, the very concept of "publication" (at least in old-timey-math) is about significant progress.
(Oop, but, nowadays, apparently, lots of people in STEM fields have to pretend that they're making progress on a regular schedule, etc. Perhaps it's easier to pretend this in some experimental fields, but/and I have sympathy for those people...)
In summary, "number of publications" is a crazy metric for progress. Oop, but, well administrators irresistibly love numbers (and money).

I feel like this could have been a few comments.  It's appreciated though.  Thanks.

@Shaun, ah, yeah, could be a handful of comments, but they might be lost... and I do think the point I'm making, somewhat reframing your question, etc., does deserve some "permanent" presence. :)

... aaaaand the downvote (without comment) somewhat confirms my sense that the question does deserve some reframing. :)

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Reject bad copy edits after acceptance?
I have an accepted paper (yay) going through copy-editing at the journal, and several changes suggested by the editor I disagree with:

joined two barely related sentences with a semicolon in the abstract because "the background has to be one sentence"
replace all spelled numbers ("two") with numerals ("2") -- this is against most major style guides, which recommend spelled numbers for less than 10 or even 100.
Appendix 1, 2 instead of Appendix A, B -- whatever, but it's unconventional, and Figure A.1, etc. now needs a new convention, "S.1.1" ? Ugh.
moved a sentence like "more info on these methods in the Appendix" from the end of the relevant methods section, to the middle of it -- no idea even why
removed all "/" and "and/or", usually replacing both cases with "or" -- some people seem to be at war with "/" and/or "and/or", but in some cases they are more clear.

Anyways, can I (politely) reject these suggested copy-edits at this stage?

None of the changes you mention appear to change the meaning, so it really isn't that bad of a copy-editing job, all things considered. For worse examples, see this and this.
If a change is simply a matter of journal style you should probably let it go. It can be worth checking some previous papers in the journal to see if they are consistent about labeling appendices, number formatting etc. When it is unclear what the journal style states, I sometimes respond by saying that we understand if change X was made due to journal style, but otherwise prefer the original version. The success rate is quite variable... In general, you can make polite requests, but should be prepared for ones regarding simple formatting and spelling to not be accepted. It is better to save the stronger requests / insisting for changes that actually modify the conveyed meaning or otherwise introduce mistakes.

moved a sentence like "more info on these methods in the Appendix" from the end of the relevant methods section, to the middle of it -- no idea even why

That sounds like it's just a mistake that you can ask them to fix.

Thanks. I did notice that the numbers are a standard convention after reading some published papers. Still find it odd. I will try my luck with the requests...

Also, those other examples are brutal, thanks for linking.

It can be worth checking some previous papers in the journal to see if they are consistent Or you can ask the copy editors to point you to the relevant place in the journal style guide.

Most of these seem like the journal's standard style guide. You can object, but will probably not win. But "reject the edits" probably isn't on the table.
You can ask, of course, and ask for the justification. I suspect you might get access to the style guide provided to the copy editor who probably has little decision making power on their own.
But the editor wants a consistent look and feel across papers when possible.

I disagree with the other answers that "it is journal style."  Some of these things might be journal style, others probably are not.  It's quite possible the journal does not have an official style, or does not adhere to its documented style.  It's even more possible that the copyeditor works on many different journals and is not that familiar with this journal.
If you do not like it, ask them to change it.  In my experience, the copyeditor will do whatever you want (I have not tried making intentionally unreasonable requests).  The main downside of requesting changes is that you will have to wait for a response and check that the new version is not worse.

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How to write a letter to work at an university?
I'm writing a speculative letter to work at university in Siberia.
My real motivation is that I'm slowly changing my mind. After graduation I immediately started working as engineer because I thought I wanted to build things. I never stopped studying and if anything I studied more while working than before. I just started working in a R&D lab so I could reconcile all the time spent studying with actual work. Still I'm not convinced and I'm writing a letter to find a contact in an university I like with the hope that I could somehow be hired.
The problem is that my academic cv is incredibly poor. This is what I have in a nutshell

Master degree with full grades
One publication in prestigious journal based on master thesis
3 years of relevant work in the field

Soon I will have a book published. It's a technical book but it's not academic, not sure if it counts.
In the letter I'm writing I tried to explain why the technology I'm researching is important and have practical applications worldwide. I listed my publication saying that it contains some results of my research. Finally I specified that I'm working in a R&D lab and I'm developing expertise on the topic.
In the letter I ask if the university have done some research with this technology and I ask for a contact.
When I started writing I was convinced to do something useful but reading the letter to myself, I imagined to be a professor and I would be puzzled and chances are I would ignore the email.
How can I write a letter with some chances to find job in this university? Is it possible that a professor could be interested in a collaboration with me? How to best elicit interest supposing my research field is of genuine and immediate importance? What is the most probable position I could aspire to?

If you want an academic career, you have to go the long slog. Looks like you could try for a PhD, then a postdoc or two, then a more junior professorship.

@CaptainEmacs thanks, that is clear to me, there are equivalents in Europe. In Russia there is a slightly different system. With less formalities. That's what my question is about.

Are you writing a letter or an email? If you're worried about someone ignoring your communication, a physical letter might be better. Better still, find a professor who is already working in the same area as you; if they're already interested in the technology they won't need convincing of its importance.

@NatalieHogg thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely opt for the letter.

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Should I add a co-author?
I am a Phd candidate. I'm writing a journal paper that is, in part, a review of the current regulatory landscape use of a particular technology.
Sarah is involved with an unconnected voluntary project which has been funded by a charity to use the technology, with a condition that the learning from the project is shared publicly. Sarah's correspondence with the regulator is very relevant to the paper I am writing, as they are charting new territory, but she is reluctant to share information as she is starting a consultancy business on the back of her experience with the project.
I think this information should be in the public realm (as did the charity who funded the project), so I want to find a pragmatic approach to getting it out there. Also, although the information would only make a small part of the content, my paper would be incomplete without it.
In other circumstances I would interview her for the information and acknowledge her contribution to the paper; there are others whose experiences I have written about in a simialar way and acknowledged in this way.
But in this case, I am considering offering Sarah a co-authorship on the paper in exchange for the information. I would be the lead author; Sarah would be added after my supervisors.
Is this an ethical / appropriate use of co-authorship?   Sarah's contribution to the paper would be small, and perhaps not normally worthy of a co-authors credit, but without it the paper would be incomplete.

As you wrote,

Sarah's contribution to the paper would be small, and perhaps not normally worthy of a co-authors credit, but without it the paper would be incomplete.

The recommendation is to add her to the authors of the paper. I think that little things would be the gem of your work versus the similar works and you don't neglect the small valuable information with her experiences through working with the technology.
Moreover, adding Sarah as a co-author doesn't reduce the impact of the paper, but it also promotes the validity of your work.

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Journal review failure
I submitted a review paper to a well-regarded A* journal 9 months ago. After about 6 weeks, I received a request for revisions. The email contained general comments from 3 reviewers and an attached sheet of detailed comments from one of them.
Unfortunately, two of the reviews clearly referred to one or more different papers; none of the comments were relevant to my article. This included very specific comments, such as spelling mistakes on a particular page, that made it clear the reviewer was reading another article. The third reviewer's comments were so general that, honestly, they could apply to almost any article, with comments such as "The paper needs editing for language and grammar" and "the references can be updated and expanded". I don't think the third reviewer's comments referred to my paper either (it was written and edited by 3 native English speakers and the language and grammar are pretty good) but cannot be 100% certain.
I emailed the editor to point out the mistake. I emailed the journal and received a reply to say my email had been passed to the editor. Time passed. I emailed again. And again. All my communications were extremely polite, thanking the editor for considering my article, explaining the confusion and requesting the correct reviewers' comments. There was no reply.
I contacted a colleague who is on the editorial board of the journal. He wrote 3 emails to the editor and received no response.
In desperation, I revised the paper, updating some statistics and adding a few more recent references. As much as was possible, I responded to the reviewers' comments as if they applied to the paper. I wrote a detailed response to the comments, explaining where they didn't apply and outlining the revisions. I resubmitted the paper.
It is too early to have receieved a response yet. However, I have 2 questions:
1) If I get no response now, what other action is available to me? I think the behaviour of the journal has been pretty bad. What recourse do I have? The nature of the article means there is no obvious alternative journal to submit to.
2) If the revised manuscript is accepted, it will be published as a peer-reviewed article without having been peer reviewed. What are the ethics of this and doesn't it make a mockery of the peer-review process?

Yeah some of that isn't so unusual. Now that I think about it the worst examples of bad reviewers have come from the highest-impact journals I've submitted to; the reviewer who went off on my use of the oxford comma; the one(s) who denied the validity of undergraduate-level mathematical fundamentals; the one who I'm pretty sure has a severe vision problem (speaking of which, did you provide the double-spaced single-column version?) and stuff like that.

But at least they looked at your paper! ;-)

My point is, while all of those examples you noted may support the big picture of a system meltdown, many (most?) of them may actually just be "innocent" crappy reviews confusing the issue further. I've also had reviewers dismiss my manuscript as plagued by grammatical errors, based on only two errors or so.

Nah. I have thought that many times, and re-read the reviewers' comments to make sure. As I say, the third review could possibly, at a stretch, be refering to my paper. But the other 2 definitely are not. One starts: "The paper is a review of x in country y", while the paper bears NO relation to x and doesn't mention y. The second is very specific: "The word x is misspelt on page y", "Figure a on page b is captioned incorrectly" where I have not used the word x, there is no figure a, etc. There is no question in my mind that at least 2 of the reviews were written for diffent paper (s).

This sounds like an incredible botch-up, to the degree that it has me seriously questioning whether the journal you submitted to is the one that you believe it is.
Most reputable journals now use paper-handling and review systems that are highly automated, such that it would be extremely difficult to get a paper attached to the wrong reviews (like, beyond incompetence and into active interference with the systems). One reviewer sending in the wrong review I can see---two that are clearly referring to the same wrong paper is unlikely to happen unless something much deeper has gone wrong.
At this point, the appropriate course of action is not dealing with this handling editor any more, but escalating to the editor(s) in chief (EIC).  They should be responsive and able to sort this out quickly.
If you do not get a satisfactory response out of the journal leadership within a week, I would start to wonder whether you are really dealing with the journal that you think that you are. The behavior that you are describing sounds more like that of a predatory publisher: sometimes journal websites are hijacked or reasonable people (like your colleague, assuming you trust them) are tricked into supporting predatory enterprises with names designed to sound almost identical to reputable ones.  It is also the case that journals, like any other organization, sometimes collapse and fail, and it is possible that you might be witnessing the last stand of a formerly respectable institution.
In any case, if you don't get a satisfactory response from the EIC within a week, I would suggest withdrawing your paper and sending it to a different and more trustworthy publication venue. But first, if your field allows it, publish a preprint somewhere like arXiv as a precaution against possible plagiarism or refusal to accept your withdrawal.

I upvoted but I think some of your conclusions are premature, e.g. a predatory journal is not likely to take six weeks to provide three reviews, especially if some of them are detailed reviews (even if they're for the wrong paper). The journal publisher is also not likely to say "we've forwarded your email to the editor", and besides there's no indication this is an OA paper. I agree with the suggestion though - escalate to the EiC.

All my correspondence has been to the EIC, as he was handling the paper according to the website. Part way through this process, a new EIC was appointed and I continued my one-sided correspondence with her. This is a highly reputable journal in my field, there is no question of that. I presume the mix up is at the journal rather than with the individual reviewers.

If your correspondence is with the EIC and you are certain you are dealing with a good journal, I would still withdraw, giving a clear statement of why. Bungling at this level and refusal to fix it taints the whole review process, and if they can't fix it, I would reconsider their reputation. Maybe requesting to withdraw will get their attention and they will fix things. If it doesn't, I still say you are better off taking your work elsewhere.

As a longtime academic editor, I find that your experience is all too common and very, very frustrating. It may be related to the fact that reviewers aren't paid for their work or that journal editors are just too busy to oversee each submission.
Are you sure there is no other possible journal for you to submit to? That would be my first recommendation, given your shabby treatment.
Regarding your second question, I advise letting go of your ethical concern. Yes, the peer-review process for both articles and books is a mockery. It's much worse for books, given their greater length and what's involved in revising them to please sloppy reviewers. You can't do much about that mess. Since you didn't create it, you have no personal ethical responsibility here.

I strongly disagree with your statement "Since you didn't create it, you have no personal ethical responsibility here."  I think that we have ethical responsibilities even when somebody else is behaving badly---and that is in fact the time when ethics matter most.

The question was, "If the revised manuscript is accepted, it will be published as a peer-reviewed article without having been peer reviewed. What are the ethics of this and doesn't it make a mockery of the peer-review process?"

The question was, "What are the ethics of this and doesn't it make a mockery of the peer-review process?" Ethics always matter, or course. I phrased my answer as I did because the poster is up against entrenched systemic problems and I don't think the poster can influence this system. But if, as others have suggested, the wrong reviews were accidentally attached to the paper, that's a different case entirely. Still, the poster did everything possible to alert the editor to the error but got no reply. I think the poster has made sufficient effort to correct the problem.


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How best to increase the reach of conference proceedings / papers?
I am helping to organise a conference which has been running for a number of years. Conference papers are peer-reviewed by a well-respected review committee and the conference has a good reputation and attendance within the country. However, papers from the conference are rarely cited, don't rank highly in google scholar searches, aren't included in Scopus. For for example, my papers from this conference are read and cited less than some of my (frankly, lower quality) papers from other conferences.
We are exploring ways to increase the reach and citations of the conference papers.
Currently, the conference proceedings have an ISBN but are just published on our own website. We are exploring the option of publishing the proceedings as a special edition of a journal, but this is unlikely to happen this year.
Would it help if we assign DOIs for each paper and/or the conference proceedings? Does it matter which?
How do we improve search rankings on google scholar?
How can we get the proceedings included in scopus?
What else can we do to increase our reach?

This is understandable if the conference attracts only a small number of people and all are focused on some small area of research. If the community itself is fairly closed it will be harder to get visibility outside its boundaries.

We get good attendance (as stated) and it has broad scope (indeed much more so than other conference I mentioned which has higher visibility). The issue is getting visibility outside the country.

If the conference doesn't have a reputation to begin with, its papers will not get read as much. To get a higher rank on Google Scholar, the papers simply need to be cited more. I don't think there's any other factor that affects the Scholar ranking? Getting the papers listed by Scopus (or some similar database relevant for your field) should help, if it's worth the effort. Other than that, I don't know if there is much you as an organiser can do. I'd say it's more up to the authors to "market" their papers -- e.g., make their peers want to cite them, put them on arXiv, ResearchGate, etc.

Anonymity is generally a good thing, but this sort of question would probably not suffer from naming the conference or at least the research subject. Answerers familiar with the community, with the specifics of publishing in your field, and with Google Scholar SEO might then tell you specifically what you are doing wrong (if anything).

I think the main limitations are  the national character of the conference and the fact that the papers don't appear in well cited journals.

@Alchimista "the fact that the papers don't appear in well cited journals" Does not apply to all fields; in some fields (within computer science and electrical engineering) papers from good conferences' proceedings get cited as much as papers in good journals.

Realistically, the main thing to increase the probability of the papers coming out of your conference being taken seriously is to:

Convince a professional organization such as ACM, IEEE, or USENIX (to provide some examples for Computer Science, your field will surely have similar organizations) to print the proceedings and include them in their digital libraries (if existing), or
Partner with a reputable journal to print your proceedings as some recurring special issue, or
Have a really high-prestige organizing committee back your conference and vouch for the quality of papers.

In short, you will, unfortunately, need to piggyback on the prestige of some other entity (a publisher, a journal, or a bunch of well-known individuals) to get your proceedings off the ground.
To answer your specific suggestions:

Would it help if we assign DOIs for each paper and/or the conference proceedings? Does it matter which?

DOIs are cheap, and even many spam- or borderline-spam journals happily assign DOIs. I can't imagine this being seen as a seal of quality.

How do we improve search rankings on google scholar?

IIRC search rankings on Google Scholar are a combination of citations and match of the paper to the search query. I don't think there is much leeway to game the system (aside from citing previous papers in the conference, of course - but thinking this thought through to its natural conclusion quickly ends up in rather unethical practices).

How can we get the proceedings included in scopus?

I have little knowledge about Scopus given its low relevance to Computer Science in my area, but to the best of my knowledge they don't index proceedings at all?

I should also say that nowadays the barrier for national conferences (and if I understood your question correctly yours sounds like a national conference) to be taken seriously as a prime publication venue is extremely high. There is an abundance of international meetings to choose from, and most researchers choose those to publish their novel and exciting new results. National conferences are really meetings, first and foremost, not places to publish new results. Some of the more prominent national meetings in Computer Science have moved away from printing proceedings altogether, and focusing on what a conference should arguably be about in the first place - to present and discuss ideas and previous work, not to publish new results.

For point 1: There are serious disadvantages to professional society sponsorships for conferences outside the United States, despite the increase in visibility. Fortunately there are other alternatives like Dagstuhl’s LIPIcs series.

Thanks @xLeitix, this is helpful. It's a regional, rather than national conference, and does have some participantion from outside the region, but your point stands, and I think partnering with IEEE or similar may be the way forwards, though it does look as if SCOPUS indexes some proceedings so may be worth persuing....

@doctorer I answered the question as you posed it, but really you should think about whether your regional conference needs highly cited proceedings? What goal are you trying to achieve with this? Does your field / your region need another highly competitive publication venue? Or does the meeting better serve the regional community if it is more inclusive, training- and discussion-oriented (for which competitive selection is arguably detrimental)?


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If you enter a PhD program with an MA, are you a 1st year or 3rd year?
This is fairly inconsequential, but I'm not sure how people typically count years for graduate studies. In my case, having an MA means that I have fewer years to do in the PhD program. This is physically my first year at this particular university, but would I technically say I'm a 3rd year still?
Edit: This would be at a university in the US, although in my case, my MA was done in Canada.

Was your MA done at the same institution?

In what country? In most places a Master's degree is a pre-requisite for a PhD.

... but more importantly: does it really matter?

Why are you asking, is there something you're only eligible for in you nth year?

If I go back for a second PhD, would I start as a 7th year? Seems strange.

It doesn't much matter and there are no practical implications that I have in mind. I'm asking purely out of curiosity and maybe to reduce my slow response whenever someone asks which year I'm in. As I said in the question, it's fairly inconsequential.

This does indeed seem quite inconsequential, but usually first year would imply that it's the first year you're enrolled in graduate studies at that particular institution, or even a given program. In my experience, phrases like "first year, but I came in with a masters" get used if there's a need to make that distinction.

I'd add that if someone said they're a third year student, I'd expect them to know where to get whiteboard markers, how to use the printer, departmental folklore, which courses are good, etc. Obviously, these are things you don't learn from doing a masters elsewhere.

@Thomas Yeah, that's a good point. There's always someone who will surprise you though...

Yes, of course, not everyone gets to know the place. The point is that, in my understanding, "being a third-year student" corresponds to having spent at least two years at the current institution, as opposed to being a student generally. For example, suppose I you say you're a third-year student and then I ask you where the nearest stapler is. If you respond with "I don't know, I'm new around here", then I will think you misled me by saying you're a third-year student.

This may also depend on your program. For example, where I did my PhD, coming in with a Masters (usually an MPH rather than an MA) didn't actually get you much of a "boost". Those that came in with Masters were in the same classes I was (I entered with a BA) and their time-until-graduation was roughly similar.
In that context, "Third Year" would imply several things about their progress in both coursework and various administrative milestones that weren't true.


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As a US citizen, can I work for my Canadian university without a study permit from the US?
This is probably a fairly unique situation and I'm not sure if it's appropriate to ask here, but I'm currently finishing up my master's at a university in Quebec, but I no longer live in Quebec as I have no more classes to take and I'd rather be in the US for various reasons. My thesis advisor, however, wants to contract me as a research assistant for work that I can do even while I'm in the US.
The problem is that my study permit expired about a month ago and I'm not sure he'll be allowed to contract me unless I have a permit, even though I don't need the permit to finish up my degree since I'm not actually living in the Canada. I can probably renew the permit, but now that the expiration passed, it would cost me $350, which is hard to swallow considering that that would take up the first two weeks of pay.
So, are study permits required in this situation? Is there another type of permit I could get instead? Do I need a permit at all since I won't be stepping foot in Canada?
(I would call CIC directly to ask about this, but for some reason their 800 number does not accept calls from the US. I have not been able to find any way to directly contact CIC from the US.)

Without a study or work permit they might not be able to pay you. If you check http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/work/apply-who-nopermit.asp under "Short-term researcher", you might be eligible to work for up to 4 months without a work permit, but you would need to check this. The best place to contact is probably the Canadian Embassy or Consulate closest to your location.

OP, in paragraph two, did you mean "since I'm not actually living in Canada"?

Employing someone who lives and works outside the employer's country creates a load of issues. Which set of laws apply to e.g. overtime? How are taxes handled? Which currency? It is possible that your university will not want to deal with those issues, and will only employ people living in Canada.

Has the university got an "international office" or something of the kind?  They are likely to be well informed on such matters and might be more helpful than the government agency.


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Can I add a poster session to my CV if I wasn't there but had my name on it?
I worked on research that was presented as a poster session at a conference. However, I was not the first author and didn't attend the conference, but my name was on the poster. Is it still okay to list the session on my CV?
(I'm aware that poster sessions are not a big deal, but I'm very early in my research career, and I did real work on this project, so I'd like to be able to take some credit for collaborating as long as it's ethical to do so.)
Update: Since the field seems to be an important factor, this would be in linguistics.

This might depend on the field. In computer science, for example, conferences are more than just "get togethers" and serious research is often first presented there and might be published only in proceedings. In such a case it would be good for a young researcher, especially a student, to list poster presentations on a CV.
As you say, it isn't just the "presentation" that is important. It is the work that went into the research behind it. If there is no other publication of that research at present, list it, but be clear.
I've learned some interesting things walking through poster sessions and talking to students about their research. It was the research that was important, not whose face I was looking at.

Especially in CS, it's not the poster (the large, colourful, eye-catching and comprehensive thing that can be put on a wall) or its presentation (one of the authors saying something about the content of the poster), but the "poster abstract" (a very short paper-like document, e.g. 2 pages) that is important and that might appear in some proceedings - main or separate for the poster session - and coupd/should be cited, at least as long as there is no more detailed paper on a topic available.

In my field (neuroscience, would probably also apply elsewhere in biology and medicine), posters count far less than papers but are still a concrete way to demonstrate progress on a research project. Posters are often drafts of papers so reporting a poster suggests you will be an author on a future publication (with all the caveats of the work not being peer reviewed yet understood by any professor).
For an early career person like a grad school applicant I would definitely list these. The typical way is to have a separate section listed "abstracts" or "poster abstracts" and then cite the abstract including author list, title, and venue. Your presence as a middle author would suggest you were involved in the project but not the presenter so no need to clarify or explain your presence or absence at the conference.

As Bryan and Buffy stated, it can depend on the field and I won't go into that for my answer. I would add a bit to Buffy's answer regarding where you are in your career. If you're a tenured professor, then it probably doesn't make much difference whether you have it on your CV or not--publications matter more anyways. But if you're a graduate student or post-doc who's about to enter the job market, then I would ask the question of "why would you not??"
For junior scholars, poster sessions can have multiple implications beyond just presenting research findings. It can be a sign that you're active in the research community, working with collaborators on their projects, and/or disseminating findings to a wider audience than the ones who read the journal that you publish your work in, even if you're not the one who presented the findings.
It can also often times be the case that the one presenting the work is not actually the one who had the lead role in the project. For instance, you can be the PI of a large project and have one of your students or research assistants go present the findings to not only give them exposure to the academic environment but also to disseminate findings without having to sacrifice money, time, and effort on your part (perhaps you don't have travel funds or have teaching obligations and can't physically make it to the conference). In this regard, the program of research is headed by you, and presumably, you played a role in the creation of the poster, so why not receive credit for it where credit is due?
Graduate students and post-docs also often times list poster presentations that their students did on their own CVs. In the long run, this doesn't help them in advancing their own career (i.e., no one's going to get a lifetime achievement award for only successfully sending a bunch of undergrads to conferences). However, in the short run for those looking for their first professor position, having a successful track record of your students presenting at conferences can be a good sign of being an active mentor (which can be a quality that hiring committees may value).
But again, in the long run, it may not be worth it to put it on your CV if there's no benefit to career progression.

I wouldn't.  If you physically made the poster, maybe.  But even then, I would probably pass.
Consider, do you expect to list every talk where your name is written as one of the researchers but your advisor presents the work?  Even if you did the slides for him, I wouldn't bother.
I don't think that section on your CV is so much for written work.  (That's where the publications go in.)  Meetings/presentations is to show that you attended and presented and interacted and learned something.  If anything, maybe it's a fair implication if you haven't been to any meetings, that you are not yet a full member of the community.  Fine, try to travel more towards the end of your Ph.D.  And yes, funding and advisor sensibility can affect this.  But still, it is a rational (imperfect) indicator that people look at to see how much you are a grown scientist.
P.s.  Here's an idea though if you want to buff that meeting/presentation part up, but don't have the budget to go to ACS for a week.  Do some "lunch talks" or the like at companies, national labs, FFRDCes, etc. that are in your geographic vicinity.  It will at least be an external audience.  And honest, sometimes these interactions are more fun than a several thousand people mega conference.  Get a plant tour, network for jobs, learn some applications of your work, even get a consulting gig (at least in the future).

I would add OP can mention that s/he coauthored x posters at international conferences. For a young researcher, this information might be neglected but shouldn't do anything negative.


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Is it common for community colleges in the US to have IRBs?
I'm coming to the end of my PhD in a social science field, and given the unlikelihood of landing a research-oriented position at really any university, I'm finding myself in the position of having to come to terms with what it might mean to take a less-than-ideal position given that my main interest in academia is doing research. One thing I'm not sure of is whether I could still do research at all if I had to settle on something as non-research-centered as a community college position. I assume the major hurdle, other than lack of time, would be not having an IRB to approve research plans. However, I've searched generally online and found that at least some community colleges in the US (where I am) do in fact have Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). Is this something I could expect to find at many community colleges or is it just an oddball thing that a few might have?

This is a fine question, but you seem to be coming to it as an x-y question. There are several questions about IRB approval without affiliation with a university;  e.g. Where can I go to get IRB approval?, Independent Research and institutional review boards?, Non-profit organization, IRB Approval, and publishing?, How can I get human-subjects approval from a nearby university?

Like the answers to those questions describe, commercial or independent review boards are an option, that would presumably be on the table also for researchers at community college. Thus funding to pay their fees may be a larger hurdle.

Why do you need IRB approval? I'm familiar with all sorts of reasons it might be a good idea, and even more reasons that institutions would want to mandate them, but why do YOU need an IRB?

Thanks for the links @Anyon. Those are different questions because they assume that one is not part of an educational institution that might have an IRB. IRBs in such institutions are obviously preferable as they don't have the huge conflict of interest that comes up from being both the financer and submitter to a private IRB.

@fectin It would likely be much harder to both publish and obtain research grants if I lacked access to an IRB.

Right. So then you're going to need to look at the specific requirements you're trying to comply with. HHS registration vs certification, FDA requires your institution to take certain actions, etc. There is likely not a simple answer for IRBs in general, so you'll really want to be more specific.

This might actually be better for your research as this would allow you to do IRB shopping, minimizing the amount of time spent on pointless bureaucracy.

I'll sketch out an example where I teach. CUNY (City University of New York) includes seven community colleges, eleven senior colleges, and seven professional institutions. Among those, the Graduate Center counts as an R1 research facility.
Faculty employment is aligned throughout the greater institution, so tenure-track staff even at the community colleges have a research requirement (in addition to somewhat increased teaching load). Therefore, standing IRBs service the entire organization. Over a decade ago, every campus had its own IRB; in 2011 these were consolidated into 5 University Integrated IRBs, with 19 on-site HRPP (Human Research Protection Program) offices to facilitate the work.
My shaky understanding is that this is, overall, an unusual structure. So if you're interested in pursuing research at a community college then you might look for employment at a broader institution like ours.

Thanks for this answer. I had the thought that some community colleges might be associated with a larger network of schools that share an IRB like this.

I think the tight coupling within CUNY is rare, maybe unique for US. In the states that I've had experience with (including NY) the community college system is completely separate from the state colleges and the teaching and research universities may be separate from each other as well.

@buffy There is no tight coupling by default. Each institution is responsible for its own IRB review. They can decide to cooperate with other institutions.

Are the 5 IRBs topic specific, eg, one for medicine, one for other health, one for education, etc? Or do they all review any proposals, to speed up the review process?

@DavidSmith: I'm not sure, as I don't directly interact with them myself. Scanning the HRPP link above, there's no sign of subject-specialization. It looks maybe there's 3 currently active, 2 staggered meeting monthly each, and a 3rd (#5) to handle expedited requests continuously.

I think the only way to find out is to do what you're doing and research specific schools. As far as I know it isn't common for community colleges to have IRB's or really support research at all. It makes sense, at least to me. There are no grad students (there aren't even upper level students), most professors there are not necessarily interested in or experienced with research, and the programs are often focused on "practical" 2 year degrees rather than just serving as an inexpensive bridge to university. So let's reframe your question away from Do CC have IRB's? to How do I get IRB approval (or do research) at a CC?.
I think your best bet might be to collaborate with a local university that has an IRB. Finding collaborators there might get you 90% of what you want. Depending on university specific rules, you might need a "sponsor" within the org, or you might be able to just submit to the IRB (less likely but not impossible). If that doesn't pan out, there are probably research focused professional organizations may offer connections/support in this realm. An alternative option would just be to not do research that requires an IRB (at least until you can move somewhere that has an in-house IRB).

There are both nonprofit and commercial IRBs. One of them might review a proposal for a reduced fee or no fee. A nearby small college or university might act similarly. A community college can enter into an agreement with another institution and might want to either do that or start their own IRB if the college has Federal funding.

3rd party IRB's are worth looking into. However, I don't know how realistic starting an IRB or setting up a institutional relationship is for the OP. Those are options that seem far fetched for the average new grad.


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First time being in an applied math lab - what are some tips to overcome shyness?
This will be my first semester in an applied math lab.  After spending a couple of years taking all theoretical math courses, essentially working in isolation the entire time, and finishing a thesis, essentially only interacting in person with my advisor, I will now be part of a group doing some experimental work for a semester.  We are expected to write journal-style papers (not too long, less than 10 pages), following a journal of the professor's choice.
I found this setting to be extremely uncomfortable.  I felt that I was the only one who had to ask things such as, "what is viscosity?."
What are some tips to overcome this feeling of holding myself back from having an active dialogue with my lab professor?  How did you guys do it, when you first started at a lab?  I feel utterly inept with interacting in a group setting.
The professor is super cool and very informal and speaks very intuitively, so as not to scare off the first-timers, I think.

Take your time and listen. Given that you are new to applications, you probably will have a lot to learn. Write down a list of things you do not understand, sort them by priority, ask the most important 1-2, google the rest until you get a feeling how the group works.

What do you feel the root problem is? Is it that you are shy socially with lab members, or just academically? If it's the latter, then your lab must be applying math to some topic, so start reading to get a general idea about the non-math topics. Over time you'll start to speak fluently in your research area.

My answer to this question on shyness might give you some pointers. Other answers there, as well, of course.  Introversion in academics is quite common.

Since you are asking about viscosity, there must be some kind of fluid dynamics in your lab. Schaum's Outline of Fluid Dynamics is quite useful as it has worked out problems.
If you have actively avoided all social situations, never asked a question in class, or even had lunch with a fellow student, then perhaps you need to investigate resources at your institution to help overcome your extreme shyness. This will be a significant problem for you in the future - regardless of whether you stay in academia - if you don't take care of it now. Don't wait until you get older.

You're probably right about fluid dynamics, but "viscosity term" is sometimes used in mathematics to mean a term inserted into a differential equation to improve the behavior of the solutions (e.g., to prevent the formation of shocks). In fluid dynamics, such terms arise from genuine viscosity, but the terminology is used more generally. (After getting well-behaved solutions by means of artificial viscosity terms, one can let those terms approach 0 and hope that the solutions approach something meaningful.)


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What is the consequence of not mentioning an in-text citation in Bibliography
I have recently submitted a paper to a reputed Wiley Journal. I have used in-text citations in the main body, with all references alphabetically arranged at the end of paper in a bibliographical section. Few hours after submitting the paper, I realized that I have not mentioned one, single in-text citation in the Bibliography, i.e. I have named the source (Author, year and page no.), in the main body, but I have not mentioned the complete name and details in the Bibliography, which is an unintentional formatting error. How will this effect my paper's review and publication prospects?

Are you doing this manually or using citation management software? I highly recommend using citation management software if you are not yet familiar with it.

A reviewer might point it out, and, either way, you get to fix it later in the publishing process.

It is unlikely that it will affect the review, and not especially likely that it will be noticed. But you will have a chance to make a correction/addition before publication.
Few papers are published exactly as first submitted (by reputable journals, anyway) and most go through one or more edit phases.
You can mention it to the editor if you like, but for now there is little to do or to worry about.

I have mentioned it to the Editor, and have also e-mailed the missing reference, along with the position where it is to placed. Would that be helpful?

Should be fine. Don’t worry.


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I'm a little embarrassed by the research of one of my recommenders
Staying vague for the sake of anonymity.
I am applying for jobs and PhDs post-masters and I am in a bit of a dilemma.
Basically, I worked very closely with a professor over the last year who I am confident will say very positive things about me on an application, but whose research I am worried will make potential hiring committees a little cautious. The jobs I am applying for are in 'hard-nosed' empirical policy fields whereas this professor has a very strong 'leftist/postmodernist' emphasis.
I chose to keep working with them because they are very kind, the job was on a well regarded research program, there were limited RA positions at my university and it paid well. The wider area of the research is very topical in the current academic/political landscape and I found learning about it to be really interesting. I think I was able to own the parts of the research I had control over, learn the topics and the academic landscape well and I generally feel proud of this work, however I was never quite intellectually invested in many parts of the research which I ultimately found to be kind of 'light-weight'. I also didn't want to push back on the professor out of deference for their authority.
In my apps, I've been able to 'spin' my descriptions of the work by focussing on my specific contributions which are in line with the kinds of jobs I am applying for, but I am worried that listing this professor as a reference won't 'read' well and might undermine the real experience I think I have gained. On the other hand, this is a large and recent part of my resume and touches on an area that many employers are interested in. The professor is really pleased with my work so I know I will get a good rec.
I am interested in what y'all have to say about this. How likely is it that potential employers will be thrown off if I list them?

Although the answers you've received here are sensible, this sort of thing can vary a lot by field and industry. If possible, it's always a good idea to bend the ear of someone with first-hand experience in the sort of role or career you're aiming for, and ask them nuanced questions like this.

I think you don't have any choice and shouldn't waste time thinking about what potential employers will think: you apply with the CV you have, not someone else's. Not getting a recommendation from a person you worked closely with will also hurt.
I think you have the right strategy identified: focus on your specific contributions, and this recommendation will be just one part of your broader application package. Importantly, it'll describe the researcher you are. If applying for a PhD, you can use your other application materials (like a "statement of purpose", if applicable) to be clear about what training steps you're expecting at your next stop. If those goals include getting more familiar with the "hard-nosed" side of your field, that to me shows maturity in an application. On the academic track, you're still early in your development.
I see a lot of people posting on this site with too much "playing the game" in mind as far as (in particular PhD) applications. A lot of the graduate application process is about finding a good fit, so people who play games with their applications may end up admitted somewhere, but they're admitted in a place that is the wrong fit for them: for example, they lied about their research interests and are now finding they can't do the research they actually wanted to do.

Thanks, this makes a lot of sense. Hard not to overanalyze these things, but you're right that it is ultimately a waste of time.

I think you're worrying too much about something that is a minor aspect of this reference.  The reference will ultimately be an evaluation of your own academic skills and contribution relating to your own work on the relevant courses/projects.  As you say, you have already emphasised that your own work is more empirical, etc., and if you get a supporting reference commenting positively on your work and skills then this should read well.
You're also probably misdiagnosing what quantitative/empirical academics think of academics in softer fields.  While there are differences in skills, approaches, and even levels of rigour of analysis, academics in leftist/postmodernist fields are still people who you would expect to have developed good core academic skills (e.g., literature review, research, writing, etc.) who can accurately assess the quality of a prospective PhD candidate.  Your typical postmodernist qualitative academic has strong academic skills (including some skills that are typically more developed than quantitative/empirical academics) and is a perfectly good reference for a budding PhD candidate.
I can't speak for others, but I am a rigorous quantitative guy who does math/stats research and is anti-leftist/postmodernist, but if I got a strong academic reference from an academic who is a leftist/postmodernist type, I would take that as strong evidence of good academic skills for the prospective student (or at least strong potential) and it would carry a lot of (positive) weight with me.

"The jobs I am applying for are in 'hard-nosed' empirical policy fields whereas this professor has a very strong 'leftist/postmodernist' emphasis"
In all hiring situations your chances of getting hired are best if you tailor your "descriptions of your work" to cater to the personal views of those on the hiring committee.
I'm sorry to sound so cynical about this but 99% of the people on hiring committees have NO real experience interviewing people, NOR do they have the "raw cynicism" you might say, to see though baloney.  And EVERY candidate is going to present baloney.  You admitted this yourself when you said you "spin" your descriptions.  Spinning means saying baloney.  Period.
99% of people "go with their gut" so any interview candidate who is skilled can use typical emotional appeal techniques to get a favorable view in most interviews.  You might have trouble getting away with that if the hiring committee consisted of, say, law enforcement officers who are used to people lying to them to their faces - but the average academic is not and will fall for it every time.  In fact, one of the rules of swaying people is that the more the person is convinced they are smarter than you - the easier it is to BS them.  And academics particularly those higher up are notorious in believing they can see through baloney.  The more they believe they can - the easier it is to pull a fast one on them.
So ignore the people telling you to "go with your gut" or other such nonsense and be hard-nosed about this.  When you get an interview setup - get the names of everyone on the hiring committee - read everything you can that they have published to figure out what they are like - and be sharp and get a bead drawn on their personalities during the initial minutes of the interview - and then cater to them.
If you have a committee of conservatives, then spin it like you were the one bringing order and reason to the leftist nonsense they are already going to be biased against - if you have a committee of leftists then spin it like you embraced the modernist philosophy.  Your job here is to get the employment offer - nothing else.  Once you have that in hand THEN you can decide if you will "fit" and enjoy working with them.  But until then - put your feelings and views in a bottle - they are irrelevant.  You are a salesperson at this point - nothing else.  So SELL yourself, dammit!  You WOULDN'T BE THERE if they weren't going to pay you!

"You might have trouble getting away with ['lying to their faces']...", "...the easier it is to BS them", "...the easier it is to pull a fast one on them" This answer might benefit from integrating some of the information from this reference. You appear to be unfamiliar with it.

My psychology is atypical, so (unless someone's particularly good at tailoring to people who think like me) I usually see through things like this. It's one of the few things that prejudices me against a candidate. The behaviour described in this answer is most likely to endear you to the sorts of people who employ such advice, and… do you really want to work in an environment like that?


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Approximate timeline for annals of maths journal?
For those who have published in the Annals of Mathematics, since there is no editorial manager, how long should one wait before emailing the editor?
Additionally, after how much time can one expect the manuscript to pass the editorial check and be sent out for review?

There are many other questions on this forum about when to email editors. The same guidance applies here.

I do think Annals of Mathematics is a BIT of a special case, as maybe the most selective journal in the subject where journals move the slowest. Since the nuances of the answer may be slightly unique, I'll go ahead and answer, but the mods should obviously feel free to delete the question if it's not deemed on-topic.

Relevant answers/threads: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/32769/17254 https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/122621/17254 https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/13604/17254

Fun tangent exercise: What is the probability that anyone here has something published in the Annals? Critically low, I presume.

@user1149748 Sure, but we can't have a question for the "most selective journal" in every subject, can we?

@user176372, ha! Yes, low probability, but some people who do care about giving good advice really do have the experience to back it up. :) For me, for what it's worth, a paper in the Annals, 2 in Inv. Math., 2 in Duke, 3 in Amer J., etc, ... maybe in easier, happier old times... :) I think quite a few people here really do have experience relevant to such questions... especially "older" people who still do have interest in trying to be helpful.

Math journals, in general, move slowly. The usual advice for a typical math journal is to email the editor after six months without any news.
I would double that length of time for the Annals. As perhaps the most selective math journal anywhere, it can get away with making people wait more.
As to your second question: in my observation, at the very top math journals (Annals/Acta/JAMS/Inventiones/IHES/Duke and a few others) the editorial check takes much longer and involves soliciting a LOT of quick opinions. Only after the board is agreed that the paper is important enough, do they send it out to referees to do a full review, with the goal of checking for correctness and fixing errors.
Other math journals have this same two-step process, of course, but the top journals put much more effort and time into the first step. The vast majority of submissions never make it past this first step, and therefore never get full reviews.

My rule of thumb, for math papers, in the days before the Internet, was: inquire after six months.


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Should I do anything about a recent article in a respected math journal that is not up to its usual standards?
A respectable journal with high standards recently published a (mathematical) article. I care about the topic deeply, so I had a look at the paper. In several parts, it is poorly written (the authors are not native speakers, but I'm unsure whether they are students). In my opinion, the results are definitely not substantial enough for the given journal (the same journal has both rejected and accepted my work). However, after fixing language errors, it would have been an OK publication for a lower-tier journal (in my opinion).
The following two facts raise my suspicions even more. First, the authors of the paper are from country X, and the paper was communicated by a person from country X as well. Further, the whole process (from "received" to "received in revised form") is only 3 months, and I wonder if enough time has been given to review the paper.
I know "bad papers" appear in "bad journals", and with these I don't bother. This time I'm wondering though: should I let anyone know, or just move on?

"Fishy" to you means "some language errors, and not substantial enough for this journal"? To me, "fishy" suggests "I suspect the results are invalid, serious methodological problems, possible falsification of results", etc. Maybe there's a better adjective..

Maybe "Should I do anything about a recent article in a respected math journal that is not up to its usual standards?" would be a better title.

@ff524 Excellent suggestion, fixed!

My personal (and to some extent professional) opinion is that there is not much constructive that you can do, but that you are probably far from alone in your feelings. Even if other people don't know the area in question they will almost surely have similar stories in their area. So I would advise moving on, but to keep this in mind, especially if you later find yourself asked to recommend any of these people as referees for articles.

This is not surprising.  I also have the same thoughts as you many times. I put more emphasis on who the authors are when gauging quality.  I know authors who regularly churn out top notch stuff; I weight their brand name higher than a journal's reputation.  Reviewers on the other hand is a mixed bag. It depends on who is free, the area/topic, and their desire to ensure only high quality papers are published; of course, there are dodgy things like being more lenient to authors from the same country or an acquaintance and indeed, if the author is famous, then some reviewers turn a blind eye.

Also think of it this way.  If you are lucky enough to put out garbage in a top journal/venue, it means more people will know you produce rubbish.

I could not find how the results or publication quality depends on a country. Is it not a baseless argument? 3 months is okay ( considering ideal cases), everything was quick enough.

You could consider "doing something about it" if the article was indeed questionable in terms of its science,  i.e., if the data seems fabricated or you find faults in the proofs. Finding that this article's contribution is not exciting  enough or minor language issues almost certainly do not qualify. How substantial the results of a given paper are is rather vague and subjective, and spelling errors almost certainly are not grounds for retraction. The best you can hope for, in my mind, is a corrigendum of the spelling errors.
You should also keep in mind how your supplemental arguments will appear to an outsider:

the authors of the paper are from country X, and the paper was communicated by a person from country X as well

First of all, this is not "suspicious" as it happens all the time. Further, and this is the big concern,
replace "country X" with "the United States", and see if you would still find this suspicious. With concerns like that, it is very easy to be perceived as judgemental or downright racist, so I would be extremely cautious in following this line of argumentation any further.

the whole process (from "received" to "received in revised form") is only 3 months, and I wonder if enough time has been given to review the paper.

We all know that the review process is capricious. While 3 months is certainly well below my average review time, it's not outrageous to assume that the paper had the usual number of reviewers, all the reviews were returned reasonably quickly (in one to two months) and found the paper acceptable, and the authors only had to do minor changes for the revision. While most manuscripts don't go through as easily, this does not appear particularly suspicious either.

You are absolutely correct with the remark regarding country X; this is only a "gut feeling" that I have developed (I also know of several excellent people from X), and I would not mention it in any official correspondence. It could also be my initial reaction stems from my own bitterness: "how come they accepted such a paper, but not mine?!" After a bit more thinking, perhaps the right action is to do nothing or spend time to go through the proofs (although sloppily written), and find concrete flaws (if any). (cont'd).

If there are no errors, I simply must conclude I personally don't like the paper, but others did, and that's the end of it. Maybe I can also regard this is a sign of the journal lowering its standards, but of course, I am free to submit where-ever I wish in the future.

@user68231 I think this is exactly how you should treat this case.

@user68231 Indeed. And, in my field, I know people that did not like a topic (they thought it not very valuable) and now it's the "hot" thing. The quality of a paper is multidimensional and perhaps you may overlook dimensions in which it is relevant. Of course, nepotism (which may be what your suspicion is about) exists, but frankly, it is up to the editors to protect their journal's reputation. Of course, if you find a direct and objective flaw, you can report/comment/publish.

As the academic system works, you may have much more to lose than to gain. I know that the math people love (in-) fighting. But it's much better for your career to make friends rather than enemies...
So for the sake of your career: lots of bad papers get published - ignore it, and move on. It's their problem if the paper is below quality standards. It's their reputation that suffers.
If there is an actual error, and the journal has the option of 'letters', then you can write up the analysis of the error and try to get that published ad an addendum. But don't spend much time on this - nobody reads them, and nobody cites them.


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Is it likely that American Mathematical Monthly would eventually accept a Filler article if it asks for substantial re-writing?
The email with the initial review says the Filler has "some promise" , but says the writing is poor , and asks for detailed revisions for "further consideration". I'm not particularly keen on spending a lot of time re-writing and correcting the pedantic details, if there is a substantial chance of rejection after that revision.

How is this off-topic? It is prefectly possible to answer, as Pete did, and it seems generalisable enough. Mathematics is not my field, but I would guess that there are more people trying to publish in this paper than just the op.

As mathematical journals go, the Monthly is actually quite selective: I believe their acceptance rate is something like 10%.  For the majority of the papers submitted, the answer is a hard "no."  For instance, I have submitted five papers to the Monthly and three of them were accepted.  For the other two, the rejection was very clear -- they sure did not say "some promise" or "further consideration," so when they say that I think they mean it.
The other thing to know about the Monthly is that they are extremely picky about exposition.  They care so much more about that than any other math journal I know.  Just a few hours ago I received a rejection from a prestigious journal, which described my paper as "very nicely written." The point being that they noticed but didn't really care: they want to publish papers with amazing breakthroughs.  The Monthly is not like that: they take the style about as seriously as the content.  And though indeed I think of myself as as strong, experienced writer, all three of my accepted Monthly articles required massive, repeated expository revisions.  They are really tireless: if after five times you haven't gotten it right, they will ask for a sixth revision.  (This is not an exaggeration.)
A "Filler" is of course much shorter than an article: obviously it can be no longer than a page.  The amount of expository work per line is probably going to be higher than just about any other math piece you could write.  You say

I'm not particularly keen on spending a lot of time re-writing and correcting the pedantic details, if there is a substantial chance of rejection after that revision.

As I said above, I don't think they're stringing you along.  Based on the response you've gotten, I think you should expect that if you pay enough attention to the exposition, they'll probably take it in the end.  Do be aware though that we're talking about lots of work, for something that is not even going to be counted as an academic publication by most.  So if you really do not enjoy the writing process, you may end up feeling that the outlay of time and effort was not worth the reward.

Thank you very much for the answer. One of the comments that a reviewer made, suggests that he thinks that my proof does not deal with all possible cases of the problem, when in fact it actually does, and the confusion was likely borne out of my inadequate writing. I'm amused that they still thought it worthy, given they might have thought the proof was incomplete.

It turns out the initial review was just some review by their editorial board. They sent the revised version to two new referees, and both of them said this doesn't merit publication in AMM, and and they promptly rejected it.

@Aritro: I'm sorry to hear that.  Did the reviews explain to your satisfaction why the filler was not accepted?

Yes, one of them went into a lot of detail. The other one just said the manuscript was correct but not worthy enough.


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Paper in mathematics that proves a sub-optimal result
I am currently pursuing a PhD in an area of mathematical analysis. Recently I uploaded a result on arXiv where I somewhat improved a result from 40 years back in a question in smooth dynamics, a field different from my thesis subject.
In my limited interactions with experts in this field, demonstrating the existence of such a theorem with some parameters was considered important, and although the author clearly made an attempt to get the best possible parameter set for which the result holds, that in itself seemed to not be as important of a question.
A year back, by significantly extending this original author's methods, I improved the parameter set somewhat for which the result holds. This ended up taking a lot of effort, and I wondered while working on this, if I was only rediscovering what could already be known.
Recently, another paper appeared on the arXiv clearly improving my result significantly, proving what I ideally aimed to get but couldn't, building on some other papers that I was not aware of (probably leading back to an old result of Yakov Sinai).
While this is not in my thesis area and perhaps experts in my thesis area will not bother very much, does this still give any negative impression of my work in the academic job market (perhaps I should have done a more thorough literature search)? Also, does it give   a negative impression of me for experts in the subject area of this paper?

An independent citation in mathematics often, although not always, worth more than yet another paper.

If I understand the timeline correctly you improved a result that was 40 years old. And now this result was improved again after 1 year.
I would see this as a great accomplishment. Someone read your paper, thought it was interesting and relevant, and sat down to further improve it.

Actually, even though I completed the work a year back, I only put up the result on arXiv six months back, and the new preprint appeared just a few days back.

You advanced the field. That reflects positively upon you. The fact that someone advanced it beyond what you did reflects positively upon them. Credit is not a zero-sum game: Are the people who built the machinery that Andrew Wiles ended up using to prove Fermat's Last Theorem looking bad just because he, and not them, did the last step to prove the big result? Surely not -- they laid the stepping stones he walked on and now he, like Newton, can claim that if he was able to see further than others, it is only because he had been standing on the shoulders of giants.

The issue is, the correct stepping stones were laid out, are known to a small set of experts, whereas I effectively ended up reinventing the ( not fully complete) wheel. But it could be my methods could be useful in other related questions, which would be interesting to figure out.

@AritroPathak basically what I was going to say: whether your method was better than these other people’s or not, what you developed might still be useful to other people for other applications in the future. You never know who might adopt them. So long as it’s novel, you’ve still done valuable work

"Credit is not a zero-sum game"

Poincaré and Lorentz both came very close to discovering special relativity - so much so that some people claim they should get credit as co-discoverers of the theory. Similarly with Hilbert and general relativity.
Does that make these distinguished scientists look bad? Well, they missed out on the credit for discovering fundamental theories of nature. It’s certainly annoying to come close to an important discovery only to see someone else flesh it out in its full glory.
At the same time, scientific credit is, by and large, additive rather than subtractive: people care about what you did, not about what you didn’t do. That’s why Poincaré, Lorentz and Hilbert are still remembered for the many important discoveries that they did make (and even are seen as having made very important contributions to special and general relativity). Similarly, in your case, you can expect to receive fair credit for your improvement to the previously known result. The fact that it was subsequently improved upon by someone else may make you feel bad — trust me, it’s a feeling almost any researcher is familiar with — but it’s not something anyone is likely to hold against you in any way.

+1. Reading the first two paragraphs of the answer reminded me about a quote: "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer." I learned about the quote and many other similar remarks from the footnote #3 on page no. 98 from the book Algorithms by Prof. Jeff Erickson. Link. :)

@medium-dimensional That is called Stigler's law (though of course not what this post is about)

The fact that someone did better than you isn't a negative reflection on your work, actually. You may not get published if you don't currently have the best results unless your methodology is interesting enough on its own, independent of the new paper.
You might consider offering to collaborate with the other author(s) in further extending the work.
Much of math (all of math?) is insight driven. Perhaps you had (have) different insights than they do. Combining them can be synergistic and benefit everyone in the math community.
But I wouldn't take it as a negative. Even the best of us get passed eventually. That is a feature, not a bug.

Couldn't you just update your arxiv preprint with a remark in the introduction that when you uploaded this originally, you were not aware of papers W and X, which were used in the meantime to prove Y in preprint Z? So that people who read it know that you are aware of this now?
I don't think chances that the original preprint will affect your reputation are high; still a remark like this may reduce the already low chances even more.

Yes, I might make an update to the preprint, if and when it ever does get published, and make a note of this in this case. Making the point that perhaps the method which is very different, could have use in some other questions (some which I am trying to find).


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Short mathematics paper with a journal for 13 months
I submitted a short 10 page combinatorics paper with a couple of small results, to one journal, and got a rejection in 5 weeks with the referee stating he/she has read the entire paper and that the arguments are simple.
After this, I submitted this paper to another slightly lower tier journal without mentioning this prior submission, and it has been over 13 months. I contacted the journal's editorial staff (not anyone in the editorial board; there also doesn't seem to be an option to contact the editors directly through the submission portal) after 11 months and they said new referees had been invited then.
I do not consider this paper to have significant results, but would have hoped to have heard about this by now. The journal's online portal also doesn't give an option to withdraw the paper. In this instance, is it acceptable to contact the editor by email and request a decision soon?
Edit: There is another separate short and not very significant 11 page mathematics paper where I prematurely asked the handling editor 4 months after submission, about whether the paper is with a referee and the handling editor was very kind to get back to me stating the paper was with a referee. I sent him another request after 14 months and he apologized for the delay and said they are expecting a report 'within days'. A few weeks later I got a rejection with the referee in his review of a few lines basically only commenting on the first two lines of the abstract. This particular paper was a bit poorly written, however here there was seamless communication from the handling editor I was very grateful for, but even then the process didn't feel right in the end.
In such circumstances, beyond making sure the paper is written as well as possible, what recourse does the author have when the refereeing process seems to be taking a long time?
As an aside, it is a very different culture, but I regularly referee for one of the handful of respectable expository journals in Physics and the editors start to ask for a report within a few weeks, and it is not that I don't read entire short papers carefully while still being able to submit a report in a few weeks, except a rare instance where parts of the paper look very difficult to follow or not suitable for publication in which case I make it a point to let the authors know about it as soon as possible.

There are parts of pure mathematics where the culture appears to be so that it is considered acceptable for a journal to sit on papers for a year or longer. (I have my own opinion on whether I think that should be acceptable, but that is not the question here.) The consequence of this is that you likely don't have much recourse: You get your review when you get it because that's just how things work. Your recourse should be that you take on a leadership position in your community (such as becoming an editor) and advocate for the change you want to see -- though that might of course be a big ask.
I will note, a propos of the question though you did not actually ask about that, that you are spending mental energy on the fate of two papers for which you readily admit that they are not strong and possibly not well written. That's putting the effort in the wrong place. Spend that energy on working on things that you know are relevant, and on producing papers you can be proud of as far as the writing itself is concerned. There is, without a doubt, a correlation between how well a paper is written from a technical perspective (regardless of the strength of the underlying material) and acceptance rates: Well written papers tend to get accepted more easily than those that are written in a way that is a nuisance to readers. Make that your mantra: Submit a paper when it is the best you can do with it, and no earlier; you will see better results.

Yes, perhaps one should not spend too much time on papers that are not significant; but it is surprising that the journal that rejected it in 5 weeks could claim a referee who said he/she read the whole thing. After a lot of prodding the editor of this journal now said via his conduit that he is just trying to find referees and asked a third referee now, the second time being around the time of my enquiry after 11 months had passed. On hearing this I requested to withdraw the paper so that I could send to another journal which could take over the process of finding referees.


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Can my PhD main supervisor claim the "corresponding author" role for papers from my thesis even if he didn't provide much support during my study?
I graduated last year and is now a postdoc in another university. My current boss (who was also in my PhD supervision team, but not the main supervisor) encouraged me to publish parts of my thesis as a journal paper. I wrote the paper during working hours and my current boss gave me guidance and advice. My plan was to include others who were in the supervision team as co-authors and have my current boss as the corresponding author. However, my main supervisor was pissed off when he learnt about it. He said he should be the corresponding authors for all the papers from my thesis. Is what he said correct? Is it a must? Actually the main supervisor gave me minimal support during my study and I don't think he deserves to be the corresponding author. The funding for my study was provided by the government.

It's impossible for strangers on the internet to advise on authorship disputes.

Corresponding author is just a formality, it doesn't carry "this author has more merit".

@CapeCode I want to know the usual practice.

@Davidmh In our university it does.

@Davidmh: For some funders, fields, and similar, it does.

You got a stipend independent of who supports you as supervisor and gives you a funded project to work on?

@Karl Correct! My PhD project had nothing to do with any of the main supervisor's projects.

Rewrite the question. That is not clear. Especially who supervised the actual project which lead to this paper?

In general, no.
There might be exceptions, but those should have been communicated to you in advance by your supervisor, rather than after-the-fact.

One should have talked about this in advance, but the answer is of course YES. All authors have to agree on the manuscript, including the tiny aspect of who is "corresponding author".

@Karl Indeed, any of the listed authors of a manuscript can veto against its submission for any reason. But this question is specifically about whether the PhD supervisor has a special right to being listed as corresponding author.


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How to deal with bogus and unethical journals?how to stop unethical journals?
In research and publications there are database maintains good quality list of journals, Maintaining a reliable good impact factor too. But on the other side there are list of journals who publish anything for money. They give misleading information about their indexing and even some unbelievable Impact factors.
We find difficulty in publishing one quality paper in a quality journal .while the other hand there are people publishing plagriazed text and repetitive papers in regular way and just dumping the research papers in databases with such unethical journals. Its annoying for me to see these kind of habits been followed.
HOw could you handle such thing. Give our suggestions?
Avoiding is always better but you cant avoid when you see a man publishing 10's of papers for year with these kind of journals and you publishing papers in single digit but its a quality research.
comment name of such unethical journal

I don't understand the question. Since nobody forces you to submit your papers to a bogus or unethical journal, there is nothing that needs to be dealt with. Can you clarify?

I am not submitting. Is there any way to stop such unethical journals?

Ok, "how to stop unethical journals" is a valid question, I recommend that you edit your question accordingly. Concerning that question, my personal recommendation would be not to focus your efforts on that. There are simply too many of them, and nobody serious cares about the publications in those journals anyways.

you are right. Better to not care about them

Sounds more like a rant than a question.

This is a problem you should simply don't care about. Do good research and sooner or later it will be recognized.
People taking shortcuts will always exist and you cannot do anything against. Just ignore and go straight.

You said it right. Sad part is even the people in higher positions of an institution aren't aware of this and choosing this shortcut. That's annoying for me.

I agree and it often happened to me too. However bothering with the problem would take you any further. Better to bet on doing even better research, etc. You know, Latins were used to say "Those who know how to do things, just do those things. Those who do not know how to do things, they become boss. Those who do not know how to command, become politicians"...

Very well said proverb. It has deep meaning to get. Thank you

What can you do? Essentially, nothing. Neither the garbage journals nor the people who publish in them are, in general, doing anything illegal so nobody's really in a position to stop them. Delete the spam and get on with your life.
Bear in mind that, in any competitive situation, such as hiring and grant applications, the people on the relevant committees will value quality publications much more than publications in scam journals. So the one thing you can do is to do your job properly if you are on such a committee.