text:
How prestigious is a Microsoft Research scholarship
This question is intended to be analogous to the Fulbright one; however, the Microsoft Research scholarship would be for a PhD.
How may this scholarship influence one's possibilities to work in the academia or in the industry? How does it compare, e.g. in terms of prestige and academia/industry opportunities, against the Fulbright? Is the scholarship prestigious in the US, UK or on a world wide scale  (especially if it is for a PhD in the UK)?

@peterh: The Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship doesn't seem to be related in any way to the various professional certifications that Microsoft offers.

@NateEldredge Yes, and this is what he needs to make visible on the first spot.

I'm not familiar with it, but a scholarship's difficulty in getting is usually indicative of how prestigious it is. Fulbright Scholars are quite rare. If Microsoft hands these out to a lot of people in comparison, then its prestige is lower, i.e. if 10K students are eligible and 1000 get it, 1/10 is not as impressive as 1 in 10K

I am not familiar with the Microsoft Research scholarship at all.  Without further knowledge, I am unimpressed.  The best way to convince me otherwise would be to tell me how much money the scholarship is worth.

Some of the best HCI research is done by Microsoft Research, just look at the number of papers at CHI from MR. It of course depends on the field, but I'd say it's VERY prestigious.

@Compass From Nate's link, the acceptance rate is 20%, so it sounds like it's not embarrassing to have one.  (I won't say prestigious since I've never heard of it either, but it's relatively new and restricted to countries and fields I don't work in.)

@BenVoigt I removed my comment, because it contained my impression, and not my argument, and this wasn't enough strong to contain potential harming content (for the owners of such certs).

Instead of worrying about how prestigious the award is on its own, ask yourself what type of research you're going to conduct using the funds. In the end, nobody will care that your research was funded by Microsoft or Google or the NSF (or whatever the UK version of that is); they'll care about the contribution you're making to the field.
Nobody is going to stop you at a job talk and say, "Well, your research is amazing, but I think you should have applied for funding from X-Company."
Barring any ethical issues, funding is funding. As long as you put it to good use, you should be in good shape!

While I think this is well-intentioned, I'm not sure I agree. In my experience, people definitely place a certain amount of value on the source of funding. Not to say that it will overshadow the quality of the research, but an average research program supported by a prestigious fellowship could be enough to distinguish a postdoctoral applicant.

Does it help to have a prestigious fellowship? Sure. But the author isn't asking whether prestige matters - he is asking, specifically, whether the Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship will affect his changes of working in an academic setting. I stick my by answer - if he's more worried about the prestige of the fellowship than he is about the research he produces while on it, then that's more of a concern than anything else.

@Jacob I agree with everything you said. The background problem is that I don't know whether I should take a PhD position. It is a great opportunity and there aren't many great opportunities as this where I come from. The problem is that don't have anyone wise to talk to, someone who can give me advice and to whom I could give arguments so that he can help me make a decision with conviction


text:
What is the IEEE citation style for content obtained from wikipedia?
I have added a paragraph from wikipedia in my thesis. Now I need to add reference to that wikipedia page. What is the IEEE formatting and citation style for that? Currently I use as below.
In chapter of thesis added copied content from wikipedia as below

The waterfall development model originates in the manufacturing and construction
  industries; highly structured physical environments in which after-the-fact changes are
  prohibitively costly, if not impossible. Since no formal software development
  methodologies existed at the time, this hardware-oriented model was simply adapted
  for software development [1].

In References page

[1] (2014, April 22). Waterfall Model [Online]. Available:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model

When you copy content verbatim, you must put it in quotation marks or a block quote in addition to adding a citation. What you are doing now is considered plagiarism.

@ff524 I have updated with quotation marks. Is that correct now ?

My previous comment was about verbatim content in general; for very long quotes like in this example, use a block quote as shown here. (What you have now is an improvement, because it's not plagiarism anymore, but it's bad style.)

@ff524 Thank you very much for your answers. Now i understand how to do that.

The citation number is not part of the passage quoted, so should appear outside the quotation marks.

In citing wikipedia, you make it harder for your examiners to pass you, and easier for them to fail you. Are you sure that's what you want to do?

@JessicaB Thank you. Make changes as you mentioned.

I've reformatted this as a block quote. Note that the punctuation is handled differently. (Also, you would end your quote in normal "running" text as: ". . . software development' [1]." (In other words, close the quotation, put the reference number, and then put a period.)

For correct citation of Wikipedia, see Wikipedia's guide to citing Wikipedia.  Since you are using IEEE styles, you should probably be using BibTeX to manage your citation, in which case you can directly use the BibTeX formatting template provided.

+1: Answers the actual question at hand instead of simply advising to not cite Wikipedia.

Citing Wikipedia is always risky.  Not everybody consides it to be reliable, and high-quality.
May I suggest a very simple approach: find a better reference.
By definition of an encyclopedia, it is supposed to give a brief and aggregated overview only.  So there must be a better source somewhere.
Citing Wikipedia is often indicative of “did not bother to look up the real source,  but used the first hit on google”. This is probably not what you want your reviewers to write...

+1: It is often the case in my experience where I found myself or others wanting to source a specific section of a Wikipedia article, instead of the entire article.  In that case, I found the specific source or sources that the article referenced, and cited those instead, modifying quotes as necessary (as sources on Wikipedia are sometimes paraphrased and not the exact source text).  I have never had an issue where I wanted to source the entire Wikipedia article, although I must admit I have never written an academic research paper on my own that was longer than 10 pages.

IEEE Publications use Webster’s College Dictionary, 4th Edition as formatting and the IEEE Citation Reference is available here. But as @EnergyNumbers commented earlier, primary references to wikipedia are not always well received.

Broken URL. Consider either this (small) or this (large)

Usually a Wiki page has its own reference. Read through the reference for the Wiki page, and maybe cite it (the wiki page's reference) instead citing the Wiki page in your writing.

There are very few circumstances (e.g. if you are doing research about Wikipedia) when it is legitimate to cite anything from Wikipedia (or any other encyclopedia, for that matter).
If you think your case is such a legitimate one, please cite the specific version of the article using its permalink.

This doesn't really answer the question about IEEE citation style.  It seems to be an answer to Are there instances where citing Wikipedia is allowed? instead.

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text:
APA style for program used in a study
APA Format: When writing the name of a program I used in a study (MyFriendQuest) do I need to italicise the name or add a trademark sign? I am not sure how to stylise the name of the program or if I even need to.

You can presumably get a definitive answer from http://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4210512.aspx.  I have no idea whether you should italicize the name, but including a trademark sign would be nonstandard in academic publications.  (I'm not a lawyer, but I believe nobody is legally required to use one; instead, the purpose is to let trademark owners highlight the trademark status of the name.  Of course they would like it if other people did as well, but they cannot require it, and academic papers very rarely do this.  I certainly hope APA format doesn't require it.)

According to Section 7.08 (page 210) of the 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the APA,

Do not italicize the names of software, programs, or languages.

Furthermore,

Reference entries are not necessary for standard software and programming languages, such as Microsoft Word or Excel, Java, Adobe Photoshop, and even SAS and SPSS.  In text, give the proper name of the software, along with the version number.  Do provide reference entries for specialized software or computer programs with limited distribution.

An example of a reference entry:

Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (Version 2) [Computer software]. Englewood, NJ: Biostat.

I agree with @Anonymous Mathematician in his comment above that a trademark symbol is not usually included in academic publications.  I usually see trademark symbols only in software user manuals.

I have to cite my online university references in APA, and know that the journal article/book title has to be in italics, to make it stand out. I'm not as sure about a program like this, though it could be in my 15-odd page style guide I have to use.

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text:
Should I do a second PhD in Canada or the US?
I am three years into a PhD in Germany in an interdisciplinary social sciences field (Global Integration/Global Studies), but I am quite disillusioned with the faculty and the quality of guidance here. Moreover, the academic job prospects are not very good after the PhD, and any other job, given EU regulations, is hard to get (I am non EU). Going back to my country, given the corruption in academics, is also not an option. I am thinking of dropping this, and applying for PhDs in Canada or the US.
Is this a good option? I would apply for single discipline such as political science. I am thinking of international business too, because my work is a policy relevant field.

Thank you so much. Just to clarify....I am open to both a second PhD or to drop this one and start anew. However, I fear that an application for a second PhD will not be given any consideration. The reason I want to do it in the US is that there are more job opportunities there, and the greater brand value. In the case of Canada, since immigration is an option, I can search for jobs outside my field.

How long is your PhD program? If you're about to finish then finish and pretend everything went alright, that's a win-win for your supervisor and you. Put that in your CV, sell it as the best thing ever and apply for PhDs, postdocs and anything else that you may consider interesting enough (check in detail first where are you getting into, to decrease the risk of being disillusioned again). If you're still years away from finishing then @JeffE's answer is perfect, you may finish earlier a PhD that you start now than your current one. Be aware of the GRE and other stuff. In any case: good luck.

As a general rule, if your current degree program is not serving your needs/goals, then yes, you absolutely should look for other options.  Hopefully the research experience you've gained in your current program will prove helpful in the future.
That said, you need to be careful in applying to a new program.  A PhD application from a student already in a PhD program raises a red flag, especially if they are already fairly far into the program.  Obviously the current program isn't working out for the student, but does that indicate a problem with the student (uh-oh), a problem with their advisor (but then why not change advisors?), a problem with the program as a whole (but then do we really want a student that was admitted to a dysfunctional program?), or something else?  And even if there isn't a problem, why should we give a slot to someone who already has one elsewhere, instead of giving a new student a chance?
The best way to ameliorate these concerns, in my experience, is to get strong and supportive recommendation letters from the faculty in your current department.  You also need to tell a convincing and positive story about why you want to move (for example: a shift in research interests that does not match the strengths of your current program).  One thing you absolutely cannot write is "I want to move because my current program just isn't good enough."

Thank you, JeffE, so much for your answer. Would you suggest completing this one and applying for a post doc in Canada or the US? I work in an area that has major policy relevance, and is an emerging area of interest, but on the other hand, I am not sure if I would be accepted into a post doc given the competition.

re 'but then do we really want a student that was admitted to a dysfunctional program' and 'I want to move because my current program just isn't good enough' --> i mean, say i get accepted into a dysfunctional or not good enough one and want to get into a better one. what's wrong with this or saying this? i don't see it as really different from quitting a job at a certain company to apply in another company. but of course there are some obvious differences like phd's are finite. in this case...what about changing undergrad? or even 2ndary school/highschool? i also think of

someone in an associate's degree wanting to change to a bachelor's (without completing the associate's degree)

say i get accepted into a dysfunctional or not good enough one and want to get into a better one. what's wrong with this or saying this? — There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing or saying this.  But changing from one PhD program to another is much less common than changing jobs, undergrad institutions, or high schools.  In short: It's uncommon enough to be weird, and people generally treat weirdness with suspicion.  People are apes; we do apey things.

I think as a bio PhD there is no shame to saying that "gee this journey is not going to end well", early into the journey (or even late).  I discovered after a very long (which is normal) time as a grad student, when I finally did get out with my PhD, the job prospects were pretty bad and getting worse, and this is from a top institution.  So after a long period of post-docing i finally gave up on the field alltogether, after sinking 13 or 14 years into it.  I am now in IT and making far more, doing far more, and I get to see my family far more.  I have done much more in 5 years than I could have done in a lifetime in academia.  It just wasn't for me.


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Can one get admitted on a MSc in Civil and Environmental Engineering without holding same bachelors degree?
I am a student from Greece, studying Rural and Surveying Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) which is a 5-year minimum diploma involving 61 courses and a thesis (300 ECTS).
My goal is to get admitted to a master's degree program on Civil Eng and I am looking at the Colorado state universities because I have a relative there that can provide a place to stay.
So the question arises:

Do I have any chance of admission since I do NOT have a bachelor's in civil engineering?
And if I do get admitted and finish the master's, will I then have the full rights of a civil engineer?

In Greece, you only receive full rights via the bachelor's degree and not the master's degree.

What do you mean by "full rights?"

@aeismail By full rights I mean "to be licensed" and "be accredited" as a Civil Engineer. Sorry If I still fail to clarify what I mean.

@SteliosM Licensing for engineers varies by state in the USA, and it isn't clear to me that your engineering accreditation would be valid at all in Greece. I also think it unlikely that a masters degree would be sufficient for this accreditation. You need to look at the requirements of the course to know. No one here can provide any further insight than what the university tells you.

@MJeffryes But nobody has answered my main question, do I have any chances of admission with a non civil eng bachelor's degree?

@SteliosM Ask the university. They are the only ones who can definitively tell you!

I think that the second part of your question is apparently off topic to stay on this site. However, because I can not find any similar question to the first part of your question; and there are two posted answers, I voted this question to remain opened. It does worth, if the people answering to your first question, have some comments on the second part too.

You certainly can be admitted. Surveying often falls under the auspices of Civil Engineering, although civil is a broad field so it may depend on what program within the school you are applying to. I have a BS and MS in Civil and am working on a PhD and often meet students with different backgrounds; it's not a bad thing, you may have to take a few extra classes to come up to speed but otherwise I wouldn't expect admissions to be affected.
The question of being a professional engineer after the program is different. To be a licensed PE in the states you must have an ABET accreditted degree, pass the EIT exam, work under a professional engineer for a set amount of time that varies by state (often 3-4 years), then pass the PE exam and become registered (but only in the one state). It's a process that goes well beyond academia. I agree with one of the commenters above, you should ask the school if the program you are applying to is accreditted, from this it would appear that CSU does not have an accreditted MS program for Civil. For reference, this links to a PDF detailing Colorado's requirements for professional engineers which state that you must have an accreditted 4 year degree to take the EIT.

Thanks for answering my question. Yet, I see in the PDF that it separates engineers from surveyors. My degree from Greece is clearly an engineering degree but in Colorado it is not??? So many years for nothing then?

However, I see that licensure is NOT obligatory but it offers many bonuses. For surveyors, though, it is.

I wouldn't go so far as to say surveying is not engineering; in the states these fields are self regulating so think of it as a more specific set of professionals rather than the civil engineering umbrella. It may also be possible to petition the state licensing board for a chance to sit at the examinations and always keep in mind that the US is a big place and these are not the regulations everywhere

As a fellow Greek, I know what you are talking about. This kind of "full rights" you said can only be obtained from a bachelors degree. A Masters degree will give a Civil engineer an expertise in his field.
You have to check every Masters program what they are asking for, send them an email and ask. Maybe in United States it will allow you to work as a Civil engineer, but not in Greece.


text:
How recent should the English language certificate be to apply for Master thesis?
When applying for Master in an European country, English certificates such as CAE, CPE, TOEFL, IELTS are required. Is there a limit about the "age" of the certificate?
I got CPE 5 or 6 years ago. Is it acceptable or a more recent is needed? The programs which I have seen, do not clear that out.

"applying for Master" sounds like applying for a Master course, whereas in your title, you ask about "apply for Master thesis". Please clarify which one you mean. Also, what you indicate is most probably not a general requirement. Knowing the country's language instead of English is usually completely sufficient, too.

Yes there is an expiration limit on these language tests.
I believe most tests are valid for 2 years. I know for instance that the TOEFL test has a 2 year expiration date. Unfortunately, I do not have any experience with the CPE test, but I have personally never heard of any standardized test being valid for more than 5 years.
I would suggest you retake the test. That being said, you should contact the program you are applying to directly to get the most information about what tests are/are not accepted and for how long they are valid after taking them.

In fact, the CPE does not expire at all - I've added source to my answer about that - but of course universities may view this differently. But then, CAE which is one level below CPE is good enough for most universities, so they should be ok with a slightly older CPE.

Yes, the direct contact would be the most reliable answer to this. Thanks

I have taken the CAE (Cambridge Certificate of Advanced English) which is one level below the CPE and I was told at the time that the CAE and CPE do not expire at all.
But check with the program you are applying to, because they may view this differently.
This is what Cambridge English Language Assessment has to say about the shelf life of their certificates, including CAE, CPE and IELTS (emphasis mine):

Shelf life of certificates
We are sometimes asked how long the Cambridge ESOL
  certificates last, or whether a candidate who took an exam some
  years ago needs to retake the exam.
The simple answer is that the certificates do not expire. They
  show that on a particular date the holder demonstrated that they
  had attained the specified level of language skills. For most
  candidates, the certificate is the result of a specific preparation
  course and serves as a mark of achievement in completing the
  course successfully.
It is clear, however, that language skills can diminish over time –
  a phenomenon often referred to as ‘language attrition’. In deciding
  whether to rely on a certificate obtained some years ago,
  educational institutions and employers need to take into account a
  number of factors, most importantly whether the holder has kept
  up his or her use of the language and whether the level of the
  certificate is significantly higher than that required for the job or
  course in question.
There are therefore no hard-and-fast guidelines for the period
  since obtaining a Cambridge ESOL certificate after which
  additional evidence of current language ability may be required by
  employers or institutions.
The Test Report Form provided by IELTS is not a certificate since
  it is not focussed on a particular level of language ability; for this
  reason, the normal shelf life for an IELTS Test Report Form is two
  years (see under Results in the IELTS Handbook).

My conclusion: CAE and CPE do not expire. IELTS doesn't really expire either but there is a 2 year recommendation.

Thanks! Still, the best is to ask directly whether they accept it or not to confirm that.

There is an English language requirement for university entry, so there will be an 'expiry date' for English language proficiency certificates obtained for acceptance into university. This is because a fairly old certificate (more than 1.5 or 2 years) would not reflect your current language ability - it can be possible that your level of proficiency may have decreased to levels lower than the certificate states during that period. So, to answer your question, yes! -  a new English language test certificate would be needed. Please check with the university beforehand to see which certificates they accept and choose from that range.

Specifically for IELTS, there is a two-year recommended retake period, but no formal requirement to retake. Universities may impose their own restrictions.
Personal experience: when I applied for PhD, they took my three-years-old IELTS results.

So it depends. Maybe they accept it maybe not.

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text:
What are the effective working routines for taking breaks while working?
I want to know the details regarding taking (short) breaks in the context of studying or research. So, I read an article titled The Science of Taking a Break. This question is focused on the aspect of what to do while break time.
The article divides breaks into two classes: effective breaks and ineffective breaks.
Routines for ineffective breaks:

Engagement in social media platforms;
Calling or texting friends;
Watching television.

Routines for effective breaks:

Taking naps;
Meditation;
Old fashioned exercise.

I am interested in knowing more routines for taking effective breaks in academic study or research.
What are the other recommended routines for taking an effective break?

It is a research article I am mentioning and please comment, if possible, the reason for down-vote.

Maybe some people find this off topic since it's not directly about doing research? I upvoted, I think this is an important topic for mental and physical health that isn't discussed enough.

Take a half-day regularly to volunteer working with the elderly, the local library, a homeless shelter, etc. The change of scenery and perspective is healthy and will help you appreciate the blessing you have of being able to spend time in your research.

My technique was exercise - mostly on a bicycle, but I was in an especially good place for long rides. Something like 50 miles (80km) or more. And they were (small) group rides so we went pretty fast, but could also chat a bit too.
Better than social media, if you are in a face to face situation is a brief "coffee break" where you sit down with others in your field and just chat about whatever seems interesting. Sometimes another person in the sit-down will propose a problem, which can get your mind going in a different direction for a bit. And, interacting with physical human beings is a lot different mentally than interacting through a screen.
But, exercise does two things. First it gets your blood moving, which is good for the brain. Second it keeps your body healthy which other things may not.
Currently I do Tai Chi for about an hour or so. It has the advantage of forcing your mind into a different space, once you understand its fundamentals, and is good, generally, for body flexibility. Its one disadvantage is that it isn't normally very aerobic.

Yeah, the article mentioned that physical meeting is okay.


text:
Received an email from potential advisor and my name was wrong. should I correct him?
A few months back I contacted a potential advisor I am interested in doing my PhD with and he replied that he is considering my application and will be back in contact with me.
Today, I received another email from him basically saying:

Dear [My Correct Name],
Are you still interested in doing PhD with me? If so, I will interview
  you.

I wrote back that I am still interested and gave him my contact information.
He replied:

Dear [Completely wrong name/ probably another applicant],
Thanks. I will come back to you later.

Should I send an email correcting him or just forget it?

In general, for both academia and industry, get in front of the potential misunderstanding as soon as possible. You don't want to (hypothetically) spend a month waiting for this guy's follow-up email and then find out he never knew he said yes to you, but he saw the "replied to" icon and assumed he had told you no already.

I'm sorry if this comment seems harsh. I am not a PhD student and don't claim to know a lot about academic etiquette, but this question is one of the silliest I've ever seen. Unless you're living in a sitcom, why would you not correct someone who's gotten your name wrong, especially for something so important? It probably a trivial mistake and fixing it should be just as trivial.

In case the email was actually intended for the other person, it would be courteous to reply, saying that you got an email from him that you think may have been meant for someone else.

Also would be helpful to assume nothing either way, good or bad. It could have been a business email that he typed in the wrong window, for example.

I would suggest you write him a short message:

Dear Potential Advisor,
In order to avoid any misunderstanding, I would like to confirm that this interview confirmation was addressed to me: YOUR FULL NAME
Thanks in advance!
Your first name

I smile a lot and I use ":)" a lot as a gesture of sympathy on emails, sometimes even in formal/commercial ones. So I would add one:

Thanks in advance! :)

The smiley face will soften the error remark, and IMHO help to show him that you are really concerned about a possible misunderstanding and not offended by his error.


text:
Is being a volunteer useful for academic prospective
Is being a maths "tutor" volunteer at sites like MATHNERDS useful in terms of "good impression" for future academic prospectives?

I'm not familiar with such sites, but it's certainly something you can list on applications, personal statements etc.  However, it won't make so much of a difference for this to be a reason to do it.

I doubt it.  For PhD, we're more interested in grades, GREs, and letters highlighting research potential.

Does volunteering in your field's StackExchange site help your PhD app?  Likely not, so I'd venture to say that the same holds for this case, unfortunately. As an exception: Stackoverflow is sometimes helpful in industry because of its popularity but I'd see it as less likely in academia.

If you apply for grants where "Broader Impact" (or something like it) is a criteria, then a demonstrable history of volunteer and outreach activities related to your academic field of study can be helpful. Same goes for awards that consider "service" as a criteria.
(The reviewers of my NSF graduate research fellowship application commented favorably on my volunteer experience, which I mentioned towards "Broader Impact".)

This will likely depend on your discipline and the type of volunteer work that you engage in. It can't hurt, as at the very least it shows your're interested enough in the field that your're engaging in it informally. As for how much it will benefit your prospects, that will depend on the type and extent of volunteer work and how it fits with your prospective discipline. Establishing a consistent history of volunteering with a particular site will demonstrate more commitment than volunteering at many different sites for briefer periods of time. Assisting with moderating or engaging with the management of the site's services (if an option) also demonstrates a higher level of engagement and responsibility, beyond a casual hobby or side interest.
As for whether potential academic programs or jobs will look favorably on your volunteer work will depend in part on their interests and areas of emphasis. A program which emphasizes the application of mathematics in industry may not give volunteer tutoring much weight in the applications process when compared to a student who has had "volunteer" internships in industry. In contrast, a graduate program or professor that emphasizes the use of web technology to enhance math education would probably view your experience more favorably because it aligns with their mission.
In my own experience in behavioral sciences I completed several lab-based internships in biology and psychology, which emphasized scientific method and theory, including proper record keeping, sterile technique, and data collection. This was viewed favorably by the more research-oriented graduate programs I applied to; other applicants had mostly volunteer experience with clinical mental health populations, which those programs did not give as much weight. However, at one of the program's where I was wait-listed, a faculty member informed me that they were concerned I had no experience (even volunteer experience) working with individuals with serious mental illness, and it counted as a strike against me. My research experience wasn't seen as negative, but it didn't carry as much weight in the eyes of that particular program.
In sum, demonstrating a consistent track record with a volunteer organization will demonstrate commitment, interest in the field, and maturity. However, the amount of benefit you will get in terms of future academic prospects will likely depend on how well that particular volunteer experience matches with a given program's academic interests.


text:
Can I be a researcher at a UK university without having teaching duties?
I have looked at Geology jobs but only oil and gas or engineering comes up which I have no interest in. I'd rather do something more academic.
I'm currently a student in a UK university and am hoping to become a researcher at a UK university in the future. Do the universities employ researchers who don't need to fulfil a teaching post?

As a short comment/answer: Yes.  I can speak for the united states:  Here, lots of univs do hire research associates or research engineers-I,II,II.....  The scale/rank and salary would be based on your qualification.  Geology... you may also want to look and universities doing research in porous media and perhaps energy harvesting from waves etc.  From my understanding of the mathematics of geology, a lot of it is highly regarded in these circles.  At times, these researchers may be asked to teach a course here or there or may have the freedom to develop their own course if they want.

I am in such a position, so yes.

Such roles definitely exist in U.K. universities. For example the University of Southampton has 4 different types of Professorial Grade post, which depend on the balance of education, research, and 'enterprise' which a member of staff might undertake. It's possible to have a 100% research appointment under this scheme.
However, I don't know if every field uses all the types of post. I could believe that the more specialised research only posts are only available in disciplines where these is a reasonable expectation of very high value grants.
I'd expect similar arrangements to exist in other universities in the U.K.
However, relying on 100% research is a bit of a  risk - with a role entirely reliant on outside funding you never know when those funds might dry up. Some teaching or service component, paid not out of grant funds, could add a bit of consistency and predictability to a role.

I have seen two general approaches to accomplishing this.  One has already been described in an answer and a comment -- apply for a position that is explicitly designed for doing just research, or doing primarily research.
There is another way people sometimes use to accomplish the same thing, and that is to get hired as a professor to do both teaching and research, and then to use grant money to "buy out" the teaching obligations.  When I have seen this done, it didn't completely eliminate the teaching duties, but it reduced them to the point that the professor taught as few as one course every other semester.
The people I've seen do this were at the top of their profession.  Some of them taught their occasional course well, some didn't.
At any rate, in the short to medium term, you might want to think in terms of a post-doc.


text:
How to handle conflict between two papers as a referee?
I am currently reviewing Paper A for prestigious conference. Earlier this year, Paper B was published in very prestigious conference.
Paper B was a breakthrough in our sub-sub-field. It proved an “impossibility result” (i.e., it is impossible to come up with an algorithm with certain properties). This proof very heavily relied on numerical minimization (not symbolic). Since this was a low-dimensional minimization, I guess the reviewers did not object to using the black-box minimizer as is. The math community generally disagrees on whether using numerical minimization is an acceptable method of proving bounds, but that’s a discussion for another time.
Paper A is basically saying the work in Paper B is unsound (in a polite way) because it relies on numerical methods, and they provide a new approach with a sixty-page analytical proof that the same impossibility result holds (and now claim they are the first to do so because Paper B is unsound).
I personally looked at Paper B and I am honestly okay with the proof method there. I understand numerical methods are not “rigorous” per se, but the function optimized is so smooth, well behaved, simple, convex, etc. that I am willing to bet any decent optimizer can and will find the correct minimum. I coded the minimization in less than five minutes in Python and found the same minimum as the authors.
I am not sure how to rate the paper. While technically, A is the first to analytically prove the result, the result was already shown in B. I am also not motivated to verify over forty pages of straightforward algebra/differentiation, etc.
What would you do in this case? Just let the program committee decide?

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I don't understand why you say "that's a discussion for another time". The whole point of paper A seems to be to prove the result in a way that is uncontroversially valid. So there is no way to review it without considering the question of whether the methods of paper B actually constitute a proof.
And in doing so you should be thinking about the viewpoint of the conference, not just your own viewpoint. Would a significant proportion of people who attend this conference be likely to value having a fully rigorous proof? If so then paper A seems to be suitable for this conference. If not, then maybe a math journal would be a better fit.

"Would a significant proportion of people who attend this conference be likely to value having a fully rigorous proof?" No.

Providing an analytical proof over a numerical one is providing value. Whether this is sufficient for inclusion in conference A, depends on the inclusion criteria. Presumably, the contribution of B to your field was more than numerically minimizing a function (that seems rather trivial). Presumably a significant part of their contribution was constructing/finding the function to be minimized. If the contribution of A consists only of finding the minimum of the same function analytically, that seems like a mimimal advance (but an advance nonetheless).

I also find little motivation to verify over 40 pages of straighforward algebra/differentiation, etc to verify the analytical solution when I personally don’t mind the numerical solution.

Whatever you end up recommending as to the suitability for inclusion, you are still going to have to do this. As a reviewer, you are expected to give your opinion on the correctness of the result.

"Providing an analytical proof over a numerical one is providing value" I am not disputing that. The contribution of B was much more than this result (as you say finding the function and the set up are non-trivial). Optimizing it is just a plus. Paper A just sets up the problem differently and also reaches a function which they optimize, just analytically. "Whatever you end up recommending as to the suitability for inclusion, you are still going to have to do this": No, I do not have to do this. The conference asks us to read at most 12 pages (and more if we would like, but optional).

@user3508551 But unless the difference in approach is of substantial interest, it seems like the value of the new paper is inherently tied to the correctness of the proof. If so, can you really make an informed recommendation based only on the main text?

@Anyon "can you really make an informed recommendation based only on the main text" No, and that is precisely the reason why you do not submit 60 page papers to conferences, you send that to journals where someone will spend a year to review your paper and vet it carefully, not verify every detail in 2 months. Hence the "read 12 pages, and anything more is extra"

@user3508551 Exactly, I would expect the full version to go to a journal and the authors should make an abridged version with perhaps an outline of the proof strategy if they want to submit to a conference also. If the whole point of the paper is to give a fully correct proof, then sending it to a venue that doesn't check correctness makes no sense.

And even for a journal, I wouldn't check correctness unless I believed that it mattered. If the paper is clearly not interesting enough for the journal, then everyone will be better off if you just say that and let the authors get on with submitting elsewhere, rather than cause several months delay while you go through all the details.

"Whatever you end up recommending as to the suitability for inclusion, you are still going to have to do this." I don't understand why (and know enough people who definitely don't do that). If it's clear from the outset that the paper would not be published (wrong topic, "even if true wouldn't clear the threshold for publication", etc.) why should you waste time going through the details if it won't change the result at all?

@Voo Because you are not the one making that decision

@TimRias Some communication with the editor seems to be a much better approach there than simply working through 60 pages from the get-go. And if the editor agrees with the conclusion that the paper isn't worthwhile, no need to do all that work.

@user3508551 Good point about the time constraints. I suppose the closest parallel in my field (physics) would be someone stuffing almost everything of substance into supplemental material and submitting to a letter journal. Since a paper should generally stand on its own without the SM, I would feel comfortable telling the editor that such a manuscript just isn't suitable to the format, and that it ought to be reviewed elsewhere. But I have no idea if that would fly at conferences in your field.


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Should my citation style exactly match the original title?
In my field a number of different styles are used in titles.
Many publications present scientific names in italics, such as this one. Others do not italicise scientific names, such as this one.
Some publications are in uppercase, such as these, while most others are in lowercase.
When citing, should I follow the original style exactly, i.e., use capitals and italics whereever they were used in the original? Or should I adapt citations to my own consistent style?

All-caps are just a typographical decoration or emphasis of the whole title. You do not need to keep them for the same reason you do not need to use the same font and font size (as used for the original paper title) when citing. Something similar holds for title case (i.e., capitalising the first letter of all words except of, the an similar) – it’s just a typographical choice and does not affect the content.
Italics (unless they apply to the whole title) on the other hand serve some non-decorative purpose. In your examples, they allow you to directly see where a potentially complicated species name starts and ends. In other cases they may signal that a word is standing for the word itself, such as:

On the evolution of the in Old English

In those cases, keeping the italics may really ease reading and thus I would personally opt for it in general. Keep in mind that the italics of italics are upright if you choose to italicise titles in general in your style, and you would e.g. get¹:

Aaron A. Aaronson, On the evolution of the in Old English, Journal of Definite Articles (2015)

Finally note that you may have no choice regarding this anyway, as your supervisor or the journal you are submitting to prescribe some citation style.

¹ LaTeX does this for you automatically if you use \emph instead of \textit or similar to italicise.

The Journal of Definite Articles was founded in 1986 as niche journal by the European Association of Linguistists. Around 1994 authors started submitting linguistic articles beyond its scope as a joke, and the journal accepted some of them, probably to raise its impact factor. This process avalanched over the next decade and the journal quickly became a highly prestigious journal covering all fields. In 2014, a section with more lenient criteria focussing on definite articles in the linguistic sense was launched. Experts expect research in this sector to quadruple in the next years.

Not to be confused with the Journal of Indefinite Articles, which publishes vague papers on any subject, and the Journal of Infinite Articles, which is probably to be avoided because of its publication backlog.

@ChrisWhite: I think you are misunderstanding title case. Many journals prescribe that paper titles or similar are set in title case, presumably to avoid a single capital letter standing out and make such titles more homogenous – it’s a question of typography and not a choice made by the author. Switching between title case and sentence case in the references would be awkwardly inconsistent. Note that German capitalisation is something else than title casing and thus not affected by my statement. Title case is almost never used in German.

The journal or conference to which you submit your manuscript will likely recommend or require a citation style. Follow that.
Yes, that may well mean having to reformat your manuscript's references if you are rejected and resubmit elsewhere.
Some styles are legendary for their attention to detail, up to and including whether periods should be typeset in italics or not. If the style you are required to use does not address one specific point, like whether or not to keep an italicized word in your reference's title, feel free to make your own choice, striving for consistency.
And don't worry too much. As long as you don't do something enormously strange, not following every detail in the required citation style will likely not harm your submission's chances.

I think that one's citation style should match the required (or desired) style for the target document and/or the publication outlet (APA, Chicago, etc.). I believe that the target document's citation style is not related to and, thus, absolutely should not depend on the style of the original source.

Personally, I was taught to keep all of my citations completely consistent, even if it meant changing the title from block capitals to a normal capitalisation. However, I always italicised scientific names in my citations because they're supposed to be italicised in the rest of the paper.


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What are we expected to do when citing literature?
Open any research article and it is littered with citations. I’ve recently been wondering what is expected of us when citing the literature:

Are we expected to cite every reference relevant to our research article?
Are we expected to cite only the “best” references relevant to our research article, where best can be defined as the papers which have appeared in the best journals or papers that are most cited?
Do neither of the above apply? Are we simply expected to cite any paper relevant to our research article, just as long as we have cited something that supports/is related to our argument?

If you define best as most relevant to the point you're making, you may get a different answer to defining it as most cited.  Defining best journals is a big question in its own right.

There are (in rough approximation) three reasons for citations:
1. Giving credit
If our paper builds on other papers, if we have taken any ideas from anywhere else, if anyone did something we are doing before, etc, we have to cite them. Questions such as "Is this peer-reviewed?" or "Is this accessible?" do not matter in this category.
2. For proof/evidence
Often we will claim that something is true without establishing its truth within our paper. Then we need to refer to other work for this.
Here, selectitivity makes sense: Citing someones blogpost claiming that X causes Y is not going to me particularly impressive. Citing a mathematical proof written in English available online in a journal is better than referring to a thesis written in an obscure language only availbale in hardcopy at some particular university (although do not forget 1.: if the thesis is prior, we may have to cite both). In sciences, it makes sense to some extent to cite multiple independent sources, less so in mathematics.
3. Providing context
We also cite to provide the broader context our research fits into. Some citations may have a "If you liked this paper, you may also like the following"-flavour. Here we have more or less full freedom what we want to cite. Pointing to one well-written survey article may be much better than citing 25 individual paper without much comment.

"If our paper builds on other papers, if we have taken any ideas from anywhere else" is spot-on for item 1, but "if anyone did something we are doing before" alone is not, strictly speaking, unless you want to specifically point out what a feat it is to achieve something at a particular early time.

Also, concerning item 2, your text sounds a bit as if information provided in a language other than English were less reliable as evidence for a claim than information provided in English. Maybe that item should be split up into two aspects, soundness of claims on the one hand, and ease of accessibility of background information on the other hand. Otherwise, it would strike me as quite an "arrogant" way of looking at claims, similar to a judge dismissing the accounts of a witness just because the witness does not speak the judge's native language.

@O.R.Mapper "better than referring to a thesis written in an obscure language" - I took that as English being more accessible than, say, Romansh.

@earthling: Yes, I fully understood that. Which is why I commented that reliability should be considered unrelated to accessibility, and conversely, that it would be inappropriate to consider a reference unreliable just because the source document is not perfectly accessible (but otherwise sound research). Especially if that accessibility is not based on any true obstacles for obtaining the document in question, but simply on a lack of knowledge on how to interpret it.

@O.R.Mapper re 1.: Well, replicating someone elses work and not mentioning + citing them just seems wrong to me - even if one never read the other paper, thus didn't use their work on an intellectual basis.

@O.R.Mapper re 2.: A claim backed up with a reference to an English source would appear more reliable to me than a claim backed up with a Romansh source - not because I would consider the latter source themself less reliable, but because I cannot read it and see for myself whether it really says what the claimant says it is saying.

@Arno: re 1: If one never read the other paper, one didn't just use their work "on an intellectual basis", one didn't use their work at all. In other words, their work had no influence on one's own work. Of course, giving credit is nice and one could start giving credit to every other work that had no influence on one's own work, but that seems like a somewhat aimless endeavour. Therefore, I see the necessity of citing in such a particular case reduced to the reason that the other paper is related by contents, not because its authors could claim any moral right to being credited.

@Arno: re 2: Indeed, I wouldn't consider the latter source itself less reliable, either. Usually, when I encounter a document written in a language that I cannot read, I realize it's my fault that I cannot understand that language; after all, I could spend the effort to learn it if I'm sufficiently interested. I cannot possibly hold it against anyone or any of their documents that they use one of the many languages on this planet and not exactly the one I prefer. (However, you may have a point if the document is purposefully written in a constructed language that no-one "naturally" speaks.)

Your references should allow the reader to understand the state of the field you are making a contribution to, as well as to place your contribution in the wider context. So you can't really give hard-and-fast rules. It will very much depend on your particular field and your paper itself.
Of course, you should cite everything that is relevant... but the question is how you define "relevance". Don't cite everything that has appeared in your field. But do cite references that specifically pertain to your specific question - these are certainly relevant.
The "best" references will probably correlate with having appeared in good journals and having been heavily cited. But you need to find a good balance between the relevance of the content and the impact of a potential reference. If you find a very pertinent article in an obscure journal, by all means cite it.
And of course, if you have taken ideas from the literature, you need to give credit where it is due.

Another important point: Whenever you cite something, you're expected to have actually read it yourself.

@JeffE This is not true in math.  Some people do think you should understand the proof of everything you use, but this is not practical for every result.  (E.g, the 4-color theorem, classification of finite simple groups, etc.)  Though I agree you should generally at least look at the works you cite.

@Kimball Nope, math is not exempt.  You don't need to fully understand every paper you cite.  But you do need to verify with your own eyes that the result you are quoting actually appears in the paper you are citing, not some weaker/stronger/closely-related-but-actually-incompatible result.

@JeffE In that case, I think we just differ in word choice.  What you're talking about is what I call "looking at a paper."  I only say I've "read a paper" if I pore over it and grok each step.

@JeffE: I would imagine a stronger result should be fine...

References are there to provide a clear path to the sources for the information you use in your article, nothing else. One of the criteria we put on scientific output is reproducibility and in order to be able to verify statements you need to provide the sources clearly. This means that it should be possible to double check your use, or misuse, of earlier work in building towards your new findings.
There are ways in which the system is misused. Some people refer mostly to their own work. It is possible that ones own work is important but it is rather an exception for most. Along the same lines, it is possible that people excessively use particular authors as reference where other references would be just as good or better. The list can go on.
In the end, the knowledgeable scientist will have a fair grasp of the field and quite quickly see if key work is missing in a manuscript, during, for example, review and thus spot potential weaknesses in the structure of arguments. So the references are there to provide a clear trace of information used so that the use of the information can be verified.

Suggestion: I suggest deleting the "nothing else" from your first sentence (other answers give other reasonable purposes for references).

There are a few quality answers already (I specifically second Peter Jansson's answer), but I wanted to give a more practical perspective.

Are we expected to cite every reference relevant to our research
  article?

This would not be practical, or realistic, in many fields. I for instance work with data analysis in cancer research. The amount of "relevant" work published every month is absurdly large, so much so that even if I read and only read, everyday I would not be able to maintain a thorough grasp of the literature.
In some other field, where the problem formulation is well-framed, and the boundaries more clear-cut, this might be a more feasible expectation.

Are we expected to cite only the “best” references relevant to our
  research article, where best can be defined as the papers which have
  appeared in the best journals or papers that are most cited?

Interesting you take up this question of "best articles" vs articles in "best journals". There is some selection bias here, also known as "rich get richer" phenomenon, giving rise to a Power Law distribution among citations.
Articles published in high impact journals usually reach more people, tend to be written by more renowned scientists in the field. Also people have a tendency to find new reading material based on the number of citation an article gets. Alternatively, the chance of "finding" an article is increased by the number of other articles citing that paper. So the more renowned a particular study, the more renowned it will get.
There's little you (or I) can do about that, sadly.

Do neither of the above apply? Are we simply expected to cite any
  paper relevant to our research article, just as long as we have cited
  something that supports/is related to our argument?

You should cite the papers where you get your prior information from. Simply put; you use a particular finding from another article, you cite them. Using prior knowledge might be (and usually is) applicable in multiple scenarios (note that below is not an exhaustive list):

You help make a case in your introduction: e.g. by giving statistics, or portraying the current state of the field (a.k.a paying your dues)
You refer to a particular method, protocol, instrument etc in your Materials & Methods
You back up your findings, or their implications, by citing similar findings by independent researches supporting your findings (or interpretation of them), typically in Discussion part of your paper.

Contrary to Arno, I would say that the primary purpose for citations is to give readers links to papers and books that your work builds on, depends on, or contradicts.  This is related to Arno's #3 "Context", but sharper.  It is not just that these papers and books provide context for your work. These other works provide details or foundations that your work does not.  These other works provide theoretical or empirical foundations that your work does not.  These other works examine cases or conditions that your work does not. Or maybe these other works present an alternative method, an alternative formulation, or a different theory.
Properly done, citations in the text provide the reader with all the links to related literature that allows them to understand and judge your paper, both the specifics and the general topics and questions.  Without these citations, readers will not be able to judge the merit or significance of your paper.
Besides this purpose: yes, context is important. Yes, giving due credit is important. Yes, providing proof or evidence is important.  Just not as important as what I just described.

I disagree with this assessment. If you are missing a reference for context, that might seem bad. But if you are missing a reference for credit, you are potentially committing plagiarism.

@TobiasKildetoft -- plagiarism is not the same as giving credit.  If I submit a paper proposing a Helios-centric theory of the solar system but never cite Copernicus and others, I am not guilty of plagiarism.  Instead, I am guilty of hubris, irrelevance, and maybe solipsism. If, instead, my text is copied or paraphrased from the works of Copernicus but never cite his works, then I am guilty of plagiarism.


text:
What reasonable steps can I take to report misbehavior by publishers to the wider research community?
What resources are available for reporting unethical practices or misbehavior by publishers? I'm aware of Beall's list, are there other efforts to objectively identify publishers with low standards or other practices that are detrimental to the research community?
Is it helpful to submit info to organizations like COPE?
This meta discussion is of interest and might suggest that AcademiaSE is not a suitable venue for sharing information on specific practices.

Beall's list is the only one I know of, and it has some serious issues (primarily, that it focuses only on Open Access while ignoring disreputable publishers with more traditional models).  It would definitely be a useful resource to have!  The problem is, how to differentiate between real complaints and people with an axe to grind (try Googling for conspiracies theories about pretty much any reputable publisher).

If the matter concerns a mathematical journal, you can submit your case to the European Mathematical Society ethics committee
Note that even if this committee has been established by the EMS, they should consider non-European issues as well as issues from European publisher, journals and authors.
Of course, their power is somewhat limited but given their status, they could have some impact by simply issuing a public statement.


text:
Is it normal to find unknown work during peer-review process?
I worked on my research for about 2 years and recently submitted a paper to a reputed conference. The referee reports came back and one of the referees pointed out papers that I should have encountered in my literature review but didn't. The knowledge of these papers completely changes the way I view my own work now. Is this normal? I feel stupid for having worked on a problem for 2 years and having missed 2-3 papers that would have been very important.

Do these additional papers make your research partially redundant? Have they established already what you spent time trying to establish? Or is it just that they altered the 'rules of the game' with respect to what's more important, how different concepts are inter-related etc?

As with many things, sometimes you just don't know what you don't know.

It's unfortunate when a referee points out crucial papers you missed in your literature search, and hopefully it won't happen too often.  (The more you talk with other researchers, the more chances you have to learn about these papers earlier in the process.)  However, it's certainly not abnormal.  Nobody can be an expert in everything, some references are really not easy to find, and sometimes you just miss something for unclear reasons.  If you publish enough papers, it's pretty much guaranteed that a referee will occasionally point out something you wish you had known about earlier.  This is one of the advantages of peer review.

I have heard of a similar instance where the author had to completely change the focus of her study and rewrite a major part of her paper because the peer reviewers pointed out an existing paper with a very similar research question and results. While most authors would try to conduct an exhaustive literature search,it is not uncommon for them to miss out on one or two papers. Unfortunately, if the papers you have missed are ones that can change your view or approach completely, then your study might need some rework. This is not abnormal in any way, and might happen to anyone. It is indeed a good thing that the peer reviewers mentioned this, so you get a chance of revising your paper and making it more relevant.


text:
Is it ethically unsound to accept a graduate admission offer then later withdraw?
Note: Similar questions exist on ASE but those pertain to funded programs.
I have been admitted to an outstanding MS program and waitlisted for admission to another outstanding MS program. Both are unfunded. The first's response deadline is 04/15, and the second said they may not be able to let me know the final decision before then. While the first program is outstanding, I find better fit in second program (mainly research interest, location, and tuition rate). My question is: would it be ethically unsound to accept the first offer prior to the 04/05 deadline, and if I find out thereafter that I am accepted to the second one, decline the first? Since there is no funding involved (as in a Ph.D. program) I would not feel as bad about it.

From my knowledge it happens all the time that candidates withdraw their offers for many reasons, so it should be no problem.

possible duplicate of Is it legal to withdraw a signed offer letter from grad school? However, the answer given there is applicable only to offers with funding.

It depends on what your ethical principles are. For example, if you self-define ethical behavior in terms of whether other people act that way, then it could be. "Accepting" an offer of admission means that you tell the university that you intend to enroll in the program, although if a jet plane crashes into your head and you are hospitalized for 5 years, you may be unable to make good on your word, due to unforeseen events.
In your case, it would be dishonest to accept and then decline, because the acceptance would be a lie (you don't intend to pursue the MS, you intend to pursue the MS if there isn't a better alternative, and this fact isn't unknown to you). An honest acceptance would be a conditional one, telling them that you provisionally accept subject to a change, owing to getting the second offer. That then allows the first institution to withdraw their offer, or to accept your conditions. It also allows them to extend an offer to another candidate, whom they might not be able to make an offer to (in time) if you accept under false pretenses.

This answer gets a lot better after the first two sentences.  Evidently if we self-define ethical behavior to be, e.g., "Whatever! I do what I want!" then many things become ethical.  Defining ethical behavior in terms of what other people do does not seem much more meaningful than this.  I would suggest removing this part of the answer.

Do you really think the institution accidentally set a date significantly earlier than their competitors?
The institution is relying partially on applicants feeling pressured to make a decision, in the hope of accruing better applicants than it would receive in a "fair" comparison done by the applicant. Frankly if an applicant decides she wishes to take up the offer given by the institution that will likely supply her with better prospects, it would be selfish of me to get angry about it.
Now, on the opposite side, the applicant has one chance (on average) to make the best decision for her entire future. The hiring institution, even the individual professor, he may have several students that year, after which the slate is clean again. Even if he only has one studentship, he may offer it to other persons at any time. So from that kind of economic perspective, preferring the institution's desire to set deadlines over the student's wish to make the best decision for herself does not hold much water in my book.

April 15th is a quasi-standard deadline for accepting/declining graduate school offers, at least in the US, so the first school is not being completely unreasonable.


text:
Are there any research databases that accept submission of published articles?
My organisation is a research institute that publishes peer-reviewed research articles via its website. Further social media and digital communication channels are also utilised to extend the reach of the published research, and the researchers are individually able to further promote their researchers via networks such as ResearchGate or Academia.edu.  In the latter case, these networks require the individual researcher to be authenticated, and so this cannot be done by my organisation on their behalf.  That is my assumption and the basis for the problem that I wish to address.
The question is: Are there any research databases that my organisation can submit research articles on behalf of the research authors? The fields covered are in the social sciences such as economics and geography, and the number of articles published is approaching 1,000.  The submission method could be manual or via an API or other indexing methodology.
So far, we have been unsuccessful in achieving indexing of the website content by Google Scholar (see related question).
Some possible leads are the Bielefeld Academic Search Engine, DataCite, and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).  I would be interested in any feedback on the potential suitability of these options for our situation.
By research database, I am referring to search engine or index containing listings or full PDF content of published research articles.  The objective of this activity is to further extend the reach of the published research content to the wider community and also to the specific subject communities relevant to the research.

What do you mean by a "research database"? What is your organization hoping to achieve by submitting these articles to one?

Updated the question with additional information prompted by the comment from ff524.

To be honest, the researchers in my field use Google Scholar and we look at the few top-conferences themselves to see what is published every year. If you're not making an impact there, then you're not accomplishing anything. I would talk to the researchers in your target fields and ask how they search for relevant content, and try to target those avenues rather than just looking for random indexing websites.

I agree David, Google Scholar is the key, and the fact that we have not been successful this far is the core issue, therefore this question is somewhat peripheral.  However, your suggestion to consult with the researchers is a valid one, that I will take on board to follow up.  Thank you!

The first sentence is ambiguous. Your organization is a publisher?

Yes my organisation is a publisher.

From Wikipedia:

The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a website devoted to the rapid dissemination of scholarly research in the social sciences and humanities.

SSRN allows you to submit full text papers (for example preprints) and abstracts (for example of published and paywalled articles). Setting up an account is free and requires only an email address and password. I am not aware of any API for mass uploads.
In my experience, papers on SSRN are quickly indexed by Google Scholar.

It looks like this website does provide the solution I am looking for.  It does provide the flexibility to post the work of other authors, not just my own.

Hi @henning, I have added a sample report (our most recently published article) to SSRN - do you know how long it will take to be indexed by Google Scholar?

Hi, I've since submitted a number of articles to the SSRN, and they have gone through the acceptance process and are now published, and are gaining some exposure, which is great news for our research.


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Can scientific research be accepted with grammatical errors?
I am an Arab, and I am not fluent in English, not even my mother tongue, and I am sure that my scientific research will have many serious linguistic errors. Can the magazine accept the research or ask me to amend the research despite the many errors in the language

Anecdotes, answers, suggestions, and much other discussion has been moved to chat. Please see this FAQ before adding another comment.

Errors in writing come in many forms. Those that merely irritate pedants are less of a problem than those that impair understanding.
Since the purpose of publishing research is to inform others, it's crucial that what is published is clear enough to understand. That doesn't necessarily require grammatical perfection (and few even approach such perfection in their native languages), but it does require a certain level of proficiency in writing in addition to a lot of care.
Reviewers evaluate multiple aspects of papers, and if they find the writing in a work difficult to follow or they fear others will find it difficult to follow, it's their responsibility to report that to the editor, and indeed this can mean a manuscript is not publishable in its present form.
I am a native English speaker and publish in English, but I would never do so without having someone else read my writing first to offer suggestions for improvement. I doubt there are many people that can write clear manuscripts with ease on the first draft, so I'd strongly recommend you find others to help you with your writing before submitting for publication.

In my field of expertise, it is common that when the submitted manuscript returns to the author the first time, the reviewers point out the grammatical mistakes and typographical errors, together with their analysis of the whole manuscript content.
Sometimes, if there are too many errors, they'll ask for the author to ask help to a native in order to sort the English out. However, I can't recall a case of a downright rejection of the manuscript solely because of that.

On the other hand, correcting all grammatical errors and typos is not the scientific reviewer's job and you should not plan on using them to correct your English.

I've been asked to review papers where the grammar was so poor that I didn't have a clue what the author was trying to say. In one case, from an author whose first language was English.

Grammatical perfection is not required for acceptance. However, grammatical errors are distracting to read, and if frequent enough can make the paper difficult to understand. Reviewers may be harsher in their opinions of a paper that is difficult to read.
Furthermore, assuming your paper gets accepted, you probably want others to read it. Do you want people to associate your name with a paper that has grammatical errors?

Not only can it, it very often does. I can often tell if an article was written by Chinese researchers without looking at the author list, because they often use "the" in cases when the noun is supposed to be indefinite and vice versa. This usually does not take away from the content, and is a minor nuisance at best.
There are some journals that actually offer services to help with any language issues, for instance Springer Nature Author Services.

You can always spot papers written by native German speakers by the fact that they use "respectively" where German would use "beziehungsweise" - a word that's very hard to translate. But in this case too, the resulting text is perfectly comprehensible.

@MichaelKay : According to the Cambridge German–English Dictionary, beziehungsweise covers three meanings, each with a distinct translation into English. The question of which translation applies would need to be determined from context. One of the three meanings is respectively.

@JohnBentin: It's about meaning 1, and that part is unambiguous. Yet, as a native German speaker, I do have the impression that the English ...and..., respectively never quite reaches the text flow of its German counterpart. (I think the reason is that the German beziehungsweise is an infix operator which the English is not. It's funny to see a German complaining that English supplies important meaning only in postfix fashion, since we do that all the time with our verbs :-) )

You can see some dreadful translations here: https://dictionary.reverso.net/german-english/beziehungsweise for example "The conditions of the octet respectively the duet rule are complied with." (I think that the use of English in Germany is so widespread, we're actually starting to see a "German English" dialect evolve in the same way as American English and Indian English. But we're getting way off topic, sorry!)

Technically "YES". But you'll have a hard time when you have reviewers. It's not easy to really evaluate when the manuscript you send doesn't make sense or doesn't sound precise enough. Most journals have author services that act as translators.
Additionally, you can also use something like Grammarly. I personally use it for doing the detailed passes for any manuscript I'm working on now. However, keep in mind that it cannot write the paper for you, so if you don't start with precise scientific/report language, it can't help you much.

It is relatively easy to learn to read another language. It takes more study & practice to be able to understand spoken language. It takes even more study & practice to become a fluent speaker or writer of another language.
For a casual conversation as a tourist, minimal fluency is fine because the impact is minimal. For a collaboration, where you will be working with others for months or years, moderate fluency is fine because you will quickly learn the key things that you need to know to communicate in the other language, and the other people will likely learn some of your language too, unless you have multiple people involved with 3 or more native languages and a single language (e.g., English for most scientific fields) in common that nobody speaks natively.
But writing a journal article (or a blog or a newspaper article or anything in between) for a large audience (large being a relative term - 100 top people in your field is large when the rest of the time you are working with 2 or 3 of them) requires clear and accurate language to be successful.
My recommendation is to find a colleague - either someone else at your own institution (even if they are in a slightly different field) or at another institution (in your field of expertise) who is a native or very long-time English speaker. Have them work with you to help write the paper. Unless it is a traditional collaboration (i.e., the other person is in the same field and helping with the actual research), you write the first draft and have them review, correct & critique it. That includes spelling and punctuation errors and simple grammatical errors. But it also includes stylistic errors - the types of problems that are not technically incorrect but which would instantly make a reader think the author is not a native speaker. You are not trying to fool anyone - your CV will make it clear who you are anyway. But having really top-quality language will help the readers concentrate on the content and not be distracted by the mechanics.
If the person who helps is in the same field then, field and amount of effort dependent of course, they may merit being listed as a co-author. If they are in an entirely different field then listing in acknowledgements is likely more appropriate.


text:
Editor's delay in reviewing manuscript
I have submitted my paper in a journal of Springer on 09 August 2016. The status of my paper as on 22 December 2016 is still “with editor”.
I have sent many reminder mail to the editor and they finally replied with:

Your paper is presently being reviewed by the Editorial Board and will be sent to the chosen reviewer for a formal report. Please be assured that your submitted paper is under process. We will keep in communication with you.

Please guide me how to proceed now. Is this is normal time period (more than four months) for an editor to review the paper?

Welcome to Academia SE and thank you for your question. Can you please [edit] it to state your field as this has a huge impact on such matters?

What field are you in?  What qualifies as a reasonable period of time for the editors to act depends a great deal on the field of study.

This can happen. There are journals where such decisions are made in meetings, and there is a substantial time between meetings. After all, editors typically have real jobs beside being editors. I am not saying that this is an efficient way of doing things, but it happens. In practice, if I sent a paper out I don't expect a decision within a year.
As to what to do about it, don't sent multiple messages to the editor. They have enough to do as is. If they are professional, they will just ignore your duplicate messages.


text:
Can we earn money through a research publication?
Is there a way we can get money for our research paper? Do research journals pay us for a research paper? Or can we sell the research paper?

I've heard that people in some business schools get bonuses for the papers they publish, in addition to their salary. For an article in a good journal, it can be a four-digit amount.

You can win prizes for (more or less) outstanding papers, which comes close to earning money (compare top athletes who live from prize money instead of salary).

Certainly Yes. There are two ways of earning money from publication:

Indirect as @seteropere explains by improving your visibility and getting higher chance of being recruited in higher quality institute with higher payment.
Direct: In many academic or even industrial institutes, researchers are being paid and are bound to perform research and publish paper in certain journals or conferences (mostly journal). If they fail, either they will be fired or will be punished. In order to avoid such experience, many are hiddenly searching for an opportunity to buy a paper in high price. Moreover, there are some universities that pay incentive to publish in journals (like US$ 2000) for each paper published. For instance, I know several people at such universities that need to improve their world ranking via publication and hence pay good money to publish in high-quality journals. But, selling or buying paper is considered unethical because we believe research is something we cannot buy. If we can buy research, it will not be research and will be a project.

Punished! How? :)

what if I have papers I want to sell?  how can I enter this market?

can we earn money through a research publication?

Certainly Yes.
Good publications make you a stronger candidate when apply to grants. It also help you in securing a job; if you do not have one. Also, collaborating with industry could be another way for earning money. Selling publication is something I never heard in my field (computer science). I do not even think it is possible in other fields.
If you are looking only for money then doing research is one of the bad choices you have.

My field is Computer Science.I am a masters student.I am also a software Engineer.I thought doing masters would increase my value in the industry.Like an MBA is more valuable than a BBA.Clearly MS can't increase my earnings :(

@iOsBoy while in CS it is unlikely you will be able to "sell" your publications, graduate studies in CS can certainly be valuable, just like in business.

While it's not expected of people that they sell papers, can they sell manuscripts if they are in dire need of money - with money back if it gets rejected? Would it be illegal?

@user13107 in the UK the REF is a nation wide assessment of the research outputs of universities that occurs every 5 or so years. Leading up to this universities "buy" publications all the time by offering the authors money to change jobs. This type of academic poaching happens and is just slightly less extreme than what you are suggesting.

@user13107: There's nothing illegal about selling a manuscript, but buying or selling authorship would be unethical.  If X is credibly accused of selling a manuscript to Y, who submitted it for publication with Y listed as an author, then it will severely damage X's career, because it will difficult to give an innocent explanation of what X thought Y was going to do with the manuscript.  To the extent any manuscripts are sold, it is either with the greatest secrecy or by sellers who are outside of academia and don't worry about career consequences from accusations of unethical behavior.

Do you have to pay taxes to the government?

Selling theorems? Johann Bernoulli did it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Bernoulli#L.27H.C3.B4pital_controversy

@seteropere Good publications make you a stronger candidate when apply to grants. I've always thought that when you get a grant you basically get money to work on a certain research project (e.g. for hiring students, resources etc..) but do you mean that you could as well make personal money out of this?

@MohamedKhamis "make money" is probably the wrong way to say this, but grants in the US often pay summer salary, which is not paid by most universities.

In Germany, the "VG Wort" collects copyright fees put on copy machines, electronic library copies, etc., and redistributes these fees to authors.
Authors of research papers published in print can give note about their publications to the VG Wort and will then participate in the distribution of these fees. The calculation of what each author gets depends on the length of the articles and the number of authors, and in my experience one should expect a one-time payment of about 20 to 40 Euro per journal article.

Is that €20–40 per article a one-time lump sum payment, a recurring annual payment, or the total sum of smaller annual payments?

@Abra not sure about that, but if the proceedings of your conference are available in print at two or more German libraries, they may qualify. This is also a requirement for journals btw.

I have never heard of a field where journals pay the authors for articles. In the humanities original research is often published as books and publishers will often pay, or at least provide a commission, for books.

Also, Patents.
If you register your idea as a patent, then everybody who wants to use your idea has to pay to you. However, universities (companies) usually claim the intellectual property of the patents, which means the inventor does not get that much incentive out of a patent. It is an exception if you work independent or self employed. Also, you can negotiate with university to have keep the intellectual property of your invention or discoveries.

re "negotiate"; any real examples?

According to this Scholarly Open Access blog entry, the Journal of CENTRUM Cathedra: The Business and Economics Research Journal pays US$2500 for each paper published and also pays US$500 for each peer review.  It also seems that the Journal of Information Ethics used to pay US$50 per article published.

@Abra, thank you for your comment.  It seems that the blog entry has been removed (and not just moved).  The website of the Journal of CENTRUM Cathedra doesn't seem to mention any payments to authors or reviewers, so perhaps they changed their policy since I posted my answer.

Certain types of papers can be supported by journals. These can include invited review articles, where the journal specifically seeks out the author to publish something on their field of expertise. The payments are usually minimal relative to the work required - on the order of US$300-500 - and are sometimes referred to as an "honorarium."
The key element here is that this money is paid because the journal specifically wants a paper from that author - presumably because they expect the work to be prestigious or highly cited.
This is by no means universal, but it has happened to me.

Yes. Through thesis or reasearch. For example the nasa discovers a new planet. Then after that some publishing companies will buy that article regarding that and it will spread throughout the world. Sorry for the bad english

This is not how academic publishing works and seems to be ignorant of the other answers. Do you have any example where this happened?

Just an example.

Did you perhaps forget to add a link to your above comment (or your post)?


text:
Easy proof of a big conjecture based on possibly faulty paper – what to do?
I’m a mathematician.
I noted that, by combining some results from the literature (all published) and some little effort, one obtains a proof of a big conjecture (at least in the field; it even has a Wikipedia entry). No mistake was found in my arguments yet, after asking some experts in the field.
In my opinion, it is likely that there is a mistake or at least missing details in (exactly) one of the papers I’m using. This paper seems highly complicated, leaving several details to the reader. So what is the best thing to do? Should I make it public (on Arxiv) or even submit to a journal in the hope that a referee takes care of it?
I don’t really care for having a publication from this or something else, but I’m interested where the mistake is or if it might really be a proof (of course it is not unlikely that I made a mistake somewhere).
Another motivation would be to simply make aware that one gets a proof of the conjecture by combining results from the literature and make people want to check those results from the literature again.

Ask the author of the dubious paper about your doubt. No guarantee that you'll get a reasonable reply, but it's a first step, similarly to how journalists contact everyone involved even if they don't expect to get confessions.

actually I wanted to stay more annonymous, but too bad I used the same email address for noname and now I can only login with this acc on every stack site... and cant even edit the question.... @darij: Have done that. Author never replied and seems to be inactive.

Then, I guess, an arXiv preprint isn't a bad idea. Just don't pretend that it's an actual proof, and try to hint as to where you are placing your doubts.

A mistake is very different than missing details. Can you explain why you suspect there may be a mistake?

It just feels strange obtaining a proof of a hard conjecture by combining results from the literature, so it is likely that somewhere is a mistake.

If you think there is likely to be an error in that paper, I suggest looking to see whether you can use its results to prove something even stronger--so strong that you know it's not true.  That's a good method for identifying erroneous methods and results

Perhaps it works the other way around, too... if the conjecture is true, then the results of this paper are true.  So (if the conjecture really is true) you won't be finding bad consequences of the paper.

Yes, it is also a problem that one might not be able to really say that the used result of the paper is wrong, since giving a counterexample would also give a counterexample to the big conjecture.

@Mare It just feels strange obtaining a proof of a hard conjecture by combining results from the literature: well, it'd be equally strange for a paper accepted by everyone as correct to have a mistake, and equally strange for a proof of a hard result to follow from published results in the literature (whether correct or not) without anyone noticing this for a long time. All of those things are both strange, and actually not very strange at all. So my opinion is that your proof does not make the possibility of a mistake any more likely than it would be otherwise.

Perhaps the most likely explanation of all given this story is that it is your proof that has a mistake rather than the paper you use. But you say your proof was checked by experts and seems correct, so that seems to be ruled out as well. At the end of the day, one is left with the optimistic possibility that you might have actually proved a big conjecture. As for what to do, I have some thoughts, I'll try to find time to write and post them as an answer in the next day or two.

I can also send a copy (it is just 1 page) to interested people. It is algebra (module theory/homological algebra) and the structure of proof should be understandable to any mathematician (although the details require some more deep understanding). I feel bad doing it on arxiv without understanding the quoted papers 100% and of course there is the chance that I made an embarrassing mistake :)

While it might not be as big a conjecture, it does happen that the answer is basically in the litterature and just needed to be put together. See for example http://mathoverflow.net/questions/137678/non-amenable-groups-with-arbitrarily-large-tarski-number/ (I have also myself written a very short paper where most of the work was already done by others but that was a very minor result).

It seems that you have found an easy one-page proof of a very interesting result along the following lines:

Theorem 1. The results of Papers A, B, C imply Conjecture BIG. Therefore if those papers are correct, then Conjecture BIG is true.

(In the rest of the answer I will assume that your proof is correct since you said it is short and was looked at by experts, but to the extent that you still have doubts, it's obviously advisable to very thoroughly vet the correctness of the proof by going over it yourself and showing it to more people with the relevant expertise.)
Now, normally one would go directly from here to the statement that you've proved Conjecture BIG, but the twist here is that Paper A is complicated and has missing details (hmm, never seen that before...) so you are doubting whether it is correct and are reluctant to declare yourself to have proved Conjecture BIG. However, it's worth pointing out that there's already quite some cause for excitement, since you have already proved the very interesting fact that

Theorem 2. Either Paper A is incorrect, or Conjecture BIG is true.

Given that Conjecture BIG is, well, big, and Paper A is a published paper, it seems almost certain that this is already a publishable result, and in any event (even if you don't care about publishing) one that the scientific community will be very interested in. Precisely how exciting it is depends of course on whether you can go even further and figure out which of the two scenarios applies, and if so, what you discover, and, in the event that you discover that it is the first scenario (Paper A is incorrect), whether you are able to correct the results of the paper by completing the missing details or by correcting whatever errors it contains.

Now let's discuss what you should do. I see three main options for how to proceed:

You can write up Theorem 2 and its easy proof (along with an explanation of why you are formulating it in such a way rather than simply saying you've proved Conjecture BIG), put it on the arXiv, then submit it to a journal, and let others take it from there.
You can wait before publishing your findings and first of all spend time studying Paper A so that you understand it well enough to determine whether it is correct. While doing so you will also attempt to fill in any missing details. Once you have determined whether the paper is correct, and (if it's not correct) either managed to correct it (by filling in the gaps and/or correcting erroneous reasoning) or failed to correct it, or convinced yourself (e.g. by finding a counterexample) that its results, not just its proofs, are actually false, you will then be in a position to write a paper that contains a proof of one of the following results:

Theorem 2 (same formulation as above - in the event that your study of Paper A didn't lead you to any meaningful conclusion)

Theorem 3. One of the results of Paper A is false (because its proof is incorrect, and you have proved that the result is also incorrect).

Theorem 3'. Conjecture BIG is true (because you have ascertained that Paper A is correct and your initial doubts were misplaced).

Theorem 3''. Conjecture BIG is true (because Paper A is essentially correct, but has some missing details you've managed to fill in).

Theorem 3'''. Conjecture BIG is true (because the result of Paper A is correct, although the proof in the original paper has an error in it, which you have managed to correct).

A variant of option 2 above is to recruit professional help in studying Paper A, either privately by approaching someone you know who may be interested in becoming a collaborator, or publicly, for example by posting your thoughts on the paper on MathOverflow.

As for which of these options is the best one, that depends on how difficult it would be for you to try to pursue options 2 and 3, and whether you want to maximize the amount of fame/glory/credit you get from this discovery. The point is that each of Theorems 3, 3', 3'', and 3''' would be a stronger and more interesting result than theorem 2, so if you prove them your discovery would make a bigger splash, and conversely, if you leave them for someone else you are giving up a potentially very useful opportunity for professional credit and possibly (if this interests you) career advancement.
Thus, if you want to publicize your discovery with the least amount of effort and in the least amount of time and don't care about maximizing the credit you get from it, you should pursue option 1. If you are willing to take the time and trouble to look more in depth into Paper A, you should pursue options 2 or 3, with option 3 being a better approach if Paper A is technically too complicated for you to study by yourself. One additional concern in that case is the issue of priority, so if you are worried that someone else may discover your one-page proof while you are busy studying Paper A, you should make sure to document your discovery including relevant dates, show it to a few trusted people, and limit the time you are working on this to a reasonable amount of time (say, no more than 3–6 months).
I should add finally that you have no ethical obligation to determine whether the results of Paper A are correct (emailing the author to ask them their thoughts is certainly a nice thing to do, but you said in the comments that you tried that already and it hasn't led you anywhere). So from an ethical point of view, any of the options I outlined above is completely acceptable.

Thank you for this very mathematical answer. I think I will wait a bit and then go for option 1 after checking everything again.

Maybe one more questions: How to judge to which journal one can possible send a paper with the result of theorem 2? (real) proof of conjecture big would be suitable for any journal but just theorem 2 might be strange for any journal.

@Mare I agree that it is a strange formulation for a theorem, and when you write the paper you should put careful thought into how to formulate things precisely to make it seem more natural (maybe not even using the heading "theorem" - I used that mainly for the sake of readability of my answer). I don't feel I can advise you on how to optimize all those details or how to choose the journal given that I have no knowledge of the area or precise results you are dealing with. My only suggestion is to consult an experienced mathematician who is familiar with the details of what you're working on