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How do UK universities retain academic staff?
I was born and educated in the UK but have spent the entirety of my career working in the US in government and higher education. I'm not, and never have been, a faculty member but rather part of the 'academic staff' supporting researchers with technical and domain specific knowledge. Due to changing personal circumstances, I've recently been considering returning to the UK but was surprised at the disparity in salaries between my role at a US institution and similar positions advertised in the UK.
I know this question has been asked before with regard to academic salaries but how do UK universities attract and retain staff? Even within the UK, it seems like there are much better paying options in industry than a university. At my current institution in the US, we have a hard enough time recruiting staff and our salaries are 2 to 3 times higher than those I have seen posted in Britain.
What strategies or incentives do British institutions use to recruit staff that offsets such low salaries? Or do they rely on individuals being mission and prestige oriented to choose a role in a University over a for-profit corporation?
Alternatively, am I just spoiled by higher US salaries and UK academic staff positions are actually well compensated given the prevailing wage in their region?

You might be interested: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/190543/is-there-a-rationale-for-working-in-academia-in-developing-countries

As a general remark, salaries paid by US colleges/ universities tend to vary significantly for very similar kind of jobs depending on the prestige and location of the institution. I don't know how 'fancy' the institutions you worked at are but your userid specifies the San Francisco bay area which is well known for massive salaries for anyone who knows about computers. So I would expect if you replace UK by for example Montana, you would perceive the 2 or 3 times higher salary in the bay area when compared to various other parts of the US.

@DanielHatton I didn't want to edit, but I'd just call them "staff" in the US.

@DanielHatton Whether postdocs count as "academic staff" seems to depend on the context, but we're never grouped in with professional services.  There are rather a lot of us.  In an even more uncertain place there are research technicians with PhDs, with responsibilities overlapping those of postdocs, lower salaries, and no longer much better job security.

@ChrisH I would assume that the sort of position that the OP is talking about would not include postdocs. "supporting researchers with technical and domain specific knowledge" does not sound like a postdoc to me.

@IanSudbery I've seen quite similar wording in postdoc job ads - but the use of the word "researchers" in the quote, instead of a reference to supporting the PI fits your reading better than mine.

Anecdotal: because I wanted to do some "non-evil" work for a bit. I could get double the salary in private industry, but chose not to.

@OrangeDog: ‘non-evil’?

As a software developer with work experience in UK/EU and aware of salaries in the US, i can tell you that i haven't tried moving across the pond because i value the work-life balance, the healtcare system and more in general the difference in culture. About academic/non-academic positions... well they don't pay enough to attract me :P

I think the answer to this very much depends on the sorts of role you are referring to.
If you are talking about positions such as Research Software Engineers, Scientific programmers, or Scientific Officers/Staff Scientists that might, or for example, running a core facility, a large part of the answer is "we don't". Firstly, we make far less use of this sort of people than many other countries do, often relying instead on that most English of ideas of the interested amateur muddling along as best they can. But when we do have such positions, we struggle to recruit to them and turnover is high.
If you are talking about research technician type roles then my experience is that people are either young (and don't stay long) or for the people that do these jobs, it's often the household's second income.
In all cases, it's getting increasingly difficult to recruit and retain good people.
Why do people do it? There is a combination of motivations. Partly, we do rely on the whole "vocation"/"mission oriented". Partly, we rely on the fact that for many specialties, industrial positions are pretty concentrated on a small (expensive) part of country, whereas academia is fairly well distributed and people have a variety of reasons for wanting to live away from where the industrial jobs are. Partly, I think people have a (misguided) idea that an academic job is more secure than an industrial one. Partly, it is the case that salaries for everything, from waitstaff to CEOs, are higher in the US. I don't know about academic staff, but the pay of a senior lecturer at a research-intensive Russell Group university is in the top 10% of salaries in the country, although this varies for other categories of university.

Agree with this, filling/retaining staff in these roles has been extremely difficult at my institution. On one occasion someone from industry actually applied to one of our laboratory support roles and they would have been great. However, HR would only approve a salary a fraction of what they were currently earning. They essentially laughed at us and walked away. Now we have no lab support staff...

@atom44 Its difficult when paying them what they are paid in industry would mean paying them more than the head of department or even the head of faculty is currently paid!

+1 for that last paragraph. I chose a "career" as a teacher instead of staying in industry, and I keep getting asked why I chose the "low-paying job". The answer is that I enjoy being a teacher much more than the "desk job" I had before, it's one of those things money can't buy...

I would observe that what finally seemed to work for retaining people in my current department was a change in management (head of school) from not ideal to very very good. It seems to have stopped the turnover tsunami. I knew that the academic salaries were decently above average where I am, but didn't realise they were in the top 10% in the country? Wow.

@penelope Grab https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1059906/Table_3.1a_1920.ods and your spine points table and you can check where things line up for you. Typical starting salaries for jobs with a PhD are enough to put you above median.

@origimbo Oh that's cool, thank you. Okay so at least at my University, Senior Lecturer pay falls in between the top 23% (low end) and top 13% (high end) of salaries in the country. The next step up, Associate Prof, just about hits the 10% mentioned in this answer (top 13% on the low end of the range, and around top 9% for the high end). So all this makes the "top 10% in the country" claim by this answer quite a bit misleading in my eyes...

@penelope Its fairly rare for a university to use both Senior lecturer and Associate Prof titles. At my university, which uses SL, SL goes from point 46 (£57k) on the national scale to point 55 (£74k). This is more or less the same at Bath, Exeter and Liverpool as comparators I have to hand, within a couple of points. According to https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/ashe1997to2015selectedestimates, 90th centile for gross pay was £55k all workers or £60k full time workers.

I suspect the difference between the two data sets is connected to the difference between "pay" and "income".

Here we use Lecturer/Senior Lecturer, followed by Associate Prof (used to be Reader, which they're phasing out as a title now), and finally Full Prof on top. SL goes from point 35 (£41k) to 43 (£52k)

@penelope Your SL covers almost the points as our L. Which is interesting. I wasn't aware of such a large diversity amongst institutions. As I say, Bath, Exter and Liverpool all use very similar scales to us. Many places have made this non-public in recent years, but last time I had access, I think Leeds, York and Oxford, and pretty much any other research-intensive, pre-92 I looked at used more or less the same definitions as us as well. I am aware that post-92s did things slightly differently, but even then, I wasn't aware of differences as big as yours.

It seems very likely that the difference is indeed about post/pre-92 Unis. While I don't have any other examples at hand except my own Uni, and I don't want to single any institution out right now by naming it (I'm sure a dedicated somebody could dig that info by looking into my activity over the last few years, but if they really want to, whatever)... our scales are L: points 30-35 (this is shared with postdocs), SL: points 35-43 (the lower point overlaps with L), AP: 44-49, P: 50+. So, put differently, your SL is most similar to our full professorial positions.

Our progression is also automatic from L->SL (for academics; postdocs get capped forever at 35), while you have to apply for an internal promotion to go from SL->AP, or AP->P (and provide appropriate evidence about securing research income, publishing activity, as well as involvement in school/dept activities etc).

With all this info in the comments, and the fairly large pay difference between institutions that you were not aware of when writing your answer, do you maybe think it'd be a good idea to edit some of this info into your answer (i.e. that you answer only holds for pre-92 Unis) and possibly clean up some of the comments?

@penelope I can alter the answer to make clear that I'm talking about research intensive, RG universities, and that there is variation between institutions. I'm not sure how much the detail is relevant as the question is about facilities technicians/staff scientists, not faculty. What would really be good I guess is some actual data on staff scientist like salaries, and where they sit in the distribution, but I don't have that data to hand.

Partly it's because universities in the UK tend to have quite generous employee benefits. Annual leave is typically greater than average (40+ days in total for long serving staff isn't uncommon). Pensions traditionally have also been pretty good. For technical and administrative staff in particular, the work environment can be less demanding, working weeks can be as little as 35 hours for full time employees and there's generally not massive pressure to be constantly busy. There are also usually a lot of other perks and discounts to take advantage of if they so wish.
You also have to remember the UK generally has lower salaries than the US across all sectors. This is somewhat made up by things like socialised healthcare, higher sick pay and annual leave regulations. The cost of living is also generally lower.

Pensions have been eroded but are still better than much of the private sector.  Although not many people actually manage to take all their annual leave, that's partly because it's often not necessary to take a day off for appointments/deliveries etc. as occasional working from home is usually possible (he says while failing to do this and taking annual leave) .

I looked hard at returning to industry after my PhD, before going for postdoc roles.
I would have been on about ⅓ more salary in the private sector, and saved another 10% of my postdoc pay that goes on my commute.  But financial motivation isn't everything; especially in academia plenty of people are content to make enough to afford a decent lifestyle, rather than trying to be rich.
The working environment would have been very different - academia suits a lot of people, though of course not everyone.  There would have been a lot more travel and a lot less flexibility in the industry roles I looked at - not great with a young child.  Having worked in both, the pressures are very different in industry.

@AnonymousM "seems to be" is right. I read it differently. And now a lot of technical staff are on fixed term contracts too


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Tax write-off for research-related expenses in the US?
I am wondering if any research-related expenses can be applied toward a personal tax write-off (in the U.S.).  For example, assume I traveled to a conference or meeting to present my research, and all the expenses were paid out-of-pocket.  Or, assume that I purchase some equipment or supplies that is used for my research.  Does a provision in the tax code exist that would allow the expenses to be considered a tax write off?  If so, a link to the IRS rule would be greatly appreciated!

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal/tax advice.
I believe you can deduct these as unreimbursed employee expenses.  For 2013, this was Line 21 of Form 1040 Schedule A.  Details can be found in IRS Pub. 529.  It lists a number of examples of expenses that would be deductible on this line, including:

Research expenses of a college professor
Travel related to your work
Tools and supplies used in your work
Subscriptions to professional journals
Dues to professional societies

There are a couple of major caveats:

Roughly, you can only deduct the amount that exceeds 2% of your adjusted gross income (AGI).  More specifically, you take the amount of your unreimbursed employee expenses, add the rest of your miscellaneous itemized deductions if any (see Pub. 529 for the list), and subtract 2% of your AGI; you can deduct the difference.  So this may only apply if your research expenses are fairly substantial, or you have other significant miscellaneous itemized deductions.  (Note that miscellaneous itemized deductions do not include the big itemized deductions like charitable donations, state taxes, or mortgage interest.)
You have to itemize deductions to do this.  If you don't have many other itemized deductions, you may be better off just taking the standard deduction.
Of course, you cannot deduct expenses that were reimbursed.

Note that you might also get good answers on http://money.stackexchange.com.

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Is there an association for academic managers?
I there an international society/association for building a community of academic managers (such as department heads, deans, etc)?
I found Association of University Administrators, but it is for administrators (e.g., directors of offices) rather than academic managers.

The association you linked to calls itself "the professional association for higher education administration and management." I don't see why this excludes deans or department heads.

@ff524 it does not exclude deans and department heads, but their focus is on administrative roles rather than academic executives. For instance, I am interested to attend a meeting in which most participants and lectures are about the roles of academic heads, deans, VPs.

The Association of Deans and Directors might fulfill what you are looking for: it is not clear from their website the degree to which it is international, but there also seems to be nothing that indicates it is not.

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Online recommendation for an applicant who is not the recommender's student
My recommender and I know each other through scientific discussions and collaborations. I have never been his student.
He told me that in the online recommendation form they asked him some questions like "Which courses has he/she taken with you?" or "How do you rank the applicant among all your students?" and he does not know what to say.
How should he answer these questions? Should he leave them blank and just write the recommendation letter? Would this not be perceived negatively?

"None; see letter." and "Not applicable; see letter.", respectively.

He told me that in the online recommendation form they asked him some questions like "Which courses has he/she taken with you?" or "How do you rank the applicant among all your students?" and he does not know what to say.

Well, he should say "kasramsh has never been my student". What else could he truthfully say?

Should he leave them blank and just write the recommendation letter?

He shouldn't leave them blank but answer them truthfully. "I know kasramsh from [...]. He has never been my student.". Somewhere in the letter, the relationship betweem recommender and student should be explained anyway.

Would this not be perceived negatively?

Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, it is the way it is, and there is no way how you can spin it that the target institution would not figure out that you are not your recommender's student.

I would recommend that he fill these fields to the best of his ability, following rather the spirit of the question than the literal letter. The first question he would need to leave blank. For the second question, he might be able to compare you to actual students he did have - if this is not meaningfully possible (e.g., if he is an industrial researcher, who never had any students), then he should leave that one blank, too.
He should then point these questions out in his recommendation letter and explain why he could not enter anything there.

The problem of course is that you don't know whether these online forms are first processed automatically, and whether blank fields could count against you without a human even parsing the explanations in the recommendation letter. I would assume that such issues arise frequently and that the people who create such forms are smart enough to understand this. In which case I would assume that blank fields are treated separately and do not lead to an automatic exclusion of your application.
(Of course, it could be that if a "large" percentage of blank fields could indeed be an automatic rejection, since one could argue that the recommender might not even know you well enough in an academic context.)

EDIT, in the light of xLeitix' answer: I realize that I answered based on the assumption that these questions are multiple choice questions, not free text questions. If these are free text questions, then yes, he should answer truthfully that you never were a student of his (and still go into details in his recommendation letter).


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How to emphasize the main contributor to a paper when the field typically orders authors alphabetically?
I am working on a graph theory paper with two of my friends. The problem stated in the paper is solved by me. However, our supervisor professor pointed out that in all of the graph theory journals (and other mathematics journals as well), names of authors are sorted by an alphabetic order which puts me in the third position after one of my friends who was mainly in charge of half of the editings (which I greatly thank his efforts) and our supervisor professor.
I wonder if there is any way to point out who was the main contributor in a graph paper or not.
I think this may be a very deciding factor in being accepted by a good university for a master program because we can only have a few papers before graduation.

Related question: Alphabetical Order for Authors in Computer Science

Also, pay attention to the answer of another related question

@hhoomn Whether alphabetical order is common or not can depend on the sub-community. Now "graph paper" does not seem to be the correct term - can you replace if by the proper term? In case of doubt, please use Wikipedia to look up the correct name of the relevant scientific community.

I don't know exactly.

Is your field "Graph Theory"?

The paper is in graph theory. I am a CE student performing a research in CS department.

@hhoomn Then your paper is a "graph theory paper". "Graph paper" could have also meant a paper in computer graphics or data visualization.

@DCTLib - no one in computer graphics would ever use the word graph that way. They are completely different concepts.

A few of my joint papers contain information about the contributions of the individual authors. If your co-authors agree to include such information, that's probably the best solution.  If they don't agree, then you should probably use alphabetical order but ask your supervisor to make it clear, in letters of recommendation, that you're the one who actually solved the problem.

Not a constructive comment, I'm afraid, but as someone in industry who reads academic papers but doesn't write them, I find the whole culture of multiple authorship thoroughly distasteful. It all smells of "you slap my back and I'll slap yours". It goes with the fact  that people are writing in order to score brownie points that advance their careers, not to communicate with the audience that is supposed to benefit from the research (and is probably paying for it). It is essentially corrupt and dishonest.

@MichaelKay, the days when an individual could routinely know enough to make progress are long gone.  Example: I make the experiment work, my theorist colleague interprets the results. I'm not saying there's no truth in what you say, false/inflated/political authorship is a real issue, but you can't tar all multi-author papers with the same brush.

@MichaelKay Yes, how dare people collaborate on research just to possibly obtain better results.

I wanted to see if there is any way to point out who was the main contributor in a graph paper or not?

Generally not.  In pure mathematics it's extremely unconventional to use any author ordering other than alphabetical.  You could try, but it will look weird and attract negative attention, and nobody will be quite sure how to interpret it.  In particular, you run the risk of having people think "this jerk insisted on being listed first despite the near-universal use of alphabetical order".  I virtually never see papers with any other author ordering, and I would not recommend it.
It's also rare and considered awkward to include any discussion in the paper of who contributed what.  One reason is that it's difficult to write such a discussion fairly.  For example, suppose your collaborators try three approaches that fail before you find one that works.  Reasonable people could disagree as to whether your collaborators were obviously on the wrong track all along, or whether they pointed the way to the solution by eliminating other plausible methods.  (The general principle is that if your collaborators aren't useful, then you shouldn't be working with them.  Turning this around, if they are useful enough that you are happy to work with them before the problem is solved, then you can't retroactively decide that they weren't useful enough afterwards.)
The flip side of this is that the standards for being an author are fairly demanding, and coauthors should have seriously worked on the mathematics itself.  In particular, supervising the project or editing the paper are not by themselves sufficient for coauthorship.  But it's reasonable for these people to be coauthors if they worked on the problem with you, even if you were the one who ended up making the decisive contribution.

I think it may be a very deciding factor in being accepted by a good university for a master program because we can only have a few papers before graduation.

The usual way this information is conveyed is a letter of recommendation from your supervisor, who can highlight the role you played in the project.

Whether or not people would think it's strange that your name was out of order, I'm confident that math programs wouldn't consider it as a factor for admissions.

In some journals, the "corresponding author" is marked somehow. When I published a paper with my supervisor, I was the second author in alphabetical order, but he insisted that I be the corresponding author to give me proper credit (since I came up with the main proof). So this seems to be an option.

@PhoemueX Corresponding author usually just means whoever is in charge of corresponding with the editor. It does not carry any value.

@AnonymousMathematician, you are making too general claims about mathematics authorships. Do you have any reference for this? Or based on anecdotes? I am from applied mathematics areas and we do have first authorship given depending on many things including significantly more contribution than the rest of the authors. A graph theory paper coming out of a computer science department may or may not be a 'pure math' paper. Alphabetical ordering in many cases is a diplomatic way to avoid hurting people's ego...

@John: I'm definitely talking just about pure mathematics journals.  If the paper is published in an applied mathematics or CS venue, then conventions may be different.

@TobiasKildetoft, I think the corresponding author is the person to contact regarding the paper in a few years time, so it should preferably be a fixed member of staff rather than a student/postdoc who may well move on.

In some journals, the "corresponding author" is marked somehow. — But in some fields (like mine) "corresponding author" just means "the author that handles the logistics of submission" or "the author with the most stable email address".  The designation says nothing about the author's level of contribution to the paper.

I think this may be a very deciding factor in being accepted by a good university for a master program because we can only have a few papers before graduation.

Not being first author in a field where authors are ordered alphabetically won't hurt you.  If you're worried that people won't realise the author list is alphabetical, you can always point this out in your application.  If the programme you're applying to is in pure mathematics, then the people reviewing applications will know that authors are alphabetical.
I used to have a version of my CV that had the note "Authors are ordered alphabetically" at the top of the publications section.  I used that version when I was applying for fellowships and other positions where the people who were making the decisions might not know that my field uses alphabetical order.

...in all of the graph theory journals (and other mathematics journals as well), names of authors are sorted by an alphabetic order...

The rule is not set in stone, even in mathematics.  Here's a recent mathematics paper of mine with authors not in alphabetical order:

R. J. Stones, S. Lin, X. Liu, G. Wang, On computing the number of Latin rectangles.  Graphs and Combinatorics, 32 (2016) pp. 1187-1202.

While this particular example is not a graph theory paper, it's in a journal that routinely publishes graph theory papers.  Nobody (except the authors) even discussed the author order.

My view on this is the same as the one expressed in the answer by Anonymous Mathematician.
In addition, some journals (and also math journals) have the notion of "corresponding author". This is not mean the same thing as "main contributor" but really "author to whom correspondence shall be addressed". This may be the author for which the affiliation will stay valid the longest, but can also be the author who is most competent to answer any questions. Check other publications in the journal (and/or journal guidelines) if your journal of choice has this feature.

I agree that the OP should be listed as the corresponding author; however the OP should not get the idea that this means any more credit.

Corresponding author does not imply largest contribution.  A supervisor might recommend on being corresponding author, because her contact details are likely to remain correct much longer than the ones of PhD students or postdocs, and she will likely be in the best position to know what happened to them should someone want to contact them 1–10 years later.

No. Being corresponding author has nothing whatsoever to do with how much contribution was made to the paper. It often means the author who actually did the journal submission and it's often, as you say, just the author whose email address is likely to stay the same for the longest.

@davidricherby I agree and did not mean to say anything different.

I don't know 'graph theory' from the Graf Spree, but I know a bit about publishing conventions.  First suggestion (getting outside the box)--if you solved the problem, were you also the principal investigator and writer?  If so, would the others agree to the piece being published with you as the sole author, with full acknowledgement of their relative contributions in a footnote?  If the answer is 'No', then (second suggestion) publish the authors alphabetically--which seems to be the way of it in your discipline--with an asterisk after your name and a footnote acknowledging you as the team member who solved the problem.  If that solution doesn't appeal, then (third suggestion) insert a "Prefatory Note" or "Acknowledgement" page, in which your primary role is detailed.

If it's really true that only one author solved the problem, there should be only one author on the paper.

Acknowledging yourself in the Acknowledgements section would seem more than a little odd to me.

Others have also contributed, one of the co-authors initiated the research and the other one has helped greatly during the editing.

@hhoomn I am not sure what it means to initiate research in graph theory (but I have a hard time coming up with something that would be sufficient to become a coauthor). Helping with editing is never sufficient to become a coauthor.


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Finishing the physics graduate curriculum as undergrad
I am a year ahead of my physics curriculum, but I plan to stay as an undergrad for the 4th year to increase my chances at top graduate schools in physics. In this 4th year, I will take all the graduate courses in physics a typical 1st/2nd year PhD student would take: two semesters of quantum mechanics and a semester each of statistical physics and electrodynamics.
My question is: is it worth it taking all of these graduate courses as an undergrad? From what I know, most universities don't accept transfers in graduate courses and I would have to take them again.
I would still like to take them because I am eager to learn them, and also achieving good grades in them would help me demonstrate my readiness for graduate school.
Other option would be taking courses in other disciplines that would benefit me, such as math or electrical engineering.

Instead of taking those classes, you could aso consider taking a seminar or a self-guided research project/capstone.

What country? It will make a difference...

Research projects look much better than classes. Although graduate classes will increase your understanding greatly. I'd say go for some classes, but make room for research as well.

You might want to talk over your financial situation with your family.  The big advantage of getting out the door quickly and starting the graduate studies is that you would hopefully get support in grad school -- free tuition + stipend.

Research experience is almost always better than additional classes, even graduate classes. Either graduating early so that you can work/volunteer full time in a research lab or taking the minimum number of credits to maintain your status as a student and work/volunteer part time in a research lab is likely going to increase your chances of admissions to a top graduate school much more than taking a full load of classes.
If you go with taking classes, classes that fulfil general graduate requirements are going to be less valuable than classes that will help prepare you for your research.

Perhaps your first sentence is true for experimental physics, but is it true for theoretical physics?  It's certainly not true for math.

@Kimball I'd say it's probably true for many flavors of theoretical physics as well. Even good graduate classes aren't as good as starting to do real work.

In the US system, it's important to distinguish between transfering academic credits from one university to another versus simply having required courses waived on the basis of work that you did at another university.
Most graduate programs significantly limit transfer of credits from other institutions.  A common rule is that you can't transfer more than 12 credit hours from another institution.  Furthermore, you typically can't transfer credits that you used to earn a previous degree.  If these courses that you'll be taking next year appear on your undergraduate transcript, then its unlikely that they would be transferable.  The more common situation in which graduate credits would be transferred is when a student switches from one graduate program to a graduate program at another university.
However, it is also possible that the graduate program that you go to might be willing to recognize that you had previously taken these graduate courses by waiving the requirement that you take the courses again, and instead let you take other more advanced or elective courses instead of repeating the same material.  You can always ask for this consideration, but I wouldn't count on getting it.
In my experience, it's quite common for students to end up retaking graduate courses that they took as advanced undergraduate students at another university.  In other cases, the student may have taken a very good undergraduate course that basically covers the same material as the graduate course.  Some students find this very boring, while other students find that it makes for an easy first couple of semesters of graduate school.
I don't think that there's anything wrong with taking these graduate courses, but you should be aware that there's a good chance that you'll end up having to retake the same courses in your graduate program.  If your math background isn't very strong, then taking some additional math courses (particularly mathematical physics, PDE's, and analysis courses) could help and likely wouldn't overlap with required course work in your graduate program.

As an example, I had a really good undergrad quantum course, taught by Will Happer. In graduate school, I got to take quantum again, taught by Ed Salpeter.  The great benefit of 'knowing' the basics of the material the second time was that I could concentrate more on the corner cases, off-the-cuff comments (very illuminating), and the 'philosophy' of quantum mechanics. Much depends on how you personally choose to approach 'retaking' a course in grad school.

Taking the graduate classes will indeed help prepare you for graduate school, and consequently will also help you get into a top graduate program, particularly if you are not coming from a top undergrad school.
At least in math, it's not uncommon to test out of standard graduate classes when you start a grad program.  And if you go to a grad program that is considerably better than your current school, the grad classes will probably be at a more advanced level, so it will probably not be a waste to take (at least some of) them over.  At the least, if you retake these courses, they will be easier next time and you will have extra time then that you can use to learn things more deeply.
I don't think it makes sense to take classes in other areas just because you are worried about retaking the material in graduate school, but if you want to take a class in a related area because you're interested or you want to shore up some deficiency, that's a different story.  But you should be studying at least some physics next year, if that's your passion.

I was in your same position myself as an undergrad rushing to grad school. My interests evolved as I found out more about other fields. I had thought physics might get me what I wanted, and followed it through as fast as I could, only to learn that what I really wanted to do matched up better with other fields.
I would recommend taking the opportunity to plug some gaps in your knowledge that can come in handy in graduate school.
If you're interested in theory, make sure you brush up in mathematics. Typically you only need to take the basic calculus sequence in physics, so maybe take a higher-level analysis class to supplement your understanding. Linear algebra is indispensable, take an upper level version if you can.
If you think you might be doing a lot of computational work, take some computer science as well: take software engineering and learn a language well (I suggest python). If you can program pretty well already, then I'd suggest taking an algorithms class. You're never taught to program well, and yet, you need to! I learned this first-hand when my computational code for research would get stuck forever and never return an answer. With the correct understanding and algorithms, that code can be written to give an answer in 5 seconds.
If you're interested in a more experimental route, take some chemistry and electrical engineering courses. Chemistry will get you some hands-on experience with some equipment that you will often touch as a graduate student when testing your samples, as well as different perspective on the theory. You may need to fabricate your own devices to gather data (or repair them...) so it can't hurt to be familiar with circuits, so take a good EE class. Signal processing (typically also an EE class) will really come in handy.
There's many options, so just take what seems interesting and useful and go with the flow. It's certainly not a bad idea to get a preview of grad school and take more physics, but I would definitely take your time and explore other areas too before you go to grad school, it will absolutely pay off.

(Making @Kimball's points perhaps even more forcefully...) If you are interested in experimental physics, I have no real advice, but if you are interested in theoretical physics, I will assume for the sake of discussion that the situation resembles that of mathematics. In that case, in fact the question as posed involves implicit hypotheses that (I think) far over-shadow the literal question asked. That is, to get to the best grad program one can, letters of recommendation (from people in the field, who've had contact with you at the highest level you can manage) are critical. So  making an excellent impression in graduate-level courses would be a great thing, apart from "taking the class" per se.
For that matter, witnessing how (presumably) seasoned experts talk about more-sophisticated (grad-level rather than undergrad, anyway) material ought to be educational and inspirational in itself, beyond the literal content (which should be accessible in written sources).
For that matter, I think it misses the mark to think of a "program" as essentially following a schedule of classes and perhaps only doing what is commanded by the coursework, homework, exams. It is permitted to read other books, papers, and to think about math (or physics...) as much as one wants. A reason to "take classes" is for easy documentation (and meeting faculty). Private study is hard to document.
Finally, the psychological element of familiarity/comfort matters hugely, in my observation. That is, the longer one has been aware of a thing, the more comfortable one is (even without "mastery"), and often the comfort/discomfort issue is a large cognitive load feature. New/scary things are harder to think about. So looking around and being exposed to things as far in advance as possible is a very good thing.
Finally, at least for "theoretical" subjects such as parts of mathematics and physics, the popular attempted distinction between "study" and "research" is crazily misleading, in my opinion. True, if "study" means some stultifying on-command busywork, that's not so good, but "research" might also mean blundering about in a fog of ignorance, so that could be bad too. The good versions of both, that is, spending one's time thinking about math/whatever, are fundamentally indistinguishable from each other.

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Can you do research at home, without being backed by a university? [electronics]
I am wondering this because I love electronics, but I go to a college which is mostly for vocational training. Often times I feel like our courses are 40% waste of time (usually too much industry software and/or uninterested lecturers giving compulsory classes).
So I had this idea of taking a year off to focus on my own projects as I did over last summer.
Since I am not sure a masters degree will teach me anything that a book can not, I was wondering whether I could do applied research at home permanently and potentially make money off of it? Right now I earn some money at home online via a site I own. Not much, but enough to get me by. I know how to read and I spend 10 hours in the library with ease (as I have been told this is how grad students work their way through projects). I mostly work on small-scale electronics, like currently an abbreviated type of joystick for paraplegics (that a paraplegic friend suggested). I work alone, at least at the moment.
Could I work on projects on my own and make a life out of this or should I try to join a good university for my masters? How are people without degrees regarded?

Welcome to Academia.SE! I'd suggest you look through some of our earlier [tag:independent-researcher] questions, there should be a lot of information there. In your specific case, the best course of action might be trying to get into a better school, because your current college frankly doesn't sound like it's preparing you for independent research, either.

Okay but what does a masters course teach in the way of research? After all, it spans only half a year for the thesis, doesn't it?

There are two year MSc courses; you get a year to find your topic and a year to execute, all while taking courses. You get access to more expensive software and hardware, and you're surrounded by other researchers and professors that can give you ideas or help hone yours The courses help. Some people start their MSc with the topic already in mind, in which case they have the whole year or 2 for execution, refinement and growth.

Master's degree can be thought of as preparation for PhD study. It provides a similar in-depth research experience, but at smaller scale and in shorter timeframe. Primarily, it provides experience in carrying out research using a systematic scientific research methodology, taking a project through all stages from concept to write-up/publication. This pushes the student to understand how their research fits into the broader field, and structure the problem and solution approach such that is intelligible not only to one individual but to other experts, which enables contribution to the field.

In the academia, degrees matter, being used as the main gatekeeping mechanism for identifying the pool of eligible applicants for positions at universities. Typically, the higher up you climb up the degree ladder (Master's, PhD) the more (and fancier) doors open.
In private industry, the majority of companies still require at least a bachelor's degree. So if you are considering working for a company at least for a short period of time to develop additional skills, I would highly recommend finishing a bachelor's degree. In some startups (especially Internet startups), you may be able to secure a position through networking with the founders (who sometimes themselves are dropouts).
But it sounds like you prefer to lay your own path in this life. I think you could make a living out of this by becoming an independent inventor, receiving and then either selling patents to corps or developing them into businesses on your own.
You could also work as independent consultant (formally, a sole proprietor) offering software and/or hardware engineering solutions to businesses. In this case, it is important to develop expertise in a fairly narrow niche, such as robot sensors, a programming language (e.g. Java), or a particular manufacturing process in a specific industry (e.g. programming car electronics for auto manufacturers). Typically, a way to develop such skills is to actually work for a company with a focus in this niche, then striking on your own.
To build up experience, also consider design competitions (e.g. dexigner.com/design-competitions). While some of these are for students affiliated with universities, others are open to anyone.
These options are not necessarily either/or, so you might be able to stitch a successful career and comfortable living by combining two or three of them at once, varying only the extent to which you allocate your time and energy to each of these pursuits. The most important thing is, to make sure you have fun no matter what you do. If it ain't fun, it ain't worth doing. You seem to have the talent and motivation to pursue your interests, which many people dream of but only a few have the guts to actually do. Good luck!

Probably best to have a combination of personal projects and formal schooling.
Electronics is one of those fields where you can make something useful on your own and enjoy moderate success (especially if you can interface them in useful ways to technology; search for "Maker's Movement" and related topics like arduino/micro-controllers for some ideas).
A standard type of job using electronics will probably require knowledge of at least some of that industry software you've seen in your current program, or other useful skills that might be harder to pick up on your own. Additionally, lack of formal qualifications could be viewed with suspicion and might prevent you from getting a job that you are a perfect candidate for.

IF you are planning to work for someone else then it could be difficult to get hired next to someone with a Grad degree. Though if you were to work for yourself it IS indeed possible to make a living based on your research, findings, and application.
The hardest part for you though will be accreditation. Are you someone who knows what they are doing and have good intentions or are you an 8 year old who can make things up? When things come to the online medium you never really know who you are dealing with. You need to get you name out there in order for people in the higher education and professional realm to take your research seriously.
Work on getting your name out there and if you can do research with someone who is accredited and has a Grad school degree. The hardest part is getting started because if you do hit it big and have something viable to sell to a company or even a good you are able to make yourself there's no sales unless people know who they are dealing with.
Networking is a powerful thing. If you can find people who do what you want to do reach out and ask them how they got started find out how they networked and who to look for in connections. The more connections you have the better your chances are of "making it" with your solo venture.

If you really mean research -- as opposed to experimenting with components already made, which is almost always going to be development -- you probably can't do it without a major investment in lab equipment. It's unlikely many of us can afford that on our own.


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Is it ethical to withdraw an accepted manuscript for financial reasons?
I submitted a manuscript, which has been accepted. Its publication is pending payment of publication fees. I need to withdraw the manuscript due to financial constraints.
Is this ethical?

That will likely depend on the journal you submitted to. Contact the editor.

tahnk u but i want to ask is it ethical?

@StephanKolassa should I mention the reason?? actually this is the first time I publish an article

Thanks, that actually is an interesting question. I took the liberty of editing it. Could you please edit it some more and add some more circumstances? For instance: did you have financing for the publication prepared, but the financing fell through? Or did you submit first and look for financing later? Or do you now have other priorities as to what to do with your budget? Or do you hope to withdraw your manuscript to submit it in a journal that does not charge publication fees?

A very relevant question is whether the publication fees were disclosed up front. (A second tangential question is whether this is a legitimate publication venue or a predatory press).

Actually I hope to submit it in a journal that doesn't have fees, and if it has, I hope it has a higher impact factor

@StephanKolassa

Most of the reputable journals that I know that have page charges can and will waive them if you request (with a good reason).

Where is the "ethical" conundrum?  They want you to pay for it; you can't afford it.  Am I missing something?  Are you asking if the publication is being ethical?  That would make more sense to me.

The fundamental ethical principle is that you shouldn't waste people's time.  This could be applied differently, depending on the circumstances:

If you knew there were mandatory fees you couldn't afford, then it was unethical to submit the paper.  The damage is already done (assuming you really can't pay the fees), and now you should apologize and withdraw the paper.
If the fees were clearly announced but you just weren't paying attention, then you screwed up.  Again you should apologize, and you may have no choice but to withdraw the paper, but it's worth asking whether fee waivers are available.
If you submitted the paper in good faith, believing that you would be able to pay the fees, but your financial circumstances have since changed in a way you couldn't have predicted, then you should explain the situation.  You may need to withdraw the paper if you can't get a fee waiver, but you haven't done anything wrong.
If the fees were not announced ahead of time (for example, on the journal's web site), then the journal is at fault.  In this case, you should complain and withdraw your paper, since you don't want the paper to appear in an unethical journal.  However, you should check very carefully to make sure the fees really weren't disclosed, since it would be humiliating to accuse the journal of fraud when you just weren't reading carefully.


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Is choosing a journal editor in submitting a paper an important step?
I just submitted a paper. The journal asked me to choose an editor to handle the paper. I chose the first editor and didn't think much about it.
Is this step of the submission process important?

Editors could be specialized.
For instance, I work in forecasting, and in an editorial board of a general forecasting journal, some editors may be specialized in sales forecasting, others in macroeconomic forecasting, others in judgmental modifications to forecasts, others in demographics or crime forecasting and so forth. I certainly make an effort to steer my papers towards an editor that is most familiar with my specific topic.
If the editor you picked is not a specialist in your particular topic, he will likely route your submission to an expert colleague on the editorial board, so just picking one should not be too important apart from causing a minuscule amount of additional work. Unless, that is, your abstract does not sound promising to the not-absolute-expert, or the editor you picked is busy, in which case the re-routing could cause a small delay.

Some journals ask authors to choose editors, then to suggest reviewers... one day they will ask authors to review their own papers...


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What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing a postdoc in Singapore and UK?
I am end of my PhD. I would like to do a postdoc. In UK the average postdoc salary is around 30K (per year). But in UK the tax is very high, after taxes I may get around 1800 pounds (per month). I heard in Singapore the salaries for postdoc are a bit high and the taxes are also very low.
I have my wife and two children, In that case I would like to know the advantages and disadvantages of doing a postdoc in UK or Singapore.

How old are your 2 children? This is a key factor for you to decide if you want to live in Singapore. If you kids are old enough to go to school. You will need to send them to International school. The tuition is very high. Also, the benifits your employer will be crucial factor for you.

The problem is we know absolutly notthing about your situation. Are you British? Are you from Singapore? Do you have family in both countries? Do you like British weather? Do you like asian cuisine?

Btw. from a pure academic viewpoint (which would be inline with this forum) the UK is preferabel; more high rated universities, more collobartion posibilities etc etc

You seem to have calculated your income assuming that you will be taxed 40%. This is wrong. You would only be taxed 40% on any income you earn over £31K. You will be taxed 0% on the first £10K of your income, and then 20% on income from £10K to £31K. Hence you will receive around £26K. This is without deducting National Insurance, but certainly the amount due for this will not amount to £8K! It will only be around £2.5K.

The internet says the take home on a £30,000 salary is about £23,000. However, generally you are correct that tax in Singapore is generally significantly lower. Personally, I would other considerations such as institution and family concerns would be much more significant than salary.

Have you already secured positions in both UK and Singapore to choose from?

Note that "less taxes" mean that there wi be less commoditites for free, or less money for poorer people.

To put the following into context, I teach at a UK university and have delivered courses at a Singapore partner university for many years.
In support of many of the above comments, you need have no concerns about the academic establishment in Singapore, at any level, from primary through to university. Education is top of Singapore's agenda and this is apparent everywhere. Teaching is in english throughout. Singapore's universities are world-class.
The living and working environments are excellent. Cost of living (apart from housing) is lower than UK. The transport system is also excellent.
Cost of accommodation is the only negative. Apartment rental costs are high - comparable to London. However, if you are appointed on expat terms the University will provide an apartment and the rent will be subsidised; all large companies that employ expat staff take account of accommodation costs. But you should make sure that you know what type of apartment is on offer and that it meets your family needs. 'Landed properties' form a very small part of Singapore's accommodation, the large majority are high-rise apartments.
Income tax is much lower than UK levels - you can check this out on the government's IRAS web page.

The OP has 2 children. Do you think this would have some financial impact when they live in Signporer?

There are costs involved, but I haven't gone into this in any detail. This is something that should be discussed with a potential employer.

...this web site may be useful: http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/admissions/international-students/general-info/

I am not sure if postdocs in Singapore are qualified for a university accommodation.

Also remember, Singapore is a fine country. :D

It is typical that you will disproportionately get speaking invitations from, and make connections with other researchers, who live near wherever you do your postdoc.
For these and related reasons (e.g., employers knowing and trusting the people who will write letters for you), one advantage of doing a postdoc in Singapore/UK, respectively, is that it makes it easier to get a permanent job in that respective part of the world. So I would recommend thinking about your long-term job (and family life) prospects in the UK and in Singapore respectively.

I don't know about Singapore. But for the UK, postdocs' salary can give you and your family a very comfortable life unless you are in so expensive city as London (in which case though you get London allowance on top of your salary). Health services are free in the UK, and if your university has an in-house doctor's office for the staff and students' use then you avoid delays to get appointments. Awesome public transportation, and things are fairly cheap due to competition - except rents in certain cities. However, probably Singapore may also have all these facilities. But in short, postdoc salaries in the UK are decent unless you want to rent central London apartments.

"Health services are free in the UK" Visa applicants from outside the EU are now being charged £200 a year on top of their visa to access the NHS.

Please tell me where the awesome public transport is, I want to move there!


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How to cite the same reference in a paragraph twice in APA style?
Content in the paper:

This problem can be solved with the application of machine learning
  algorithms. Machine Learning is the process of programming computers
  to optimize a performance criterion using example data or past
  experience (Alpaydin, 2010). .......[some of my own content] A
  learning routing program is able to adapt to the best path by
  monitoring the network traffic (Alpaydin, 2010).

At the beginning of the paragraph, I have cited the author and then I have some content which are compiled by me. Then I am again using an example given by the author which needs to be cited. So, I have cited him again at the end of the paragraph. Can I do this?

Yes, you can. Check out an example from the invaluable APA Style Blog:

Morin (1988) described two separate but linked epidemics. . . . Morin
  distinguished the HIV (viral) epidemic from the subsequent AIDS
  (disease) epidemic, foreseeing the ultimate convergence of preventing
  the spread of the virus and managing the disease it causes. . . .
  Morin also discussed a third epidemic . . . . This third epidemic is
  as much a part of the pathology of AIDS as the virus itself (Morin,
  1988).
Socioeconomic status (SES) and chronic diseases rather consistently
  fall on a gradient, where those of relatively lower SES have poorer
  health and are more often afflicted by multiple diseases than those
  above them on the SES ladder (Adler & Stewart, 2010). . . . Adler and
  Stewart (2010) offered a framework to explain the major pathways by
  which SES can influence health outcomes. . . . The model is
  developmental, illustrating individual, social, and structural
  influences on disease over the lifespan (Adler & Stewart, 2010).

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What type of content (depth/breadth) or structure of slides (PPT) is expected for a short presentation for Asst Professor interview in the UK?
I have been recently offered an interview for Asst. Professor at a mid-tier UK university.
I have completed my PhD from a top-tier (Oxbridge) university in the UK and had applied for this position without really expecting an interview call. At the start of the interview, I am asked to deliver a 10 minute presentation titled "How would you contribute to the research agenda in the Department?"
In my opinion, the question is rather asking "How would your research fit the department"? Please correct me if I am wrong.
The current situation is I have researched the department and find that the department has a research center but my research specialisms do not necessarily fit the research center. For example, my specialisms are financial investments and the school research center focus on cooperate finance. In this case, how should I address "my research fits well with the department". In addition, I am struggling to figure out the exact meaning how should I answer "contribution to their research agenda".
My current problem is that this interview is scheduled immediately (within 5 days), and this doesn't give me sufficient time to contact my former PhD supervisor(s) for their valuable advice.
My specific questions are:
How deeply technical should I go in the presentation slides for such an opportunity? (i.e. are details at the equation-level required and journal citations expected?)
What sort of answers do that expect？ or Which aspects should I discuss in order to address this question? Currently, I can only think of some answers such as potential collaboration with potential staff or contribution to the next REF or etc?
Should I discuss my publications, conference participation, research pipeline or achievements so far?
Should I identify the grants that I shall be applying to (in particular, the specific EPSRC schemes that exist for early career researchers)?
Are there any other aspects that I may have completely missed here?
I am really sorry to be naive in asking a lot of questions here. This is a valuable opportunity for me and I'd like to give it my best.

Spend some time learning what the "research agenda" of he department really is.

Thanks for your reply. The thing is I cannot find anything about the research agenda of the department but I can find out the topics of their research seminars. Which aspects do you think to address this question? Can I understand this question like "how do you well fit within the department?"

See also https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/127463/what-type-of-content-depth-breadth-is-expected-for-a-short-presentation-for-as?rq=1 and also https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/88541/interviewing-for-a-lecturer-position-in-the-uk?rq=1

There are two ways to "fit" with a department. One way is to do similar things to what they do (and publish). The other is to complement their scope with something that is different enough that the overall scope expands.
If you know what they do, then you can decide which approach is better for you to take. The first implies collaboration. The second implies new opportunities for everyone.
Perhaps the techniques they use in their work will apply in some way to yours. And vice versa.
But to know what to say you need some idea of what they do and how they do it.
The stuff about grants and other things you mention can be used to fill in, but they explicitly want to know about "fit". Think about that, primarily. It would probably be a mistake to describe yourself as entirely independent of their threads.

(This answer is based on a year of applying to mid-tier UK universities for a Lecturer position, getting two offers and accepting one of them a year and a half ago)

How deeply technical should I go in the presentation slides for such an opportunity? (i.e. are details at the equation-level required and journal citations expected?)

No equations are expected in a 10-minute presentations (I expect it takes at least 5 minutes to explain an equation out of the blue). They are asking for "elevator-pitch" type ideas and research directions. Try and sell two or three ideas as you would to an interesting research connection you just made at a conference.

What sort of answers do that expect？ or Which aspects should I discuss in order to address this question? Currently, I can only think of some answers such as potential collaboration with potential staff or contribution to the next REF or etc?

Pointing out collaborations would be good (either with specific people or "this is how my expertise could be applied to some of the ongoing projects"). Pointing out some high-tier publications might be good. But, what they really want to hear is how you're going to bring money in. So make sure you couple each of the 2 or 3 ideas you present with a potential funding agency/call.

Should I discuss my publications, conference participation, research pipeline or achievements so far?

No need to discuss your research pipeline -- getting invited for this interview means they trust you on this. Discuss your publications in the sense that your proposed research directions need to come naturally from your previous work, and not "out of the blue". In such a 10-minute presentation, I would dedicate at most 3 minutes (I know, ugh!) for "about me" and the other 7 (or even 8) minutes on your proposals.

Should I identify the grants that I shall be applying to (in particular, the specific EPSRC schemes that exist for early career researchers)?

Yes. Yes. Definetely yes. This is mostly what they want to hear. They want you to put realistic timelines on your applications as well, and for them to get progressively bigger. You probably want to start with EPSRC New Investigator Award (plan to apply in 10 months for a project of an approximate duration of 1.5-2 years). Then, you might talk about how you're going to apply as a CO-I in collaboration with some department colleagues. And then finally, in 2-3 years you will submit a proposal for your first large (EPSRC?) grant as a PI.

Are there any other aspects that I may have completely missed here?

The focus on funding is much bigger than it seems you think it is from your question. You may also want to mention any industry relations or collaborations that you have. And, public engagement opportunities. You may also want to discuss how some of your project might actually apply to the real world/society if you get to pursue your research lines (= get funded).

Thanks for your suggestions which are really insightful!!

@Dr.NickHolmes Hope some of it helped -- I was fortunate enough that my (postdoc) boss laid all this out for me and even coached me a bit through my early applications. I see that you're new to Academia.SE so just wanted to mention that you can show your appreciation for the answers that helped you by upvoting any that were useful, and accepting the one that answered your question best.

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Should I use AP scores to exempt classes when trying to transfer?
I am considering going to De Anza College (California community college) and trying to transfer/TAG into a UC or similar college. Is it worth it to, for example, use my APCS A test (got 5) or AP Calc BC (5) to exempt some of the entry-level courses that I need to transfer? Or is it more worth it to be conservative and maximize grades?
Will colleges look down on students that have AP scores yet take a similar course in college?
How would this affect my eligibility to TAG into the various UCs with the program?
Note: I have finalized my choice to enroll in a cs program if I were to attempt a transfer.
Other AP scores that I currently consider using:
AP Chinese (will take)
AP Chem (4)
AP Physics C (will take)

Why be bored? You will get the opportunity to take more advanced courses if you skip redoing what you already know.

I don't think that this is a good place to ask this question.  I think that you are much better off asking an advisor at De Anza College, as well as faculty in the relevant areas.  Personally, I think that AP classes (at least, AP Calc and AP Stats) are pretty close to worthless, and would advise students to take the college versions of those classes, but this is going to depend on a lot of variables.  If your goal is just to "get your ticket punched", then you probably should do everything you can to get those placements.

You should maximize learning and not grades.  If you already took an AP course and actually learned the content, don't take a course that is the same as the AP course unless you are required to do so.
Repeating courses for an 'easy A' will waste lots of your time and potentially your money too.  And there's no guarantee the course won't turn out to be much harder than you expect.

Years ago, I had a physics major take Calc I from me during his last semester before graduation.  He had used AP credits to avoid taking it as a freshman, but wanted an easy A.  Unfortunately, my version of Calc I is a lot more rigorous than what AP offers.  He squeaked out a C.  (Best comment from the course:  as I was explaining how to compute $d/dx (x^3)$ from the definition of the derivative, he said "But there's a shortcut!  Why don't you just write $3x^2$?!).  I don't think that it is safe to assume that someone who has taken AP Calculus actually learned the content at a college level.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that a student take a college course that they can get out of via AP credits (expediency may outweigh the desire for content mastery; the courses may not be terribly relevant to the student; etc---and I would strongly advise against taking such a course for an "easy A").  I just want to push back a little against the idea that AP classes are the equivalent of college courses and that there is nothing to be gained by "retaking" such a course.

Agree.  AP may or may not be the same as the college course with a similar title.


text:
Are informal inquiries about postdoctoral positions liable to be perceived negatively?
I will graduate in 6-8 months with a PhD in physics and am looking to contact potential postdoc advisers. I will be applying to positions without an advertisement or prior contact with the potential advisers. I have been told by my current PhD adviser that if I wait until I just a few months before graduation, he will make the initial contact for me. I am conflicted because I understand many postdoc positions are planned and filled up to a year in advance.
I don't want to lose out on these positions, so I first want to make informal contact on my own. However, I don't want to jeopardize my chances of getting a position by sending out a poorly received informal email. I'm wondering specifically how informal emails are typically perceived in these situations. Are they liable to be perceived negatively by those professors expecting a more formal process?

So, you want to know exactly what? Do want to know what we think you should do? This is very difficult since we do not know your entire situation. If you wonder how something is normally received by someone, then you should make that clear.

"I will be applying to positions without an advertisement" - how do you know a position exists?

@Moriarty There is a thing called a casual application (not to be confused with casual employment) where a job seeker applies to an organization without any knowledge of an open position with the hopes of being called when something opens up.

@earthling Indeed, but I suspect the success rate is vastly lower in academia [citation needed]. Businesses may be willing to stretch finances to hire at short notice a very talented person, but a professor will usually just have to wait until he or she gets a grant. Also, the tone and content of this initial email will be different depending on whether this is an "expression of interest" or an application for an advertised position - that is the crux of my comment.

@Moriarty I believe you are completely correct. The fact that it can be done certainly does not mean it is recommended.

@Moriarty The process of emailing to inquire about the possibility an unadvertised position is the norm in academia, especially for competitive research labs where professors are often inundated with these types of emails.

@earthling I'm wondering specifically how informal emails are typically perceived in these situations. I'm worried they will be perceived negatively by those professors expecting a more formal process.

"The process of emailing to inquire about the possibility an unadvertised position is the norm in academia" - This might be true for your field, but is definitely not universally true in academia.

@TobiasKildetoft I agree. I should also specify that my comment was on postdoctoral positions and not faculty positions.

As currently stated I find this primarily opinion-based - something like "Are informal inquiries about postdoctoral positions common in physics" is more suitable, but might be less interesting for you.

Informal inquiries are not liable to be perceived negatively: An informal inquiry is a very good way to make first contact before sending over more formal items such as a CV, letters of recommendation and proposed research ideas. A thoughtful email with some very brief and basic information about yourself and your interest in the potential lab is more likely to be read and replied to (no information overload). After initial contact is made, the more formal process will then be more directed as information about timing and funding may be provided.

If you were contacting me, the degree of formality wouldn't matter (so long as the salutation isn't "wassup, dude!")  Two things would matter:

Does your email demonstrate clearly that you have put some thought into working in my group, and you're not just mass-mailing a form letter?  If you fail this test, I may not open the attachments.
Do you have strong qualifications for the job?

As long as you're reasonably polite and your writing is not atrocious, everything else is relatively unimportant at this stage.
If your advisor has a good relationship with the person in question, his/her involvement can help considerably.  But you making contact first generally won't do any harm.

Informal inquiries are liable to be perceived negatively The process should be  formal from first contact, and initial inquiries should include proposed research, letters of recommendation and a CV. Sending a hard copy of these items can create a strong impression that is essential to getting hired. Formality is especially important for countries like Germany where it is expected at each step, and also for big-time researchers who receive a flood of inquiries each day.

I am curious, did you post two different answer because of the fact that there is no definite answer?


text:
How to write the Graduate Coordinator regarding admission
I have received an admission offer* from a US University for PhD program with full tuition waiver plus a TA offer. The deadline of accepting the offer  is April 15. Graduate coordinator  wrote me that

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or
  concerns. We are looking forward to your response.

I have applied few other universities too and have not received their decisions. How to write the coordinator in a best way that, I'm very  much interested but I would like to notify them (acceptance or declining) regarding admission offer around the middle of March?  Will they take my view in a negative way?
*The official certificate of admission will come from the university, after all official transcripts and other necessary documents and test scores are received; until then, this offer is considered  unofficial. You will be contacted by the university with a request for documents and for other details, but in the meantime here are the specifics of this offer.
Students who are offered a graduate assistantship are required to accept or decline by April 15, 2016. This common deadline is based on an agreement of all institutions that are  members of the Council of Graduate Schools, as described in the April 15 Resolution, a copy of which can be obtained from http://www.cgsnet.org/april-15-resolution.

You don't need to notify them about when you'll be accepting their offer unless you expect to go right up to or beyond the April 15th deadline.

You just write "Thank you very much for the offer.  I'm very interested, and will definitely contact you if I think of any questions.  At the moment, I'm waiting to hear back from some other institutions, but I will contact you as soon as I come to a final decision."  Graduate coordinators understand that you've applied other places, and there's a relatively low probability they are your first choice.  They've also probably sent out dozens of these offers; they're not that emotionally invested in any particular one.  Honestly, they would probably appreciate knowing where else you are considering for informational reasons.
I hope you've informed all the places you're no longer considering that you've withdrawn your application and that you've contacted places you want to hear from to find out the situation.  There's no need to commit yourself to a timeline (what if you find out you are high on the waiting list somewhere else).

It is best to let them know that you received the email and that you will make a decision after you hear from some other schools. No one will think badly of this. In fact, it is part of the game. A short email of the type

Thank you for the admission offer to University of XXX. This is very exciting news. I am still waiting to hear from a few schools and will let you know when I have made my decision or by April 15th at the latest.

You should also let any school that you are no longer interested in know.


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Co-author conflict after paper got accepted
I am a PhD student.
My paper got accepted with minor changes and then re-submitted again and accepted by the journal. In the meantime, I had conflicts with my supervisor who is a co-author of my paper and I decided to change the lab. Now, he sent an email to the editor stating that the paper was not confirmed by him and now the paper is blocked till he confirms. He will never allow the paper because of the personal conflict. Can someone tell me what can be done?

I do not think there is much you can do other than trying to amend your relationship with your advisor or at least come to 'truce' for this specific paper. Of course, this is possible only if the paper and journal are actually good and the original submission was done in agreement with the advisor.

Do you have any documentation of him confirming the submission originally (e.g., email)?

What did you do to make your professor "never allow the paper" ??

It is unlikely that a journal will publish a paper if one of its authors states that it should not be published at this point (for various reasons). However, it would also be more than questionable for you to demote the other author to only be included in the acknowledgements section (at least if you did not do everything that you could to resolve the situation).
So that leaves you with trying to resolve the situation. One way of dealing with such problems is to elevate the issue. Possible points of contacts could be the dean of your former department or your dean of studies. In some places, where you have a secondary advisor whose role is to help you in case of precisely such problems, then she/he should be your point of contact.
To prepare any of these meetings, make sure that you have a statement of what happened that it is as accusation-free as possible, while trying to stick to the facts. While such issues are better discussed face-to-face, preparing the statements helps with getting your point across in an organized way.

it seems like going to a dean on this issue is a bit much.  what could they do, force a professor to put their name on a paper?

@user1938107 they would act as an external mediator that can talk with them without the burden of being angry.

The second reason is that professors are to some extent dependent on the goodwill of the rest of the department, even if they have tenure. If they appear to act entierely unreasonable to the dean or whomever else from the department on this matter, then this lowers their internal reputation, which is likely to be more important to the professor than this particular paper or the student. This is exactly why the student should address the issue based on facts - it needs to be avoided to make this look like a personal dispute to the other department members.

@Davidmh  if any scholar does not want their name on a paper, and they had contributed to the research, by basically every answer previously on this site, the paper can not be published.  Just seems like a good way to make a bad situation worse.  I dont like what your doing, even though its your right to do so, so ill get your boss.

@user1938107 they cannot force him, but they can facilitate that they both reach an agreement. It is not guaranteed to work, of course, but it may greatly improve the OP's chances.

Bringing in the department or dean as a neutral party is a good idea. A publication record is an important part of professional development. Blocking a paper purely out of pique/spite means a PI is not qualified to be a mentor. The department should be informed of the situation, as egregious cases may warrant sanctions (e.g. prohibiting the advisor from taking new students).

... All of this is assuming Anthony's summary is accurate, though. If the advisor has scientific concerns about the work (say the conflict is because Anthony is a shoddy researcher), the situation is different. Preparing statements beforehand will help. Examine them objectively, and think if the stated reason for not publishing can be taken at face value. If so, the dean/department will likely take the advisor's side. They'll only act if it's clear the advisor is in the wrong.

Why don't you suggest to the editor that he/she contacts your co-author's supervisor?

@user1938107, you say "if any scholar does not want their name on a paper, and they had contributed to the research, by basically every answer previously on this site, the paper can not be published," can you provide some evidence (e.g., links)? I would have thought that such a paper can be published, the paper can simply be published under the other authors' names, i.e.,  the scholar that "does not want their name on a paper" can simply be omitted, which is perfectly reasonable, because they are claiming that they did not author the paper.

@user2768 http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/644/when-should-a-supervisor-be-an-author/645#645 is one example.  I said "and contributed to the research".  Because someone does not want their name on a paper does NOT mean they did not contribute.  They can have valid reasons, such as the OP not having done experiments correctly, or leaving the lab unexpected, leaving a red flag for how good the work they had done is, and the advisor is now concerned about it, or has decided to redo the idea a different way.

Who paid for the work? I work for a research funder, and we have have a requirement for publication attached to all the funds we award. A proportion of funds are held back until publication. We have a number of steps we follow with an investigator who won't publish - which include reclaiming the funds they were awarded for the research, and withdrawing all other funding from the institution concerned.
It may be your funder has an opinion about work they've paid for not being published.

Requirement for publication does not imply the requirement to publish the  paper in question. I presume this paper is not the only outcome of the project.


text:
IEEE vs ACM membership
I'm a 3rd year PhD student of Computer Science in the UK and I was considering joining the IEEE-CIS and/or ACM as a student member. As much as the annual memberships in both are very reasonably priced, I was wondering if there was any point subscribing to both and whether if anybody who signed up for both would recommend one over the other and suggest me some key factors to consider before becoming a member in these (or in general, other such societies).

Yes, there is a reason to be a member of both. Aside from the conference discounts mentioned by the other answers, student members get access to the digital libraries with membership in each organization. This has been the only reason that I've been a member of either for the last few years. If you're doing active research in Computer Science, you will very likely be needing access to a lot of articles from both the IEEEXplore digital library and the ACM Digital Library.
Student members of ACM get full access to the ACM Digital Library. Student members of the IEEE Computer Society get limited access to the IEEEXplore digital library and discounted access to other IEEE publications. Note that in the case of IEEE, as far as I know, this only applies to the Computer Society, not IEEE as a whole.
As O.R.Mapper mentioned in a comment, many universities provide access to the ACM Digital Library and IEEEXplore through their libraries. In my experience, however, these were more annoying/less reliable to use, at least from off-campus, though I'm sure this will vary from one university to the next. More importantly, however, at least in my case, the subset of IEEEXplore material available through the university library's subscription was not the same as the subset available through the IEEE Computer Society's student membership. The library had a journals-only subscription, while the student membership material was mostly from conferences. As such, they were actually mostly complementary.
Additionally, student members of ACM can get free downloads of much of Microsoft's software (via DreamSpark, formerly known as MSDN Academic Alliance.) This is obviously a huge benefit that pays for the ACM membership several times over with just one download. I'm not sure what's currently offered there, but I've gotten professional versions of Visual Studio and Windows 7 as well as Enterprise versions of SQL Server and Windows Server there in the past. Note that, being free, this software comes with the caveat that it can only be used for personal or academic purposes, not commercial purposes, however, the licenses don't expire when you graduate.

If you can become a student member of either of the mentioned organizations, wouldn't you have to be a student at some university for that? I am asking because if you are a student at a university, in many places that means you already automatically have access to the digital libraries (provided by the university library). (And sometimes, people not affiliated with the university can register with the uni library as well.) It depends on the location/arrangements of the OP whether getting access to those digital libraries is a priviledge of being a member of those organizations.

@O.R.Mapper Yes, you have to be a university (or other college) student, but the OP is a Ph.D. student. Updated answer to mention access through university library. That's a good point.

"you have to be a university (or other college) student, but the OP is a Ph.D. student" - Is a Ph.D. student not a university student? In any case, I suppose I'm glad that in universities I came in touch with, university libraries always offered the full range of access to IEEE (and other publishers') journals and conferences.

@O.R.Mapper Sorry for the ambiguous wording there. I just meant to answer your question in the affirmative and also say that that requirement (being a student) isn't a problem for the OP, since he clearly is a university student.

I was a full member of both IEEE and ACM in the past year (2014). I tend to like ACM. The CACM seems to have better quality articles and they are more CS-ish compared to IEEE which I felt are more CompEng-ish. I also prefer ACM because they send more meaningful mails and less spam compared to IEEE. For instance, ACM will send you a customized list of articles based on your interests.

I'm a fairly continuous member of the IEEE and an off and on member of the ACM.  Both of them tend to bundle membership with conference fees, such that most conferences have a "registration + membership" cost that is lower than "non-member registration."  As such there is rarely a point in not being a member, if you're going to a conference sponsored by the organization.  I happen to go to an IEEE conference quite regularly, but not so much ACM conferences, and thus my membership trends.
Beyond that, both have nice magazines they send you (IEEE Spectrum vs. CACM), and various member services that I'm sure some people take advantage of.
Bottom line: join whoever you go to conferences with, and whether that's neither, one, or both, it's fine.

The digital library is currently an add-on to membership for both ACM and IEEE CS.

@AlanShutko Thanks: I've removed the speculative line.

This is not a complete answer as I never cared for any of the services related to membership in either of the listed societies and never read their (in some cases, many and frequent) e-mails.
My only reason for signing up in the first place, and in fact a response to your question

I was wondering if there was any point subscribing to both

is that members get discounts on the registration fees of conferences organized by the respective society. Thus, if you attend several IEEE conferences and several ACM conferences in one year, you can save some of the money from whichever source your conference travels are paid by becoming a member of both societies.
In such a case, at least if the initial registration + the discounted conference fee is at most as high as the normal conference fee, you may also have the option to get your registration fee for the respective society reimbursed, as you are actively saving money for the funding organization.

I mostly do this, but our funding agencies have prohibited the reimbursement as far as I know.

@BillBarth: In that case, I'd always register at the full price and explicitly point out the money that was paid extra compared to the reduced conference fee + membership fee in my travel expense reports until the policy is changed. Might or might not work at your institution.

I do receive some minor benefits from my memberships, so I don't sweat it too much. For what it's worth, I don't think my institution cares how I spend my grant money, but this policy is based on government guidance. Getting the entire US Federal Government to change its mind this way seems a bit quixotic to me.

Since the question is for student membership, my memory is that ACM/IEEE membership does not bring any additional discount on top of the student discount (which is very significant).

@SashoNikolov: Two random examples I just checked: IEEE VIS distinguishes between "Student IEEE/ISBC/ACM Member" and "Student Non-Member", and ACM CHI distinguishes between "ACM or SIGCHI Student Member" and "Student Non-Member". While member discount + membership fee might equal the non-member price, you may still benefit from discounts on other conferences throughout the year of your membership.

Fair enough. But I think many places don't make this distinction, for example check the upcoming FCRC https://classic.regonline.com/custImages/240000/244871/FCRCRegistrationFees4-29.pdf

If your academic career has taken you through any of the better universities, you may have an alumni membership that offers free lifetime access to the respective on-line libraries, even if your current institution has no agreement in place.
It's been a few years, but the ACM did offer a fairly broad selection of CBT courses, but the content of the few I looked at was fairly basic, and as full of typos as wot something I'd tapped wud contain.
Neither are UK based, so won't offer the: networking / talk / seminar options student BCS membership grants. So essentially it's a choice as to whether you'd prefer an @acm.org or @ieee.org email forwarding address and the complementry branded coffee mug, if they still offer them, you'll get for the money.