text:
If you know a family member who is much more qualified and capable in mathematics than you are, should find another field of specialisation?
Imposter Syndrome and depression: I feel pretty depressed that I am not as "qualified" as a close family member. In particular, this family member has undergraduate and graduate (PhD) degrees from Ivy League schools in mathematics. Whenever I try to solve a problem, this family member does it in half the time. Does this mean that I should try and find another field to specialize in?

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2219/19607 and https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/11765/19607 (and many others)

No way. Cedric Villani could solve any research problem I face in a fraction of the time - that doesn't mean I should give up a research career :-) I think as part of life, one has to accept that there are people better than you, but as you are doing research in mathematics you should realise you are one of the brightest set of people in the world

Two arguments against finding another field: 1. there are many math problems, so you won't necessarily be competing against people like your family member in everything you do, and 2. problem-finding is in some ways as valuable as problem-solving, and the people who are great at one are not necessarily great at the other.

Science and mathematics are not a competition. I actually get very excited and happy when I find other smart and capable people working in my field (and not just my field), or when I read about how someone else has solved some hard problem or done some great research.

@101010111100 Indeed, very true.  Unfortunately, many students get caught up in the game of gathering accolades or highest marks or best 'brand name degree'.  When they get to research or the real-world, they apply the same game.

The question is whether you have good ideas in mathematics, not whether you have the fastest logical mind. Also some people who are the brightest become "trapped" and creatively sterilized by the pressure to perform.

@MikeMiller, that's a rather complacent attitude.  If your sole measure of brightness is "ability to do advanced mathematics," then and only then would those doing research in mathematics uniformly be each of them "of the brightest set of people in the world."  That seems more than slightly dismissive of other even more crucial types of intelligence, such as the ability to coordinate data and action, or the ability to effectively lead people and administrate so as to make planning become an actuality.

@WIldcard people skills are not intelligence. Intelligence is intelligence. I do agree however that there are some other highly intelligent fields- certain parts of literature have highly intelligent people in a different way, and philosophy has people of both/either of literary and conceptual ability in high degrees.

How far along are you?

@Wildcard I think you are confusing my comment as a swipe at other disciplines when in fact it is just a comment to reassure a depressed mathematician

"If you compare yourself to others you may become vain or bitter for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself" - Max Ehrmann

Imagine what would happen if everyone thought like this: there would always be only one researcher in every field. The best one. They would be lonely, helpless and incredibly overworked individuals which knew that altough they are the best, every effort in bringing forth their field is futile, as it will always go very slowly. There is no-one there to discuss things, no-one there to take some load, no-one to share thoughts with, no-one to have another idea. Research would be doomed if we would only let the very best do it (even if we maybe allow the 10 best).

Try and gradually shift your focus away from external motivators and into internal motivators. The excitement of discovery, figuring stuff out and talking about exciting things in research together with others. Try and disregard much of the superstarery as kind of a dramatic theatre to get the kids excited about the field (which it honestly kind of is, but don't tell the kids, it could break the magical motivation that could help make them great one day!).

Is he smarter than you or just more nervous? There are plenty of decaffeinated options that taste just as good as the real thing.

@101: "Science and mathematics are not a competition." True, that's not their goal.  However, in our society, being a professional research mathematician (I restrict to mathematics because it's what I know: I am a professional research mathematician) is a highly competitive enterprise from start to finish.  I certainly wish it were not so competitive, but underplaying the competitive aspects doesn't seem helpful to me.

I think the change of title makes this far too specific and personal a problem, whereas a question on "Imposter Syndrome and Depression" (albeit sparked by comparison to a family member) will have more relevance and value to (and be found by more) future readers.

There is always someone better. Even Villani is a nobody when compared to, say, Euler or Hilbert. He isn't a Serre either.

@Saturnus, do you do research and papers for a private company or on your own?

As someone once shared with me: “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” - Hemingway.

@TeacherKSHuang  Yeah but people don't want to be noble; they want to be badasses.

To the OP: Heh, I see Insulin69's comment and I'd like to add that the two are not mutually exclusive. Bruce Wayne, Wolverine, etc. https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/3-ways-to-be-a-noble-badass-alnpt/. What do you think, @Insulin69 :D?

@TeacherKSHuang Oh yes; I agree. Perhaps I am being a little coarse.

I know of a graduate student in logic at Rutgers that dropped out after meeting Shelah.

Research in math (and I assume in general) is hard. It doesn't get better over time, but rather we seem to get used to the accompanying depression and angst.
When I feel down, I try to remind myself that I do math because I enjoy it, not because I want to be the best at it, and for some reason people continue to pay me money to do it. If they stop, I'll figure out something else. In the meantime, I get to think about problems that I love, even if the process of that thinking isn't always fun.
The above is also hard. There are still rough days. It helps me to know that other people, including really smart people doing great math, experience the same feelings.
If you want to switch fields, go ahead. But in general, any field will have someone (seemingly) faster than you - this is not personal, we all feel like this.

[Picture Credit: David Whittaker]
I would recommend reflecting upon why you are in mathematics in the first place. If you're in it because you love doing it, does it matter if someone else is a bit faster? There is plenty of mathematics to go around.

You single-handedly got my upvote with your convincing picture.

This is by far the best answer.

Disclaimer: I didn't make the picture. I saw it on Facebook at some point, and for this answer, found it here https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/happy-trails/201511/feeling-fraud

+1 for the answer, but I think the reference to the picture should be inside the post.

One of my lecturers years ago told me that we all can be in the orchestra, but only one blows through the trombone...

@SolarMike Well, most orchestras likely have an entire line of trombonists... might be more accurate to say "Only one plays the Bass Drum", or "Only one plays the Bassoon"... since that's more likely in practice... ;-P

This seems to be the real source: https://twitter.com/rundavidrun/status/587671657193455616

I'm nowhere near being capable of playing a musical instrument, but the point was well meant and absorbed. I did + 1 for the answer above though.

The radii of the circles are far too consistent for "reality" (although nicely, the overlapping regions are varied), but the overall point is still valid.

Just curious, is that the "Gamespy" icon in your picture?

Superb graphic.

@Anoplexian I'm pretty sure that's the old Incognito Mode icon from Chrome.

Even if other people have amazing lunches, you'd still want to have your own, even if less amazing, simply because you're hungry.

Do you love research and/or math itself?  Do you love solving problems and learning about new things and finding out how things work?  If not, then I'm afraid your motivation is misdirected.
As you progress through life, you will meet many more people that are much smarter than you.  I teach students who are much smarter than me and I wish I had their brain.  Some colleagues/peers are simply out of this world.
However, there is a place for you.  There are many research areas and countless opportunities to contribute.  If it's not in math, then it's in other areas; there are many areas/problems waiting for new tools and perspectives.  This means it is all hands on deck.  The scientific community is small relative to the world's population.  We are motivated to generate and verify new knowledge.  If not us, who else?
Go back to basics, and follow your heart and interests.  Keep moving and try to stop comparing; otherwise, it's like spending too much time in an art gallery and not doing any work :)

Math can be brutal to your self-esteem. If you are a poet of average skills you could (perhaps) convince yourself that you are an under-appreciated genius with as much raw talent as a winner of the Nobel Prize in literature. In mathematics, if you are mathematician of average talent, you can't plausibly convince yourself that you are even remotely as talented as a winner of the Fields Medal.
If you get to that stage you have to ask yourself what is more important -- your ego or your love of mathematics. If the former, by all means switch to another field, perhaps one with more subjective criteria where you can convince yourself that you are the best. If the latter -- keep with what you are doing.
Many mathematicians end up teaching undergraduates. If that is the career path you end up following, the knowledge that you are not a world-class research mathematician (if in fact you are not) can help give you the humility that you need to e.g. not lose patience with students who can't seem to understand the chain rule. What you are feeling now about your family member is similar to what some of your students will feel about you. This can help you empathize with such students. If you know what it is like to struggle with a concept that some people find obvious you will be in a better position to help others who are in a similar state.

Although my field of study is not Math, I can relate to you because I had a experience that was very similar to yours. Just like you, I felt unqualified in my studies and just like you, I had thought about changing to another field and even giving up on trying hard. Eventually, I changed my field of study but not because I wanted to be perfect or better than others in it but because I came to the conclusion that if I want to spend my time and life on something, it should be something that I enjoy doing. I decided to focus on enjoying what I do and trying to improve myself over time rather than comparing myself to other people. For me, it is a fact that almost in any aspect of life, there are people that are better than me. As a matter of fact, there are people in my new field that are better than me (I have close interactions with some of them on a daily basis) and well, that's life.
Also, it is good to remember a well-known quote from Thomas Edison:

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration

I have studied biographies of many prominent scientists and artists and two personality traits that I have found very common among them are that they enjoyed their work and they worked hard. In my opinion, these are the qualities that you should concentrate on. If you truly enjoy Mathematics, then just enjoy it. For a good biography, I encourage you to read the wonderful memoir of Issac Asimov, I, Asimov.
By the way, I hope that by 'feeling depressed', you do not mean that you are suffering from clinical depression (depression is always an alarming word for me). It is quite normal to feel disappointed about your qualities sometimes but, if you feel depressed about other significant aspects of your life too, please also consider seeking clinical help.

It is 99% hard work by EXPERIENCE. But it is not 99% hard work by FREQUENCY in the general population.

No it does not. There will always be someone better than you and I in whatever we do, but that does not mean you should give up. Family issues are hard because it's so easy to compare yourself to a relative, especially a close one. However, that does not mean you should give up.

There are a handful of people who are actually the best in the world at something, such as the world chess champion. The remaining 7.5 billion of us just have to get used to other people being better than us in even our chosen field.

@Patricia: What you say is true, and as a logically minded person, I appreciate you pointing it out.  However, from what I know about the psychology of "elite performance," the people who are in the running for being the world's best at X are most often hyper-aware of their competition and have an eye out at all times for how far they are ahead.  Even being superior enough to only compete with yourself does not imply angst-free days: the struggle to exceed one's past accomplishments is overall very positive...but it's certainly not carefree and can lead to feelings of inferiority.

Does this mean that I should try and find another field to specialize in?

In any field you choose to specialize in you will encounter someone -- probably multiple people -- like your family member who have better training and probably more talent than you. That makes me wonder why you assume the premise that it is especially bad to have a family member who is that super-talented person? Won't it be just as frustrating to have such a person as your supervisor or your colleague? In which case, isn't the conclusion that your only hope is to retire to a desert island and not attempt to do anything meaningful with your life, so that you never have to compare yourself with someone who is better than you at what you do?
The answer of course is that the premise is incorrect. You should aspire to choose a profession that brings you the highest level of personal satisfaction. If math is that area, it would be a shame to choose a different area for the sole purpose of avoiding professional jealousy between you and a family member, when in all likelihood you will encounter many other people likely to arouse similar feelings of jealousy in you. Better to learn to deal with the jealousy, accept that you are not the smartest person on earth, and find joy and meaning in your ability to make humble but useful contributions to mathematical knowledge. Good luck!

you don't say how far along you are. If you haven't finished a first degree in maths and he has a PhD from a good university then he ought be at least twice as fast as you. In fact, if he is only twice as fast as you, you are doing rather well.
A more interesting question to ask, is how is his career going? I have seen plenty of people with PhDs from top name institutions have trouble making a career in maths. If you really truly believe that you have less talent and he is having trouble in the job market, it's probably a sign that you should specialize in something more employable.

My experience contradicts the first sentence. When I was in my first two years of undergrad I was besting the tenured faculty at my university; these weren't Harvard PhDs but they weren't exactly slouches.

That's just ridiculous. How can an undergraduate beat a tenured professor? I'm sure he's not competing with you in any sense.

Whenever I try to solve a problem, this family member does it in half the time. Does this mean that I should try and find another field to specialize in?

If you and this relative are unable to put a bit of academic distance between yourselves, for example by refraining from tackling the same math problem (and then comparing your results and your speed), then I imagine you would probably be happier not studying in the same field.  It sounds as though you may be setting yourself up repeatedly for this type of comparison, which you then get discouraged about.

On the contrary this should encourage you to go into the same field as your family member.  The best way to improve at something is to surround yourself with people who are more talented than you are.
When you have a problem that you are working on (or even better after you have solved it) you can discuss the problem with your family member about how they would have solved and how you could solve it better in the future.  You also have the benefit of having casual conversations about things tangentially related to your professional interests.
I think that key thing here is that you already have a network of highly skilled people in your field.  This is an extraordinary advantage and you should harness it.

There is a problem with this answer: It does not take into account the personality of OP and the interpersonal skills of the family member (which are both not stated in the question). For (an extreme) example, if the family member was Sherlock Holmes who would always tell me (directly or indirectly) how stupid I am, then I would not be comfortable working with him. Unfortunately, I met many people who have a Holmes-like attitude.

Einstein struggled a lot more with mathematics than a whole lot of his contemporaries, particularly mathematicians.  David Hilbert was able to retrace (and do the finishing touches Einstein was still working on) a significant amount of Einstein's General Relativity work in a small fraction of the time Einstein needed and made a paper which he later retracted since he saw it as credit-stealing.
Einstein needed a lot of time to get where he wanted to but he had the advantage of knowing for sure where he wanted to get.  That produced more tangible results than brilliant minds without his aim.
So no, the mere speed and skill with which one of your relatives (what does it matter that he is a relative anyway?) works with mathematics does not tell much about what mathematics can do with and in your life.
I mean, if he is a relative, that should be a good omen, shouldn't it?  That makes it likely that your genes are not entirely remote from your interests.

"Einstein struggled a lot more with mathematics than a whole lot of his contemporaries, particularly mathematicians." Einstein was a physicist, so yes, some mathematicians were better at math.  The idea that he "struggled" with math -- more so than anyone who does advanced math struggles with it, I mean -- seems to have no factual basis: see e.g. http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1936731_1936743_1936758,00.html, in which we learn Einstein had mastered calculus by 15.  Hilbert was by the way the most brilliant mathematical mind of the time.

Einstein's IQ was reckoned around 160 -- in other words, probably not the very highest among physicists (having a high IQ can help you in academia, but only up to a certain threshold, and Einstein's IQ was well above that threshold) but surely enough to make him quick-witted among any reasonable cohort.  "Einstein needed a lot of time to get where he wanted to" Again, not really -- he is famous for his annus mirabilis, in which he wrote four amazing papers.  He was 26 at the time.  For what it's worth, I agree with the last two paragraphs much more.

@PeteL.Clark the sentence "Einstein needed a lot of time to get where he wanted to" seems to refer to the period 1908-1915 during which Einstein was working on developing general relativity, so I think user72889 has a valid point here. With that said, I agree with you that it's misleading to claim Einstein "struggled" with math - rather, he "struggled" to develop a revolutionary new theory of gravity that made use of sophisticated mathematical tools that were understood by only a handful of mathematicians at the time. Not quite a great basis for comparing OP's situation to Einstein's.

@PeteL.Clark It is hard to say IQ does not help above the threshold. For instance, Von Neumann obviously benefited from his remarkable abilities. Even though he was perhaps not the best mathematician of all.

This may be a cause to move into a different sub-field than him... Many people want the glory and to feel they have done something. There is no reason to think this cannot be done within mathematics.
But on the thing of comparision, do you have better questions than him? Do you have novel approaches? These are the things that matter. Also when you talk of his ability to solve problems more quickly, are you talking about elementary problems that take mere minutes? Does he betray a deeper understanding than you?

+1 for sub-field. There must be an area within math that doesn't interest him/her but could be loved by you. Something special. Some niche.

I think that mathematics research is about being more creative than being fast. Being faster is more likely to help you in math competitions, examinations. But you will need different qualities for mathematical research.


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How to turn down an offer if you aren't sure where you're going yet?
I'm a PhD applicant. I recently got an offer from a school I will not be attending.
The Professor that I spoke to politely asked that, if possible, I give an answer as soon I know if I'm attending the university.
I've already determined that I won't be attending, as I'm deciding between a couple other offers that I like better.  What's the best way to turn down the offer without explicitly mentioning where I'm going instead (since I don't know yet).

The offer letter should explain the procedure for responding to the offer.  In the old days, there would be a postcard to mail back with a box to check "yes" or "no".  Nowadays there is probably a website.  But in either case you should certainly be able to respond "I'm not  going to attend" without needing to elaborate any further.

@NateEldredge But maybe you've been in personal contact with faculty and would like to let them know while keeping the door open for future communication. A similar but trickier situation arises with faculty job offers.

[Comment OT] Congratulations on your acceptances! I am also glad to see that the advice you got here was fruitful.

Regretfully, I am declining your offer. Thank you very much for considering me for your program.
Best regards,
ThatGuy

You don't have to say where you're going instead.

It doesn't hurt to add a bit more pleasantry, mind you.  Academic communities are pretty close-knit; chances are you'll end up brushing elbows with this person in the future at some point.  Being cordial and appreciative is a nice gesture.

@NewWorld those phrases are polite, but not exactly warm. For example, a statement like 'I truly appreciate your time in talking to me about your research' would make this somewhat more cordial.

I basically used this template.  Thanks again.  It was surprisingly hard to press send on that email.

Also, I do wish I'd said a little more.  I think in retrospect I agree more with @AruRay, but what's done is done.  I do worry I could have been more polite.

@ThatGuy I think that is a cultural thing. Among US-born students, I don't see that kind of effusive thanks so much. I see it more often with international students.

@NewWorld I didn't say it was not polite - it's just very terse and cold.  On balance, it's probably something that will be read and forgotten, which squanders an opportunity to make at least some sort of positive impression. It's not burning any bridges, but it also isn't trying to lay any cornerstones for a new one. Networking in academia is just as important as it is in the business wold - in some ways perhaps moreso. It wouldn't hurt to re-iterate interest in their area of research and leave open possible future work or collaborations. The sooner you start to make things happen the better.

Perhaps unsurprisingly I disagree with ff524 since I've received effusive emails from all sorts of people, native and non-native speakers alike. It's common courtesy to attempt to be cordial in my opinion. Anyway, I always recommend against very terse emails since they are very easy to read in an unintended tone. Depending on the university the faculty may have spent a lot of time with student recruitment and they deserve some appreciation. If you're sending the exact same email to everyone you're turning down, that's probably a sign that you should give it more thought.

Here is what I wrote back in the day (I make no claims about this being good):

Thank you so much for offering me admission into your graduate
  program. I was very impressed by [[University]] [[other details like
  faculty/students I had talked to personally, etc.]] and so I had a
  difficult decision to make regarding which graduate program to choose.
  After a lot of careful thought, I have decided not to accept your
  offer. I will mail the response form to you as soon as I can, but I
  wanted to let you know my decision now, since it may affect applicants
  on your wait list. [[Thank you so much again, etc.]].

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Requesting endorsement for arxiv from future professor as a high-school graduate
I finished high-school, and would like to publish articles on arxiv. I got into university, and found out that a professor of the institue of mathematics is submitting papers to the site. I start my first semester next month, and do not know him, however I would like to publish an article this week.
Is it a good idea to ask for endorsement from him? If so, what is the “best” way to ask?
I would like to do research in the future too, as I am extremely interested in the subject (analysis) and I have been learning it for a long time.

Welcome to Academia SE. I rearranged your question a bit so that it cannot be read that your question is about asking for ArXiv endorsement and research opportunities at the same time. Should that have been your intention, please ask a separate question for the latter.

What do you mean by an endorsement? If he doesn't know you and hasn't seen your work how could he endorse it?

@Murhpy Endorsement is required to publish on arxiv. Thats why I asked, since I do not know anyone who can endorse yet. I will ask him if he wants to read my paper as well.

I took a peek at your website. I would suggest that you not send your professor your "proof" of the Riemann Hypothesis...

@Jeff I would like to find mistakes in it. If no-one reads it, I wont know where I have gone wrong. Btw, I do not claim that the "proof" is correct, just another attempt, which may have some new ideas. I wont lose anything I think, if I politely asking it, since it is not very long.

The arXiv is not the correct place for such an article. The purpose of the arXiv is the dissemination of publication-ready papers. It would be better to simply wait until you have established a relationship with a professor, and then you can ask that professor personally to take a look at your ideas (or, even better, you can meet and discuss them together). Besides, it is very unlikely any professor would be willing to endorse a supposed 3-page proof of RH....which is exactly why the endorsement system is in place.

@pndev One more note: Once a paper has been accepted on the arXiv, you cannot remove it. If you plan to continue doing research in the future, you do not want such a blemish on your "permanent record".

@Jeff I have not sent my mail yet. I know that RH is a very sensitive topic. I would really like my method reviewed, and I still don't know where can I get some feedback (on MSE they only told me it is similar to the reformulation including the bounds on the mertens function, and I do not want to bomb MSE with these kind of questions). I have seen many claim-to-be proofs of famous problems on arxiv, so I tough it can be reviewed there by others. But if I cannot remove it, I wont post it fully until I know which parts are correct.

The arXiv is definitely not the right place.  Most of the papers on famous problems you've seen there are crackpot work (appearing there only because the arXiv errs on the side of caution in rejecting submissions - none of them would be there if it were easy to filter out junk submissions without accidentally filtering out some good ones too).  They are generally ignored, with no feedback for the author, and serve only to make the author look bad.

I decided to wait for a personal discussion, since I do not have enough knowledge to make sure every step is right, and dont know how to get it reviewed. Thanks for the advices! Anyway the answer encouraged me to contact him as soon as I get into college.

This sounds to me like a great opportunity to introduce yourself and possibly find a mentor relationship in the bargain.
Just be succinct and straight-forward about who you are and what led you to contact this particular professor.  I would also recommend taking the opportunity to invite the professor to give you feedback, which 1) may be sorely needed and 2) might be the beginning finding some interesting research connections as an undergraduate.
An email you write might go something like this:

Hello, Professor Ridcully:
You don't know me yet, but I'm going to be a student at Unseen University this Fall, and I am interested in mathematical research.  I've already been working some on my own, and have put together a manuscript that I would like to post on arXiv.  I'm contacting you because I need somebody to endorse my submission, and noticed that you have recently posted on arXiv as well.  If you would be interested in giving me feedback on this work, I would be interested in that as well.
Please let me know if you are willing to help, and I will send you my manuscript.

Thanks! I am glad it is not rude to ask, but a great opportunity. btw in my language I change "Hello" to a formal greeting:)

Oh, and one more: what could be the subject of the email? I will ask another question if necessary.

@pndev To each their own preferred "neutral" greeting; I personally find "Dear" to be a bit old-fashioned.  For a subject, I would again recommend going direct, e.g., "Future student requesting help with an arXiv submission"

"Incoming freshman" might be clearer than "future student".

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


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Are posters useful for experienced researchers?
Typically, for PhD students who are in their third or fourth year, is it worth pursuing poster submissions at relevant conferences?
Obviously this is a somewhat subjective quantity, but is it generally considered appropriate for researchers who are not new to their field to pursue such publications, and do they realistically have standing, relative to, let's say, short papers?

What field are we talking about?

It's a bit hard to parse your question, but posters are useful to everyone, both presenters and attendees. In my field, even the most acknowledged scholars present posters.

@Wrzlprmft computer science, specifically

In my subfield of CS I have even talked with people who are in favor of abolishing oral presentations in conferences altogether (except for plenary talks) and do only poster sessions. I'm not that radical, but there is no doubt that a poster is a totally fine way to present a paper, often better than oral dependin on paper type.

@Stumbler That's not very specific. In my field of CS, algorithms and complexity, posters barely exist. Also, is there any field at all where a poster counts as a publication?

Seconding @DavidRicherby's question/comment: I don't know any field in which a poster counts as a publication, or which compares in standing to a published paper.

@DavidRicherby: In HCI-related subfields of CS, some conferences include posters (that is, the "poster papers" (often very short papers)) in the proceedings, or in some kind of additional, secondary proceedings (e.g. along with workshop proceedings). Such posters are then indeed counted as publications. Certainly, publications that are not as significant as a full or even a short paper, and (depending on the venue and content) also rather less than a workshop paper, but still, a type of a small publication. ...

... Two concrete examples: CHI says: "At the Conference: Accepted submissions will be presented as a poster during the conference. (...) After the Conference: Extended Abstracts proceedings available in the ACM Digital Library"; AVI says: "Poster submissions must be up to 2 pages (not anonymized). Accepted poster papers will be included in the Proceedings published by ACM Press and will be available in the ACM Digital Library."

@O.R.Mapper OK so it's not literally the poster that's the publication, but it's close enough.

I'm in the social and health sciences and do not know what field you are in, so this may be discipline specific. However, it is appropriate for advanced PhD students to give poster presentations. As a PhD student, you are considered a junior scholar (as you would also be considered as an pre-tenured assistant professor) and poster sessions are appropriate at this stage of your career. However, if publishing papers is more desirable than presentations in your field, it is advised that you spend more time working on getting your papers in print than presenting them at conferences. I know of academics who did not receive tenure, because they presented papers at a ton of conferences, but never submitted the papers for publication. Posters have great purposes, but may be less likely to turn into a paper.

@Stumbler You shouldn't accept the very first answer only minutes after it's given. This will make other users more reluctant to post their answers, and you can't know yet if later answers won't surpass the current accepted answer in quality/usefulness.

@Sverre from my experience with stack exchange forums I was expecting a degree of hostility to a question which was so broad, so I sought to make it inconspicuous as quickly as possible.

I thought it was a good answer, though I might be biased. LOL

@NicoleRuggiano that too!

Poster presentation are useful for all scholars: PhD's, postdocs and even professors. I think it's worth to be explicit as to why we do the things the way we do in academia - rarely you can find a colleague or supervisor explaining the reasons behind academia quirky mechanisms. Posters, Conference presentations, journal publications are all means of disseminating your academic work. Posters typically pass very quick scrutiny and reach typically a dozen people or so, conference presentations a bit more scrutiny and reach up to hundreds of people - especially if they get published proceedings - and journal publications have to pass the full peer-review process and have the potential to reach thousands of people. That is why posters are "worth" less than conference presentation, that in turn are "worth" less than journal publications. That being said, a poster can be a way to disseminate results of an already published paper, so the boundaries are subtle. All in all, a poster is an excellent way to discuss with other specialists your either preliminary or already concluded piece of work.


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How many days before the notification of acceptance/rejection does the program committee meet?
In typical conferences in theoretical computer science, how many days before the date of notification of acceptance/rejection,

does the program committee meet? (By meeting, I'm not necessarily talking about physical meetings. Discussions via email, easychair can be regarded as meeting here.)
does the program committee determine which papers have been accepted / rejected?

In essence my question is: How long before the notification date, it is determined which papers are accepted and which are rejected?

" program committee meet". In the CS conferences I know of (not theoretical CS) PC members do not necessarily meet in person and discussions are done through email and the respective chair submission system (e.g., easy chair).

@Alexandros By "meet" here, I assume any kind of meeting, not only physical meetings. I edited the question to make it more clear.


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Is it a problem if I publish my thesis bearing the same title of a journal article I published previously?
I have published a research paper based on my masters thesis. The name of the research paper is same as that of my thesis. The copyright to the paper is held by the journal in question. Now I want to publish my thesis in ProQuest. Will I run into trouble for the same name?

I'd change the thesis title a little...

I can't change the thesis title since it has already been accepted by my university.

Can you add "(thesis)" or something at the end of the title?

I don't think that will be a good idea.

Well, unfortunate, but not unheard-of. Just today, I saw a (math) thesis and a brief paper in Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., by the same person, with exactly the same title. The PNAS thing was "just" a relatively brief announcement of the results of the thesis, with sketches of proofs. The thesis itself (or any longer version) seems never to have been otherwise published, for what reason I don't know, although the author did publish a few more papers.

@paul garrett: I too have seen this several times. In fact, Totally and Partially Ambiguous Points of Planar Functions is the title of a 5-page announcement (in Volume 2 of Real Analysis Exchange), the title of a Ph.D. thesis, and the title of a 24-pages research paper (in Volume 26 of Zeitschrift für Mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik), all by the same person.


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Is it polite to ask for an attachment from the recipient?
I applied for a Summer Programme, but l forgot to save the attachment I have sent. Now I need the attachment. Should I do the work again or ask for it from the recipient?

Have you checked your "sent messages" folder?

There shouldn't really be any problem with this other than a bit of embarrassment. Just explain what happened and ask if it is still possible to have a copy back. Worth a chuckle, but no more. I don't see how it should affect your application provided that the institution is ethical. Humans make mistakes.

First I suggest as have others in the comment, that you look in your "sent messages" folder, it should be there with the attachment.
This may depend on the mail program as well as how the detail is set up ie keep a copy locally etc
But it is the first place I would look.

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


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Does job experience matter for graduate school admission?
I was planning on applying to US colleges for masters and recently I got shortlisted for this job at an Indian startup (I don't think they have anything major out in the market). They are working on some Machine Learning (ML) product and I wish to pursue a masters in ML. Will this job experience help me with the admission process or should I just directly apply? My plan in life is to do a PhD and then join the industry.

possible duplicate of How does the admissions process work for US Ph.D. programs, particularly for weak or borderline students?

Voting the question to remain opened, as I find no answer to the current question in the proposed duplicate question in the closing reason.

In my (electrical engineering) department, relevant job experience is definitely considered an advantage in admission to the masters program.

While I cannot answer the question for your particular cases, job experience does indeed matter for some graduate school admissions programs. For example, many Masters programs in Public Health or Health Administration have started to require some job experience in their admissions.

if you are planning to  go back into industry, having relevant experience plus a degree will probably make you look better than just having the degree--at least this has been my experience as a recruiter

Unless I am mistaken, this answer does not address the question, which is about PhD admissions, not about applications outside of academia.

you are right...I forgot to mention that I was a recruiter prior to attending a PhD program, and that I have also served on a PhD admissions committee since entering the PhD program in a top 20 business school. Industry experience did not factor into our decision criteria.  Therefore, from my point of view it would be beneficial if the final goal is to return to industry, but not if the final goal is a tenured track research position.

Still, the question is not about industry applications. I am not doubting anything you’re saying, but it plainly does not address the question. The following sentence in your comment, on the other hand, does: “Industry experience did not factor into our decision criteria.”

Speaking from a computer science point of view, having relevant job experience will almost definitely be considered a plus for admissions. I've seen and heard of many cases who had a mediocre academic profile but managed to get into good schools because of their job experience.
However, not all job experiences are given the same consideration. The degree of relevance of your job to your field and also to the field you're interested in applying to matters. Furthermore, some jobs are purely technical (like programming), while others include research components (like working in an R&D Lab). It goes without saying that the latter will have a better chance at impressing admission committees and faculty.


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Citing paragraphs with multiple references
I am using MLA. I have two paragraphs which are paraphrases of 5 different papers over tillage. Each fact and statement in the two paragraphs are somehow (pretty directly) stated in each of those papers. All my references are used in those two paragraphs as everything else is a proposed solution that hasn't been test and all other information is cogni scienti. Do I just stick the citations at the end of the two paragraphs? I want to use all these references to show consensus in the agricultural science community.

If all five papers contain the same factual information, then you could do the following:

Smith says there are eight planets (13). Doe concurs (57), as do Johnson (910), Azikiwe (219) and Kim (43).

If you there are multiple small facts spread throughout their papers, you can probably get away without page numbers for all but the first:

Smith says there are eight planets (13). She also indicates that Mercury is the closest, but not the hottest — that's Venus (19). Furthermore, she states that the asteroid belt is between Mars and Jupiter (22). This information is generally agreed upon by the astronomical community, and is repeated in articles by Doe, Johnson, Azikiwe, and Kim.

If any of those authors have multiple works in your works cited (remember, all of them should be in your works cited with the relevant article/chapter pages included), then for those authors you would put the name of the particular one you're referencing either in parentheses or explicitly referenced:

Smith says there are eight planets (13). She also indicates that Mercury is the closest, but not the hottest — that's Venus (19). Furthermore, she states that the asteroid belt is between Mars and Jupiter (22). This information is generally agreed upon by the astronomical community, and is repeated by Doe, Johnson, Azikiwe (Our Solar System), and Kim's "A Summary of Planetary Statistics".

(You wouldn't want to mix both of the reference styles and you'd probably prefer by [an author] and in [something by the author] , but the last example is more for illustration than pretty wording.)


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Friend's Involvement in Plagiarism
So, I've edited the question to hopefully give more clarity on the situation:
I've recently learned that my friend ( A ) assisted in plagiarism for another student ( B ) by completing the vast majority of a final-project in a class I also take with student B. I know B doesn't deserve the almost-perfect grade he will receive because of A's work. I feel terrible because I know how much effort I and others personally contributed to our own projects and it makes me feel like everyone else's work has just been invalidated.
I know, beyond any doubts, that this is what occurred:
B has struggled in this class. A is experienced with the class, the professor, and the subject matter. A has been helping B with other assignments, sometimes assisting more than he should, but otherwise not at any level I would deem "plagiarism."
B asked for help with the final project in this class. A, of course, obliged. After helping for a little bit, the due date was imminant and B's project was still in the beginning stages. At this point A realizes that he has basically been completing the project himself, but feels morally obligated to not "leave him stranded," so A fully completes B's project out of a personal, moral obligation to himself. Personally being friends with A, I know that this was a momentary lack of judgement, and I know he knows much better than to cheat.
A has done all of the work on the project and B is going to pass it off as his own work.
Looking at the College's plagiarism policy, the worst that will happen to the student B is:
 Failure in the course in which plagiarism or dishonesty occurs.
For my friend ( A ) that knowingly plagiarized: Loss of all credit for that semester and suspension for the remainder of that semester.
My friend A has struggled this whole semester, academically and financially, to attend the College and it would be horrific if he had to leave and all of his work be for naught. I find it also unfair that, for what A found as a moral crossroads (helping his friend), and a momentary lack in judgement, will cost him so much more than the punishment B will receive.
I want to report it, but if I do (even anonymously), B will only tell the administration that my friend helped him. I can't be responsible for that.
What can I do in this situation? Report it? Keep it to myself and hope the professor knows? Meet with the professor and have an honest discussion about how I feel and how I know my friend knows the ethics of cheating but became morally confused in this instance?
I guess the overarching question here would be: what outcome provides the best result for A while simultaneously reporting B for plagiarism?

@ff524 I was hoping I'd receive an answer more on morality for the sake of my friend--I know I should report it, but is there a way I can do so without them getting into trouble? I know they didn't intend to help plagiarize, it more or less just "happened."

If that's what you want to know, you should edit your question to specifically ask that: "Is it possible to report a friend who cheated without getting him in trouble?" Right now, you're asking a completely different question ("What action can I/should I take if I know a peer cheated?") which is pretty much addressed by the other question.

Also a possible duplicate of I believe my classmates plan to hand in a plagiarized project, how should I handle this?.

@dan1111 plagiarism = passing someone else's work off as your own. (If "someone else" is a willing participant then it isn't theft, but it's still plagiarism.)

My friend A has struggled this whole semester, academically and financially ... At this point A realizes that he has basically been completing the project himself, but feels morally obligated to not "leave him stranded," — Independent of the outcome of this plagiarism case, you owe it to your friend A to help him grow a spine. Someone who is struggling with their own classes has no business throwing themselves under a bus to finish someone else's coursework.

How do you know all of this? Did A tell you or is it something you surmised yourself? Is it possible that A has not done all the work and that B has somewhat significant contribution to the project?

@ventsyv A told me. You must remember that I know both of the individuals involved closely. I trust the information I have to be entirely factual. A did all of the work, B did nothing but come up with the idea for the project.

@Aaron So how does A want to deal with that?

I suggest a middle ground. Even granting that the facts are exactly as you stated, it seems to me that you don't know for sure what communication there was between A and B. A may have provided some sample code, intending that B would at least rewrite it. And, unlikely as it seems, B may have studied the code and rewritten it. So this could be a borderline case. Even if A complained to you that they had to "write B's assignment for them", that may have been an exaggeration.
So I suggest that you go to the professor and explain that you think that B had an excessive amount of help. Explain that someone was tutoring B, and may have crossed a line without intending to. I don't think you need to name A even if you are asked. And if the professor does find out who A is, well, professors are people too, and will probably exercise some judgement.
Of course, I'm not excusing what A or B did. I'm just pointing out that you don't know exactly what happened (even if you're sure you have the facts straight), so report what you know, but be careful not to overstate it.

One possible way out: If A were to go to B's professor and claim that while A was helping B (like tutoring for free as a friend), it was never A's intention that B would turn in the work that A did to help claiming it was B's original work.
Here are the challenges with this plan:

It has to be believable that A did not intend the work to be turned in by B.
A will have to be willing to probably not ever be B's friend again, since this will be pretty bad for B.
It will be A's word against B's and in the end it could end up that both are punished exactly as you don't want, if A is not 100% believed.
You'd have to convince A to do this in the first place.

It seems likely that whatever you do may hurt your friendship with A. On that note, keep in mind that while A may be a friend and good student, that doesn't change the fact that A has knowingly done something they shouldn't have done.
It's also possible there is no good way out of the situation for you. This is the kind of problem where sometimes the best you can do is look deep into your heart and decide what is really most important to you. You may have to choose between academic integrity versus putting your friends first. When you choose, one thing to consider is how you will feel twenty years from now when you look back on this situation. Also, you should check your institution's integrity policy for anything related to students who know about cheating, even if they were not directly involved, and whether they have to report it. If you are required to report cheating, then you have to consider whether this will ever be discovered if it is never reported.
If you are required to report, then it might be wise to go with A and change the story slightly. You could say that you realized that B had stolen A's paper, then you informed A and then you both came to the administration to accuse B. Again, this is likely to make B dislike both you and A.

Rare cases notwithstanding, cheaters usually don't get very far. As a postgraduate student I deeply regretted having to relearn, redo, resolve undergraduate problems that I did together with friends while relying too much on their input. Doing yourself is in my opinion a prerequisite for understanding. If it is only a final project for an undergraduate class, I would talk to A and tell him that he isn't really helping B by doing work for him. To graduate B will have to put in more work of his own and the fact that he didn't have the chance of testing his abilities (and getting feedback) in this final project is only bad for B.
You told us that it was more a lack of judgement on A's part rather than B controlling or emotionally blackmailing A. In that case, you could opt to let fate take its course, because if B doesn't change his way of working, it will be reflected in his final degree classification.
To make this different from just turning a blind eye to the whole situation you could talk to A or B or both, explaining in one way or another that A isn't really helping B by doing his work for him (even if B might think so). I can't judge the situation, so depending on the situation this might sound false/fishy/stupid/whatever, but even indirect comments like "Gosh, I'm so glad I got a go at doing this project now. I hope our thesis will be like this!"


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Could I change part of my paper after acceptance
My paper is accepted in one of the Taylor and Francis journals and Today I figured out that I made a mistake in one row of one of my tables ( the minimum of one of variables in statistic analysis table is 0 in the paper but the actual value is 1). In fact, it does not affect the other parts of paper and the verification part.
Editor will provide the proofread of my paper in a week.
My question is, Will the editor give me a chance to edit the paper again? or he will change the grammatical problems his self?
And if I ask the editor to correct that row of paper, will he give the paper to reviewers again? I am worried that if I ask him to correct that mistake, he ask the reviewers to review my paper again. I need my paper to be published soon.

Since you have not proof read the paper yet, you simply ask the editor to make the changes to the table as part of the proof reading process. This is perfectly fine as long as the changes you make are trivial and does not change the basis for your conclusions. The worst case would be if the paper was accepted due to the data you reported and your changes will change the results so that the conclusions no longer can be made. The proof-reading stage comes after an accept and it is not allowed to make substantial changes. By substantial, I mean both by volume (changing a lot of text) or by quality (changing data upon which the decision was made).
Supply the changes to the editor as part of the proof reading process but make sure you explain that the changes in the table does not influence the results and conclusions of the paper.

Once the paper is published, there's no changing it. This seems to be the case whether it is physically printed in a magazine or first displayed online. Some journals will publish retractions, which are usually listed as a separate publication explaining what should be different in the original publication, though I'm sure that's not what you want.
I can say with certainty for PLoS One, if you need to issue revisions in that stage between acceptance and publication, they will fix minor issues if it doesn't fundamentally change the direction of your paper. Editing is hard work - it doesn't make sense to send it back for revisions if the paper hasn't changed too much. You'll want to send a copy of your revised paper to the editor, along with an letter/email detailing exactly what has changed in the paper and especially how it doesn't affect the other parts of your paper. Remember that the editor is also one of your reviewers, so if you can make the case that the mistake is indeed minor and take the time to correct it yourself, the decision to send it off for a seemingly pointless re-review becomes less attractive.
Source: A co-author made a small mistake that was corrected after acceptance.


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Why many research results are presented as paid articles?
Many times I learn or look for some information, I find scientific article on ieeexplore.ieee.org or similar, where articles are paid. Most of the articles are written by some professors of universities or students about their work.
My question is, why do they sell their results?
If I was a professor and made some work, I would like to gain some acknowledgement for it and I think there is no better way then see others work based on mine. So why not to publicly share the article for free?
I understand that private companies sell their innovations because that's the main source of their income, but people at universities are usually paid and writing articles are part of their job.
So what are the advantages of selling results instead of sharing for free (is there any other except money)?
Does selling your results have any negative influence?
PS: I may not have enough backstage knowledge about how it works on universities and I don't want to offend anybody. I also don't mean work people do in their own free time, but work they do on behalf of universities. This just slows down the development and overall research in field in my eyes.

To get impact and statistics, like the h-index or the JCR rankings. Sometimes (often?) the universities will even pay for publishing these results, either to journals that require some fees (specially open-access journals do) or in conferences for the travel and registration expenses. Because universities do also care about these statistics. Otherwise everybody would be happy publishing exclusively in their personal blogs, github accounts and other free (usually social) media.

@Trylks:  Your comment seems to imply that authors DO, as Buksy supposes, sell their results, which is not at all the case.

@TaraB How does it seem to imply that? Universities pay, publishers (usually) cash (as airlines, and hotels, conference hosts...), authors get credit (the non-monetary type of credit) and they have to pay if they don't have a university or other kind of institution that does that for them (which could potentially be the case).

@Trylks: Because Buksy asked "What are the advantages of blah blah" (where blah blah is something that doesn't happen) and you answered listing some advantages.  So without the answers here, which correct the misconception, your comment might be misleading.

@TaraB Thanks for the clarification. I'd say it's dubious that it doesn't happen, saying it doesn't happen may be as misleading as saying it does happen. Sure authors don't get paid with money, but if authors were getting nothing then nobody would participate in this system giving papers for "free" to publishers, who then make the money. GitHub, WordPress and the such would probably be the norm for publishing purposes. It's not "selling", but a kind of barter, where both sides sell and buy at the same time. Please let me know if I'm misleaded or misleading.

@Trylks:  I certainly agree that the authors gain something by publishing in journals, but it's clear that the question is assuming this is a direct monetary gain.

@TaraB I understand the alleged assumption more in a "sell your soul" fashion but I have to admit that I tend to have a bias to understand what I read in a way that matches my previous knowledge about the topic. In any case I hope everything is clear now and thank you for the feedback and helping to make it clear :)

After all of your answers I consider new question: What is the IEEE good for when everyone (okay, not literally) pays it & you loose your copyright. I really wonder if there's any completely free alternative where you could share your results, comment and link others work, and maybe create your new work as "fork".

Professors who publish their research results normally do not earn money from these paid articles. It is the publishing journal who earns. There are even journals who ask the author to pay for publishing the articles.
Contact the authors of the paid article directly and ask them for the copy of the article. Be polite, explain why do you need it for. In most cases, you will get that copy for free.
Also, try put the article name and authors into Google search. Another similar article by the same authors may exist and be free to download.

Just to add that in copyright agreements, most academic publishers allow authors to put pre-prints (versions of the paper with all of the content but without the publisher's final typesetting/copy-editing) online. Most academics I know of avail of this option and make their papers available for free on the Web.

The publication business is largely just that, a business. Publishers make money from selling their product, they need money to keep staff to provide the services as well as make a profit among other things. No journals that I am aware of, or at least have been in contact with, salary authors for what they write. I am sure there may be the odd exception but in general, research articles render no income to the author. Books may be a different story of course.
In the last decades or so Open Access publishing has become more common and some research funding agencies demand results are published in such journals. Check, for example,  the Open Access for an introduction to Open Access or the Open Access Net site for additional information. Open Access does not mean everything is free but it moves the charges from the reader to the author so that authors pay to have their papers published. There are free services for publishing. As with everything else, some less scrupulous business models have sprung out of the Open Access idea such as so-called predatory journalsUnfortunately. So awareness is necessary.

As others pointed out, publishing has its costs (editing, maintaining website, creating and distributing print versions etc.) and that has to be paid for. Either by the readers, or by the authors. Each has its pros and cons and it depends on many things, which of the approaches the author takes (funding agency might require the article to be made freely accessible, the author may not have the resources to pay the publishing fee himself, there can be some customs in their field that everyone follows or something else).
I would, anyway, like to point out a different issue here – the number of readers is not affected much by the article being behind a paywall or not. Scientific articles use very technical language and assume certain level of knowledge in their readers, making them less accessible (or even completely unaccessible) to general public. The only readers then come from academic environments, and universities usually pay for subscriptions to the most important journals in each field. Other researchers can thus read scientific papers without any (visible) costs on their side. As long as there are universities willing to pay subscription fees, there will be journals where readers have to pay for articles.

I think papers (at least in some fields) lose a significant amount of readers outside of universities. But the authors might not care much about that, since those readers won't provide citations. Personally I've read far more papers about my hobby than about things I actually studied at university, so I'm very happy about open access.

@CodesInChaos Perhaps I should have added that my experience comes from theoretical physics which is rather difficult to follow for non-experts. Anyway, the main point – that the paper will reach most of its addressees even behind a paywall – stays unchanged.

I have had two papers published with IEEE when I was an undergrad.  There is no provision for me, or any of my co-authors, to be paid by IEEE.  In fact, I was required to pay steep conference registration and publication fees, and also a fee for an extra page on one of the papers, to have the papers published by IEEE.  I recall that some conferences also actually require you to attend the conference in order to have the paper published, so, add mandatory hotel accommodations and an airline ticket to that as well (although I'm not complaining, since I got plenty of support from my universities, and conference trips are always a lot of fun).
The way the paper publishing world works is, after and if your work is accepted by a conference, you pay various registration fees and publication fees, transfer your copyright to the publishing house like IEEE (there are some tricks around this, like giving up the copyright instead, by placing your paper into the public domain), or, as is the case with some other publishers, give them a non-exclusive irrevocable royalty-free licence, and then they publish your work on their web-site (with a right of collecting fees from web-site users, too), as well as possibly into a printed proceedings of the conference that's given to all attendees (sometimes for an extra fee, too).
Many universities in the US, Canada, England and other contries, pay IEEE some kind of subscription fees, so, anyone on the university network is automatically given unlimited free access to all such papers that are published by IEEE.  Otherwise, if you're using a home connection, or your university lacks any such agreement with IEEE, then IEEE collects individual fees for every paper directly from end users (and gives none of it to the authors of said papers).
As mentioned by other answers, many authors also place a copy of their papers on their own web-site.  This is often done illegally, since they often no longer own the copyright to such papers, so, depending on the circumstances, IEEE and such can potentially resort to legal methods to enforce its copyright against the illegal copies.  For practical reasons and bad-publicity considerations, this is not actively done in reality.  It is also the case that after having the copyright assigned to itself, IEEE and other publishers generally give some kind of non-exclusive licence back to the authors with some limited rights on what could be done with an exact copy of the paper.  IANAL, but I think the language of such licence is generally restrictive enough that you're not actually supposed to provide the very same copy of the paper elsewhere to the general public in an unrestricted access.

In contrast, these academic conferences are different to the technical conferences around open-source software.  With technical conferences, there is a lot of members of the general public who want to see the presentation of the author, and such members of the public pay modest registration fees, which, when taken together, together with some contributions by big-name sponsors, are enough not only to support the web-site with free access to all the resources, and potentially a publication of the paper proceedings, but are also often sufficient enough to even cover the airfare and other travel expenses of the authors.

I don't know when those pages that you link at cr.yp.to were written, but in the last few years the publishers have become more attentive to copyright matters and refuse more often to make exceptions to their copyright transfer forms. You may want to take that information wit a grain of salt (as in: things may be bleaker today if you wish to publish your articles in public domain).

@FedericoPoloni, obviously, if you don't turn in a required form, that will not satisfy them at all.  However, those forms have many options, to account for works that are already in the public domain (or crown copyright), and you can always select one of such options which IEEE didn't really intend you to, or cross out stuff you don't like, and write "public domain" in place, since it's all a paper form.  There is no good reason why they'd deny such forms, especially as long as you make it crystal clear on the form that there's no copyright to transfer, so, it's of no real worries to IEEE.

For my second IEEE paper, I actually did place it into the public domain, and did alter the form to select one of those options that no copyright needs to be transferred, crossing out the explanation of when it's the case (i.e. crossing out mentions of which entity has produced it), and writing a declaration that work is hereby placed into public domain.  I've never heard back from anyone, and the small "public domain" caption also appears within the paper itself just fine, too.  See my old (2007) thread on mathcopyrights@crypto: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.mathematics.copyright/9


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Sense of humor allowed in academic writing?
I'm reading a paper at the moment and very bored and then I thought if I write a paper, I would like the writing style to be not so boring or having some kind of humor. Is that allowed in academic writing?
"Why so serious?" - Joker.

There is nothing wrong with humour in scientific writing but it is still advised against. The reason for this is a question of communication.
Consider that the purpose is to convey an idea as succinctly and precisely as you can and you want the recipient to understand everything that you write (my experience says this will never happen, anyway). If you introduce jokes, you run several risks: (1) the reader does not understand the joke, (2) the reader misunderstands the joke and (3) the reader is offended by the joke. These are not outcomes you wish to see and realizing that not everyone's taste is like your own it is easy top realize that the outcome is sure to be one of the three above in some cases. Jokes are different in different cultures and countries so what works in one place may not work in another.
So, as I see it the choice is how much you are willing to gamble. Reviewers and editors may of course weed out things that go too far so what you write is not necessarily what comes into print in the end but it still is mostly up to you.

This is interesting. I didn't know before that submitting a paper could end up with editors removing some parts or so!

That is not what I meant so sorry if that came across wrong. What I meant was that jokes may not reach publication since they may be weeded out during the publication process so even if you send them in they may not be there in the end for all to see. It is only a minor point.

I agree with what you've written. I've come across a piece and the writer chose to use a joke at the end and I doubted their credibility.

We had to write an extended abstract. To emphasise the point despite the tightness of space, my grad student put in a "crisp expression" which was neither rude nor a joke, but relatively expressive. One of the reviewers took real offence at it, almost as if we had violated some "religious tenet". We even had difficulties isolating what precisely had caused the offence. There is only so much you can do to avoid offending people. If humour helps to improve clarity of the message, go for it; avoid obvious offence, but ultimately, some people will be offended by trifles.


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Conducting a literature review, what period should the papers be taken from?
In conducting a literature review i.e., research done on a particular topic for a certain period of time what is the prefered period of the review? Would it be advised if the time period is from 2000 to present only?

The time since the last review paper. :-)

But there's no review paper done before.

Then it is a bad idea to limit the period strictly by time. You should start with the research that defined the area, and follow at least the main lines since then.

A good guide could be to look at the literature review done in some of the most relevant papers you are working from. Many of the papers they cite are probably relevant for you. Also look for papers that cite the papers you use, and look at some of the key references in the papers you use to see what they cite.

The year that a paper was published is entirely irrelevant to the question of if it is worthy of inclusion. I’ve read good review papers citing work that is almost three thousand years old and I’ve read good review papers not citing anything older than 2015. Using age as a proxy for relevance is an incredibly poor decision. You should include what is important for someone in the field to know, regardless of when it was published.

The ground breaking Biology work on aquaporin comes to mind.  The logical rationalization and early experiments deduced it's presence just after the invention of microscopes strong enough to see cells; but, the final discoveries of the hypothesized molecules weren't nailed down until Science and Lab Methods caught up to the initial research deducing it's existence.  Cite what makes sense.  Age doesn't matter.

The simple answer is that you should include all relevant research, regardless of date. However, there is a theoretical aspect to this, which is contrasted with a practical aspect.
In theory, or in principle, a literature review should go as far back in time as there are still relevant articles. On one hand, if there are older articles that are superseded by newer articles that incorporate their older information along with new updated information, such older articles need not be cited, since that would be redundant. On the other hand, it is a general academic principle of courtesy to always cite the original source of an idea (if it can be clearly established who originated the idea), in order to give credit to the original source--this might involve citing a few very old articles.
In practice, however, the practical execution of all literature reviews are constrained by the amount of time that the reviewer has to do the work and by the amount of financial resource available to do it (e.g. whether hiring assistants is an option). If the constraints only permit reading and doing a proper review of only 50 articles, then it might be more efficient to set a cutoff date so that only the most recent articles are reviewed. However, setting a cutoff date requires the reviewer to prove that there is a logically sound reason to expect that older articles would not add relevant information. (For example, it could be reasonable to limit a study of online education to articles older than 1989 on the grounds that only Web-enabled online courses are of interest, and the Web was invented in 1989.) Without such an objectively clear justification, then the review is probably incomplete for no acceptable reason.
That said, even if there are such practical constraints, I would strongly advie the reviewer to include a few older articles that are highly cited by more recent ones, especially if such older articles seem to have important information for understanding the evolution of thought in the area. Above all, there should be no fear that if the reviewer sets a rule for articles 2000 and after, then it is a "sin" to include a few articles older than that. It is OK to set practical boundaries for your search criteria, but to exceed your boundaries for specific exceptions that pop out to you. That is good literature search practice.

older articles need not be cited, since that would be redundant — Except to give credit to the original work, of course.

@JeffE That's exactly what I say in the next sentence.

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


text:
Is it acceptable to publish a paper using an affiliation with a former employer?
Recently I've changed jobs, and consequently the field of research has also changed. But I'm still getting proposals for publications in the previous field, and it is interesting for me to accept some of them. My concern is about which affiliation to use: on one hand I gain all the knowledge in that field while working on the previous employer, also I hope they can cover my expenses related to the publication. On the other hand, I do not work for them anymore, and my current company has very little interest in my old field of research, and probably will not support it financially, but I think it is wise to mention them as well. As a compromise I'm thinking to put the previous employer in the affiliation, and the name of my new employer in the footnote, something like "currently at XYZ". Surely I'll discuss this issue with both, although the opinion of the community is also very valuable.

What are "expenses related to the publication"?  (For that matter, what are "proposals for publications"?)

By expenses I mean conference costs which involve travel expenses and fees, or article processing costs which are required to be paid by (some) open-access publishers. And the proposals are simply questions like "would you like to give an invited lecture?"

If you have written the publication only with the resources and support of the former employer, then it is perfectly acceptable to do what you have written, and list the old address as your address for the "active" affiliations, and include a "present address" affiliation to show your updated physical location.
However, if your new employer does provide financial support, then you should list them accordingly. This is especially important if any of the actual research that makes its way into a publication has been performed while working for the new employer using their resources.

I would list the current affiliation in the address field (that field just tells where people can find you, not much more than that) and start the paper with an elaborate paragraph starting with "This work was made possible through the generous support by.... ". This way you kill both birds at once.


text:
Can I not ask my advisor for recommendation letter if I'm applying for an industry job?
I'm currently in my fifth year of my PhD in a molecular biology lab, and I have since last year decided to transition to computational biology field.
My advisor is very much into molecular biology and wasn't happy about my transition. We have fundamental differences in research approaches and he would always force his idea on me. He constantly threatened me not to sign my thesis or to refuse to write a recommendation letter if I don't do exactly as he says. And at this point, I'm just trying to survive grad school, but I'm wondering about the possibility of not having him in my reference list as I don't expect his letter to be very helpful.
My advisor is not very well-known in our field, let alone in any field related to computational biology. Currently I'm trying to improve my programming skills and at the same time fulfill my phd task. I'm thinking that perhaps I can try asking for references from our lab collaborators, my committee or other professors in our department who are much more aquainted in bioinformatics field.
Any suggestions?

Do you mean he constantly threatened not to sign your thesis or recommendation letter?

Yeah, he wants me to submit three manuscripts before he would sign my thesis. The big problem is actually that we have differences in how the manuscript should be written and how much data should be put in. I feel like I have wasted a lot of time doing experiments that are absolutely not necessary.

Check your university's regulations. At some places, submitting a certain number of papers or presenting at a few conferences is mandatory before getting your PhD.

No, our department doesn't have such regulations, but usually different advisors have different requirements  in terms of graduation. It also depends on the person, for example my previous labmate got away with just two manuscripts and no publication. During my PhD I have produced quite a lot of data and I think that's probably the reason why my advisor is reluctant to let go of me.

It also sounds like you are considering giving up your doctoral studies. Let me suggest something different.
It seems to me that you want to try to maximize your future options and realize your potential. I recommend that, for now, you just follow your advisor's direction and get the degree finished and then move on to whatever it is you want to do. You should have plenty of time for a transition to another field after completion and holding the degree will leave you positioned for either an academic or industrial career.
It may be galling to have to submit, but the advisor has a certain amount of power. Think of him as a door that you need to get through to be a success.
At that point your immediate problem may go away and he might write you an appropriate letter.
On the other hand, not having his letter now would probably seem unusual to most employers, so you'd better have a good and honest explanation for why you don't have it. Disagreeing with and advisor isn't an especially valuable trait in the minds of many employers and they may not really understand the situation.

I agree, I thought about quitting or changing to Masters a long time ago, but I don't think it's worth it now that I'm in my fifth year.
I'm just wondering how much weight would industry employers put on the recommendation letter? Especially considering that I have to change my field and my potential employers probably never heard of my advisor's name.


text:
How should I present awards I won as a co-author in my resume?
I'm a co-author on a project. The project has been presented at 2 conferences and won 2 awards. How should I present this information on my resume?

Personally I have a separate section in my CV for awards and prize, but I don't know if there is any kind of standard formatting.

You are pretty free to format your resume as you like. If you list the publications in the publications section you can also refer to them from the awards section noting that it was joint work. Depending on your field, conference presentation could be worth a lot, or not. In Computer Science, they normally have high value.
But in the awards section you could say something like "Optimal Widget Factorization listed above was awarded the Best Paper award at CCCSC, 2017"
There are a number of other ways. One would be to footnote the paper in the publications listing with a footnote naming the award or even listing the award in parentheses in the listing itself.
Don't worry too much about how you do it, just so you don't give the impression there are two things when there is only one.

I'm assuming that it was the paper that won the award, as opposed to the individuals who wrote it. That would be the standard thing.


text:
How can a demoralized research student restore the passion for research?
To the point, I do love conducting research, however, I have put myself in a very difficult point of research that made me switch to another Ph.D. program for the sake of more technical support. However, I found the other group doesn't have the required set-up devices as they have mentioned earlier before arrival, moreover, they don't have any idea how to solve this complicated point which they are interested in already. Finally, I felt I am in the same blank loop.
To be honest, I began to lose motivation and passion and sometimes I feel lost. I don't know what to do, I see crappy research published and seems everything to me to be fake, I am asking myself: Why this happens to me?.
My dream is to be like Carl Segan, Neil Degrasse Tyson, and present interesting science TV show one day, but I don't know how to reach this goal and present what I am really interested in.
Honestly, I don't know how should be the exact question, but I feel miserable, I don't know whether I have to look for another different point of research and easy to be solved. This would obligate me to look for another different research lab.
Maybe I am not smart enough, but, I began to feel academic field is so dull and boring. I would like to hear what I should do in that complex situation as I cannot dare to speak with anyone in my current research lab about my situation.

Just would like to note, that after switching labs, Unis and advisers once before, it could become very difficult to convince another adviser/University/lab to accept you as a PhD student unless you can motivate it brilliantly (I currently can't think of a sufficiently good motivation however) - from your current record, it does not seem likely you will stick with yet another new lab and finish. As a side-note, PhD salaries (or bursaries) are typically quite low everywhere. Also, success in academia comes from persisting through a lot of failures; which you might perceive as dull and boring.

No, honestly no, i am workaholic person, but I was like a prey this lab welcomed me and promise to do what I was missing from devices. The idea, I need to be in supportive vibes, a good supervisor I can exchange what I did and have a constructive feedback, it was always one side. I don’t know where this be end, but what I know I still like do research, but not in that conditions.

One can make a mistake with a supervisor once; doing it twice may still be bad luck, but indicates that you may want to evaluate the criteria by which you choose either supervisor or topic. It still may be bad luck, Can you move to a more theoretical treatment which does not require the particular equipment you need?

One more thing: "workaholics" are prone to not see the forest for the trees. Try to move to the meta-level and see what options exist in the situation you are already in. As others say, switching once is not easy, switching twice is very difficult.

Bad luck that what I was thinking about that’s why I am thinking of committing suicide, I have been always since many years in bad luck.

@Julain It sounds like you're going through a really hard time. I'd really like to help you, but unfortunately, we're not well-equipped to do so here. Your best option is probably to call a Suicide Prevention Lifeline. People are on call there to talk to people struggling with the same kind of issues you are, regardless of location. US: +1-800-273-8255. If calling's not good, they can chat with you live online. Just go to this site, and you can talk with someone online from 10PM-6AM UTC: http://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/GetHelp/LifelineChat.aspx It might not help, but what's the harm?

Julain, since according to your comments you seem to live in Europe,  you can refer to one of these suicide hotlines. People are on call there to talk to people struggling with the same kind of issues you are, regardless of location. If calling is not good, you can chat with them live online here.

If you lack motivation in your research because you feel like you lack the resources/knowledge to tackle the problem, then you should probably discuss this with your advisor. It is important that the advisor offers you projects that can be 'broken down' into small, manageable pieces, rather than some monolithic task.
A PhD is often an isolating and depressing experience. You should find a support system of some sort to help you through the process. This can be family, friends, or fellow students. You can consider taking up a hobby (preferably something social, like sports) to give you an outlet that's not research.
I can't comment on what exactly makes some people great thinkers, but I can say that in successful research takes a lot of hard work, vision, and a hearty willingness to fail 90% of the time.
Finally, and I am sorry to say this, but you need to be mentally prepared for the fact that academia is not the right place for you. If it truly depresses you to the point where you don't feel like it's worth it, you should seriously reevaluate your prospects.

I like research, But I don’t know why you judge on me that academia is it for me. I am looking for set-up devices which was not found, how to verify what I am thinking about unless I have real measurement.  I am sorry to say that half people in academia or more not doing science, it is just crappy research. Where you can find a genuine supervisor, academia need recorrection.

There is one solution fabricate results as other big names in research do. I am seeking to do a real scientific work and that costed me a lot and yet there is no green light.

Your comments sound like you are frustrated with the academic world and your place in it. I am not judging you, since I don't know you or your situation. All I am saying is that if doing X causes you frustration, aggravation and a general distaste for doing X, then perhaps not doing X anymore is a viable option.

I see, I wish only to have a good supervisor, it could makes difference. From my experience, you could have a very interesting point, but your supervisor or other researches don’t have time for you to discuss, I think you understand what boggles my mind.

You seem to have jumped from one bad situation into another. You can't do that very often and reach success in a reasonable amount of time. You may just have to "tough it out" and do some of the background work yourself if support isn't available.
You should note that your idols spent a long time building scientific reputations before they could become public intellectuals. No one really gets into the public eye without a lot of background work and respect from other professionals.
As to the question of passion, it is hard to say and impossible in general. Many people are motivated by working to solve hard problems, as long as those problems are interesting. Maybe that is what you lack. But hard problems are hard, and many of them require a long time to solve along with a lot of "scut work" that may not be entirely pleasing.
As for short term suggestions, you might talk to your advisor or another trusted faculty member. You might form a group of your fellow students to talk about the bigger issues of your field. Trying to go it alone may not be the best solution.

Besides that, I am getting very low salary and this lab in a very isolated European country, it is a dull city, which makes everything unbearable. I am really interested in this point, as it new, but again, I will reach to a wall. Recently, my mental and physical health is getting worse. May be I have to find another lab, as the vibes of this lab is so boring and the same as previous.

Doing a PhD can be very stressful and socially isolating. We all can have a run of bad luck (I speak from experience and thankfully I got through it).
I suggest you look at the difficulties others have had and, more importantly how they overcame them. Sheer determination and the right strategy can overcome many obstacles.
Here are quotes from the lives of just two famous people.

In 1968, Sagan was denied tenure at Harvard. He later indicated the
  decision was very much unexpected.[26] The tenure denial has been
  blamed on several factors, including that he focused his interests too
  broadly across a number of areas (while the norm in academia is to
  become a renowned expert in a narrow specialty), and perhaps because
  of his well-publicized scientific advocacy, which some scientists
  perceived as borrowing the ideas of others for little more than
  self-promotion.[22] An advisor from his years as an undergraduate
  student, Harold Urey, wrote a letter to the tenure committee
  recommending strongly against tenure for Sagan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan

Steven Spielberg is arguably the most famous director in the world... he was rejected from the University
  of Southern California School of Theater, Film, and Television three
  times. It didn't prevent him from achieving world-wide acclaim,
  though.
  http://uk.businessinsider.com/successful-people-who-didnt-do-well-at-school-2017-5/#steven-spielberg-was-rejected-from-film-school-13

Personally, I find arguments like these unconvincing, because they do not seem to be representative and therefore not applicable to ones own situation. For every very successful person who was rejected or failed in some way, there are 100 that stayed mediocre or kept failing. You wouldn't recomend to people to drop out of college, for example, just because Bill Gates and Steve Jobs dropped out but still became hugely successful. Similar to how playing the lottery is not a viable method to earn one's income.

I didn't advocate dropping out. Spielberg kept trying to get into college - he was determinedly trying to drop in. It's important to use a portion of one's intellect to strategise and change direction if necessary. To be successful one needs to meet and overcome a series of challenges including bullying, plagiarism, lack of funding and so on. There's no shame in evaluating your personality to see if you actually would enjoy that lifestyle and the pressure it brings. Famous people are particularly prone to bullying by the press who are always looking for scandals to bring them down.


text:
How to deal with an unethical editor?
How do you go about dealing with an editor that pretends to be ALL the reviewers and reject a paper based on his/her 'made-up' reviews?  Should I complain to the editor-in-chief or simply let it slide?  The editor is a big name in my field.

Could you add some more information, please, in particular, how you know that happened what you allege happened?

You need proof. Or send the paper somewhere else, if you have reason to believe you are right. However, take into account the possibility that you have a problem in your paper which everyone, independently, identified.

How do you deal with an author that when his paper gets unanimously rejected, considers that there is a conspiracy against him, without having or presenting any proof about it?

Let's say for argument sake, the reviews are blatantly obvious; one liner, and the next one is a permutation of the same line.  Also, the 'editor assigned' email and the decision email was spaced tens of few minutes apart.

Also, as for 'proof', I have the reviews in hand.  If I ping the EIC, then he/she would probably (I hope) look at the assigned reviewers on the system and find that they belong to the editor.

Please edit relevant information from the comments into the question.

Fighting an editor will not get your paper accepted. Why do you believe that the EIC will "look at the assigned reviewers on the system and find they belong to the editor". Is this "evil" editor that stupid? He could have given the paper to some friends of his and pointed out to them the main errors on the manuscript and they agreed.

In many journals the editor has the ability to reject a paper before even sending it to review. There's no need to fake reviews - such course of action seems less reasonable.

@gerrit the information are relevant.  The question is NOT whether the evidence proves the editor has acted unethically.

@Alexandros  I don't plan to fight the editor.  I am concerned about the journal reputation for having such an editor on its board.  As to why the editor did it this way, I posit that he is too lazy to handle the paper and wanted to get rid of it quick.. as I said, the reviews were done in the space of a few minutes.

@Roland You are naive to think that 'big names' mean reputable.  I know of a lot of the most prolific authors on DBLP for example got there by by exploiting people (colleagues, students, $).  Lastly, it is not a predatory journal.  Otherwise, this editor would look even more suspicious right?

@Ran G. a desk reject would make sense if the paper does not fit within the journal's scope.  If the editor had picked this option, then I would complain, and the EIC would have too agree (based on journal scope and my paper).  This means the editor would still have to handle my paper; i.e., the 'problem' of handling the paper hasn't gone away.  A 'cleaner way' is simply to pretend to be two reviewers.

Usually one line reviews are along the lines "low quality paper" or "doesn't fit the scope" or something worse (i.e. complete nonsense). If the two reviews are one line permutations of something like this, then most likely it is not a conspiracy against you....

I am highly suspicious that a big name in a field would make up a bunch of one line reviews for a submission. You should have definite proof and should think long and hard about how irrefutable your proof is before proceeding further. Bringing this up will reflect extremely poorly upon you  and your co-authors if you turn out to be wrong.
That being said, if you believe that you have proof of foul play, you should raise the issue with the editor-in-chief or whoever is higher up the totem pole. If you turn out to be correct, someone should inform the editor's school or place of employment about the academic misconduct.
If you'd like to take a more cautious path, you can email the editor-in-chief and ask if there was a reason all of your reviews were so short and if they had any suggestions for avoiding this in the future. You'll side-step the direct accusation while bringing the reviews to their attention.

This answer is too idealistic.  The more practical answer is as follows.  Is the journal worth fighting? If it's the same level as Nature, then perhaps.  Otherwise, why bother going after a serial offender (yes, I just found out that this editor was kicked off the editorial board of a prestigious journal for accepting his friends' papers).  Also, why would my reputation suffer?  Our works are under constant scrutiny, why shouldn't an editor's conduct be scrutinized too?  It's a democratic process right?  You don't get thrown in jail or beheaded, like some countries, for questioning authority.

I suspect he/she did what he/she because he/she couldn't be bothered handling the paper.

@LittleMouse If you disagree with what I wrote, you are welcome to submit and accept your own answer.

While nothing is impossible, it is extremely, extremely unlikely that the editor risked his or her career -- because that's what faking peer review would be -- in order to sink your paper. Even if the editor cared that much, he or she could simply desk-reject the paper. This does not require, as you seem to think, that the paper be outside of the journal's scope. I desk reject more than a dozen papers annually, most of them for quality reasons, not scope reasons.
If the journal has some strange system where desk rejection is not allowed (as does e.g. Frontiers) it is still likely that your paper was seen by two referees. If the repeated text is unusual, it could be that the editor sent a leading request to the referees, along the lines of "I think this paper misuses methodology x in order to do y -- what do you think?" Then if both reviews say "This paper misuses methodology x to do y", this is not because the editor cheated and wrote the reviews him or herself, it is because he or she lead the referees with the review solicitation.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Unless you have extremely strong evidence that the editor behaved as you claimed, you need to consider other more parsimonious explanations.