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Using nonstandard gender-neutral pronouns to refer to myself in academic writing
I am currently preparing my first formal work for publication, which I am the sole author on. While working through final edits, I've come across a few places where I refer to myself and would prefer not to gender myself as female (eg. "the PI also presented on her research at a local event...") as I do not identify as female (non-binary), and prefer to use the pronouns ze/hir if I need to refer to myself in writing.
As this is my first publication, it feels like this may be a good opportunity to start as I wish to go on, and just go for it. But I also don't know if it'll just read as awkward, and possibly requires a disclaimer/clarifying note in institutional affiliation (eg. Author Name, University Affiliation, Department, (ze/hir) or Author Name, University Affiliation, Department; Author uses ze/hir pronouns.)
My question, therefore, is as follows. Is it appropriate to refer to oneself using gender neutral pronouns in academic writing? And if so, do I need to include a disclaimer/clarifying note somewhere?
An additional note: I've unfortunately not had a chance to discuss this with my supervisor yet. Input from others would be most appreciated!
(Note: I've read through as many similar posts as I could find and did not see any duplicates or anything that answered this question, but please do steer me towards any questions that do if relevant.)
EDIT: Thank you all for your answers. I'm in Psychology, where depending on the document, it's okay to refer to yourself in the third person. In this case, I've removed all references to myself by using the passive voice. In the future, I'm going to go for singular "they" when possible, and in submissions that deal more with identity or LGBTQ+ young people (one of my areas of research), I'll probably go with ze/hir since that's in line with my principles and the theme of the research. Unless your answer will add significantly to the value of the discussion, I think this thread is pretty complete! (other nb researchers, I hope this has been helpful. Feel free to get in touch.)

Related question (but not a duplicate IMO, at the very least because of the language angle in the other question): What should be included in a disclaimer about the omission of gender-neutral language in a bachelor's thesis?

Related: How do I handle a colleague's gender change when citing their paper?

Is this question about using gender-neutral pronouns in your own writing or how to tell readers that you want them to use gender-neutral pronouns when referring to you?

Also, have you looked up the intended journal's style guide?  Does it have anything to say on this topic?  Usually I'd expect most journals to not care about typical gender-neutral writing, e.g. "them" instead of he / she, though journals might take a stronger stance on pronouns that most readers are unlikely to recognize.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat (except for some comments leaving links to related questions or requested clarifications that have not yet been answered; also see when should I comment)

Also related: What to use instead of academic 'we' when describing an experiment?, Choice of personal pronoun in single-author papers

Also also related: Co-authors request that others do not use “he” as a pronoun and (my) answer, https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/84006/49962
Short answer: use 'they'. :-)

It's your decision what to write, but to my mind, adding a note trying to explain your preferred pronouns seems like it puts the emphasis on something which you probably don't want to make the focus.
I'm young enough to be fairly familiar with this stuff, but I have to be honest, the thing I'd remember after read your paper would be "Huh, I've never seen anyone write a note like that before."  I don't want to suggest the way you identify is something you want to hide, but remember that your article is going to be read (hopefully) by a lot of older people or people from other cultures who have no idea what "ze" is supposed to mean, and I assume your main goal is not to educate them about that stuff.
I would encourage you to instead use "they" or "we" when referring you yourself ("the PI presented on their research" or "we presented on our research"); these might be a little awkward, but they have an established pedigree in writing, and shouldn't strike people as too out of place.

Thank you for your suggestions - and for confirming my gut feeling that the note might feel a bit out of place, especially in a paper that isn't related to gender in any way. Because it's not something I've ever discussed with my supervisor, I'm also wary of suddenly springing a note like that on her as well, though I think she'd be supportive in general.

No need for "we presented on our research" as "I presented my research" has no gender association.

What if they don't use the pronoun 'I'?

@Walter "we" would keep the pronouns consistently plural, and might be less distracting to the reader. OP did seem to emphasize that they were the sole author though.

@Wolfgang That's a good point, but why would the grammatical person be mixed? If you're referring to yourself in a paper it's either 1st (I/we) or 3rd (he/she/they) person.

I've accepted this answer as the best one as it most accurately reflects my thought process through this, and the reasons that I think justify using "they" instead. It also has clear suggestions of alternative wording, which I appreciate.

@dexgecko Since "they" is plural, Wolfgang was suggesting to Walter (who suggested "I" over "we") that using "we" & "they" would be consistently plural, unlike "I" & "they". Of course, some people accept that "they" can be considered singular, and others don't...

@Dronz it's worthwhile to note that singular & neutral "they" has historic precedence (moreso than "default he" even), and that it's unclear why english kept singular/plural "you" but transitioned to "he/she/it/they". See this answer for more

It’s entirely a matter of habit: I find singular-“they” no more awkward than other pronouns. I certainly did, a few years ago. But I got used to it.

Why not use the passive voice: "The research was presented ..."?

@No'amNewman while in some types of writing in some fields it would be unusual to use anythign other than the passive voice, it would look distinctly odd in some other areas of academia.

Of course it's the OP's decision what to use (+1 for making that clear upfront) but the big advantage of singular they is that they is universally recognised as (i) a word, and (ii) a pronoun. Its use is becoming more widespread where people don't want to mention/assume  someone's gender even if that gender is known to be easily referred to with binary pronouns.

Omitting pronouns is easier than this comment chain suggests. The PI could easily present "the" research or even "this" research, for example. The narrow context of an academic paper means that general words are usually interpreted highly specifically. If I write "X presented the research" in a random context, it could mean someone else's, but in a paper it does not. I have actually scoured papers to try to get gender clues, back 30 years ago when my supervisor insisted on "Dear Sir" or "Dear Madam", with remarkably little success.

If you don't feel comfortable to use plural pronouns in a single author paper, you can add your cat as an author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.D.C._Willard

@Dronz Language is defined by usage. "They" can of course be either plural or singular, depending on the context. It's been that way for hundreds of years.

@sgroves True, though I had specific academic editors in mind when I was referring to how some people don't find the plural "they" acceptable, not, I think, on the basis of whether or not it's been done.

I prefer to refer to myself as "we" in single-author papers. In particular, itis useful if a second author joins later - no need to go back and change. This seems to be standard in mathematics.
"We" can also sometimes refer to the author, and a non-human (but very binary) automaton, as in this article: http://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/mamarim/mamarimPDF/curious.pdf (S. B. Ekhad is a computer).

Let me add two cents from the perspective of non-native speaker. Your inquiry was - in my case - the first time ever that I have heard of English gender-neutral pronouns. I think I may be not the only exception and therefore your paper may become harder to understand by a broader audience. Secondly, as noted by others already, usage of those pronouns is a non-standard practice (at least in my discipline), therefore it may overshadow other qualities of your work.
However, if you wish to not stress your gender, a number of stylistic figures may be employed. I can immediatelly think of two; firstly, as others have suggested, you may resort to using pluralis modestiae (i.e. we have discovered); secondly - why not try using passive voice (the PI's research was also presented at a local event to rephrase your example).

As a passionate advocate of making academic literature more accessible to readers who don't speak English natively, I support your point and urge authors to think carefully about this portion of their audience. . Singular they seems to me like the best solution. It could also confuse nonnative speakers, but an intermediate student of spoken English needs to become familiar with it anyway.

the worst confusion "they" can cause is that there is another researcher involded, while "ze/hir" is going to cause an "wtf are they talking about"

This is a great point, and as a native English speaker, I have literally never seen or heard of the ze/hir pronouns used before 5 minutes ago

My advice is to use "they/their", or none at all.
You are suggesting to use a pronoun that the general public neither understands nor accepts, and could detract from your writing.  If your subject was about such concepts of sexuality and identity, then it would be most appropriate to use.  But for anything else, people aren't going to know what they mean, and will be annoyed at having to look it up.  In fact, it will likely be seen as a type-o before it is looked up, and then, you would likely be imagined to be the sexuality identity of the reader.  And a perceived type-o lessens the credibility of the author.  All of this is an unnecessary distraction.
People use gender descriptions in order to try to portray an image of the subject.  Issues of transgender are more of what is going inside the mind, and less about the physical appearances, and so, using adjectives and pronouns about transgender terms will not help to build that image the writer is trying to build.  Of course, using neutral-gender words will force the user to imagine a subject of a gender they will have to imagine, as I said most likely their own gender.  If you are concerned about what people might imagine the gender to be, as it might change what you are trying to convey, then by all means, use gender specific words - but using terms that have not been accepted by the public will only serve to create confusion.
In your example, you can even get away with removing pronouns altogether, or using "it" in 3rd person:

"...the PI also presented on her research at a local event..."
"...the PI also presented on its research at a local event..."
"...the PI also presented on their research at a local event..."
"...the PI also presented on research at a local event..."

or even:

"...the local event will feature research done by the PI..."

But to the common reader:
"...the PI also presented on hir research at a local event..."
This is liable to be seen as meaning "her" instead of "hir", and using "ze" will be read like this:
"...the PI also presented on ze research at a local event..."
And here the reader is thinking you're trying to be cute with Germanesque idioms, unless I am also not using the term properly for the example.  Nevertheless, new transgender terms are not uniform, as the community argues that some don't like some phrases because of the sound that implies gender.  (eg, "sie" is German, sounds feminine, and means "hers" in German).  Of course, only a German speaker would know this, but the fight continues.
Until the public understands these phrases, and when there is unity in the transgender community about which to use, your work is the last place to fight that battle, unless your work is itself about that battle.

Just a note, "ze" would be used in place of he/she/they, not his/her/their. Additionally, I would advise against suggesting "it" as a pronoun for a person, as it holds a connotation of one being not or less than human.

+1 for the focus on their identity as the PI rather than their gender.

Wait, what is a "type-o"? Idiosyncratic spelling of "typo"? Honest spelling mistake? What?

"... the work was presented (by the PI) at so and so event ..."

As a non-native German speaker:  'sie' is 'they' and 'she'; 'Sie' is the polite form of 'you'.  The german for "hers" is "ihr" or "ihre" depending on whether the object possessed is grammatically masculine/neutral or feminine.  As an aside, gender-neutrality in German must be a nightmare.

@MartinBonner Nightmare? In my language, which also uses grammatical genders it is much smaller issue than in English, because we can refer to the grammatical gender of the word "author", not to the gender of the author himself/herself/whateverself.

@VladimirF - That's fine, but in German the grammatical gender changes depending on the whether the author is male of female.  It's  "der Verfasser" (m)  or "die Verfasserin" (f).  As I said: nightmare.

English has the distinction of having many exceptions.  Author is gender neutral in English, and doesn't refer to the gender of the person who is the author.  Similarly we have driver, banker, and editor.  But, we have stewards/stewardesses, waiter/waitresses, actors/actresses, salesman/saleswoman, etc and that adds to the confusion about changing style when trying to use GN phrases.  Why can't we just use "it" for everything?

@Wigwam "it" is gender neutral, but not meaning-neutral, as referring to people as things is often dehumanising (as experienced by nonbinary/trans people, imagine someone saying "ew, it's looking at me?" or "It's a freak, what should we do with it?") Singular "they" is grammatically correct and appropriate to use for a person who's gender has not been specified. Also with gendered words ending in -man/-woman it is already common to substitute -person (salesperson, cameraperson).

Agreed, "it" is probably not the best.  However, singular "they" is just as bad and I don't agree that it is grammatically correct.  That is because even in the transgender community, there is no agreement about what to use, and so the rest of us are left "winging it".  Singular "they" will first be dismissed as a type-o before it is realized to be gender-neutral.  While I support the TG community and whatever grammar they prefer to use, this is one idiom I cannot agree with.

Yes it is appropriate to not use gendered pronouns. As it seems you are aware, there are lots of ways to address the issue. You should follow the journal style guide, or the style guide for your field, if it addresses the issue. If not choose a style and stick with it. Be prepared for the copy editor to change the style. They may prefer the singular they, or he/she, or zir, or even rewording of sentences to avoid the issue. It is not appropriate to expect the journal to follow your exact wishes regarding style, but they should comply with your wish to avoid gendered pronouns.

Best answer so far.

I'm not sure I agree.  Parts of this advice are almost sure to raise gender identity as an issue during the editorial process, and the context of a manuscript might not be the best place to do this.  While I don't want to minimize such issues, a letter to the leadership of the journal society, a letter to the editor, a workshop, etc., seem like  more appropriate venues for this -- especially when an author can use language in a manuscript that completely avoids pronouns in self references without thinking too hard about it.

I would hope a reviewer, and most definitely an editor, would be able to overlook the use of a style they disagree with (especially one for which there is no guidance).

There is usually a guidance, and this area is so hot that most major publishers will have made their choices.  https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/magazine/whos-they.html  Shows that the Washington Post has added the singular "they" while the Times has not, but expects that it will eventually happen.  You can also see the listing for "he" in the Times Style sheet preview on Amazon -- which states that "preferred solutions [ to gender issues ] are those that spare the reader all traces of a writer's struggle" -- recommending plural constructions or similar approaches.

The point I'm trying to make is that using a word like "hir" is almost guaranteed to raise this as an issue.  If that's the goal (and it may be), that's fine.  If the goal is smooth publication, this is a contraindication.

@StrongBad I very doubt so: I had reviewers objecting things (e.g. certain electrical symbols, or terminology) for which standards exists, just because the standards were unknown to them.

@StrongBad A reviewer? Certainly, as long as the paper is still understandable. But part of the job description of a copy editor is to provide consistency throughout the publication, so it's quite expected that they'll change the style to fit into the rest of the publication.

I do not think the use of gender neutral pronouns are a good idea, but it has less to do with appropiateness, but with attitude.
The following questions will inevitably arise:

Where are your priorities? Science has time constraints, sometimes very narrow ones. You must continously decide if you need to repeat experiments, make more literary research, make your paper ready and so on and so on. Now one can in fact use much of the time to draw their diagrams by hand. Let's imagine you are an excellent, perfectionist painter and you use 50% of your time to draw those diagrams. I see that spiffy graphics and I am impressed, but I am also now inclined to ask myself what the author did in the time. Even if you use regular expressions to replace all gendering, you will need to invest time to make it sound good. That leads to the next problem.
Who are you writing for? The intent of a paper is communication. The results of scientific work should be transmitted as clearly and unambigously as possible. Therefore many journals have a relatively strict style guide to avoid prose (And yes, some scientists would like to write prose). Let's say a scientist encounters now your paper, the result will be that it takes longer to read and understand because of the unfamiliar structure. You can twist it as much as you like, the message is that you prioritize your personal(!) wish to be named as you like higher than the desire for scientists to read a paper as fast and fluently as possible. I do not make any judgement about this, I only point it out.
How do you handle discussions and contact? What is your reason for non-gendering? Now one inevitable part of scientific endeavour is communicating with your colleagues. And even if we do not like it, our actions are speaking much about how we handle things. Each is feeling each other out, so with the given clues scientists are prone to extrapolate from the behavior how a person ticks. So you say that this non-gendering part is extremely important.
The question is now: Do you have some of these attitudes?

zealous: You have a very, very important realization which is in fact so important that everyone must know immediately about that. And because the understanding is so crucial it must be told in epic fashion.
suspicious: Because you know that there are people out there who could be hostile, it is a good thing to watch out for behavior. Could that be interpreted in a hostile or discriminatory way? If you really, really look sharply, you will find out how that yes, many things could be interpreted this way. And if people are getting irritated that you weigh up every word, it is one clue that they are really hostile (This is sarcasm).
intolerant: One thing which is also important that you are able to view positions which you do not agree with (it is one of the most important things in science. Nothing is overlooked better than something people do not want to see).

Why I am telling this?
The reason is that in heated discussions it could always happen that you wrong someone. Now an important thing is to be easy going, being not resentful and being able to accept/tolerate a viewpoint which you don't share. But people may think that you share this traits because many movements share exactly these traits.
If you are a difficult person, people will choose to avoid contact, it is in essence a self-fulfilling prophecy. So if you choose to use your pronouns, make it good with friendly behavior and assume good faith.
Some comments:
David:
It is now pretty widely acknowledged that this kind of masculine bias should be eliminated.
Sorry, this is a fact straight out of an anglospheric filter bubble (and I doubt that even there it is universally acknowledged). Cultures do (at least currently) not widely acknowledge that what you call "masculine bias" should be eliminated.
E.P.:

Academia has a long history of exclusion towards non-WASP people and that behaviour is little less than someone appointing themselves Guardians of the Ivory Tower.

Jewish people have a long and strong tradition in academia and while there were discriminations and blockades, the quality and quantity of Jewish work is vastly overproportional to their population size. Could we agree that Ashkenazi are not WASPs? It is also prudent to look up history books, the Western leading role in academia is not a timeless phenomenon, see Egypt, Greece, Rome, Persia, China, Arabia etc.

I’m not particularly sure that the presence of a disproportionate amount of work by Jewish people in any way disproves that many academic organizations have engaged in racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination. You yourself mention that they were “discriminations and blockades” against Jewish people, so it doesn’t even prove a lack of discrimination against Jewish people.

There are a variety of reasons for over-representation of Jews in academia despite barriers put their way (for example, a much stronger tradition of literacy than many surrounding groups). Due to small population numbers overall, over-representation of Jews isn’t excluding large numbers of people at the moment, but of course the presumptive end goal is proportional representation, so presumably the percentage of Jews will eventually decrease slightly.

@Obie2.0 The claim was: "Academia has a long history of exclusion towards non-WASP people", not existence of discrimination. What irks me is first the sweeping "non-WASP" claim because Jewish students earned doctorates as far back as the 16th century in italian universities. Yes, black people and (white!) women were excluded until 19th/20th century, but non-white, academic instituitions in history also only allowed specific students, beginning with the Pythagorean school and the Musaeum Alexandria. The sentence paints a strongly biased picture.

@Obie2.0 Another thing: "but of course the presumptive end goal is proportional representation, so presumably the percentage of Jews will eventually decrease slightly". May I ask you what you mean with this sentence? If people have free career choice and Jews participate with overproportional representation, how exactly is this supposed to work? Reminder: The argument of the oppressing majority does not work because Jews definitely pass the criteria of "suppressed and persecuted minority". So why should there be proportional representation?!

Ze, hir, and other such words might not be within the purview of a journal's style sheet, and might be modified by page editors.  I suppose it can be taken up in the galley process, but bluntly I see no advantage to letting this rise to that level.
I strongly suggest writing such references exactly how the author wants them published within the current style sheet of the journal for the least amount of problems in the process.  If it's important, try to get a hold of the style sheet, but I would try writing to avoid the issue.
As such self-references should be fairly infrequent in a normal publication, judicious switches from active to passive voice so as to not require a gendered pronoun would perhaps be the easiest path.
For the specific phrase "the PI also presented on her research at a local event...", "the PI also presented at a local event..." is every bit as clear as the original phrase, and reads as less wordy.

Frankly, if a journal editor unilaterally removes a person's chosen pronouns, the editor is way out of line. Academia has a long history of exclusion towards non-WASP people and that behaviour is little less than someone appointing themselves Guardians of the Ivory Tower. That behaviour is at about the same level as changing all "she" and "her" to "he" and "him" because it'd just be nuts if there were women doing research.

@E.P. It's not the journal editor -- who probably couldn't care less.  It's the copy editor who is doing the job of the copy editor -- making sure the printed copy matches up with the journal's style sheet.  The copy editor couldn't care less about gender identity, genderless pronouns, or any such thing.  The copy editor cares about whether the copy matches the style sheet.  This is how major publishers work, not a commentary on issues, and is fact.  Feel free to DV, but you may as well argue that a US journal copy editor has no business replacing "colour" with "color".

... which is why I suggest in a comment to another answer that the place to take up such issues is with letters to the editor and professional society mechanisms.  Deal with objections to policy with the policy makers, not the people who's job it is to implement the policy.

For example, from Nature's instructions: "After acceptance, Nature's subeditors (copyeditors) ensure that the text and figures are readable and clear to those outside the field, and edit papers into Nature's house style. They pay particular attention to summary paragraphs, overall clarity, figures, figure legends and titles."

"The copy editor couldn't care less about gender identity" is precisely the problem. If the style sheet is to be followed blindly and without regard to identities beyond cis-hetero-male WASP canon, then the style sheet is discriminatory and those aspects need to go, simple as that. ("Colour", on the other hand, is halfway between a red herring and a straw man.)

@E.P.  I don't think I can be much clearer,  about my NOT trying to answer with respect to social justice in any sense of the phrase.  I'm not saying its right-- I'm saying that this is how copy editors work, and that the OPs action would then depend on whether the author wanted to make a manuscript submission the place to turn this into an issue or an effort to get smoothly published without hiccups.  I've tried to keep my own opinions on gender language out of my answer, as I don't feel my own opinions are particularly germane.

You can almost always escalate copy editing issues to above the copy editor if you have a strong opinion.  For example, I've done this with copy editors adding "et. al." or removing arxiv links.

@NoahSnyder  -- I agree.  I refer to such a path as "turning it into an issue" in the discussion thread.

Regarding bias when reviewing, of course discrimination still exists: reviewers often look at the author list when the process is not double-blind. This discrimination consist mainly in checking "who you are in the field" and "where you work". The same research coming from a famous PI at an Ivy-league US university is valued very differently than the one that comes from a first-year PhD student from an unknown university. Let's be serious: this is the main real discrimination that we need to fight in academia and no one dares to talk about. Let's continue bikeshedding with gender pronouns.

Firstly, this is the first time in my life I come across about primary research where someone talks about oneself, much less using a third person. The usual way is to use passive voice or talk in first person "I want to thank / we found out / etc".
Secondly, the "pronouns" you refer to are a recent ideological invention and simply don't exist in the English language, so serious publications, which are usually exquisite with language, will for sure have some problems accepting made-up words, especially if they are not related to science.

Really? Third-person references happen a lot, actually.

All words are made-up. Many words used in scientific publications have been made up quite recently; "qubit" and "blockchain", for instance, would have been unknown twenty years ago. If you object to non-binary pronouns on ideological grounds, that's your choice, but saying that they "don't exist in the English language" is meaningless. There is no official authority for the English language, only usage, and such pronouns certainly are used by some English speakers.

Have you read the "especially if they are not related to science part"? I don't know what this has to do with me or my thoughts. Of course you can make up technical terms and even define them, but this is not the case at all in this question. Academia is academia, it's exquisite with language. Good luck focusing on how you feel or identify, trying to impose your own words to established readers/writers and "educating" academia, especially if your words are ideologically charged. Definitely the opposite of good science, which should be zero about you and all about the research subject.

@GeoffreyBrent: qubit and blockchain are of course jargon, from the fields of quantum computing and crypto-currencies. Jargon is associated with social groups, and used within such a group, but usage outside that group generally requires explanation. ze/hir is jargon from gender studies (although not yet well-established, as xe/xir is also in use apparently). Like all jargon, using it out of context is surprising, and surprises hinder communication.

@Pablo In my time I've published, edited, and peer-reviewed a few scientific papers across several different fields. Every single one of them identified the researchers, and quite a few of them discussed actions taken by those researchers in the course of that research. In some fields it's standard to note any potential conflicts of interest, because it's well understood that the researcher DOES matter. Pronouns sometimes come up in such discussion. The OP isn't attempting to evangelise any particular ideology, simply indicating how they prefer to be addressed.

Then definitely we are in very different fields, because the WHOLE POINT in peer-review is that you know as little as possible about the author, and often they are double blind, so that the review is not biased. When authors are listed, I have never seen a mention to anything else than name, last name, title, and affiliation in anything I have read or reviewed in 20 years. Conflicts of interest are always self-declared and signed. Would you mind listing which fields you are talking about, just to clarify?

@Pablo : Exactly. Using such ideologically charged pronouns (used by nobody outside of a niche group of activists) would signal that the author wants to explicitly advertise a political/ideological viewpoint.

@vsz not only that, but it's extremely arrogant. You are an absolute newcomer to a field who has proved nothing of value. However you are focusing on yourself instead of your research, telling everyone else how bad, discriminatory, and mistaken they are, and that you deserve a "special treatment". Well, good luck doing that in any established group, especially one with centuries of tradition. It doesn't seem precisely the best strategy to change things.

First, the example you gave ("the PI also presented on her research at a local event...") sounds biographic in nature. If you're writing a short author's biography then feel free to use whatever language you wish- that space is there for you to talk about yourself. Moreover, while some people might not be familiar with non-binary pronouns, or even upset by them, their presence in a biographic section is not going to be objectionable.
If you're concerned about using such terms in the general academic text then you might be tackling the wrong problem- gendered pronouns are typically not used in academic prose either in reference to the authors or to citations. It's hard to say without having your draft in front of me, but my guess is that your best overall option would be to remove any references to a gendered pronoun or their non-binary counterparts. The first few papers I wrote had a number of gendered references, and at first I balked when my advisers told me to remove them (it's my voice, wasn't incorrect but a matter of style, etc.), but my final conclusion is that academic writing really does work better without them.
Two places you're tempted to use gendered pronouns are when talking about your own work or about others. When talking about yourself it's standard practice to cite yourself and refer to yourself as a reference. In my field the following would stick out as unusual, a little pretentious, and would violate double-blind review (if that's a concern):

In earlier work I explored topic XYZ where I concluded ABC.

Instead I might write:

Topic XYZ was examined in David (2017) which found ABC.

Similarly it's very uncommon to use gendered pronouns in reference to other works, both because most papers have multiple authors and because the usual style is to talk about the reference rather than the author.
Also, although this isn't part of your original question, I'll point out that using a non-binary pronoun to refer to someone else who prefers the binary version can be just as uncomfortable to them as the situation you're struggling with. For that reason alone it would seem unwise to use ze/hir in reference to other authors.
Lastly, you should be aware that the debate over the use of gendered pronouns is still ongoing within style organizations and in academia. In years past a sentence with implicit masculine bias such as the following would have been common and unremarkable:

The engineer must configure the system and to do so he must characterize its behavior completely.

It is now pretty widely acknowledged that this kind of masculine bias should be eliminated. There are three standard recommendations:

Alternate the use of he and she (recommended by APA and Chicago styles) or potentially use he/she (not recommended, and less common in academic writing)
Rewrite any gendered references to use gender neutral language (recommended by APA and Chicago), even if it makes the overall language cumbersome. E.g.

The system configuration, which requires a complete characterization of the system's behavior, must be performed by an engineer.

Replace gendered references with the singular they, which is explicitly rejected by APA and Chicago, but in my experience is pretty common in academic writing. E.g.

The engineer must configure the system and to do so they must characterize its behavior completely.

In the 2nd last example, "[...] by an engineer, which [...]", is the usage of "which" instead of "who" intentional or it's just a typo?

@MassimoOrtolano I was intentional about it, but I should say that I'm not an expert in grammar. I can see it working as "which" or "who". If you use "which" then you're saying that the activity (configuration) requires a complete characterization, and if you use "who" you're saying that the engineer requires a complete characterization. I think that both would be correct.

I'm not a native speaker but, afaik, which in that position can only refer to the engineer and not to the action. The reason I'm pointing this out is that in this discussion about pronouns, "which" in that position might be confused for a neutral way to refer to the engineer. To refer to the action I'd instead write: "The system configuration, which requires a complete characterization of the system's behavior, must be performed by an engineer".

@massimoOrtolano Great suggestion.

Sorry guys (!) but "which" refers to an inanimate thing, while "who" refers to a person.  In the example, "which" is referring to "the system configuration", not the engineer.  And in this example, using "who" wouldn't even refer to the engineer, as it would personify "the system configuration", and would not make sense.

Using any variation of rewrite to use "who" changes the meaning of the example: it is the system configuration, not the engineer, which requires the characterization...
And, in my very example, using "which" is appropriate because - even if people are involved - there is a choice to be made (engineer or system configuration).  In this case, "which" or "that" has to be decided upon, not "which" or "who".

@Wigwam You're a bit late ;-) The discussion was about a previous version of the example, which can be viewed in the edit history.

@MassimoOrtolano, oh, sorry.  Well, let's face it... language is a stupid form of communication...

An answer with helpful information.  // Suggest: Engineers must configure the system and to do so must characterize its behavior completely, and The PI also presented this research at a local event. // If you can't rewrite everything, do include a footnote explaining the meaning of the pronouns.

Re point (3), as far as I can tell both APA and Chicago now endorse singular "they", at least in the case where the subject prefers it as their pronoun.

So many tortuous issues in academic communication disappear when one shifts from writing in the passive/third person voice to active/first person. In this case, the issue arises because you are attempting to refer to yourself as if you (I/my) were in fact someone else (whether she, her, ze, or hir). In this case, as you are the sole author, the solution is simple if you write in the active first person:

I presented this research at a local event...

When you are part of a multi-author paper, the research is no longer solely yours anyway, and so constructions could be something like:

The senior author presented this research...
The senior author presented our research...

Are "My research was presented at a local event..." and "I presented my research at a local...." tortuous or ambiguous in any way? I found your first suggestion to be ambiguous "this research" could refer to another person's research, e.g. "I was invited to a local event and was asked to present this particular research" and the third solution hints that there is more than one author.

@Mari-LouA The passive "My research was presented at a local event..." is ambiguous because it leaves open who did the presenting. Agree "I presented my research at a local...." is absolutely fine for most, but the OP's original issue is with possessive pronouns, so "I presented this..." gets around that.

In my experience, gendered references to authors are quite uncommon in academic writing. Situations where pronouns would naturally occur can instead be dealt with in passive voice ("the PI also presented on her research at a local event..." can probably be replaced by "this research/work was also presented at a local event").
That said, if you end up using pronouns referring to yourself, it makes perfect sense to me that you use the appropriate ones, i.e. ze/hir. This should not require any disclaimer, but you could probably add a footnote to the first occurrance explaining that this is a non-binary pronoun, if you want to explain.
I want to point out that in an international context the ability to guess the gender of an author based on their name is very limited anyway.

Why ze/hir instead of the centuries-old standard singular they?

@JeffE That's a question for the OP (or possibly just google).  I think Arno is just trying to be respectful of hir preferences.

(This is fairly off-topic, but to answer the question posed by JeffE): People prefer different gender neutral pronouns for a range of reasons. I prefer ze/hir because they sound close to she/her but are still gender neutral (and while I closely align with femininity/identify as femme, I am agender). Singular they does not have the same meaning to me.
However, I'll use singular they in this paper as a compromise. I'd rather that than gender myself as "she".

@Li.Elce why is it off-topic? Since you are asking for advice in connection with which gender pronouns to use in an academic publication, I'd say trying to understand your motivation and preferences is very much on-topic and helps people offer you the best advice possible.

Before considering the appropriateness, I'd consider whether readers would understand what it is that you're doing.
Despite being aware of LGBT issues generally, I've never heard "ze/hir" used by anyone yet, and probably many (most?) people not living in the US/Canada(/UK?) would not catch on. They might not even understand your disclaimer, even though it's not rocket science.
On the other hand, the risk is relatively low. I mean, you could get some mean reviewer, but other than that they'd just complain about your weird English as a side-comment.

I would tell you to just go for it. There's no need to think of things as 'disclaimers', either: the lines

Author Name, University Affiliation, Department; Author uses ze/hir pronouns.

function as introductions of the author, and if your choice of pronouns is important to your identity and it impacts the reading of the text (e.g. because the text includes you using those pronouns to refer to yourself) then include them and be done with it.
Academia is already exclusionary enough with respect to people from all sorts of backgrounds and identities, and part of that exclusion is that so far there are no established conventions within academia for how issues like yours can be dealt with. However, those conventions are not going to build themselves, and we as an establishment need your input to help construct them in ways that actually reflect what the tq+ community wants to happen.
It is also pretty inevitable that if you do this you will sooner or later encounter some form of pushback, and when you do, I would say: keep at it. Explain that your chosen gender and pronouns are part of your identity and that you do not feel comfortable with other alternatives, and that a rigid style sheet that does not allow for those kinds of identities is the real-world realization of the abstract concept "this journal discriminates against non-conforming authors".

Academia is inclusionary to all people as long as they show merit. You can see it over and over again throughout history, as scientists were quite often socially disadvantaged (e.g. Ramanujan, Maric-Einstein, Turing). One of the main reasons is that scientists focus on results. Every human has traits that others may like or dislike, but it is hard to call a theorem false because you think the author is X. Blaming some hidden conspiracy against people who are X is counterproductive, because only more Xs arise along with people adhering to them and none looks for ways to improve themselves.

@user3209815 That is a remarkably naive view of academia. Once the results are published, yes, academia is relatively inclusionary, but there's so much more to it than that. In this specific case, academia is mostly saying, "yes, you can publish just fine, so long as you're happy sacrificing your identity" at the altar of the white-male-1960s sensibilities that got enshrined in style sheets that are irrelevant to the scientific merit of the piece. By your own argument (academia is inclusionary so long as the work shows merit) OP should be able to refer to hirself however ze wants.

@E.P. Could we please leave religion and skin color out of this discussion? You are the only person who (repeatedly) mentioned them so far, and I don't think they play a role here.

@E.P. Yes, OP is able to refer to herself however she wants. That will not affect the merit of any work. But, when writing academic papers, you write about your work and its merit, because that is what is and should be scrutinized. If you include statements about your "identity", your house for sale, your fascination with skateboarding, political views, etc., you invite the reviewers to form opinions about your person, not only your work. While this isn't an issue by itself, its consequence is that any remark made by them, can be perceived as being against your person, not against your work.

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What does the type of funding mean for the type of research?
What are the implications of the type of funding, i.e. hard money vs. soft money (institutional vs specific project support) for the type of research it incentivizes?
My hypothesis is that hard money supports basic (rather than applied) research, research autonomy and drifting away from the norms of contemporary research.
I'm looking in particular for answers based on existing studies on the topic. Have there been any attempts to evaluate aspects like these?

Unfortunately this forum is not intended to help people with the particulars of their research. You’d be best to conduct a literature review or speak to your supervisor about how to get started doing research.

@GrayLiterature it's an interesting question, though. I've edited the question, and I think it should be on-topic now. (See also the [tag:reference-request] tag.)

I believe that the question is ill-posed, because the answer will fully depend on the specifics: the specific grant that funds the soft-money position, and the job description of the hard-money position. Many grants are designed to support basic research, as opposed to applied research, and many hard-money positions are in areas of applied research.

@lighthousekeeper I'm looking for answers regarding the general trend. If hard money were dominantly used for applied research and vice versa, which would lead to greater research autonomy in grants, I would take it as a successful answer.

@foggy this seems highly field dependent. For example in medicine, the trend is exactly the opposite of what you describe. Many medical researchers are on 100% soft money (i.e. salary is grant-funded) and engaged in basic research. Hard money is given to the "bread-winners," those doing clinical service and applied research like clinical trials.

@roger-reject Interesting, thanks. Remarks such as this are exactly what I'm looking for.

Does this answer your question? What is a soft-money research position?

@Kimball No. I'm specifically asking for any studies about the implications for factors such as research autonomy or "basicness" of the research.

I've worked in the field of research administration in the US for nearly 15 years, with more than half at an R1 institution, and I am a member of NCURA, where I have learned about the practices of many institutions across the US.  I can tell you that first of all, you are unlikely to be able to find published information on this question with great detail due to confidentiality of this information, even within an institution, let alone information open to the public.  However, I can give you the benefit of my experience, with the hope that it may give you some insights on how different types of people can approach funding given their circumstances.
Looking at major US federal sponsors and how they function can reveal some key behaviors by field:

As mentioned in a comment, the medical fields in the US are generally required to do a large amount of fundraising to pay for their base salary.  The medical fields also rely primarily on NIH, which have specific rules that create an environment that the medical field must react to.  Specifically, NIH requires investigators to commit time on projects if listed as senior/key personnel, but also caps their salary.  This creates a situation where PIs need hard money to cover time on NIH projects, and soft money is also not going to be infinitely generous to pay for a large portion of one's salary, so many grants would be needed.  Some folks therefore ask for slivers of time on a host of projects.  This means that no individual project becomes as important, of course.  There are going to be cases where there are large center projects that demand much larger portions of time, e.g. as much as 2 months.  As you can imagine, there is a lot of applied and basic research funded by NIH.  In 2016, their blog post showed the split being nearly 50-50.

NSF is the primary US federal sponsor that is associated with basic research.  Unfortunately it is a joke among faculty that NSF actually stands for "Not Sufficiently Funded".  If you look at the NSF report that was recently released on how US R&D expenditures look from 1970-2021, you will find that basic research is always the least funded type of research in the US.  This is obviously somewhat disappointing when some areas of study depend so deeply on basic research.  As the report goes on to say, 41% of basic research in 2020 was federally funded, whereas industry funds 91% of funding for development and 59% of applied research.  NSF is recently soliciting more funding from industry to help fund their endeavors.  These jointly-funded solicitations can in some cases result in awards with a mix of a federal grant and gift-like funding from industry.

DOD frequently relies on relationship building in order to generate a portfolio of DOD funding.  Some institutions will have policies against development projects; some against confidential research, which development research may require.  You will notice that where business is the leading entity doing this research, they are more likely to do confidential research (hence the concept of DOD contractors).  Often in sponsored research, academic institutions will take a tiny piece off a development project to perform basic research.  This allows them to take funding from sponsors that may otherwise be unavailable due to institutional research policies--a key example being DARPA, which is mostly found at engineering schools.

Thus with these large funding mechanics in play, the remaining question -- the ability to do research freely, means that non-sponsored funding lets you pick what your endeavor is "without restriction".  What does "restriction" mean? For some folks that is the specific policies of a sponsor they normally do business with -- e.g. a salary cap with NIH.  Does this non-sponsored funding allow new cost categories without restrictions, e.g., staff members, alcohol?  Most people pursue non-sponsored funding because it is going to be easier to use, but also because it can be less competitive depending on how it is procured -- relationships, smaller awards with higher success rates, etc.  Internal funding is generally less demanding on administration because it's all done within the institution and some institutional norms are used as a default.  As collaborations become the norm in sponsored research, institutional money is often great for single-PI projects.
So I don't think you can draw conclusions about research type -- most folks I have worked with won't touch their non-sponsored funding if they don't have to.  Rainy day funds are difficult to acquire, and many save them to the point of retirement (and in fact, beyond).  The ability to have non-sponsored funds and charge a postdoc for a new project without having first found sponsored funding
(which probably requires data, a proof of concept, etc.) is a great benefit--whether it's a basic, applied, or development project.  Non-sponsored funding is startup money, seed money, bridge money, money due to administrative service that you can then use as administrative mistake money (that's only half a joke)--overall, it's a way to sleep at night for many PIs; it's not generally a strategy to fund a specific idea for a large part of the research for the average portfolio; it's an emergency escape hatch.  Any research administrator worth their salt knows to ask you to spend all sponsored funds prior to non-sponsored.  You always use restricted funding for any expense that can be directly charged (according to the terms and conditions of the award) before you tap into your flexible and less-restricted funding.  Just period of performance alone is a huge hinderance in sponsored research, and the ability to work without such a constraint is a huge benefit.

Great answer! +1. I'd just add that (at least in some fields) the research and funding processes may be only weakly coupled. Results/outcomes may be credited to a grant ex post facto because 'they're broadly in scope and it gives us something to write about in the report that's due next month', but if that grant hasn't been funded the same research would've been done, and a different grant would have got the kudos.

One thing we ask when setting up advance accounts are "would you be buying this anyways?" and if yes, and the funding doesn't come through, it's not really a risk to purchase, they just have to use that precious non-sponsored funding instead.

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Prepping for Tenure in Academic Medical Center
I'm an early-career assistant professor on the tenure track in a medical department at a school of medicine. My FTE is split 70% for research and 30% for clinical. The 70% FTE in research is soft money, whereas my billed clinical services cover the other portion. Because clinical provision is kind of nebulous and difficult to quantify, especially for my specialty, I'm guessing that my tenure packet will be considered as if I am 100% research. Is that fair or realistic? Does anyone have any insight into such a situation? I've asked for hard numbers regarding pubs, grants, etc, but leadership is reluctant to provide such given the wide ranging discipline-specific differences in productivity. It would suck to hear that I just have to do as much as if I were 100% research.

I think you need local advice from a tenured mentor who's been through the process both personally and on tenure committees. You should not expect hard numbers on anything because that's not how decisions are made. (I may be making some US-centric assumptions)

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Increasing your chances of entering a master while working
I am a 25 year old European student, I will graduate in a CS & Math dual degree this year. I have accepted an offer from a very good company (Meta) and I would like to get into a top CS Master program (either in the US or in Europe) and maybe consider PhD in a couple of years. I don't want to start right now because I am burnout from academy and I need the money.
My grades are solid although not perfect (around 9 / 10) and I have one publication in a mid-level conference in the topic of Machine Learning.
What can I do to improve my chances of entering into a good program? All the advice I have found is aimed to bachelor students, like improve your grades or create a relationship with your teachers.
Some ideas I have:

Try to publish more. My advisor has shown favorable, so it may be possible to keep researching and try to get publications. However, publications would have to be limited to somewhat niche fields, as I am not sure I can keep up with the frenetic path of Machine Learning research while working full-time.
Participate or assist to congresses, workshops or other academic events.
Participate in professional events, like Hackathons. Most of these events involve coming up with ideas to approach industry problems, so it may reflect favorably on my capacity to approach practical problems.
Do personal projects, collaborate more with open source projects, get certifications: I think all of these are valuable for getting hired, but I am not sure they will provide any advantage at academic level.

What of these will improve my chances the most?
Observation: I am not asking about my chances of entering a concrete program. I rather want advice on what is the best way to improve your admission chances to a program once outside of university. While every program has its own process, I believe admissions valuate more or less the same things (correct me if I am wrong)

In the US, M.Sc. programs in Computer Science tend to be commercial products. In general, they give good value (retraining and actualizing) for money. If you have decent grades and letters of recommendation (and working at Meta itself would also be a positive sign), you will get in.
In the US, people tend to go directly into a Ph.D. if they are interested into research. They leave with an M.S. if it is not for them. The main concern of an admissions committee is always whether a candidate has the capability to do independent, but supervised research. Since this is difficult to assess, a number of measurements are substituted. Getting into a top program usually requires excellent test results. However, senior faculty can always ask for a certain student to be admitted (with a good reason given). Even in the US and in CS, universities are hiring less tenure-track people and often want people in the hot field de jour (such as data science or machine learning). So, getting an academic job might not be so easy, even if you come from a highly ranked but not top university. However, the Ph.D. gives you much more interesting jobs and usually, the pay differential pays for the time working on your Ph.D. where you will live on a stipend that pays nicely for your living expenses, but not much more.
If you want to do research, the easiest way to get into a good Ph.D. program is to have some research already under your belt. If you can combine this with your work, do that. If not, I would not waste my time on hackathons etc. Personal projects that show capabilities related to your desired field of specialization might help. But if you are working for one of the big, high-stress companies with lot of turn-over, no-one seriously expects you to do much outside of work. Meeting people at conferences and
workshops does not work out too well in my experience, unless you present something.

First of all, congrats on your job offer! As for MA programmes, the situation is different in the UK and in continental Europe.
Europe: Most MA/MSc programmes take two years and are similar in form to a BA/BSc degree: you take courses and write a dissertation. Admission is often solely based on grades, and a 9/10 average seems decent.
UK: Master's courses usually take 1 year, and offer either training in a specialised sub-field of CS, or are research-based. The latter often give you an option to write a longer thesis - this could be a good starting point to a PhD.
As for admission, in the UK you need:

good grades - which you already have;
reference letters - so it's important to stay in touch with your undergrad professors, and perhaps to cultivate a good working relationship with a manager/mentor at your workplace (who can later write a "professional reference");
research proposal (especially for research-based degrees) - so think of a project that you find interesting and/or important. Maybe you'll come across an interesting research problem at work?

Good luck!


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Putting won but refused PhD positions in CV
Recently, I stumbled over a CV in which the corresponding author included in the category of prizes and grants also Phd positions (with scholarship) which he/she was offered but declined. I never have seen it before. Of course, selection by the official committee of a PhD position together with a grant is of course an achievement, especilly if one is talented enough the get several positions. However, should one put in the CV? In the end, they have been declined, so one didn't benefit from the grant. What is the general philosphy on that? Is this a common thing?

I guess if you don’t have anything better to use the space on. As a hiring manager I would not think highly of it.

Here's a very similar question over at the workplace se https://workplace.stackexchange.com/q/103403/50512

It is perfectly fine.  You were awarded the scholarship (presumably in a competitive process), whether you accept it or not.
Where someone has to be careful is in drawing a line between the worthwhile and the trivial.  It looks like padding or boasting if every single scholarship - however small, accepted or not - is listed, especially of some of these are automatic.  It can of course be difficult to check if a specific scholarship is competitive so a wise course of action is to list major scholarships or other awards and honours received, for which it is not so hard to find details confirming that the awarding of such honour is indeed something prestigious.
It also depends on the specific situation.  It makes no sense for a senior professor to include small undergraduate scholarships in a grant application, but it could be valuable for an undergraduate seeking a graduate position.

It depends a bit on the type of the position you have declined (as ZeroTheHero mentioned before). Especially when you applied for (multiple) high-ranking fellowships and declined one or some of them, I would personally highly recommend to put it into your CV. After the all, the job market in science is tough and everybody has to show everything they've got. Some fellowships will even award you a certificate, independently whether you accept the position or not - exactly for this reason! It shows you were successful in an evaluation process before. But do not put trivial positions you declined in your CV and do not apply for positions for this purpose, if you know that you will not accept them. This would shed a very bad light on you.

I think the general philosophy is that what you put in the CV is up to you. And how it is evaluated is up to the reader. Such a statement is unlikely to carry much weight for obtaining a different position, I'd guess. But each reader makes their own determination.
I doubt that it is especially common, but might be more so for someone at the start of their career without much else to say.
I doubt that most people would even think to do it, but who can say for sure.

At later stage in their career (postdoc) some people put in fellowships/grants won that they refused. Which is somewhat reasonable, but probably in most cases makes not much difference.


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Is it necessary to customize letters of recommendation with recipient names?
I am concerned to the fact that how a professor whom I am asking to write an LOR, will change the name of the person every time before sending? I am applying to like 100 different persons for the position of postdoc. Does it really matter that it should be addressed appropriately (name basis)?
I am working in the interdisciplinary field of materials chemistry, nanotechnology, environmental remediation, physical and theoretical chemistry.

If I were your supervisor, I would never agree to accept your request of an LOR for 100 different persons.

You can see recommendation letters with "Dear Sir/Madam" at the beginning.  Or "To Whom It May Concern".  Why pretend it is a letter to only that one place if it is not?

I always write "Dear committee members".  Recommendation letters are rarely read by only one person.

@JeffE : For post-doc, it may happen that only the PI of the grant is making the decision, without any committee.

Great question. I think this question is nicely narrow (whether/how to customize the names), but the question you brought up in a comment, about the larger application strategy, might be a good separate question. Good luck!

This is probably a duplicate, although I think we have better answers this time around: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5452/how-much-customization-of-letters-of-recommendation-is-necessary?rq=1

100 post doc applications sounds like way too many, but maybe it's more field-specific...in my field you would have much better chances making at a minimum some minor professional contact beforehand, such as at a conference, have some idea that a position is available, and have some conversation about your interest in it.

100 may sound excessive .. if you apply from the US, but if you apply from a foreign country, and you essentially cold call everyone, it can be the sad reality of life. If you are a student form India, China etc you may not have a chance to go to a big international conference, and also you may have difficulties to  approach famous professors.

Not all professors customize their letters to the specific recipient. It probably helps a little (especially if the recipient is at a prestigious institution, so that they know that this letter isn't directed at a generic less-prestigious institution), but it's not that necessary.
But you definitely should. If you are applying to 100 different professors for the position of postdoc, and you send them a form letter saying "I am very interested in your work" without once mentioning what their work is, they are very likely to realize that it is a form letter, decide that you're probably not all that interested in what they're doing, and disregard your application.
So it's probably not enough to just put in their name, but you should also mention something about their field of research that interests you and explains why you would be the correct postdoc for them.
Is this a lot of work? Yes, but consider that you're competing for postdoc positions with a lot of other people who may not mind going to the effort of putting in a lot of work in order to get a job. Do you think professors want to hire lazy postdocs?

I completely agree what you are remarking here. I have read several articles including some by professors themselves, in which they stress on mentioning the 'what work they do which I am interested in' part. But, I think, here you are talking about the cover letter/research statement. Should my referees also mention about the prof's work in LOR as well?

For 100 applications, you are not going to get your professors to mention the professors work in LOR as well. That's asking for way too much work on their part.

I can hardly see the need of addressing the reader in a letter of recommendation, but if your professor wants to do it, they can use a process called mail merge.
Common word processors have mail merge functionalities (e.g. MS Word).

A customized letter of recommendation shows that the writer cares about the success of the applicant.  Each letter should have the name of the recipient, or if unknown, the recipient's institution, at the beginning.  It should also address the specific requirements of the position.

No wonders...But how can I expect my references to change the name every time. That's why I wanna know if it is normal to provide a generic letter? What is the average number of applications one should send for the postdoc position? In materials chemistry field..

@LekhaSharma Asking about how many applications to send in your field may be a good one for another question, along with a question about how to support a large request and/or how much customization is reasonable to request.

I also want to see this as a separate question. In case it never gets that far, what I ended up doing was asking for 2 different "types" of letters - say version 1 and version 2 based on the two broad types of jobs I was going after. Then I asked the professor to do some personalized outreach for my top 10 jobs. That basically consisted of them sending an email. To support this, I gave them a sheet with the places, the job, the special things about that job, and a reason I would be a good fit. I'm not sure how much this was used, but the idea was that my advisor didn't have to think too hard.

If your professor has basic programming skills, they can do this pretty easily in any common programming language, such as C or Python.
If it is important that your letters be personalized (unlike say in mathematics where generic letters are 100% expected), I would be more concerned that the letters are not contextualized rather than them not being addressed. Letters of recommendation should describe how the applicant would fit in and contribute to the institution receiving the letter. If your reviewers expect your letters to be personalized, they may be disappointed that the content of the letter doesn't describe how you and your experience relate to their institution/research project/etc. In some fields this does not matter (math and CS in particular expect you to mail one letter to a thousand people), but it might in your field.

In some contexts, it is understood that the writer will write one generic letter that will be sent everywhere.  For instance, in math in the US, they'd write one letter and upload it to MathJobs.  In such cases it would not be unreasonable for it to end up being used for applying 100 different places.  (Oh, your profile says "mathematician" so probably you already know this...)

@NateEldredge I was kinda assuming that that style wasn’t the case, since the OP expects the letters to be addressed to specific people. In my experience I’ve seen either the mass-mailing approach of mathematics or the highly personalized approach, similar to what you might do when applying to grad school. It’s possible that there’s some middle ground, where names are expected but institutionally-relevant context isn’t, but I don’t know of it.

@Stella Yes, I am also concerned about the content of the LOR as well. I wonder how people manage to apply at different places with different LORs..Is it really possible? I wanted to know if actually people give generic LOR as mentioned in another comment

@LekhaSharma It probably highly depends on your field. As Nate mentioned, this is super typical in mathematics and people would 100% except an unaddressed generic letter. If you share your field, someone with direct experience in that field might be able to give more useful advice.

@NateEldredge I rewrote my comment to be clearer and not make unstated assumptions about the OP’s context.

I am working in the interdisciplinary field of materials chemistry, nanotechnology, environmental remediation, physical and theoretical chemistry.

@LekhaSharma You should include that in the Original Post, not hidden as a comment on another answer.

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Where to get a basic introduction to a science subject published legitimately?
I have a high school to undergraduate level introduction written for methods and applications of a particular science topic (~5000 words with tables and schematic, like a book chapter).
My goal is to get people especially students interested in this particular topic. My homepage does not have much traffic to help in this. I already have an offer to write a book but that will need some free time which I do not have at this moment.
Where to get it published legitimately? Online ok ISSN or similar required. Any suggestion where this question can be legitimately asked (if not here) is appreciated.
Paid publishers please ignore.

Why not just put it online?

Well where should I put it online? Published in an online magazine is fine to me.

What is your goal?

Why not just put it on your homepage?

My goal is to get People especially students interested in Paleosciences. My homepage does not have much traffic to help in this.

5000 words is too few for a commercial publisher to publish as a book, and it sounds too elementary to be published in a journal.
Your best chance is likely to find a paleoclimate textbook author and offer to collaborate with him or her. They might be willing to insert your chapter into their book.

I already have an offer to convert it to a book but that will take a long long time. How to find such an author?

@Trina I can't answer that unfortunately. Most likely, you'll need to use your network of contacts.

You aren't likely to profit in any meaningful way, even if you were a highly regarded researcher (if you are aiming for a textbook-like experience, rather than a pop-sci book like Stephen Pinker's).
You could consider editing the relevant Wikipedia pages, and publicizing your contributions. After all, your book is probably based off primary literature. There is also Wikibooks, which may or may not be relevant in paleoclimate (I have no idea).


text:
Is it okay to omit (one or multiple) middle names in a bibliography?
Assuming that the cited work will not be less identifiable:
When including a paper in the body and bibliography of one’s work, is it okay to omit the author’s middle name(s) and just give the first and last name in the bibliography?

The main reason why I consider doing that is as follows:
I often cite different works by the same author, but one work lists the middle name, the other doesn’t.
Usually, when two works of the same author are listed in the bibliography, and the names are consistent, they will appear one below the other, and the second entry will not list the author, but a line of dashes:
Doe, John. Work 1, 1999.
-----. Work 2, 2003.

But if the author is not exactly the same in the bibliography database (in LaTeX, for instance), it will be listed as such:
Doe, John. Work 1, 1999.
Doe, John Jeremy. Work 2, 2003.

This in itself is just cosmetic: it may be bad style, but the bibliography is still correct.
Now imagine there are three works, and only the one that was published between the two others states the middle name of the author.
It would look like this:
Doe, John. Work 1, 1999.
Doe, John. Work 3, 2007.
Doe, John Jeremy. Work 2, 2003.

This is because the bibliographic system doesn’t recognize them as the same author.
This is a problem because the works don’t appear in order of their publishing date.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10926/should-i-cite-author-names-as-they-appear-in-the-journal-or-as-i-know-them-to-be?rq=1 – in particular I definitely agree with https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/10940/4034 saying it's okay to normalize names to avoid creating ambiguity when you're sure they're the same person. All this is dependent on venue style, of course.

Bibliography entries should be faithful to the works to which they correspond: you should conform to the constraints of the style used by the journal, but you should not remove or add middle names or initials. The rationale for this is that doing otherwise makes it harder for readers to follow the citations back to the original literature if the names in the article are reported differently from the way they're indexed.
If the same author represented themselves differently in multiple works, that should be reflected in the bibliography entries, even if it makes things awkward for the author citing the works. If you feel you need to indicate that the authors are in fact the same individual, you may do so with a parenthetical comment.

Thank you. While the other answers, in particular the one citing the CMS, make valid points, your answer gets the star because, firstly, it is simple, straightforward, does the original authors honor, and you cannot go wrong with it, and, secondly, it doesn’t rely on a style guide (since CMS and APA seem to partially contradict each other, so there doesn’t seem to be a hard rule).

It depends on the style manual you're following. I'll let someone else address APA.
CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE, 17TH EDITION
CMS Ch 14: Notes and Bibliography
CMS 14.73: Form of author’s name
"Authors’ names are normally given as they appear with the source itself—that is, on the title page of a book or other stand-alone work or at the head of a journal article or the like. Certain adjustments, however, may be made to assist correct identification (but see 15.12). First names may be given in full in place of initials (but see 14.74). If an author uses his or her given name in one cited work and initials in another (e.g., “Mary L. Jones” versus “M. L. Jones”), the same form, preferably the fuller one, should be used in references to that author for both works. To help differentiate similar names, middle initials may be given where known. Degrees and affiliations following names on a title page are omitted."
CMS Ch 15: Author-Date References
15.12: Authors’ names in reference list entries
"In a reference list as in a bibliography, record the authors’ names as they appear on the title page or at the head of an article or chapter, with the exceptions noted in 14.72–84. Some publications, especially in the natural sciences, use initials rather than full given names (see 15.33). Where this practice is followed, an exception should be made where two authors share the same initials and last name."
MLA STYLE
(Quoted from an old 2nd edition, confirmed by the current Perdue OWL)
"Give the author's name as it appears on the title page. Never abbreviate a name given in full. . . . Use initials [only] if the title page does."
FOREIGN NAMES
The Chicago Manual of Style has good introductory guidance on how to treat foreign names. The topic is complicated and sometimes you need to do some internet sleuthing to find more information.

Your answer is more complete then mine. Happy for you to add something about APA and then I will delete my answer.

For APA style you gnerally want the name to match how it is listed on the source:

Sometimes names are presented inconsistently across publications. If the author has used different forms of the same name on different works, then your reference list entries should match the form of the name on the work being cited for reasons of retrievability. For example, sometimes the author may use a middle initial and sometimes not (e.g., perhaps Jacob T. Baker sometimes publishes as Jacob Baker).
Because both names refer to the same person and the differences between names are minor (namely, a missing initial), it is not necessary to adjust the order of the works in the reference list to account for the missing initial or to put the author’s initials in the text citations to distinguish the references. (Read more about the order of works in the reference list and see examples.)

There are some nuances regarding the sort order in the bibliography and how to disambuate in text citations for APA style, and you should probably refer to your specific style guide.

In addition to the other answers that correctly state you should always replicate the citation exactly, I would also note that it is rude to modify how someone has chosen to represent their name without asking them.
As someone with an unusually structured name, many people chose to abbreviate it the way I don't want it done. For that reason, I am very deliberate and picky when putting my name on things. Some people with "regular" names might not ever have thought about it, but you should always respect how someone has chosen to write their name when using it in another place.
This goes double for names from cultures you aren't familiar with, simply because you may not know the rules for removing parts of their names.

In this spirit, the journal Transformation Groups (https://link.springer.com/journal/31) publishes in cyrillic citations to articles published in cyrillic. There are no longer technical obstacles to printing in diverse scripts.


text:
Acknowledging a doctoral student as Dr
I am writing a final year project report and I would like to acknowledge a friend who is a doctoral student.
Is it appropriate to write

Special recognition is due to Dr. Jane Doe for her support..."

I don't know whether she will present her dissertation before I submit my report but given the current state it is unlikely.

When I was a doctoral student, one of my friends called me proto-doctor.

@eipi10: better than "larval doctor" or "doctor-larva", no?

A reasonable number of PhD students do not complete their PhDs, so not appropriate.

I am a bit confused why someone has VtC'd a question about how to use the "Dr." title as not in scope.

Doctoral candidate perhaps.

@Olumide That is a specific status that varies by department. Unless you know she is a "candidate," it would not necessarily be correct to refer to her that way.

@Tom I'm one those PhD students who did not complete my PhD. I didn't find it inappropriate then or in retrospect, but I realize opinions can differ on such things.

Who knows what the future will bring? Maybe something bad happens and she will never get her PhD or maybe she will also become a professor and should be addressed as prof. Dr., or ... So the safest thing to do is take the state of the world at the moment of writing rather than try to predict what the world will look like when a reader reads it. The current state of the world is that she is not a doctor, so no Dr.

As a side note, Ij ust wanted to add that the main reason i wanted to do this is "to be the first to address her as Dr" kind of thing. However, I think I will go with your advice of "playing it safe". Thank you for the reply.

Would you say "Happy Birthday" to someone a few days before their actual birthday, in order to be the first to congratulate them?

@DavidLoeffler yes, do people not do that?

@AgnishomChattopadhyay that is culturally specific. As a Dutch person I have no problems with that. Not so much to be in a race to be the first, but more for pragmatic reasons, like I see the person now and I know I will not see her/him again for another week. However, I live in Germany where many people tend to be really surprised if you do that.

@Maarten Buis in Germany it is considered bad luck to congratulate too early (apparently demons could here that and do everything to make your birthday wishes not come true). Congratulating late is fine though.

In Britain, it would be seen as rather strange to congratulate someone early on their birthday, and would almost certainly lead to them suspecting that you had forgotten exactly what day their birthday was. But it was a bad comparison anyway, because a birthday is deterministic, while passing a PhD defence definitely is not.

In my department in the UK, there is a nice little ritual that whenever a student passes the oral examination at the end of their PhD, everyone in their research group gathers round and greets them with their newly-minted title, "Congratulations Dr XXX". Technically this is not quite true, since the actual process of granting the doctorate takes a little while longer; but from that point on it is merely a formality, while the oral examination is a genuine hurdle which candidates have to prepare hard for, and some students do fail (very rarely, but sometimes).

The issue is more severe than only resulting in bad luck. In Germany it is forbidden to bear the title Dr. before graduation. IANAL, this also entails that that your friend would have to actively reject being addressed as Dr. when they witness that you call them like this. If they don't, then they can be accused of falsely bearing the title. (Rumor has it that they don't have to reject being addressed that way anymore once they have successfully defended their thesis. But they are still not allowed to call themselves a Dr. until after they are handed over the diploma.)

@DavidLoeffler I'm British and I would absolutely say 'oh, Happy Birthday for next Tuesday!'. But I agree; I would not say 'congratulations on passing your viva next Tuesday'.

@infinitezero Yep, that's common in Italy too. Unless the person is particularly superstitious, congratulating in advance for a birthday is not a big deal, though. However for things that can have a non-negligible (even if low) chance of going wrong, then congratulating in advance is something that may really irk many people and in some informal situations may lead to some really bad verbal reactions.

@infinitezero In some cases you don't even wish someone good luck because you may "jinx it". Instead you say some well-auguring formula like "In bocca al lupo!" ("In the wolf's mouth!"), to which the congratulated person answers with "Crepi il lupo!" ("May the wolf die!"), although in later years I've heard people answer "Viva il lupo!" ("May the wolf live!), because of a rising animalist spirit. There are other, much more vulgar formulas, that I won't repeat here. :-)

@DavidLoeffler I certainly didn't find my "minor corrections" to be "a formality".

@Ait-GacemNabil You write, "As a side note, I just wanted to add that the main reason I wanted to do this is "to be the first to address her as Dr"" - maybe I'm reading too much into it, but this seems to me a bit presumptuous. Why should you take this honor, rather than perhaps her thesis advisor or committee? Is it for some romantic interest? If so, I think this is misguided.

@BryanKrause I think as you mentioned you might be reading too much into this. nothing romantic whatsoever, in fact she's more of a mentor.

This is just my opinion, but if you're friends, like "first name basis" friends, why not just use their name? My friend got his degree in econ from Columbia. Smartest man I've ever met. But while we're coworkers, we're also friends.
So, when I thank him in my Dissertation, I'll thank "Mani" not "Dr. Bayani" because I don't know, it just sounds weird, to me anyways. Another thing is that if you're a 4th/5th year student, your advisors at this point are really more like senior colleagues than outright superiors.
I call my mentors Dr. Sevigny and Dr. Coupet instead of Eric and Jason, but that's because... I don't know, Sevigny is much older (in his 50s) and I took Coupet's course so I guess I'm more used to hearing people call (when addressing him) him Dr. Coupet. I don't know, academia is kinda weird in this regard. But my point is, if you both are friends, proper friends, then just call them by their name.

I agree with the other answers that you should not address people by titles that they have not yet achieved, so it would be inappropriate to call a doctoral student Dr. That said, since this is in a relatively informal acknowledgement section, you could still pay heed to her studies and refer to her as "soon-to-be Dr. Jane Doe". This strikes me as a more reasonable statement about expectations for the future, rather than a statement that's misleadingly untrue.

"soon-to-be-Dr Jane Doe" makes sense. "soon-to-be Dr Jane Doe" looks like she isn't born yet.

Alternatively, you could just say "doctoral student Jane Doe."

Would you refer to academy award nominee Ian McKellen as academy award winner Ian McKellen?
Of course not.  So stop giving other people pre-emptive titles they haven't yet earned.

As someone who just recently finished his PhD, it feels a little bit weird and unnecessary to use the Dr or even PhD titles unless it's for something formal or in engagements directly related to the field.  And it wouldn't have even cross my mind to use it before completing my public defense plus getting all the needed approvals from library, department, college and registrar's. So, it's a long road even at the end!  Before that, I was simply a PhD Candidate, which ain't bad.  Probably that's your friend's title at the moment and (assuming it is) could be used, if need be, as a reference.
As a side note, I call everyone I work directly with in academia by their first name regardless if they are students, fully tenured professors or what have you.  And I've never been corrected by anyone on this, even when their title has been fancier than professor.

"it feels a little bit weird and unnecessary to use the Dr or even PhD titles unless it's for something formal" Acknowledgements are one of those formal places though

To add to Maarten Buis' answer: The custom in Germany is (was? in 1980 in Mathematics) to never use titles (in articles or books) for living persons. Once you're dead, your academic career is over and you no longer can acquire new ones.  Of course, a professor is a Herr or Frau Professor, and if you have two Ph.D.s you are a Doctor Doctor.

I don't know if this answer is meant to be ironic, but if not, I would strongly object to this observation. This might be a custom in some fields that I'm not aware of, but it certainly is not generally applicable (at least in Germany).

No, it is definitely not appropriate. Your school would even have a rule as to whether or not you could refer to her as a doctoral candidate at this stage. If she is a candidate, then this would be fine. Otherwise, you should simply say her name without any titles because she doesn't have any.

In Dutch-speaking countries, we use the title doctorandus (abbreviated drs. instead of dr.) for PhD students. It is a Latin periphrastic passive participle that literally translates to "he who must be awarded a doctorate", from the verb doctorare. I was surprised to find out that this is not a standard adopted anywhere else.

Absolutely not. There is a HUGE difference between being a doctoral student and a doctor. There is no comparison. You should never refer to any person who has not COMPLETED a PhD as doctor. Just no comparison. Try that around doctors and see what happens.

While this repeats some other answers arguing for not using a title, I want to offer an additional argument.
Keep to what is factually true at the time of writing.
So, I would phrase it as follows:

Special recognition is due to my fellow doctoral student (and friend) Jane Doe for her support..."

Anyone reading this, can surmise, that by the time they read your acknowledgements, Jane Doe might also have finished her PhD, or not ... at the time of writing (you writing the acknowledgement), nobody could have known.


text:
How common are academic positions in theoretical physics offered to master graduates?
There are no academic positions in theoretical physics offered to master graduates worldwide based on my personal experience.
First, when I was still a master student in physics, a professor in theoretical high-energy physics in my department told me the faculty is never given funds to employ master graduates to do research in theoretical physics, so all he can do to help his master students needing time to prepare for applying for foreign PhD programs is postponing their graduation so that they can hold the part-time assistant positions associated with his research project while making the preparation.
Despite hearing about that, I still didn’t quite believe the fact that there are absolutely not academic positions in theoretical physics offered to master graduates, so after graduation I made an exhaustive search for them in my country, but have never seen even a single such position. The positions of the kind closest to the theoretical physics I’ve seen are those having virtual contact with others’ experiments, which usually require computer programming to simulate or analyze experimental data though there is no need to actually operate experimental apparatuses; these for me are counted as experimental physics as well.
Then I finally accepted the fact that a master graduate in theoretical physics seems to be only able to submit to either landing on a position not closely related to his master studies or staying without position if they can’t pursue a PhD immediately. Either way is not ideal for those who are dedicated to studies of theoretical physics seriously in the hope of taking it as their professional career. To my frustration, I often wonder the purpose of conferring the intermediate degree master in theoretical physics between bachelor and PhD since there is no associated position offered at all.
However, recently I have new discoveries. First, when I checked the CV of an assistant professor in theoretical physics having PhD position opening, I surprisingly found he had a stay of one year in a research institute for theoretical physics in Turkey between his MSc and PhD studies. Second, I found there were open research-associate positions in theoretical physics regarding gravity and cosmology in a university in England, with the requirement of the applicants being those who have a PhD degree in theoretical physics or those who have an equivalent level of professional qualifications and experience (will be given a lower salary than the PhD holder). Third, I heard on web that university lectureship and non-tenured assistant professorship in theoretical physics and math in India only require master degree. Then I recall one of my collaborators (a master student senior than me) during my MSc studies coming from Malaysia was given a university lecturer position, which was, nonetheless, in math rather than theoretical physics, when she came back to her country before pursuing PhD. However, I know she majored in math in her bachelor studies—this probably contributes a factor to her being able to get a position in math though she majored in physics in MSc.
Thus I wonder how common academic positions in theoretical physics are offered to master graduates worldwide. Are such offers commoner than I consider? Or are such positions I heard in Turkey and India as above just few exceptions? If theoretical physics positions for master graduates are not so common worldwide, how can the aforementioned research associate positions in England expect to find applicants with an equivalent level of professional qualifications and experience as that of PhD? If there are not associated research positions offered to them, where do they get an equivalent level of professional qualifications and experience? Can they study and make publications at their own home and write these on CV as experience? I doubt. Only given positions can be counted as professional qualifications and experience, right?

@corey979 I'm sorry that I wrote the text like a wall, but I just want to elaborate on my question. The title states my question briefly while the final paragraph states the points I intend to ask about and the preceding paragraphs provide the backgrounds (my research effort) for my question.

Masters graduates in physics are often offered paid positions as PhD students.  Otherwise it is very rare to obtain a full-time teaching or research job without holding a PhD.  Part time jobs, like adjunct instructor, may be possible.
Formerly it was possible to get a job at a less competitive institution like a community college or a university in a developing country.  However, while such jobs may still only require a Master's, in practice it is now easy enough to find a PhD holder to fill them.
You may be able to get funding which is intended for PhD students without completing a PhD.  But it is not clear why you would want to.

"You may be able to get funding which is intended for PhD students without completing a PhD..." I only know there is such possibility in Germany, where I've seen 1 or 2 year-research-associate positions (with extention possibility) in theoretical physics for master graduates with the attachment "the employee has the opportuity to get PhD through the results obtained therein". I think if the employee leaves the position without getting PhD, (s)he may just treat the position as a temporary job between MSc and PhD--he may not be interested in the project enough to work out enough results for PhD.

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