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Should I Quit University?
As a computer engineering student, I think this is the right place to ask for help about my career. Well I am in my sophomore year at one of the leading university in Turkey. I want to specialize in information security. However, I want to clarify something. "I have been - and always shall be" an average student. My student life has never been so bright but I have enough passion and resources to be an ethical hacker. Sometimes I think what they teach us in the university is waste of time. People can learn coding, operating systems, network, database etc. from the internet. So here is my question: Should I quit my university and stay behind the doors,do what I love, for a long time or waste two more years with the pressure of everything you do or don't will be graded?

I'd finish, it's "only" two years and you will have a diploma to put on your wall. Which is always good unless you are a really good hacker that can show greater merits. Don't worry about the grades, only the diploma. When you have it, run, run and never look back.

Also, the junior and senior year will probably be more interesting, covering more advanced topics and giving you a taste of different areas of computer science that might be of interest to you.

I do wonder if this kid is going to go to university, and whether it is going to help him in his career in information security (assuming that's what he still wants to do): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/03/instagram-comment-bug-10-year-old-hacking-finland-reward

You need to understand that a University degree (assuming it is a degree course you are enrolled in) does not attempt to teach you all the skills you need in order to be successful in your chosen career. What it does do is give a good grounding in your chosen area, but more importantly, provide evidence of your ability to apply yourself and achieve a widely recognized level of accreditation. If you are after courses that provide more specific vocational skills, and there are plenty of these in the computer science industry, it may be that you should search for a better suited program. These types of courses are usually shorter and more intensive than a degree course.
Whether your university degree will be useful to you will depend very much on what you intend to do with your career.
If you plan to design and develop your own software systems or products, and then fight to have your products recognized on the global market, and build your reputation from scratch, then a degree may not be much use to you. There are some examples of success stories of people who dropped out of, or never went to, university, so nobody can tell you it can't be done. But I think you will need to be extremely good, and lucky, to be able to do that. You may also need to have a back-up plan in the meantime in order to put food on the table.
However, if you ever plan to work for somebody, or a company that does not know of your reputation and amazing ability, then you will need to somehow demonstrate that. A degree is the first step towards demonstrating to those who are likely to employ you that you have been able to apply yourself in a recognized mainstream course of learning and been able to reach recognized benchmark standards. Once in your job, you will then be expected to learn the specifics of that position, and what better way to show that you are able to learn and apply knowledge than to have a piece of paper from a university to show that you can. It will be a nationally (and in many cases, and importantly not all cases, internationally) recognized accreditation. Once you have embarked on your career, it will be the references from previous employers that will vouch for your ability, and the degree will matter less.
What I would be asking myself as a prospective employer is whether someone who claims to have passion and ability to access resources, but lacks the application and commitment to successfully complete their degree is the right person to employ in my team.

It's always a very personal decision as to whether you're going to stay on with university education. I fear this question may be closed as opinion based, but I'll take a stab at giving some suggestions.
I think there's a number of factors you're going to have to keep in mind when you make these kinds of decisions:

It has to be acknowledged that large swathes of the computer science/engineering skillset can be self-taught or learned through MOOCs, and project contributions. However, one needs to keep in mind their own personality when considering self-learning. Historically I was a terrible autodidact, simply because my personality worked depth-first, which is a terrible way to get started in a new topic. University helped me a lot by forcing me to prune my search trees so I could actually learn the topics at hand!
Universities aren't always just what they teach. Faculty can be important resources for guiding one down productive paths and avoiding getting stuck on solved problems. Mentorship and the possibility for great guidance should be carefully evaluated when considering leaving. If you aren't seeing mentorship and guidance, consider how much of this is the environment, and how much is you. An alternative to dropping out entirely might be to transition into an institution that is better suited to your interests.
Credentials may not mean anything. However, sometimes they can open doors for you that might be closed, or subject to hurdles without the credentials. It's going to be highly specific depending on what kind of work you want to do in what field, but needs to be considered.
Ultimately, you need to know where your desires lie, and plan the best way to get them. It could be well that going indie is going to get you to your desired career faster --- or it could nuke the possibility of achieving them.

ETA: Oh and about pressure: If you think the pressure in university is a lot, you're going to be surprised about what it takes to succeed outside university.

About pressure outside university, this is highly culture-dependent. I've worked in cultures where there is very high pressure (get it done today or the world will end!!!) and cultures where pressure is very low (if not today, you can do it tomorrow...or the next day).

@earthling true. I gather from the question it's the choice between a degree and no-degree, and I think no-degree work, or at least the pursuit of that work is going to be more pressure.

You are wrong. You are so wrong you do not even understand it. Why? Some examples:
You need to write a fast app. You need to know the data structures for the right job (trees, lists, hash maps). You want to write a database app. You should know which fields to index and which not. You want to do some geospatial app. You need to know the correct indexing (R-tree).  It is very hard to know these things on your own.

What you can find in the internet: how to do a hash map in C++
What you cannot find in the internet: why you need a hash map in the first place and so-on.

So, finish your studies and you will understand later why those studies were useful.
If you are so good you think you are at coding (which you probably are not unless you get paid for it and others agree), you still do not want to have a technical manager who knows less than you but has the degree (you do not have). So, you will need the degree anyway.

I agree with the last paragraph in this post. However, the first part is nonsense. You can buy the same textbooks online that are used in University courses. Moreover, many University lectures read right from the textbook and use the assignment questions from the book. Using the internet you can certainly figure out "why you need a hash map". I did obtain a BS/PhD in CS from University, but in hindsight, many of the standard courses (not research) could have been learned in less time on my own and were a waste of time. Even most grad courses are a waste of time; just buy the book and read.

@Tommy would you know which book to read if you have not studied on a university? Would you understand the book without tutoring? Would you remember what the book said if you were not tested on this material? Would you have the time to practice on the book material without external pressure and in your spare time? That is a lot of ifs and the most probable answer to those questions is NO. That is why companies still prefer CS college graduates for higher positions than plain coders with no degree.

Companies prefer graduates because it is some sort of "proof" or "evidence" of your abilities. Without a degree, it is a total shot in the dark whether someone  possesses the skills required for the job. But the answers to your questions can certainly be YES. I am reading the book "Foundations of Machine Learning" on my train to work each day. How did I choose this book? I googled "best ML book" and read what people said aobut various books. No University degree required. And I could do anything else on the train, but I choose to read this book in my "spare time". It is all about motivation.

@Tommy Yes, but you are a graduate student (paid to do research) trained for many years of university education to learn and study on your own. This is not feasible for the average high school student.

I agree, but some people are highly motivated and have the capabilities to learn things on their own. My point is that your post was very "IT IS IMPOSSIBLE" and it is not, just unlikely.

You sound like you're an independent worker, who dislikes and just is not suited for the structured learning style of University courses. Fair enough, there are many others like you. It doesn't mean you won't benefit from a University degree, it just makes it a little tougher to get there.
I'm like that too, yet now that I am doing research and am free of undergraduate classes I'm enjoying myself a lot more. But you still need that knowledge and those skills gained from those courses, even if you don't like it.
Being able to teach yourself is a fantastic ability, but a University degree will give you solid ground to stand on with regards to your employability. You will look a lot more desirable to an employer if you have a degree, and considerable personal achievements to back it up.
The only people who I would even consider advising to not go to University are those who:

aren't bright enough,
are passionate about something that doesn't benefit from a degree,
or who genuinely cannot afford it.

You're neither. Not only will a degree give you a significant boost early in your career, but you'll probably gain more skills and knowledge than you think you will.
Stick with it.


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How to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak while organizing a conference?
I am an organizer for a graduate student conference in Mathematics occurring in April. My co-organizers and I are debating on a plan for what to do if the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States worsens. Right now, most of the participants are from states with no confirmed cases of the coronavirus, but this may change rapidly as the situation develops between now and the conference.
This is an issue other conferences throughout history have surely had to deal with, so I wanted to ask StackExchange if there were any best practices around for dealing with an issue like this. Some questions:

How far out should the go/no go decision be made? If the conference is late April, should we be planning to let participants and speakers know by early April so they can cancel flights and so on?
What criteria should best inform whether we cancel or not? Number of cases in the participants' states for instance?
In the event we are to cancel the conference, how can we still give the speakers a chance to advertise their results? Have there been successful "video conferences" before where the organizers collect video for each talk and then upload them and participants can make comments?

You may not have any choice about cancellation. You have no control over travel. The virus has spread more widely than is currently reported (as is always the case), partly due to the poor testing regimen. It seems a poor time to be planning any public meeting, especially if travel is needed and if it lasts several days. Consider postponement now.

Please remind all participiants to make clear who pays for the flight if (a) the conference is cancelled, (b) the people cannot/don't want to fly do to health reasons/travel restrictions. In case they use a travel storno insurance , they should remember to clear it up with their institution who pays for the insurance.

This year's APS March meeting (huge physics conference) was supposed to happen this week. It was canceled 10pm the day before most domestic participants would travel, and after many people had already arrived to the location. That's leaving it very late. On the other hand, they were just reacting to the latest CDC update. It's very hard to plan around such a rapidly evolving situation.

For non-physicists, the American Physical Society March meeting is about 10000 attendees.

One data point, MSRI just moved all the conferences in March online.

There was some discussion here about whether this question is on topic. We can continue that discussion in the chat; more formal discussion about on-topicness could take place on meta if needed.

Another point to consider, not yet discussed by any of the answers, is that your university may have regulations or recommendations in place which you'd need to abide by / take into account. My institution (in Europe), for example, has now implemented a policy according to which events of any kind are to take place only if they're "indispensable".

@Kahovius That is certainly a possibility -- my university just suspended all nonessential university-related travel until April 10th which may be extended. We are still waiting to hear back from our grant agency but likely we will try some remote conference format at this point.

Regarding remote conferences, these have been successful. Often the motivating factor has been mitigating climate impact. For example, Yale Climate Connections wrote an article giving advice for running virtual conferences. Author Sara Peach presents three kinds of virtual conferencing, all of which have been done successfully:

remote presentations in a traditional conference format. If people choose to not travel, they can still remote in or follow the session on social media. (Example: AGU)
hub-based conference, where people gather in regional clusters. Each hub has some of its own content but are able to watch each other's presentations. (Example: International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition)
an entirely remote conference, where people record and upload videos of presentations and conferencegoers have weeks to ask questions and interact. (Example: A Nearly Carbon-Neutral Conference Model)

I'll add that an entirely virtual synchronous conference has also been done successfully. One example is NACADA, the Global Community for Academic Advising, which ran a 24-hour live-streaming virtual conference.
The mixed-conference or hub models may or may not be feasible, since they would still involve people gathering in some models, and you aren't sure yet whether that will be feasible on any scale. Also, developing regional hubs would take time you don't have.  Thus, if you decide to go entirely virtual, a synchronous-with-live-streaming conference and a asynchronous recorded approach have been done, and the resources linked should provide a way to start researching or planning that model. I also advise contacting your own IT department about the possibility.

I am accepting your answer because of the extremely in-depth nature and excellent external resources. All the answers provided great advice on different aspects of the question so I wish I could accept all three, but alas...

Another example of a virtual/remote conference was just announced - ICLR (International Conference on Learning Representations, a major computer science/machine learning conference) are cancelling the on-site conference and switching to virtual presence (https://iclr.cc/Conferences/2020/virtual) with all papers presented using a pre-recorded video and registered participants getting access to online QA sessions with the authors.

Cancellations of venue, catering, etc. on your end will be entirely based on the individual companies' cancellation policies. Same with airlines for participants - each requires a certain amount of notice, and will refund or credit as per company policy. Sooner is better than later if you need to cancel arrangements for food, accommodations, etc.
The most reliable resource for info on COVID-19 at this point is the WHO, which provides situation reports daily on their website. The CDC's information is being filtered through the presidential administration, so keep that in mind when looking at White House press releases. Travel advisories are also something you'll want to keep an eye on if you're concerned. Your local health authority can also provide information about whether they are recommending cancellation of large gatherings.
If you decide to go ahead with the conference and have concerns about possible spread of coronavirus, perhaps remind attendees of the importance of handwashing and covering your cough in your opening remarks. Have hand sanitizer accessible to participants, and encourage "elbow bumps" instead of handshakes. Supplying and using facemasks is NOT being recommended at this time to the general public, so please don't go out and buy them in anticipation of the conference. This could contribute to a shortage for those who could actually need them, i.e. hospital staff.

Would you still say "Supplying and using facemasks is NOT being recommended" now? If everybody wears facemask during the past two years, we could save millions of lives. Short of supply of masks should not be the reason to not wear masks. In fact, more people wearing masks could reduce the number of people infected, therefore reduce the workloads of hospital staff. Think about it.

I'm in Germany and just got an email that a trade fair and conference that was supposed to happen in the first week of April was postponed to October due to the virus.

The email indicated that the decision was made by the organization running the  fair grounds together with the local/regional health authorities.
I'd suggest that you get into contact with your relevant health authorities.
I'd also suggest you check the contracts for venue etc. about cancellation policies and whether it makes a difference on your side (your cancellation policies with venue etc.) whether you decide to cancel or whether the health authority tells you to cancel.
On the participants' side: I don't think I could have gotten reimbursement for the fees that would have been due for cancelling the travel - and if probably only after months of burocratic struggle with administration.
Update I may have been too pessimistic here: the professional society who organizes the conference now asks who had how much "leftover costs" after cancellations. They also outlined some rules (e.g. they cancelled the hotel where they had reservations for invited speakers, cancellation fees of other accomodation is probably not going to be reimbursed). end of update
This is of course up to local rules, but if the rules around you do not reimburse if the travel had not taken place*, please cancel or postpone the meeting ASAP.
The more so as you say it's for grad students who due to being early in their carreer did not yet have the chance to accumulate emergency funds that should be able to eat such losses.
As a compromise (if you do not want to decide yet), you could also consider to remind people that the meeting may have to be canceled on short notice and recommend to take that into consideration for booking the travel.

* Personally, I think this may be used as a trigger to openly discuss travel booking and reimbursement policies. IMHO there are several possible fair policies, but they should be communicated clearly and in advance: should early booking and fixed travel plans be used as they are usually cheaper? Should cancellation insurance be booked or not? What are good reasons to cancel and how does reimbursement work then?

A conference called ACM UIST allowed participants to join online via social virtual spaces. You don't need fancy virtual reality equipment to join. They used Mozilla hubs which seems straight forward and easy to set up.
More info here: https://uist.acm.org/uist2019/online/ and https://hubs.mozilla.com/

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Finding and requesting research funds from private sponsors for basic research with low short term marketability value
I am currently hired as a research track scientist not funded directly by the university. As part of my contract agreement, I am required to secure my own funding in order to remain hired. However, government funding has dried up drastically over the last few years, and my best and just about only shot is to seek private sponsorships. A brief conversation with the department chair has confirmed that the department doesn't really care too much about the source of funding as much as whether I can get sufficient funding or not.
Given all of this, does anyone have any suggestions for a list of private individuals or organizations willing to fund basic research in theoretical physics without any immediate practical applications? How should I go about contacting such private sponsors, and what is the proper protocol for asking them for money? It appears most funders in the private sector care mostly about getting short term commercial monetary returns from what they prefer to call an "investment" instead of funding. How can I encourage them to think about longer term benefits which might take as many as a few generations to reap?
In my experience, sarcastic remarks along the lines of Benjamin Franklin's "What's the use of a newborn baby?" or Michael Faraday's "One day you may tax it." go on very badly to people in the private sector.

Not all private companies are concerned only with return on investment. Eli Lilly & Co. is well known for public funding of basic research, even outside their market sector (pharmaceuticals).

Note that research gifts from private companies are often much smaller than what you'll get from, e.g., the NSF (by about an order of magnitude or so).

Where do you want to look for funding ?? I mean, Its difficult to answer the question when the country is unknown.

We could help you, what is your email address¿

Step in their shoes and figure out what they would be gaining from giving money to you. The question is not only about the benefits as such, but who will benefit. 'One day you may tax it' may be actually reasonable to a large government, but it is absolute nonsense to a private company, who will NOT be able to tax it when other companies use it. "What's the use of a newborn baby" also implies that the adult will be useful - but it will NOT be useful to the company unless they can own & control that long-future result.
In general, if you want to get industry funding for research where the results cannot be commercialized in the short term, then anyway your results have to be valuable from them in particular, rather than the whole industry including their competitors. So if it's too early to produce a commercial product/process, at the very least the end result should be some protected IP - usually patents - that would be a property of the funding organization.
If it's an investment, then take a look at how large the return benefit would be, when would that be, and how likely it is that it will/won't work out.  If it's a 'sponsorship', well, sponsorships generally are a PR/marketing issue - in order for that to work out, the company needs your research and/or your name to be visible and known (not to academia but to their customers), so that they'd get some marketing benefit by their customers seeing (a lot of) their association with you and/or your research topic. It sometimes happens (for example, with high-end audio products; or IBM's Watson project is a case of such PR), but it's clearly not an option for most researchers.
An alternative might be private philantrophists - but that is based on individual relations, connections to very rich individuals, and your PR ability to convinve them that your research is so valuable to the world. Looking at how some other researchers have achieved such funding, it generally requires writing a popular book or a few of them, and years of public promotion of your research direction and ideas; that seed tends to grow into an ability to fundraise for continuing such research.

Funding from industry is generally going to be tied to the ability for them to leverage it into profit. Funding from non-profits are not always interested in making money, but they ant to be able to leverage it into profit, donations, or press. Generally you need to talk to potential finders about their interests and tailor your research to meet their needs and wants.

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Applying for a graduate course not related to my previous research experience
I did research on drug delivery for my masters degree and it has been published. But in the end I knew that I had no interest in it at all. Actually my interest was computational drug design, which I couldn't find a professor specialized in that in my school. Now that I want to apply for a graduate school, I'd like to work in a computational field. Although I know a lot about it, I have no published experience.
My question is: Is it a wise decision? I mean, having no published experience would lower my chances of getting admitted in that course, but on the other hand, if I chose drug delivery, I might have not much motives to improve due to the lack of interest.

I'd say, go for it! Two reasons:
1) If you stay in academia, you're going to use your creative and imaginative skills a lot. And my experience is that they don't work much if you aren't interested in what you're doing.
2) You will have an interesting edge over other candidates since you come from a close, but not overlapping area.
It will take determination to enter a new area, but I think you're absolutely on the right track in pursuing what you're passionate about; and yes, you're still in time! Don't give up. :)

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Is it OK to name discrete research areas as your research interests in the statement of purpose?
I am planning to apply to a Chemistry graduate program and I am interested in both drug delivery and computational chemistry fields, which are not quite related to each other. I have backgrounds in both of those fields. If I state both of them in my statement of purpose would it have a positive or negative effect? Would the admission committee see me as a versatile researcher, or would it see me as someone who doesn't know what he wants to do?

I assume that you are talking about a Ph.D. program rather than a Masters (which are typically rather shorter and more focused).  Beginning Ph.D. students are not generally expected to have a well-developed research agenda.  Learning how to focus and formulate a good research agenda is an important part of what you learn in the process of getting your Ph.D., and it is generally understood that your focus and area may shift along the way.
What the professors considering your application are more likely to be interested in is whether you are thinking clearly and carefully about what you are interested in and why.  If you are sincerely interested in both areas, then explain clearly why each one interests you and how you see your background as supporting that interest. Make sure to say that you could see yourself focusing on either one, depending on the program and professors that you work with.  This will give the committee clear evidence that you aren't just non-committal, while at the same time avoiding artificially restricting your possible matches.


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In mathematics in the USA, is it appropriate for your teaching letter of recommendation to be from a previous university?
I am finishing a 3-year postdoc, and will be applying to many universities for positions, including teaching colleges and research universities. I have 4 good research letters, but none discuss my teaching. I had excellent teaching letters from my previous university where I received my PhD, but I am not as close to the professors in this university.
Would it be better to obtain a teaching letter of recommendation from my previous university that I know is very positive, or to obtain a potentially less positive letter from my current university?

Did you teach a full class as a graduate student, or did you only teach recitation sections?

Is your previous university well know or respected in the US?

@NoahSnyder I taught my own Calculus courses 4-5 times.

@Mikhail it is ranked #71, so its a mid-range school.

I think it depends on what kind of job you are looking for.  For research universities, I suspect you can get away with it; I actually used a teaching letter based on recitation teaching from graduate school when applying for TT positions 4 years after graduating, because for a variety of reasons, there wasn't anyone else I felt comfortable asking for one from.  Honestly, I don't think job search committees put much stock in teaching letters just based on classroom observation.  Any value they had has been inflated away by the fact that they are always positive, and to be honest, most mathematicians at research universities don't worry very much about teaching skill when looking at hiring, beyond not wanting to hire someone notably incompetent.  If they do, they're much more likely to try to judge from your interview or from student evaluations rather than a teaching letter.
If you're looking into more teaching focused schools, it's harder for me to say.  Maybe I'll just leave that hanging and let someone else answer.
EDIT: To address the question of getting two letters, I agree with Noah.  I want to be clear that this advice only applies to research universities, but I think getting two teaching letters completely gets wrong the risk/reward calculus for teaching letters.  They cannot get you a job, they can only lose one for you.  Probably they won't even look at teaching letters until they get to the short list, but if they do, it will be to sort out bad teachers, not to separate competent and good.  By far the most important thing about a teaching letter is that it doesn't say anything bad.  By getting two, you are doubling this (small) probability for absolutely zero benefit.

I don't know whether it's better, but you may have more opportunities for a teaching letter from your current institution that you realize.  Especially if your postdoc is in the US, there may be someone in the department (for instance, the deputy chair in charge of undergraduate teaching, whatever the position is called) who is supposed to help arrange the writing of such letters as part of their job.  You could ask this person to sit in, or ask someone to sit in, on your class and write a letter based on that and department data about your teaching.
If you have excellent teaching letters from your PhD, you may even want to include that as well as a more cursory letter from your current school.

In your situation (where you had serious teaching experience in grad school), I would probably get a letter from your old writer, but send that person and updated list of what you've taught and your student evaluations from your postdoc.  That way their letter can make it clear that your teaching continues to be strong.
I agree with Henry's point that you're probably overestimating how hard it is to get a letter from someone at your new place.  However, only consider two teaching letters if and only if you're applying to a job with a strong teaching focus.  Don't send two teaching letters for a research-focused job.

If the application allows an unlimited number of letters, would it be reasonable in that case to include two teaching letters (in addition to 2-4 research letters)?

@NateEldredge: Personally, I wouldn't do it.  It's a plus to be an excellent teacher, but you want the main focus of an application to a research position to be your research.  I don't see what the benefit would be of going beyond one strong letter.

I think it's fine to submit two teaching letters, especially in the OP's situation. OP should, in my opinion, let the letter writer at the new institution know that his/hers is the second letter, so that it can say something like: "I understand that X's teaching was followed very closely at University Y, and that you will receive a detailed teaching letter from a professor there. Here at University Z, X's teaching has been less closely supervised. That said, h/she has gotten good numerical teaching evaluations [list them]. Moreover, I visited one of X's lectures, [describe briefly]."


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How to assess an unknown journal's quality?
[I apologize if it has been asked, I think it must have been but I couldn't find a similar question.]
I often receive invitations / calls for papers to write papers in journals. 95% of these cases are obvious spam publications, but in about 5% I see a letter that's not entirely generic, e.g. they mention my previous publications in the subject** and they write something that appears genuine about the publication. They also write the name of the editor in chief.
My question is how to assess this new journal's quality? I mean, nice journal pop up once in a while and just because it's a new journal, does not mean it's necessarily "fake news".
Here are a few points I thought about:

Wait a few months/years until I see reputable people publish in it, but then I will have missed my shot, possibly.
Inspect the editor's reputation. If she/he appears reputable (e.g. have published in journals I know to be good), then the journal is okay.
Inspect the publisher's "parents", for example if it's ACM, Springer, IEEE, etc., then maybe it's worthwhile (but then, I can't say definitively either way).

I would appreciate any points on the subject.
** yes, these messages can nevertheless be generated automatically.

See also how to evaluate the quality of scientific journal?

When 95% is junk and the other 5% is sufficiently irrelevant that neither you or your supervisor and colleagues know about them, a safe and efficient strategy is to ignore all journals that actively request contributions.
I have also never heard of a legitimate journal using mass emailing to recrute editors (this is more a habit of author-pay open access journals that are looking to increase their market share).
Yes this strategy, if adopted broadly, would prevent some new journals from being known. The good news is: we already have way more journals than we could possibly wish for. It's good content and quality curation we're short of.

First, if you're only considering 5% of the invitations to publish in journals you don't know about, then it's probably a small number of them. Let's say it's 3-4 per year. That's sufficiently low to expend some effort in checking them out. So, why don't you...

(Assuming it's not open-access) Check with your departmental/university library to see whether they carry/used to carry this journal. If they have, pick up the latest/last copy and leaf through it; or if it's available online through your library's website, do it that way. If you can spare the time, give it the benefit of the doubt and leaf through a coupe of issues.
Typically, at least the table of contents will be available online even if you don't have any access privileges. Check the titles and author names of a recent, but not just-out, issue. Do you...

Recognize titles that were cited in papers you appreciate?
Recognize authors you hold in high regard?
Recognize a notion/technology/theory that you find important? (And if so, was not presented thoroughly/at all before this journal was published)

 if so, consider buying a single copy of that issue from your research budget or getting the library/department/research group to buy it; then it's back to suggestion 1 above.
Ask people you know - especially if you've noticed their names, or names of common collaborators of theirs, in TOCs of journal issues - about the journal.
Look for information about the people on the journal's editorial committee.
Look for information about the organization publishing the journal. This is mostly a lead for finding other kind of information or for getting an idea of why the journal is not better known.

Note: The above are not necessarily in the recommended order of action.


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Is it okay to contact a professor for collaboration and say the goal is to publish?
Say I'm in sitting in a research-type course and I like one of the ideas the lecturer talks about. I also have an idea for a nice research topic/application that I believe we can work on together.
Is it polite to just send him an email and say that I have this or that idea, and ask directly what he thinks about being able to publish it (is it a good enough idea)?
I'm a graduate student with some published papers, and overall I think that given the correct idea I could write a paper and get it published. But it still seems to me a little pretentious to just contact someone and ask directly if some idea I have is 'publishable'... on the other hand, I don't really want to work on some project that is not good enough for publication, so I would want his honest opinion regarding the prospects.
Of course, I would accept an answer such as 'maybe, I don't have enough information', but my main question here is if it's not too rude to ask about publication directly.
Thanks

It will be hard to explain a publishable idea though email. Couldn't you talk with the lecturer directly?

Perhaps a bit of diplomacy would be required. So, don't just say that the main goal is to publish, everybody knows this. Think that some ideas just don't go anywhere, and from these failures one can understand the correct direction of approach.

The only thing academics enjoy more than whining about how little time they have is talking about their speciality, so...maybe? It's certainly fine to ask, though I don't know whether that would lead to something useful.

(This answer builds on @Alexandros's comment.)  As I understand it, one of the principal merits of having "physical" courses and lectures -- I mean, both the lecturer and the attendees are affiliated with the same university in the same geographic location, and they all show up in a certain room at a certain agreed upon time -- in our technologically advanced age is to facilitate "analog" interactions of all kinds between the lecturer and the attendees.  Sending a proposal via email seems to squander the advantage of your physical proximity to the lecturer.
I would suggest simply asking to talk to the lecturer in person about the project you propose.  You can ask either in person or by email, whatever seems best or quickest.  In my opinion, the fact that you are "sitting in" on the course rather than (presumably) formally enrolled in it just means that you should be understanding that the students enrolled in the course should have priority in any scheduled office hours.  Assuming you're affiliated with the university in some way, I don't see why you should feel hesitant to contact the lecturer (as I said above).  By the way, most academics are very interested to talk further about topics related to their research-level courses: more often than not, they are more interested in that than all other kinds of student interaction.
In terms of the publication issue: YMMV, but I personally would not lead with that.  My motivations for collaborating with others are: (i) learning more about a subject of interest, (ii) answering interesting questions, (iii) writing up what we learned / did in a way that will be helpful to others, and so forth.  This is nicely aligned with wanting to publish papers, but that's not what I said and that is not my precise motivation.  To me, having a student mention "publication" in the first meeting would turn me off a bit as being overly mercenary and insufficiently intellectually curious.  But that is my personal perspective and also my perspective as a pure mathematician.  Still, I think that most academics need to be grabbed by the intellectual / academic aspects of your proposal in order to proceed with it, so I would expect most of the first meeting to concentrate on those.  If you don't interest the faculty member, there might not be a second meeting.
Conversely, if you meet several times with the faculty member to work on something, then he is interested enough to spend time on it, which is highly correlated with it being publishable.  In any event, I think there are no guarantees for this kind of thing: you never know whether something will be publishable until you do it and try to publish it, of course.


text:
Thesis defense months after thesis submission
I submitted my PhD thesis a few months back, and it's still not clear when I will have my final defense.
Since then, I have moved on to industry, and I'm very much worried that the state of my knowledge will not be at its peak when my defense finally comes. I feel that at the time of my thesis submission I knew "everything" about my thesis and could answer any question about it, but now, even if I will read it a few times, it will not be the same.
I do have papers published, so one can say I have some "proof" of the thesis merits, but I probably won't be able to defend them to the fullest, so to speak.
I'm wondering, is that something the committee realizes, or do they expect of me to be in "top shape" when coming to my defense, in that every little question I cannot answer will reflect badly on my part?
Thanks.

What kind of defense is this (in which country and discipline), and in front of what kind of committee? A defense of only your thesis in front of a committee that doesn't include your supervisor (like in Italy), the same but led by your supervisors (like in Germany) or a full viva with questions related to all areas of your discipline, most of them outside the area of your research (like in France and like a German "rigorosum" in law)?

@henning By his question I assumed that the defense only covers the thesis subject.

@henning Similar to Germany - a committee of a small number of professors, incl. my supervisor. I already presented my thesis to a wide audience (a "public defense", maybe?)

In my culture the thesis defense is just a formality. Basically when the supervisor allows the thesis submission he is sure that you had produced more than enough to receive the title (publishing papers, attending to conferences, etc).
Thus, even if you are not at the best shape for the oral proof, probably it will be enough to be approved. However, slipping the answers of one or two questions could be the difference between the top qualification or the second best.
In my university we have three qualifications for approved theses: "Cum laude", "Magna cum laude" and "Summa cum laude". And it is attributed the status of "Approved by unanimity" or "Approved by the majority".

In fact I wasn't aware there are qualifications for PhDs. As far as I know, in my school there aren't (only for Bachelor and Master's, not exactly sure why that is).

On the other hand, if you’re in industry, the distinction between summa cum laude and Mahna cum laude is not that relevant.

@aeismail I had the same thought.


text:
Put a half-baked paper in arXiv for the purpose of documentation
I'm sure this has been asked before, but I didn't find it.
I have been working on a side project for some time, but I don't have the time to make the final evaluations to make it into a peer-reviewed-worthy paper. However, I do think it has merit and I wouldn't want it going to waste.
Is publishing in arXiv for this purpose considered acceptable?
Thank you.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/25939/is-github-adequate-for-purposes-of-giving-a-manuscript-a-timestamp-to-protect-ag

Also related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28094/is-it-good-for-academic-path-if-i-publish-too-many-papers-in-arxiv

And Nate's answer in http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16791/is-it-possible-to-upload-expository-papers-to-arxiv?rq=1

ArXiv.org is a preprint server.  It is not intended for your purposes.
Even though people do upload all kinds of documents (half baked ideas, their PhD thesis, lecture notes, ...), I personally think it inappropriate.
You might consider putting it on your website, or even emailing it to people who are likely to be interested.  Or, make time to finish it!

PhD theses and lecture notes are completely appropriate for arXiv.  (I'm a moderator.)

Thank you for your response. This is rather surprising to me; I always though that people use arXiv as an online technical report database, in which researchers can upload material either right before publication, or an extended version (that may not satisfy all requirements of the publication) that authors may reference in their peer-reviewed papers...

I always though that people use arXiv as an online technical report database — They do.  But lecture notes and PhD theses are regularly published as technical reports.  And authors can and regularly do reference lecture notes and PhD theses in their peer-reviewed papers.

@JeffE: going by http://arxiv.org/help/moderation, I'm afraid some PhD theses and lecture notes do not agree with arXiv policy.  You, as moderator, get the final say though :)

@yoki, some people do use arXiv like this, and it can be a benefit to the community.  Also, people upload shorter documents, and again these can be useful (the example I have in mind is http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.3924).  But I think these are rather the exception to the rule.

@JeffE, just to expand my previous comment:  "arXiv accepts only submissions in the form of an article that would be refereeable by a conventional publication venue [...]".  I personally expand this to include books that would be accepted by a decent publisher after refereeing.  So some PhD theses and lectures notes are OK.  But they should contain substantive new material (not a problem with theses, hopefully!), and be in a book-ish format (not the case with a "stapled" thesis, for example).  That's my view anyway, but I'm not an arXiv mod so it's irrelevant :D

(arXiv even accepts joke papers)


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I am a secondary school student and I think I have proven an open result, how do I get it out?
I am pretty firmly convinced that I have proven the non-existence of odd perfect numbers and now I am wanting to write it up (Qi: What is the best way or writing maths on a computers?). I also desire to know the general standards of publishing small results such as this so being pointed in the direction of any of the literature to give me idea what I need to write up would be much appreciated. Finally, I need to know where I can submit the result for review and (hopefully) publication. thanks in advance!

Possible duplicate: How do you know when your independent findings are paper-worthy?

That's not a "small" result.  If you know how to formulate the proof, you know how to write it up.  Submit it to a number theory journal.
However, as I'm sure you know, there's a good chance that you're mistaken.  It would be wise to show your proof to a mathematician first.

What is the best way or writing maths on a computer? — LaTeX.

I strongly recommend reading Henry Cohn's advice (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/cohn/Thoughts/advice.html).

@Moriarty  I don't think this question is very similar to that one.  A proof of the existence of odd perfect numbers would definitely be worth publishing, because it would solve a well-known open problem.

That being said, my advice is to worry some more about the correctness of your argument before worrying about the details of typing a paper.  I'm not just saying this because you're a secondary school student.  Any mathematician who thinks he or she has discovered a solution to a long-standing open problem should be very skeptical and enlist the help of other mathematicians in going over the argument carefully to make sure that it is correct.  Many mistakes are discovered at this stage.

If I were you, I would assume that the proof was wrong but in a way you don't understand, and try to pick holes all over it. This is what a referee for such a result would do.

Well, as I always say, the academia is a circle with its own established convention to follow. In terms of paper publication, you have to learn how to describe things using the terminology and way of expression accepted by the academia. Normally you need several years of regular university education to master these.
But in your particular case, I think it would be easier if you could find a mentor in the university (e.g. a professor or a research) who really understands and recognize your research result and has your trust. He could teach you what is a logic and sound research and how to speak in the language used in the academic community.
Another solution is just publish your result on your personal blog (I mean a well-known blog system like google+ or wordpress, so that the timestamp of your post will tell the world you're the original holder of the idea) and try to make your result get noticed by the academic people.
If you really want to challenge people's stereotype about academic paper author, you could also try to publish paper yourself. But it is definitely extremely hard.

I mean publish on a well-known public blog system, like google+ or wordpress. The timestamp of the article will tell the world who's the original holder of the idea.

@Jhz832 I have not personally used arXiv, but I believe the "timestamp idea" is one feature of that site...

@Alexandros but thanks for your reminding, i've updated ;)

Publishing on ArXiv for the first time requires an "endorsment" from an established author. The OP will likely not have that.

@FedericoPoloni  But if his result is correct, he'll have absolutely no trouble finding an endorsement, provided he's willing to show it to an established mathematician.

google+ is not a blog system. And it is absolutely unsuitable for mathematics.


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Should I put my supervisor as coauthor of a paper?
I was working on a problem in the field engineering. I have used one approach and it turned out that it does not work well. After that I got into conflict with my supervisor, and realized that it will be hard to publish the original paper with him. So, I have redone everything with another approach, wrote a paper, submitted it and at as soon as my paper have been almost accepted, my supervisor wrote to the editor claiming that he also should be an author of the paper. He haven't even seen the new paper nor haven't analysed or interpreted the new results. What should I do in this situation?

Don't walk. Run. Your relationship with your advisor is broken. Find a new one or get out.

Thanks. I am currently looking for a new supervisor. But what should I do with the paper? Should I fight to get it to the journal or resubmit it into another?

Honestly, do whatever makes it easiest to move on. Offer to add your (now former) advisor as a coauthor as a parting gift, or just let the paper die.

Old and broken method or new and improved one aside, are you solving a problem related to grant funding your advisor obtained for you?

Yes. The problem might be regarded as related. Thanks.

Here's the scoop: in some departments at some institutions, it is an unwritten rule that you are to list your advisor as a co-author on any publications you submit if the work is related to solving a problem which is funded by a grant that your advisor secured for you. I am in such a situation, and know of many who are in a similar situation.

@user11192 Sounds like an unethical department.

@AustinHenley It is not my intention to imply that the aforementioned practice is ethical.

@JeffE: Under the circumstances, I think the same advice could also have applied to the advisor. Both parties are culpable here.

@AustinHenley: In some countries (Belgium, for example) or under the rules of some funding agencies (Belgian FWO), only publications with the principal investigator's (PI) name count when doing reporting for a grant. A PhD student paid by the grant needs to put the PI's name on paper to make the bean counters happy, to improve the evaluation of the project, and to increase the chances of getting future grants.

Note to self: No grants with Belgians.

possible duplicate of When should a supervisor be an author?

This entire situation is an ethical quagmire that both you and your advisor are responsible for.
The reason why I say that you share in the creation of this situation is the following. Let's replace your advisor with an external collaborator. The sequence of events, as you have outlined here, runs as follows:

The two of you collaborated on an initial version of the paper.
You had a conflict on some issue (seemingly related to this paper)
You then proceeded to go behind the collaborator's back, redo the analysis, rewrite the paper, and submit it without informing her.

Under such circumstances, it is clear that you would bear a large percentage of the blame for the situation. The fact that it's your advisor instead of an external collaborator doesn't change the ethical considerations here.
Your advisor probably feels that because you were previously working on the problem together, you have cut him out of the loop without his consent. You should have showed him the preliminary results of your new analysis and let him decide if he wanted to collaborate further. If he was to be an author on the original paper, he was entitled to at least that much.
Of course, at this stage, it's hard to say what to do—your advisor has also complicated the situation by asserting his author rights on a paper he allegedly has never seen, which is also wrong. I would follow JeffE's advice here and take the path of least resistance. Getting out of this mess of a relationship is the critical step right now.

The advisor is being reckless in asking to put his name on a paper he hasn't read.  The paper could be wrong, of poor quality, or even have academic misconduct issues (I'm talking in general ... I'm sure this is not the case for your work, but serious problems have occured in the past).
Do not publish with your advisor if he has not contributed anything to the work.  Of course, the fact that you've collaborated on this problem before makes it very hard to think that this is the case.
This is a real mess ... I can think of two reasonable solutions:
a. Tell the editor the current situation and rely on his/her opinion to sort out the issue. b. Add an acknowledgment to your advisor saying that this work is a rework of a previous unpublished work written with him.

Maybe you should review the supervisor agreement that you signed at the beginning of your studies. In some institutions it is stated that you MUST put your supervisor as a coauthor of any research paper; which is the result of your working at that research group. In this cases it does not matter even if your supervisor has only told you to adjust the font size (being sarcastic by the way).
Bottomline, all depends on the supervisor-supervised agreement signed.
Good luck! and try to settle differences with your supervisor.

Thanks. As far as I remember I haven't signed anything at the beginning. I am simply research associate, which is similar to postdoc.

I find this hard to believe. Where is such an institution??? For example, UGA and Columbia have written criteria for authorship. Gifting authorship (someone who has not provided a significant research contribution to the paper) is extremely unethical.

None of the institutions I've done research at have asked me to sign any sort of agreement related to authorship. I've never heard of this practice before.

The agreement researchers sign in my department is silent on this topic.

Same here, at two different departments as a grad student, one as a postdoc, and one as faculty.

A research associate is normally hired to work on a contract funded by a research grant held by the primary investigator.  The primary investigator has made a contribution to your research - (s)he has obtained the funding for your job.  Also the PI is responsible for the conduct of the research project and with that responsibility should go the control of the project.  By circumventing your supervisor you may be denying them control of the project but leaving them with the responsibility, which seems unethical.

@DikranMarsupial The primary investigator has made a contribution to your research - (s)he has obtained the funding for your job — Money is not an intellectual contribution.  Control is not an intellectual contribution.  Responsibility is not an intellectual contribution.  Authorship requires an intellectual contribution.

@JeffE: If the researcher is carrying out the work of someone else's proposal, didn't the person who wrote the proposal also provide a intellectual contribution to the project, inasmuch as that person devised the project?

@aeismail Possibly, but not necessarily.  The intellectual contributions made in the proposal may already be represented in existing papers.  The researcher might be doing follow-up work that significantly extends the work described in the proposal, or he might be following a promising tangent not described in the proposal at all.  The proposal is not a priori an intellectual contribution to every paper it funds.


text:
What type of gift could I give to my PhD advisor?
I will be defending my dissertation in this Summer and I'm planning to give a gift to my advisor. I'm not quite sure what would be the best and meaningful gift for a professor receiving from his/her student. Main reason I'm asking this questions is that I'm an international student and not sure what would be most suitable. It's usually a general understanding in my homeland that we give some gifts to the professors that stays for long time. In other words, we avoid giving Champagne, Wine, or something to eat rather a shirt, pen set, etc. Any idea from the american life perspective will be appreciated.

America = guns!

Something from your home country would be ideal. It should also be small, to avoid any potential issues.

On a more serious note (or are the gun folks serious? You never really know these days...) – if your professor is one who (in this electronic age) still keeps a notebook, a high quality notebook and perhaps a good pen would be well received. For example I find that Leuchtturm's 5.75x8.25 notebooks, although expensive, are really good. They even have numbered pages!

@Moriarty, yes he's exactly such a person that you described. So, it's a great idea to have a notebook and a pen set.

As far as I'm aware, giving gifts to your PhD adviser upon completion in the US is not an obligatory ritual, as compared to Christmas gift exchange in families, or Mother's Day cards and flowers, which are obligatory rituals.
Before you decide to give a gift and choose one, you should consider your adviser's personality, value system, relationship style, and cultural background. Does this adviser frequently give and receive gifts from other faculty members?  From other students?  Does he/she display many gifts or honors in the office?  If so, examine the symbolic nature of these gifts.  Are they personal to him/her?  Are they status oriented?  Do they reflect or signify certain values or identity?  Following this line of inquiry is fruitful on two levels.  First, what ever you give him will certainly show that your knowledge and appreciation of him/her as a unique person.  Everyone likes to be valued for their unique, special qualities and "quirks".  Second, you will be giving something that has significance in the context of your relationship with him/her, not something that is generic.
My personal opinion is that the best gift a PhD student can give their adviser is to be a great student, to be someone who is easy to advise, to be someone who heeds the advice, to be someone who stimulates the adviser intellectually, and, above all, finishes the PhD program on time (or at least expeditiously).  You can also express in words what your adviser means to you in your acknowledgements section of your dissertation.  You can also offer public thanks at the dissertation defense.
If you think a gift is warranted above and beyond this, then I'd lean toward something that has low economic value but very high symbolic value in the  context of the adviser as a unique person and your unique relationship with him/her.

This is a great recommendation. Honestly, I haven't seen any other students giving him a gift. I haven't seen anything that looks like a gift that he keeps in his room. But, it's a great to think about a personalized gift.

Great list of what "gifts" we'd love to see in our students. Certainly, having gifted students is more rewarding than having students that give gifts!


text:
Thinking about leaving a master's program
I'm at the end of my first year in a food science master's program, with full funding at a good university and I'm seriously considering dropping out.
I completed my undergrad in biochemistry and my research project is more focused in yet another field, which I have no experience in. When I applied for grad school, I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do within the field, but figured I could build interests along the way. I only received the one offer from a new professor that would be starting at the same time as me. I didn't want to let the opportunity slip by and I genuinely thought the project was something I could get interested in. So I packed up my life and left behind most of my support group. This was extremely difficult, as I have a very close relationship with my family and my mother has recently been very ill. Not long after beginning school, I began seeing a therapist as my anxiety (which has always been manageable) started worsening. The majority of my coursework has been undergraduate classes that I find completely uninteresting. We are only required to take 4 graduate credits and I wasn't thrilled with my choices (there are only 2 classes available). The department itself is small, obviously favors the undergraduate population, is extremely unorganized, and most of the lab groups are cliquish (seem nice enough, but not entirely welcoming). Since my lab is new, I'm the only student and the only other researcher is a recent PhD graduate from another lab. I was unable to start much work on my project the first semester because I didn't have what I needed. Now, I've experienced numerous setbacks with contamination and other problems. Not to mention, since the beginning of the new semester, my anxiety has become borderline debilitating and accompanied by moderate depression. In a recent conversation, my advisor expressed concern about my lack of work (which I take to mean, lack of results, because it's not like I've been lazy and unproductive), even though he is aware of the problems I've faced. As far as advisors go, he is just out of his post-doc and is relatively nice, but is extremely forgetful (never remember anything he tells me/I tell him), unfamiliar with the program requirements even after a year in (meaning, I have to get help from anyone but him when it comes to courses), and occasionally makes backhanded comments to me that I find insulting. Overall, I just find myself extremely unhappy. And the prospect of moving on and getting a job just seems freeing to me.
However, I'm not sure how I would go about doing this. There is no formal policy on a leave of absence, so if I wanted to make the leave less permanent in case I change my mind, I don't know how this would work. I'm also not sure when would be the best time to drop out. Regarding withdrawals, the grad school website says that any students receiving tuition remission (which I do) are "responsible for their entire tuition assessment." I'm not sure who, if anyone, I can talk to in the department. I have yet to begin my thesis, 2 courses left to take, and likely have 2 years left because of setbacks. Does anyone who has left grad school or considered doing so have any advice?

Have a look at this excellent answer to a related question.

The only question I can find in this post is "I'm not sure how I would go about doing this". The procedural details of how to withdraw or take a leave of absence, and your liability for tuition, depend entirely on your particular institution and/or department, so we can't answer that here.

(Regarding the "Does anyone who has left grad school or considered doing so have any advice?" question, I think it is already addressed in the linked question)

Regarding withdrawals, the grad school website says that any students receiving tuition remission (which I do) are "responsible for their entire tuition assessment." Check with your department, but if your institution is like mine (I am at a large public U.S. institution), then simply holding off on dropping out until the end of the semester should exempt you from having to pay a semester's worth of tuition.

You don't find the field you're in all that interesting. That may be because it's not the right field for you. However, depression can make everything seem uninteresting, even activities you used to love. Maybe you just need a break. Your therapist is probably the person to help you figure out what's best for you at this time.
If you decide to take a break, I'm sure your university has some sort of student ombudsman or student services office that can guide you through the process of getting a leave of absence. Look on your university's website, or ask the registrar's office, student health, or the student union.
The setbacks you've experienced in your research don't sound that bad. A few false starts in research are quite normal. One year into my own master's, nothing was working and I was sure I wouldn't have any useful results. My advisor helped to calm me down, and all turned out well. It sounds like you and your advisor just don't "gel".


text:
What is the actual difference between Graduate and Undergraduate texts?
Whenever I open a graduate text (on pretty much everything), I'm instantly overwhelmed as most topics are not well motivated, book reads like an encyclopedia and extremely high level topics maybe mixed in with an introduction to a specific topic. Oh, the text also tends to be printed in a horrendous font that does not at all induce eagerness of reading!
Think of Springer series on mathematics if you want to know exactly what I'm referring to.
Why are graduate texts written that way? Why isn't there a plethora of classic texts at the graduate level?
Just out of curiosity.

This is very much in the eye of the beholder. I personally think the Springer GTM books I've read have been well written, useful for self study, assume a reasonable level of background knowledge, and are attractively printed!

The differences between undergraduate and graduate texts seem to me to be no more dramatic than those between high school and undergraduate texts, and I don't consider it especially problematic.  But there are some differences:

Why are graduate texts written that way? Why isn't there a plethora of classic texts at the graduate level?

There certainly is, but there are also plenty of mediocre books.  There's nothing special about graduate texts in this respect. Classic examples of anything will always be rare and noteworthy, more or less by definition.
You should keep in mind that graduate texts cover an enormous breadth of material (far beyond the undergraduate curriculum), and the upper limits of their depth can be impressive.  Some books are written for very advanced courses aimed at senior graduate students specializing in a certain area.  Of course they won't be easily accessible, since the research community barely understands this material.  With luck, fifty years from now we'll have clearer expositions.  In the meantime, we should be grateful that the author at least managed to distill the research literature into a coherent textbook, even if it is not yet easy to read.
Other graduate texts are intended for introductory grad courses.  Certainly there are some bad books out there, but in my experience there are plenty of beautiful introductions that are accessible to students with a strong undergraduate background.  It may still take more effort to read them than a typical undergraduate textbook, the same way an advanced undergraduate book may be tougher than one aimed at first-year students, but that's not a bad thing.  The increased difficulty comes with corresponding rewards.
You can also find especially accessible textbooks.  For example, some graduate texts are written specifically to ease the transition to graduate school for students with weaker backgrounds.  They aren't necessarily advertised that way (to avoid putting off readers), but some books are pretty widely known to be less demanding than others.  They can be a great way to fill in any missing background or just get used to graduate texts.
And it's worth having many different texts available for the same material.  Undergraduate courses can sometimes be fairly regimented, with clear expectations regarding exactly what students should already know and what they need to learn now.  Graduate school is much more diverse.  One book may be entirely appropriate for someone with certain preparation, but utterly inappropriate for others.
If there's a subject you'd like to learn about, the best approach is often to ask for reading advice from someone who knows your background and tastes.  If you can't get personalized advice, you can always take a look at lists like this.  Once you have some candidate books in mind, it's worth going to the library and gathering copies of them as well as any similar books that catch your eye on the shelf.  Then you can spend an hour or two comparing them to see which might best serve your needs.  It's going to take you far longer to actually master the contents, so a couple of hours is nothing if it helps you find the right book for you.

OOooOOooOOoo... +1 for that link to math.SE.com alone...

The font aspect is a rant, not a question; take that up with the publishers. (I don't think I've especially noticed it, but I have a wide tolerance range. It could be worse, it could be dot-matrix.)
For the rest: "Graduate texts" are written with the assumption that the reader already has a fairly sophisticated understanding of the subject and the symbology/shorthands/jargon it uses. They're also often intended to be reference material that supplements a class, rather than tutorial material readable by itself... "prescriptive rather than descriptive". Different audience, different needs, different focus, more context is assumed so informational density can be higher and presented more rigorously.


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Can I have show two different approaches in single thesis, regarding the same topic?
I am doing research on Security Patterns. In First 6 month i was working on Formalization of Security Patterns. I have extended a approach for formalization of Security Patterns. Subsequently, in the next 6 month i did research on Selection of Appropriate security patterns.
Normally, The structure of thesis

Introduction
Related Work
Proposed Work
Implementation
Result , Conclusion and Future.

I am confused in this.
I have different implementation and result respectively for Formalization and Selection techniques.
My Thesis Content will look like

Introduction
Related Work
Formalization(Proposed Work,Implementation and Result).
Selection(Proposed Work, Implementation and Result).
Conclusion.

Can i have two different result and implementation in a thesis. It is acceptable or not?
Thesis is for Master Degree.

What did your advisor say?

I am from India. My advisor doesn't actually care. He wont even read it..... I want to confirm it because i want to apply for Ph.d in Good foreign Universities.

What do you mean by two different approaches? You mean theory and practice? Or you mean two sorts of theoretical   formalizations?

It is totally normal and reasonable to do more than one type of work on a problem, and to report it in a structure like the one that you have sketched.  Just make sure that your explanation follows a coherent narrative (e.g., how does your work on selection follow from your work on formalization) and it will be fine.

I'd like to add that the coherent narrative can be explicitly outlined (and justified) in the introduction section. The OP should be happy about that, because it provides them with even more content to write about - content that will reflect positively on the OP, because it shows that they have put some thought into their document and checked what is appropriate for their particular problem rather than just copying a standard structure. (At least in environments where a good presentation has a positive influence on the overall grade/judgement of the thesis.)


text:
Should I quote an anonymous review on my CV?
I received an anonymous review from a journal.  This journal does not hide the identities of authors from reviewers.  Should I quote the reviewer's remark that the work is "impressive" on my CV?
Does the answer change if the manuscript is not accepted?

I think the standard practice for showing that your work is impressive is to give a long list of papers published in high-quality journals. Also, why is the manuscript not accepted if it is really impressive?

@Drecate: at the top journals, that happens all the time.

I wouldn'the read much into the word impressive in a review. It generally means that the reviewer thinks it is good enough to be published or is setting up a shit sandwich.

No, and no.  You should not try to hype up yourself with subjective comments in your CV or elsewhere in job applications, say.  Other people don't do this, and if you do you will seem strange and possibly desparate.  Your CV should be a list of objective information.  It is the job of your references to compare your work to other people's and say how impressive it is.
About the most you can do is keep the review in a personal "feel good" folder and look back at it when you need self-encouragement.

Damn, I should make a "feel good" folder.

@AnderBiguri This blog post is probably where I first heard of "feel good" folders.  (Search for "feelgood", no space)

Unless the article won a prize (Best Paper, Best Student Paper, Gordon Bell, etc), I wouldn't mention anything special about it at all, and even if it did win a prize, I wouldn't mention the reviewer's comment. The anonymous reviewer is unaccountable to the reader of your CV and therefore untrustworthy. If the manuscript wasn't accepted, the the question is irrelevant since it should not appear on your CV at all.

I list (clearly labeled) submitted manuscripts on my CV.  In my experience this is quite common within my context.  One need not identify which paper the comment was about.

@AnonymousPhysicist, you list submitted and rejected manuscripts on your CV???

A manuscript which is rejected from one journal uually gets submitted to another.  However, sometimes people give up trying to publish a paper for various reasons but the paper does not disappear for that reason.  In my field it is common to keep such unpublished papers on the arxiv and/or on one's webpage.  Whether to list them on your CV is a judgment call, but certainly many people do it.

I wonder though whether you are saying that you do not or that one should not list papers on one's CV until they are accepted.  In my field that would be very weird: on the one hand, probably more than 50% of serious preprints written by young mathematicians get uploaded to the arxiv before they are first submitted to a journal.  The paper may not be accepted for a year or more (and it may not appear for a long time after that; I just found out that a recently accepted paper of mine has a 2-3 year lag time).  Having a CV which is usually more than a year out of date doesn't seem very useful.

@PeteL.Clark, sorry if I was unclear. Papers which are submitted and waiting a response should go on your CV as long as the are marked "submitted" or "under review". Papers which are not yet published but have been reviewed and accepted are also great and usually marked "in press" or "accepted". But I don't see the value in putting an abandoned paper which has been rejected multiple times on your CV. My fields don't tend to use the ArXiv, so I don't know what to do with papers that aren't under some sort of publication process and just hanging out on the ArXiv.

I would suggest looking at some CVs of successful PhD students (if you are still in graduate school) or scholars' CVs and use them as templates. I have some suggestions if you want one. I'm in the business/economics field.

This does not seem to be an answer. If you have some suggestions, please bring it up.


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Master thesis - rules for italicizing
I am writing my master thesis in English and I understand that usually italics are used to put emphasis on a word, because it is an important or a newly introduced technical term. But I still ask myself if I have to use italics for these two cases:

Variables' names. For instance, let's suppose that I have a complex equation and the variable n appears inside this equation. If I am describing the equation in a text paragraph, and I am talking about n (e.g. "if the value of n is large enough, then..."), in this case, should n be italicized?
For programmers: should class names and data types be italicized? E.g. "a variable of type UInt32 is used".

I'd say the typeface should match the one used in the equation or listing, so that the entity always appears the same no matter where it is located.
If you're using Latex, variables from equations should be put in math mode, i.e. $n$. Class names and data types should be inline code, e.g. \lstinline if you're using the package listings.

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


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Using a case study without company's permission
In addition to academic work, I have done private work in industry that is directly related to the material I'm presenting. For one of my lessons, I would like to do a case study, where I take a problem posed by one of my clients and discuss the thought process and methodology I utilized to solve the problem.
For the case study, I do not intend to reference the company name (instead referring to them as "Company X"). I intended to keep the industry and solution mostly the same, although I would not present or divulge any source code from the deliverable or data from the actual company.
My concern is that the technology I developed for the company may be considered proprietary or a trade secret by the company. While I wouldn't be presenting enough for someone to identify the client or exactly how I solved the problem, I fear that I may no longer have the right to present on this information without explicit permission from the former client.
To enumerate, my question has the following facets:

Do I have an ethical or legal obligation (in the United States) to ask the former client's permission before doing an anonymized case study, even if none of their data or my deliverable is presented?
Is there any standard or rule of thumb for using personal real-world examples in an academic setting while respecting a company's right to maintain trade secrets?

To clarify, there was no NDA/Intellectual Property transfer document or other legal document that could complicate the situation. The work was performed as a independent contractor in the United States.

The old adage for referencing was "when in doubt, cite". In the same vein, I'd ask the company if I can use their project as a case study.

Honestly, I would not do this.
I am not familiar with US law so I cannot give you any legal advice. However, there are several other non-legal risks you have to bear.
According to your description, you intend to stick closely to the real case in your presentation. The students might be intelligent enough to draw the necessary conclusions or could even be involved with the company. I would not risk this.
As a result, the company could get the impression, that you have leaked confidential data to the students. Indepdent from the question whether this is illegal or legal, facing a lawsuit can easily have a disastrous effect on your career. Furthermore, this can also result in loss of trust, again impacting your career.
I only see two possible options here:

You ask your former client for a written(!) permission
You largely modify your example / problem

Both methods, when done correctly, will save you from a lot of risk.
I had a similar problem, when I wanted to write a paper about work I did for an industry partner. Usually, this is quite strict, since nobody wants to have their confidential solutions published. However, I was able to chance the problem and solution sufficiently. Despite the same ideas were used, the original problem and client remained hidden and I was able to publish my ideas. This was quite a lot of work to do, since I had to redo most of the code and experiments. Altogether, this was worth the effort since I do not have any fear of legal consequences and we still have a good relationship to our clients.

It sounds like this might be your first time through this, so I think you should get a consultation with an employment or intellectual property attorney to get the legal framework.  What you learn you'll use again, so it's worth the money.
I'm not an attorney, but I think you're in the clear to go ahead with your plan as described to provide an anonymized and abstracted description of the problem and your solution.  To me, the important points are (1) the lack of any written confidentiality agreement, (2) the lack of any reason to believe that disclosure would harm their interests, (3) the academic purpose, (4) the limited and anonymized nature of the disclosure, (5) the disclosure is of your own skill and personal experience.

Do I have an ethical or legal obligation to ask the former client's
  permission before doing an anonymized case study, even if none of
  their data or my deliverable is presented?

At a minimum, you have an ethical obligation to comply with the consulting agreement. If your legal obligation under the specific terms of the agreement are unclear to you, then you have an ethical obligation to seek clarification before using the information/material, because if not, you could inadvertently breach the agreement and an inadvertent breach is still a breach for which you may be held accountable. If you are under no confidentiality or consulting agreement (as you mentioned) then the decision seems to be largely a matter of professional judgement.

Is there any standard or rule of thumb for using personal real-world
  examples in an academic setting while respecting a company's right to
  maintain trade secrets?

Companies that do not require a confidentiality agreement cannot expect their information to remain confidential, but consultants that divulge confidential information cannot expect to retain a professional reputation and keep getting hired. The best practice is to always treat client information as if you were under contract, even when you are not.
The lack of a consulting agreement can signal that the company is unconcerned about the secrecy of information you were privy to, or that your professional courtesy is taken for granted, or that someone forgot to ask you to sign the agreement, or that the company has not yet gotten around to creating one yet... The problem is that without a contract to explain the company's interests, you may not know what types of information are most important not to disclose.
In my experience, confidentiality agreements usually require the return of all files, supplies, and so on to the company at the conclusion of the project. In that case, the use of any physical/digital assets from the project, or dissemination of any company information not available to the public, for purposes other than the company's interests would put the contractor at risk.
While it can feel uncomfortable broaching topics like this with a client - maybe the project did not go well or you did not get along with the client, or maybe it just seems like asking will raise alarms - no one knows better than the client whether the client would have an issue with your proposed use of information. If you do ask, and the client says 'yes', then you can proceed safely with no further discomfort. If the client says 'no' you have avoided trouble and demonstrated your integrity, though you will have do deal with the need to produce alternative subject matter. Finally, large companies are likely to have a legal department (probably not relevant in this case) that are accustomed to answering questions about potential conflict of interest. Simply asking questions does not imply guilt.


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Do applicants who are exempted from paying application fees get any other benefits
Several universities waive graduate application fees for certain applicants who participated in a specific program or belong to a certain organization. My question is: do these applicants get any other benefits or considerations in the application process, or is the application fee exemption the end of the story?
Example of one of the universities that offers this:
http://grad.berkeley.edu/admissions/apply/fee-waiver/

Like what other considerations are you thinking of?  The only thing that comes to mind to me would be post-acceptance at the undergrad level.  There are often programs that take place in the summer before the freshman year, to get students acclimated.

I've served on a doctoral admissions committee and we were not made aware of these fee waivers or special organization ties unless the individual directly wrote about them in their statements of purpose or resumes.


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Asking for funds to attend a conference from a current advisor for previous work
I have an accepted publication in a conference from work I have done in a previous research group, my adviser from the previous research group wants me to present the work in the conference, but he might find difficulty securing funds for me to attend the conference as I am now in a different university.
Assuming I can't secure funding from other sources, would it be okay if I asked my current adviser for funds to attend this conference?

I don't see how it could hurt to ask. What do you think is the potential ethical problem here?

But they will probably say no.

@ff524 I am not sure, but it doesn't feel right (at least from my point of view) to ask my current adviser for funding that should have been provided by my previous adviser.

Does the conference itself provide any travel funding for students?

@istvan I didn't see any travel grants however they do offer the student volunteer program, but the application deadline has passed. I emailed them asking for an extension or an exception, and I haven't heard back yet.

If the current supervisor can count your publication as "being created" at least partly in his group (without his authorship, of course), he might be able to secure funding. For example, if the work counts towards research productivity metrics of his group.

People change locations for good reasons (such as getting a PhD), and that should be understood by the organization getting them. When I hire a post-doc, I assume that they will be going to conferences based on their PhD work - it is in their (and ultimately my) best interest for them to do so. So, I support that travel. Now, I also assume that they will do lots of good work in my group, and when they get a 'real' job that the new organization would also want them to go to conferences and will support them to do so.

Professionally, you should first explore the possibility of funding from sources other than your current advisor, e.g. the conference organisers or third-party sources. Ideally, your previous supervisor should help you out in this process. If your paper has good reviews, then you can feel more confident with your efforts. Does your previous supervisor know people in the conference organising committee or the professional committee under whose umbrella the conference is being organised (e.g. ACM or IEEE sub-committees)? I don't imply anything unethical, but your professor could use this informal channel to better gauge the waters, which might help drafting the funding appeal more effectively.
If the above course of action is not feasible, try to ask your current supervisor  for ideas, without directly asking for funds. S/he might be able to suggest other sources, and help you with the application process. You might eventually be able to appeal to the benevolence of your current supervisor, but you must first demonstrate your diligence in pursuing other avenues. Remember, faculty members are always pressed for funds. If your current supervisor is unable to help you out, it wouldn't necessarily mean that s/he is unwilling.
If all everything fails, you will have to communicate with the program chair and indicate your inability to attend. Assuming that you can arrange funds to at least register (this should be your minimum ask from any funding source), it might be possible to arrange for another speaker to make the presentation on your behalf. Explore the possibility of presenting via Skype. Try to find out from the conference chair whether any of this would work, and work with this as your fallback.
Remember to use the good reviews to your advantage while making your case. All the best.


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My adviser is chairing a conference, as a PhD student how can I benefit from that
My adviser is chairing an upcoming conference and I am wondering as his PhD student how can I benefit from this opportunity?
Other than attending the conference itself and benefiting from that, I am interested in knowing if it is common for PhD students from the conference chair research group can:

review submitted papers
help with organizing the conference
help with anything else (I am not sure if there is anything else that PhD students can help with)

Chances are you'll be working your butt off (pardon) with points two and three, but not point one. ;-) Students don't end up in the scientific commitee, usually.

How large is the conference? 60? 600?

@AzorAhai I don't have exact numbers, but I would say something around 250

@Karl I heard that some professors ask their students to review papers they are supposed to review, as a kind of practice for their students, so my first point was something in this realm, will my adviser ask me to review papers on his behalf as a practice for me and not as a final acceptance decision.

TL;DR: you can benefit in a small way by helping out with organizational duties, if you don’t let it distract you from more important work. Also, do not expect to review paper submissions - that is not typically something that PhD students are assigned to do.

Organizing a conference is mostly an exercise in logistics, and involves taking care of many small and (usually) not very interesting details. It is quite common that faculty members who are organizing a conference outsource some of the organizational duties to their PhD (and/or undergrad) students. I beieve that sometimes the students are paid for this.
As for your question, I think your advisor would probably appreciate if you simply asked them what are some ways you can help, and predict that they would be happy assigning you some organizational duties, but not to review papers, which is the work of the program committee that is typically made up of senior academics with established reputations.
Whether you “can benefit” from performing such organizational duties is not obvious to me. Some ways in which you might benefit are:

You might get paid.
You will get to share in the excitement of being part of the workings of an academic conference (perhaps with well known speakers or important people in your field).
You might get to email or otherwise interact with such people as part of your organizational duties. As a result, they are marginally more likely to remember your existence if and when they encounter your name in the future.
You will learn about how academic conferences work and gain experience in organizational activities, which you can list on your CV.
Your adviser will be happy with you.

And here are some reasons why doing this might not benefit you (at least, not as much as you think):

You likely will not get paid.
The time you will spend helping out with the organization has an opportunity cost - you could have been using it for working on your research or doing other productive work that may be more beneficial.
With regards to the perceived benefit of interacting with senior researchers (as mentioned above), in my opinion the correlation of this “benefit” to actual future career success is very close to 0. Unlike what @JWH2006’s answer suggests, no one would be more likely to offer you a job because you did an especially nice job emailing them about hotel reimbursements, connecting their Mac to a projector, or handling some similar logistical issue. If you want to impress researchers in your area, talking to them about research during a coffee break at the conference would be hugely more effective (assuming that you are actually an interesting person to talk to).
I think there is also a psychological opportunity cost, namely the effect that by having the mindset of “how can I benefit” in connection with something that is ultimately a mundane event that has little connection to the actual research activities that a PhD student is expected to focus on, you will be at risk of being distracted from those more important goals.

Summary. Ultimately, while I think it could be fun and mildly beneficial for you to get involved in the conference organization, it would be good not to get too hung up on the idea of using this as an opportunity for career advancement.

Help with organizing is a great start. Do what needs to be done and don't let any task be "too low". Top volunteering spots are registration help and IT support. You can build quite a bit of good rapport by being "so and so's friendly phd student who helped get my mac to connect to the projector". Makes your adviser look good as well. Happy adviser, happy phd life.
As someone who was in your position working with a faculty member who was an executive director of a conference, I did the following-

helped with registration
took photos
helped with general tech support issues
passed out drink tickets
whatever little thing needed to be done

In short, there is a TON to do behind the scenes at a conference to make things tick. Just be a can-do and helpful person. People notice that and it has the ability to do much more for your career than reviewing a few proposals. Those people you are helping get their mac to work on a projector might be on a search committee for a position you are applying for.

Of course you will wear an easily visible name tag...

Great answer. Just adding that these tasks should not seem “too low” to anybody, because organising a conference is 50% organising any event: sessions chairs will run around with microphones, the scientific committee will design and print the conference poster at the corner printing shop, and so on :)

“Those people you are helping get their Mac to work ... might be on a search committee for a position you are applying for.” I downvoted this answer because it (the phrase I quoted and several others) leaves a highly misleading impression that the way to get ahead in academia is by sucking up to people. Even granting that networking at conferences has some value, as someone who actually sits on search committees I find the notion that I might favor a job candidate because they “passed out drink tickets” or helped me connect my Mac to a projector offensive, and, more to the point, 100% false.

I find it extremely odd that you equate being helpful and friendly to sucking up.

Thank you for your answer. The 5 points you mentioned are things that happen during the conference, I am also (more) interested in things that I can be involved in months before the conference starts.

how much of the conference infrastructure is already in place? Are you expected to manage/create the program? Are you expected to work with vendors? Are you expected to book the venue and negotiate costs?

@JWH2006 the website is online and running. My adviser has not officially asked me to do anything related to the conference yet, but I was planning on volunteering to help out as this is the first time my adviser chairs a conference while I am his student.

That is the best thing you can do. Volunteer and do what is asked of you.

@JWH2006 look up the definition of “suck up”. It matches your suggestions pretty well in my opinion, since you clearly recommend to OP to be “helpful and friendly” out of very transparently self-interested motives.

I disagree, my intent is to suggest that there are residual benefits from performing a job well for the sake of performing that job well. Being helpful and friendly is part of doing a service orientated job well.

I was part of organizing committee as a first year PhD student (not in USA; we start PhD after completing master studies). I checked for locations for the icebreaker event, figured out transportation to there, accepted registrations and generally participated in planning and implementing other practical things.
The conference is an annual one and a significant in my field and my country, so one consequence is that many people recognized me after the event, even though I had little idea of who they were.
This also gave me experience, and, more importantly, confidence, in organizing things, which has been useful in my personal life.
I can't say if there have been any, or any direct, academic benefits. I am presently a postdoc of a person who attended that conference, and who is not from the country in which the conference was organized.

To add another angle to the already good answers: Be a good host of your home town. Seek out younger people, PhD students and post docs, and make sure they have someone to talk to after hours. Maybe organize a group of people going out for an informal dinner or drink in the evening. The contacts you make such places - and where people remember you as a friendly host - are contacts which often last for many years.