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Applying for posdtoc positions: is it okay to send out many applications?
When applying for postdoc positions, one has the option to send out lots of applications, possibly get several offers, then choose the one that seems best.
Alternatively, the applicant could contact the research group that looks the most relevant or best suited for him, and focus on getting a position there.  If the feedback is not positive, then (and only then) move on to the next best choice.
I believe that in the USA it is accepted that people will shop around for positions, and not taking an offer is considered completely normal.  However, in some other places it is possible that if the applicant shows a lot of interest for a certain position, then gets an offer to be hired, and doesn't accept it anyway, it could be considered rude.
What is the usual or best way for applying in various countries?  I think it is very important to research this point to avoid any misunderstandings or bad feelings because of differences in attitudes towards the application process.

"However, in some other places it is possible..." That is stated so broadly as to be unhelpful: yes, it is very, very likely to be possible that somewhere in the world X happens...and this is true for almost any non-ridiculous choice of X.  Unless you are studying the anthropology of strange academic practices, please indicate what region or regions you are actually interested in.  In none of the academic systems I'm familiar with is it even plausible that not accepting a position offered would be considered rude.

I have voted to close this as "too broad". "What is the usual or best way for applying in various countries?" is not a good fit for the Stack Exchange model.

Mer - I believe the essence of your question stays the same even if you delete that sentence (pointed out by xLeitix) which is anyways taking the post off a bit. You can edit it to prevent it from getting put ''on hold''. :)

@PeteL.Clark I find your comment rude and condescending.  I read posts on this site occasionally, but this attitude is very disappointing and I am not going to come back any more.  I want this post as well as my account deleted.  Also, it's clear from your comment and your answers here that you have very little understanding of how things work outside the USA, so you should have refrained from commenting in the first place.

@Mer: My comment was intended to be helpful. If you didn't find it so, I will return 100% of my compensation for answering it. Your question was closed by three people, of which I was not one. I was rather suggesting how you could modify your question so to get a useful answer. Since you mention it, I have lived and worked in academia outside of the US for several years. What I do not have is comprehensive knowledge of how academia works across the entire world, nor do I know anyone who does

Probably you're applying to jobs in only a few countries, rather than everywhere. If you were applying to, say, Canada or France or Spain or Germany, the sentiment that you should not worry about turning down offers continues to apply. But if you are applying for jobs in Asia, Africa, South America....? If you are asking for cultural advice, you should ask about a specific culture or cultures. It is certainly not too late to provide this information and get your question answered. If however you are intent on leaving the site after asking one question: okay. Good luck with your career.

You should remember that universities are also looking at the resumes of many candidates for a given position. If it is not rude on their part to consider many applications and rejecting most of them, why will it be rude for a candidate to apply to many positions and reject some of them?
This is a many-to-many matching market between applicants and positions. You are trying to optimize your chances, they are trying to optimize their interest. If you look at it from this game theoretic perspective, you will not feel any qualm of conscience.

While Pete's concern looks valid to me, even in this hypothetical situation, a polite declining letter/email should do fine. For a somewhat reliable account of how faculty generally thinks you should go about declining an offer, follow this link.
Of course, the above was written in the context of grad school applications, and post-doc is much more personal than that AFAIK. (You contact a person, not an institution - so if there's any possibility of declination being deemed rude, it is more likely to be the case in a post-doc application than in the grad school context, which necessitates it further). But the intent is the same, and content (of the email) could also follow suite!
But having said that, please bear in mind that the professor would've himself been in your position some time back. He/she would've himself declined offers in his days, and I don't he will consider it rude. (Unless of course, if your correspondence went to a very advanced stage, you assured him you would join, he told other applicants that he's full and has no vacancy, and now you insist on not joining! But if it is simply that you were considered and found good enough, and decide on not joining, go ahead with the advice to avoid rudeness concerns.)
Hope that helps

For a moment think about both ends:

You want to find a postdoc position, to continue your research. Hopefully you will contribute a number of good journals, and move forward through your goal (an academic position). So you should be very careful where and with whom you will do your postdoc. In a long run playing the number game (i.e., sending your cv everywhere) does not pay off, because even if you find a position, it doesn't mean that much until you contribute great results. And that 'great' result is based on many factors out of your hand (e.g., supervisor, the team he/she made around him or herself, the city you will do your postdoc, etc.). So, do your search wisely and apply to ones that truly you think you will be useful.
Supervisors look for a postdoc position to ease their job to some extent in the first place (e.g., help them with proposals, help them in labs, etc.). Lets face it, they already have their permanent position, so if they pay for a postdoc, they want a helping hand in the first place. In some cases, publication comes second hand for them, they already publish papers/journals on regular basis without you anyway.

So if you want the situation be in your favor as a postdoc, you really need to look into these factors. Just don't send your CV some strange place, expect to be great situation. You might tie yourself to a nightmare (e.g., in the middle of project, and they don't care about your input).


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How to respond to intentional lack of citation?
I work in a field that heavily uses arxiv.org and posts papers before submitting them to journals, so it's common for people to send a citation request when they see a preprint that they think has overlooked their work. I do this pretty rarely, because I think it's often abused by people looking to pad their citation count by asking for citations from work that's only marginally related. Still, when I see work that very closely resembles something I've done, I generally send an email.
My question is what to do when a paper appears that is very closely related to my work, has not cited me, and it was clearly intentional. In this case one of the authors had a previous paper that followed up on--and cited--one of my papers, so I know they were aware of my work in the past. Furthermore, in their current paper they use a technical term that I introduced. There is no possible way that they could have written their current paper without being aware of its close relationship to my work, but they haven't cited my papers.
In this context, the usual email of the form "I have read your interesting new paper and wanted to make you aware of my related work" would be so disingenuous as to be ridiculous: they are clearly already aware of my related work. I can only conclude that they have intentionally chosen not to cite it. All of my encounters with these authors in the past have been friendly, at least from my perspective, so I can't imagine any interpersonal conflict that's behind the omission.
A similar thing happened to me once before when some authors wrote a paper that had enormous overlap with one of my papers, which they cited, and they corrected, in passing, a minor technical mistake that didn't change any significant conclusions. Subsequently they built a minor industry on this work but never again referred to my previous work, with the result that their papers that were only a very minor improvement on mine have been cited several hundred times more than my paper has. So I may be overly touchy about this sort of possibility.
At the moment I'm inclined to do nothing, because any message I could imagine sending them would come across as either disingenuous or combative. But I wonder if anyone has a suggestion for dealing with this situation.

There are a million ways you can not cite a paper and few are intentional. You are reading quite a lot into something they did not say. You are worried about asking because it might seem disingenuous. Honestly, right now, you are sounding a little paranoid. Try your best to assume good faith and send a nice email.

If their work is put on arxiv, then I do not think there is any strict obligation on their part to cite your related work.

I don't know the details of your case, but in any case like this I tend to liberally apply Hanlon's Razor:

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

It does sound as if they know about your paper, but it seems to me entirely possible that they could have intended to cite it and accidentally omitted to actually do so.  I think you can contact them tactfully and point out that the original source for the technical term is your paper (give the complete reference).  They will probably reply with an apology for the oversight.
If you want to be even more circumspect, you could ask a colleague in your subfield to contact them. ("I saw your preprint and it looks interesting.  The paper of Anonymous looks very relevant.  Do you think you should cite it?")
I've been guilty of such an accident myself.  I use BiBTeX to manage citations. I have a large file containing an entry for every paper I've ever considered citing.  Then for each paper I write, I include inline citations where they belong, and BiBTeX automatically picks the papers I've cited and generates the list of references.  In the case in question, I wanted to cite paper X in two places: in the introduction (as background) and in a specific technical passage.  I neglected to cite it in the introduction, but since it was also cited in the technical passage, paper X still appeared in the list of references, so when I saw it there I thought to myself "Good, I remembered to cite X."  Then in a later edit I changed the technical passage in such a way that X was no longer directly relevant there, so I removed that citation, thinking it was also cited elsewhere in the paper.  It wasn't, so BiBTeX accordingly removed it from the list of references, and it might certainly have looked to anyone as though I had intentionally failed to cite X (which was a well-known paper and clearly relevant).  The omission made it into a public preprint and was pointed out by a colleague (though not the author of paper X; he is long deceased), fortunately before the paper was submitted.
It was clearly my responsibility to have caught this and cited X correctly, and technical issues do not excuse my failure to do so, but I mention this as a specific example where such an error was due to stupidity rather than malice, and as evidence that the former could be an adequate explanation.

particularly like the 'ask a colleague' suggestion... everybody keeps face all around...

I've heard Hanlon's razor before but didn't know it had a name.  The more human behavior I observe, the more I think this razor would be even more accurate if augmented with, "never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by laziness, and never attibute to laziness that which is adequately explained by busy-ness."

Of course, some would say that laziness is simply the most common cause of stupidity, or that busy-ness is simply the most common cause of laziness.

There are three options:

They overlooked it. Then it's fine to contact them.
They intentionally did not include it. Then they are deliberately obtuse and the mail can't change anything at all.
It's only you who thinks that the citation is proper. I know you crossed out this option. Yet, since then the mail could hurt your relationships and reputation, I suggest that you first ask a 3rd party (your colleague) for their opinion.

Then you can IMHO simply contact the authors, of course politely, maybe showing some passion, pointing out something interesting you found there etc. The level of politeness is up to you I'd say.

I feel like the best you can do is send them a note while it's still at the pre-publication stage. If it appears in a journal or you are asked to review it, you should note it to the editor. Given that you invented the terminology, I'd be surprised if you weren't asked to review it.

Assuming you are right about the authors' behavior (like @NateEldredge, I am skeptical) then you have nothing to gain by bringing the subject up. However, if you inform the authors that you enjoyed reading their work, maybe they will be nicer to you in the future.
If I received a request for a citation, I would include the citation if it was relevant but my view of the requester's motivations would decline.  Collecting citations is not the goal of science.

This advice is not correct. If they intentionally not cited the OP's paper, an email reminder will tell them that they were caught doing that. And perhaps it might convince / "scare" them not to proceed with that

@guest: collecting citations is certainly not the goal in science,  but it is often essential to get enough money to be able to do the science.

@Alexandros You are not "caught" if there is no punishment.  Diplomacy is the only tool available here.

If the article went to referees in your field who should know of the work, and didn't point the authors at it, perhaps their work indeed stands alone, or the refs just didn't seem to think it was important that your work be cited.
Whether that is the case, or not, try not to let it get under your skin.  If somebody in your community chooses to look silly by allowing themselves to appear less than aware of the latest work, that's their choice, and the community will eventually recognize this.

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Is writing short proofs inline bad form?
I'm TeXing up a paper right now and I would like to ask for a sanity test about proper form.
In the paper, there are some statements which seem too simple to be called a Proposition or Lemma, let alone a Theorem. I use the word Remark for those. However, roughly speaking, there are three kinds of Remarks:

Ones whose proofs are fairly easy or standard, but not completely trivial, so I put a short argument after, using the standard proof environment.
Ones which I think are completely obvious in context, for example they just summarise some exposition directly above, so I simply put a qed sign at the end (I sometimes do the same with Corollaries).
Ones which have very simple proof, which may not be entirely obvious at a glance, but I believe a minimal (say, one short sentence) explanation is enough. In this case, putting the short explanation in the proof environment seems to be a waste of space and makes the whole thing look too important. Instead, I just put the short explanation in a parenthetical comment, which I append to the body of the remark, and follow that with the qed sign.

This system seems to be logical to me, but I would like some confirmation that this is OK, particularly the last kind.
I would also be interested in alternatives, with their pros and cons (I am unlikely to change the style in this paper unless I'm convinced that there is a big problem, but I may try to do something better in the next one).

I don't think there is a general answer to this. Just write the paper and discuss the draft with your advisor - he/she it the right person for this.

Actually, I am co-writing the paper with him, so he will re-read and re-write it anyway. My style does evolve, but I think I did write more or less like that before and I don't recall him complaining (except maybe about my judgement as to what is or is not obvious). What I'm looking for here is a bigger sample. ;-)

Could you clarify, are you mainly concerned about the vertical space, the indentation, or the confusion about how much to leave to the reader vs. how much to spell out?  Also, can you tell yet, is space likely to be tight?

@aparente001: I am not concerned about confusion about how much to spell out. That is a separate issue I do not really want to discuss here. I am only concerned with form, but as far as it goes, I am not sure which parts (vertical space, indendation etc.) I think is the worst. If you are suggesting a separate "concise" proof environment (as you seem to be), that is an interesting idea, but I wonder if it won't be confusing to the reader. I guess that is worth a separate question. As for space tightness, I don't expect any hard limits, but the paper is likely to be long anyway, so...

I wasn't anywhere close to making a suggestion!  The only mathematical paper I've ever written had no theorems, and only a dozen equations at most.  At this point I wanted to understand your question better....  So what is the main thing that's bothering you about treating these minor ones the same as you do the major ones?

Case 1 seem like Corollaries; Case 2 seem like Facts; and Case 3 seem like Lemmas (if building blocks) or Propositions (if useful results by themselves). Remark doesn't seem to capture any rigorous, mathematical result.

Maybe this is "opinion based", but here is what I prefer, and I think it is pretty standard.
I would only use the QED box  at the end of a proof environment (which started with Proof) which is preceded by a numbered Theorem / Proposition  / Lemma / Corollary etc.  That way, there is a clear statement of what is being proved, and the statement is clearly distinguished from the proof.  Subconsciously, I think of Proof and  as matched delimiters.
I don't think "too simple" is the main consideration for whether to use Proposition or Remark.  Rather, I think Remark should be used only for statements or discussions which are a digression from the main argument of the paper.  If you have a statement which is important to the paper, even if the proof is very simple, make it a Proposition or Lemma or Corollary (with a number), and follow it with a Proof.  (You might be able to get away with saying something like "we have the following proposition whose proof is obvious", and then omitting the Proof environment, but this can be annoying.)
In a Remark, if discussing a particular claim, you might include a short proof or sketch or outline.  Generally this would be written into the prose of the paragraph and not set off as a separate proof, and I would not use the QED symbol here.

Remark. The previous result raises the question of whether every snark is a boojum.  In fact, the answer is yes, and this can be seen by noting that cheese is green and the sky is mauve.  However, it is still not known whether every boojum is a snark.

This would be an alternative to:

Proposition 6.37. Every snark is a boojum.
Proof. Cheese is green and the sky is mauve.

Viz putting a qed sign at the end of a statement, I think I have read (and seen) in some places that it is the standard way of saying "this should be obvious". About using the word Proposition instead of Remark (unnumbered), I think I have contemplated that style before, but found some problem when I needed to actually refer to some informal discussion, and referring to them indirectly (as in "by reasoning analogous to the one outlined in paragraph above theorem X") seemed to be decisively bad form for several reasons. So how do you propose I deal with that?

I have never seen the qed sign used to mean "this should be obvious" and would not recommend it.  As to your other comment, generally speaking, any statement you intend to refer to later should be numbered.  You can even number your Remarks, but I think if you find yourself needing to refer back to a Remark, it might be important enough to the paper to make it a numbered Proposition.

Continuing the first problem, I like putting qed signs at the end of an obvious statement, because when I read something and see no proof immediately following, it is not clear to me if the statement is obvious, or the proof will follow soon, or something else. A QED sign is a clear signal. Would you rather write "Proof. Obvious. "? To me, that is still more flow-breaking than just a qed sign, and more pretentious.

While I'm here: I have also not seen QED signs used as "obvious" in (good, formal) mathematical writing, and I do not advocate it either.  The point of a QED sign is to make a clear visual marker of where an argument ends (just as Proof clearly marks where it begins), so that the reader does not need to read the paper line by line from start to finish (almost no one wants to read a math paper that way).  If the argument doesn't begin, you don't need to show where it ends.

More to the point: "Proof: This may be left to the reader." is better than a qed sign, because it spells out in words the author's intention.  If I see a qed sign at the end of a not proof, I don't know exactly what that means, and I wonder if maybe there was a typo.  Good mathematical writing goes out of its way to make the logical structure clear (so the reader can concentrate on the new math); overdoing this is much preferable to underdoing it.

In the second paragraph, I got somewhat distracted reading "Subconsciously, I think of Proof and  as matched delimiters." Is something missing after "and"?

@pjs36: There's a box symbol between the words "and" and "as", are you seeing that in your browser?  I mean that the word "Proof" and the QED box act as delimiters.

@NateEldredge Thank you, I figured you were referring to some kind of QED box, but no, it isn't present for me (even clicking "edit" to see if something was present). This is apparently just the latest instance of my browser behaving poorly; I doubt it's an issue for (m)any others.

@pjs36: It's Unicode U+1F78E LIGHT WHITE SQUARE.  Maybe a font or encoding issue?

A Remark is a strange mathematical specimen: if you read a bunch of math papers, you will see different people using it in different ways.  With that in mind, I would say that I don't think I've ever seen "Remark" used the way you do: as an especially small theorem.
Whether a remark should be done via a theorem environment at all (thus e.g. appearing italicized) is also a point of contention.  I remember getting a paper rejected from a very prestigious journal, where other than "not good enough for the journal," the main comment we received was that remarks should not be italicized.  But really, formatting of remarks is all over the place.
I think most people agree with @Nate Eldredge that Remarks should be "statements or discussions which are a digression from the main argument of the paper."  However, exactly what that means is a bit up for grabs.  For instance, some people think that you should call something a Remark if you're never going to refer to it again in the paper -- in other words, literally you could take the Remark out of the paper without disturbing anything else.  Other (and more?) people think that the point of setting something off as a Remark is so that you can refer to it later: if it's really completely disposable, why not just have inline in the text, or in parentheses, or in a footnote?  I think that in my mathematical writing I have come around from the former use to the latter use...I think.
Anyway, fundamentally I don't buy that something can be too simple to be either a Proposition or a Lemma but it still needs a formal statement and a proof.  That's exactly what Proposition is for: like a Theorem, only smaller.  Even Lemma and Corollary have other uses: a Lemma comes just before a bigger result and a Corollary comes just after it.  The point of using these terms is to make the logical flow of the paper visually apparent.  How does using "Remark" for "not even a Proposition" help the reader more than "Proposition" followed by a two-line proof?
The right usage of a Remark is subtle, but it's roughly contrapuntal to Theorems, Propositions and so forth.  In a Remark you step aside for a moment and place something outside of the direct logical sequence you were following (though you may call on it later).  Thus for instance Remarks may belong at the end of (sub...)sections as commentary or summary on what has come before.
Or so it seems to me, anyway.  Again, different people do things differently here.

Thanks. I'm not looking for a definitive answer here, rather, I'm trying to form (or refine) my own opinion (and style). But you did not (I think) give a clear response to my main question: what do you think about very short sketches of proofs appended to the body of the remark/proposition/corollary? My worry is that putting them in a proof environment breaks the flow of the paper.

@tomasz: Maybe I'm not completely clear about what you're asking.  Are you asking whether it is problematic to have: "Proposition:... Proof [One line argument]"?  My answer is that it is not problematic at all.  It is not even problematic to have no lines of proof.  What I'm not understanding is why you're talking about sketches of proofs.  I don't think there's much of a place in a math paper for sketching proofs.  If you think that fewer details are appropriate, then give fewer details, but you seem to somehow want a "half-hearted proof" environment.  Or am I misunderstanding?

I think you are misunderstanding, yes. What I mean is that in some cases, I do not want any separate proof environment at all, just a short parenthetical indication as to why a statement is true.

Why do you only want a "short parenthetical indication as to why a statement is true"?  Why something is true is one of the most important parts of a math paper.  As near as I can tell, you seem to be a bit anxious that if you give too much detail in a proof, it will make you look bad.  That is really not the case.  Anyway, perhaps you could edit an example of the sort of thing you have in mind into your question.

You are partly correct, as I have, in fact, been told that it might make me look bad (although I have also been told the opposite, so I guess that might be opinion-based). But another thing is that I think visual separation might disrupt understanding, similarly to how sometimes it's better to use inline rather than displaystyle math. A simplest example of such a remark "(Immediate by Theorem X and Lemma Y)". It may not be obvious to the reader that they should use Theorem X and Lemma Y, but once they know that, it is just putting two and two together.

@tomasz: I am still not sure why you think that proofs of things should go in parentheses.  In the example you give, I would suggest: "Corollary: Whatever.  Proof: This follows from Theorem X and Lemma Y."  I wonder whether you have looked at Stephen Krantz's text on writing mathematics?  He explicitly denigrates "parenthetical proofs".

I'm pretty sure I did, but there are lots of (partly conflicting) resources about that. I also might have been picking up some bad habits by diffusion. Thanks again for the input, I'll keep that in mind.

On markers immediately after statement:
Sometimes, after a number of lemmas and theorems you need to write some further remarks to highlight some things that will be useful later. To avoid breaking the flow, I found it useful to put a statement that could be referenced only at the end of that part, usually as a corollary. The problem I had was that frequently the preceding paragraphs would include the proof, but in some cases the statement was too involved and needed a separate formal proof. Although this is not standard (yet), to make clear whether the reader should expect a proof or not I choose to include a special sign (a distinctively smaller version of QED) that I would put after statements with no proof environment.
\newrobustcmd{\xsmallsquare}{%
  \text{\fboxsep=-.2pt\fbox{\rule{0pt}{4pt}\rule{4pt}{0pt}}}%
}
\declaretheorem[name=Corollary,sibling=theorem,style=definition]{corollary}
\declaretheorem[name=Corollary,sibling=theorem,style=definition,qed=${\color{black}\xsmallsquare}$]{qedcorollary}

For consistency there was a small diamond shape after every statement for which there should be no proof, like definitions. It became very useful for complex statements that included enumerations – it made really clear where these ended, while the mark was small enough to avoid distraction. It had the additional benefit for the (rare) cases where there was a paragraph of text between the theorem and its proof to explain how the proof will proceed and present some intuitions which would made no sense before the formal statement of the theorem.
I never received any negative remarks on that style, and there were some positive comments. Also, please bear in mind that many journals and some conferences have editorial guidelines to which you should conform. Furthermore, while this might look great in a bigger work (book, thesis, long tech report), in a short paper that is a part of a bigger collection it usually will be just distracting.
On remarks:
I agree with @Pete L. Clark and @Nate Eldredge. They have put it more eloquently, so I will just skip that part.
On proofs in parentheses:
Although I love using parentheses, I would strongly advise you against putting proofs in there. Note that it still might be ok to remind the reader about something in parentheses, for example a lemma that makes the statement in context a direct corollary. However, please do not do so in statements – almost always it is possible to mention that lemma immediately before or after the statement. The only non-math parentheses in statements I use are for pattern-matching like "we will call a X left-nice (right-nice) if Y is right-nasty (left-nasty)"
or referenced theorems "Theorem 42 (Famous Researcher [42])."
On obviousness:
Let me quote from a really nice post by Joel David Hamkins on MathOverflow:

I don't agree that if something is obvious, then it is obvious that it is obvious. When an author declares in a mathematical exposition that a fact is obvious, or says "of course" or something with a similar meaning, then it is a signal that the reader should be able to find a very easy reason justifying the statement, rather than a complex one. This is useful information for the author to signal, and I for one as a reader have often been grateful for it.

Furthermore, including lots of trivial statements and their proofs will make the paper unreadable. Theorems and their proofs are some of the most important parts of a math paper, but one should emphasize the main results rather than simple observations which frequently are community folklore.
Finally, you should be really careful that things you deem obvious really are obvious. In practice I often do write down the proofs and only decide against including them. This way you can reduce mistakes and choose actually for better clarity (with a small useful bias because one does not want the work being wasted). It takes more time, but at least for me it is worth it.
I hope this helps ;-)

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contacting advisor before admission can be helpful?
I am an Mphil student from India. My field of interest is complex analysis. I plan to go abroad for my PhD. I know the process of GRE exams and all. But I want to ask, is talking to any professor, with whom you wish to work for PhD, from your desired university, helpful in getting admission?
Can it be helpful somehow?

I think your question is answered here: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/924/contacting-professors-for-phd-vacancies

You could certainly talk with them and discuss your ideas and options and if you find the connection is a good one you could ask for a letter of recommendation from them, but short of a letter I don't think a professor has a whole lot of flex/power when it comes to admissions.
Certainly if they vouch for you that is a positive thing, but unlike a "job" I feel the role at the University is based more on your academic experience and aptitude than who you know.


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Where can I go to get IRB approval?
I want to conduct research independently once done with school.  Where can I go to get IRB approval?  I know that some businesses have collaborated with universities to get IRB approval but want to know more.  What is the process? Do universities normally give IRB approval to non-university members?  Where else can I go?

Most university IRB's won't involve themselves in research that isn't conducted by employees and students of the university.  The alternative (widely used by pharmaceutical companies) is an "independent IRB" (the term is an oxymoron since the IRB isn't part of the institution that is doing the research...)
See the consortium of independent IRB's web site for some information about these IRB's.
http://www.consortiumofirb.org/

In what context is IRB not part of the institute that does the research

In the context of an "independent IRB", the review board is a separate organization that provides ethics review for the research on a contract basis.  The most common example of this process is in trials of new drugs conducted by pharmaceutical companies that hire an IRB to review the study.

No.
The purpose of an IRB is to protect the institution from allegations of unethical behavior. There is no reason for the university to do a review of non-affiliated projects -- in fact, it  makes the university  liable for the research it approved, thus increasing its liability.
Alternatives would include:

Asking for university affiliation and then undergoing review.
Asking your professional association if they provide a review service
Self-review if your organization is large enough

This completely depends on your country and its laws.  Some countries have National IRB, run by the government.  The most common users are businesses and national research labs.  Unless you have an affiliation or collaboration to the university, you do not do IRB through them.


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Graduate without a job offer or delay
I am posting here for the first time. I am Canadian 6th year grad student in USA. My adviser is rushing my graduation, which is a good thing. But, he is telling that he has ran out of funding and want me to graduate in February with whatever I have done so far. Also, he has clearly said that he does not have any funds to support me beyond February, but he will be happy to be my adviser, but cannot offer any financial support. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, that too this late. Also, because of the extreme pressure to finish the projects, graduate and find jobs, I am undergoing chronic depression, insomnia and anxiety disorder. With this medical condition, it has become even more difficult for me to focus on my thesis.
I am partly supported by a university fellowship of which only one semester is remaining, which will be applied for the Spring 2015 semester, if I continue with my current plan of graduation in February 2015.
At this point, I do not have any job offer, just started applying for jobs last week. With my wife and kid also living with me, it would be very hard to continue to stay in USA without any financial support. I have two options now:

Go ahead with finishing the thesis and aim for Feb-Apr 2015 graduation. Pros: If all goes well, I will get my degree in about 3-4 months for which I have toiled for the last 6 years; the duration of degree will be much shorter, a positive?. Cons: I do not know if I can get job in about 4-5 months in USA as I will have to worry about the OPT; will have to do a sloppy thesis; no time to publish 1-2 papers for which I have done 90% of the work; may have to spend some money out of my own pocket.
Due to medical condition, I can take medical leave for up to a year. So, take medical leave for the Spring 2015 semester, move back to Canada where I can cover my family living expenses without much hassle, use the summer to write up my thesis and defend in Fall 2015. Pros: I will get much more time to apply for jobs, will not be rushed due to OPT; can do some more good research and do a better thesis; write some more papers in the mean time, which will help me during job hunt; can better deal with stress and anxiety Cons: A delay in graduation, some costs of moving my family back and forth, the "unknown" factor which I am not able to account right now, which can hinder me from getting my degree.

By and large, what should go into my thesis is decided and I have talked clearly about it with my adviser. So, there is not much uncertainty about getting the thesis ready. Also, if I go on a medical leave, my one semester fellowship will be applied when I come back. Plus, if I have some job offer, I can also continue as a non-resident student and finish my degree as adviser is okay with being my adviser, just that he really does not have any funds right now.
I would like to get opinions from as many people as possible. Any input will be highly appreciated.

Have you discussed this with the department or school? They may be able to help you in situations when the professors can't pay, depending on your contract that is.

@Chris C: Thanks for your reply. This news came to me abruptly, just a few days ago. I am still ruminating on this,so I have not discussed this. But, tomorrow I will make it a point to discuss this with the department chair.

I think your problem is: Can you finish your thesis without frequent face to face discussion with your advisor?

Thanks @scaahu. The work is nearly done and I do not think it will need a lot more frequent face-to-face discussion. Even if it is needed, I do not have any option. I will have to apply for OPT in 1st week of Jan and it will be approved. I will have very little time to find a job. Since I know precisely what the deliverables of my thesis are, I will have to strive to get those results and at this point, I should be independent in pursuing my research. So, I feel confident to finish my thesis without much supervision, as it has been since last 1-1.5 years as expected of a senior phd student.

Can you be a TA?

It'll be hard for anyone to post a good answer, as this situation is very specific to you. You've done a good job listing the pros and cons, and it's just your decision now. I don't see a question here that the community can answer.

What is your undergrad? Your current field? For what degree right noe? What kind of jobs? And wrlcome to Academia SE!A


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collaboration with a professor from other school
Is it acceptable/advisable to seek to collaborate with a former professor (e.g. from undergrad school) while doing research with ones adviser at grad school (the two schools being different)? Of course, under the assumption that a conflict of interest is avoided (the process being transparent with both professors in agreement with it, the narrow research subjects don't overlap, etc.).
The main benefit of this over-hour endeavor is co-authorship in published papers and an additional recommendation source, along with satisfying ones desire to work on that specific problem.

"The main benefit of this over-hour endeavor is co-authorship in published papers and an additional recommendation source, along with satisfying ones desire to work on that specific problem." The latter seems like a good reason to seek collaboration, the first two not so much.

@ChrisWhite We can agree on that. Maybe it's just that the mindset "what's the minimum I need to do to get a good rec and a paper?" gets old really fast.

Do it. It can only be good for you. And it is generally acceptable.
Make sure that your supervisor knows what's going on and approves, though if you are using your own time, there should be no reason not to approve.


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Choosing a PhD field, based on short term or long term decision?
I saw already questions regarding field choice, but they do not explicitly answer this question :
Choosing a PhD by following short term interest or following the long term vague idea of what one would like to do or be in the future ?
To explain what I mean, usually choosing a PhD field is restricting, it is harder to keep interdisciplinarity or swap of field if they are not seen as "close". One can be highly motivated by a subject A now but do not see a clear future, contrary to a second subject B a bit less motivating but where future is more predictable.
To take example in my case, I am considering two subfields of Computational Engineering : Physics-based animation in Computer Graphics and FSI in Computational Mechanics as PhD fields. Since one usually considers these two fields quite appart, I do not think I will be able to switch area after the PhD. I am motivated by the former but it is hard to catch a glimpse of future possibilities contrary to the latter because engineering seems more of a "safe" choice considering employment.

By and large, I would recommend you to go with what is more interesting to you right now. As you say yourself, nobody can predict the future, and a vague sense that your specific chosen subfield may go out of style at some point does not seem like a good enough reason to settle for your "second choice" (especially since nobody can guarantee you that the "second choice" will stay relevant).
Further, I think you are overestimating to what extend the topic of your PhD will lock you into a specific field. I have personally switched topics somewhat after my PhD (from distributed systems closer to software engineering), and plenty of other people have done similar switches.
Finally, in cases where a specific topic of research becomes outdated (not uncommon in Computer Science, a buzzword driven field after all), there is usually some sort of "natural progression" for the researchers involved with the topic. That is, professors that used to do a lot of grid computing research 10 years ago now publish on cloud computing, etc.


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Send introductory email to foreign university professor ahead of classes
Some of my college classmates and I will be studying for one semester at a foreign university in Belgium. To give context, we are Italian Erasmus students on an exchange program traveling to a foreign country that speaks Dutch/Flemish, although the classes will be partially or fully in English.
I would like to know if you think it’s a good idea to send an email to each professor of the courses we’ll be taking a few weeks in advance with the goals of

introducing ourselves
establishing a direct line and open of communication
asking if there’s anything we should review before classes start
saying we’re very happy to attend their course and look forward to learning from everyone
making sure they are aware of our arrival and therefore possibly prepare English material for us

Do you think this a good idea or should we just present ourselves on the first day of classes? Should I send it myself or cc my classmates? I just want to make sure this is going to be a great experience for everyone.

My advice is: Do not do this if you just want to introduce yourself or establish a line of communication. For those purposes, just talk to the professor in or after class or leave it all together -- just like the professor wants.
If you have more practical reasons (like if you need to review someth.), do this before and per email. (I'm assuming here that you read all inform. about the courses and do not ask about information posted e.g online.)
If you think there is a chance the courses could not be in English, I would also advice you to ask beforehand. (If the program is advertisted as being in English, I think you should not ask.)
If you send something, I would advice to speak with your classmates and send it together with them (in all their names, after they agree). This advoids you to be seen as a social weirdo who secretly wants to get advantages - after all, the information is important for everyone and you want everyone to have a great experience.

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


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Can I upload multimedia from subscription access journals to third party websites
I am the author of an accepted and published manuscript in a peer-reviewed subscription access article. Accompanying this manuscript are some videos I created. I would like to upload these videos to a third party website and want to know if this is allowed. I have read the author rights, but my use doesn't exactly fit into the wording so I'm not so sure what the answer is.
More specifically my article is in 2D Materials of IOP and I want to upload some videos that form part of the additional multimedia to YouTube so that I can create an interactive poster where people can view videos related to content on the poster.
I have emailed the IOP concerning this matter so I can provide an answer to at least my specific case, but I thought others might have something interesting to say on this matter, e.g. perhaps the intended use means it automatically is "fair use" and is acceptable for all journals.

Update:
After further emails and confusions settled, IOP was more than happy to grant me permissions to use the videos. One thing I discovered is that technically, even if you're just using one or two of the figures from your paper for a poster you should ask permission from IOP. I'm not sure how common this is.
~~~~~~~~
The email response to my specific case was:
"Under the copyright form, IOP Publishing only take a non-exclusive licence from you to use and publish the video abstract (clause 1.3). Therefore we do not control what you do with the video abstract. Please note, if you have used any third party material in your video, you may need to consider whether the permission you were granted was wide enough to use that content on YouTube."
One thing to note is she is talking about the video abstract and not video figures, but I'm personally going to say that's enough of a green light for me.


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Should the glossary in my dissertation be minimalist or comprehensive?
Context: I'm in an interdisciplinary field -- Computational Social Science -- and therefore my dissertation will be drawing on theory, empirical findings, and methods from at least four different disciplines. My dissertation topic is "Institutional Innovation Based on New Knowledge".  Many terms have no settled meaning even within a single discipline, and many terms have definitions of my choosing, to suit the scope and purposes of my dissertation.
I'm using LaTex packages for glossary and hyperlinks so that all glossary terms get highlighted hyperlinks when they first appear in each chapter.
My question: should I aim for a minimalist glossary where only the most technical, obscure, central, or controversial terms get defined, or a comprehensive glossary that aims to define all important terms.
My aim is to make it easy for readers (mostly my committee), especially so that they won't waste time either trying to find my definitions or spend too much time reading/checking my definitions.  Most of all I don't want them assuming that I'm misusing terms or that I haven't adequately defined them.
I'm not concerned about the extra workload of completing a comprehensive glossary.  I'm good at this sort of task and it helps me as I write the body of each chapter -- I don't have to keep defining terms or reminding readers of my definition.
The downside of a comprehensive glossary is page count.  I'll guess that it will add 20 or 25 pages.  I don't want to "bloat" the dissertation any more than necessary.

If you think it will improve the usefulness of the thesis, and it isn't too much trouble for you, then I'd say by all means go for it.
I would not worry about page count. I don't think anyone cares how long the thesis is.

Thanks!  I've actually heard and read comments by professors that they do care about length if it makes the reviewing process more difficult.  But I suppose this has to do more with an overly-broad scope or too many digressions, and not to subsidiary sections like glossary.


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Can I put online an accepted paper before the conference?
My paper has been accepted for a conference, I have chosen the ACM "License to Publish" and the publishers are happy with the camera-ready copy. According to the ACM license I may

"Post the Accepted Version of the Work on (1) the Author’s home page,
  (2) the Owner’s institutional repository, or (3) any repository
  legally mandated by an agency funding the research on which the Work
  is based."

It doesn't say anything about the timing.  My question is: may I put it online on my own website before the conference?  And if yes, is that considered bad style?

To be sure, I think you should ask the organizers of the conference. Conferences and journals can have legitimate reasons for wanting papers to be "unpublished".

Whether or not it's technically legally acceptable, I would find it extremely gauche to post a publication online before it has been made available by the venue where it is scheduled for appear.  Thus, for conferences I wait until the date of the conference, and for journals I wait until the "online early" copy appears.
Now, if your publication is also compatible with an alternate means of publication, like arXiv or a tech report at your institution, I would find it completely reasonable to post a version up that way, citing that, and then later update the links and citation information when the "official" version comes out.

Really? I often google with success for conference papers prior to the date of the conference. Many well-known institutions seem to put up the camera-ready version of their papers as soon as they uploaded it, and I am not sure why that would be a faux-pas.

@xLeitix That may certainly be the case: I still find it rather unseemly.  I don't have a strong argument for my case, though, so the rest of the world is free to disagree with me.

I agree. Also, asking the organizers in advance is as easy as posting a question here at AcademiaSE, so why not ask?

@fileunderwater Touché :)

It doesn't say anything about the timing. My question is: may I put it online on my own website before the conference? And if yes, is that considered bad style?

As long as it does not say otherwise I would assume timing to not be an issue. That is, you are free to put the paper online before the conference, and indeed (at least in computer science) this is commonly done.


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Unfinished math PhD
I had worked on my math PhD for 4 years before dropping out almost 2 years ago to lecture at a small college.  I basically finished almost all of my research but am having trouble finishing my dissertation.  This is in part due to the fact that my advisor turned out to be a terrible match for me and not very helpful at all.  I want to move up in my career but almost all teaching jobs require at the very least recommendation letters and unfortunately, I have not done a good job at keeping in touch with my advisor.  Does anyone have any advice for how I can try to re-establish a relationship with my advisor or maybe choose someone else to work with in order to finish?

If you are looking for a teaching position, the recommendation letter should address your teaching. So a recommendation letter from your boss or an established teacher in your college may be sufficient. If the position you want to apply require a letter of recommendation addressing research, an unfinished PhD is an issue to solve first.

Re-establishing a relationship with an adviser that you left is sort like asking your former boss for your old job.  There is certainly nothing wrong with doing that.  Just think about how you left things with the adviser, perhaps recognizing and owning where you got off track and offering a plan to move forward.  Even if you believe that the problems were that of your adviser, it is best to avoid those issues.  Show that you are interested in completing your dissertation and self-motivated -- that is, that you are really prepared to move forward and will be independent to the extent possible.
If this doesn't work, then looking for a new adviser is certainly warranted.  However, I think the path of least resistance is probably to patch the relationship with the adviser with whom you had worked.  I guess you just want to communicate that you have the time and motivation to get it done, and that you will not be a burden on her or his time.  Because you are in a teaching position with a presumably heavy teaching load, it would be good to really take stock of the amount of time and energy you have for completing the dissertation.  You don't want to re-establish the relationship only to discover that it is way too much for you to complete.


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Should I contact the EIC for additional information regarding his decision on my paper?
I just received the feedback from the Editor-In-Chief that my paper has been rejected for publication in this high-ranking journal.

There are several concerns raised by one of the reviewers. Therefore, it would not be possible to accept this paper for publication.

Based on the reviewers' comments, two of them seem to be in favor, as they raise no "substantial" concerns (they raise 5 and 4 points, respectively), i.e. their findings are mostly of a cosmetic nature (rephrase that, elaborate this, color the figures differently, correct a spelling mistake), and their recapitulation of the work is more precise than that of the third reviewer.
Now the third reviewer raises 6 points of concern. 4 of them are very valid remarks, however, they are not fundamental problems, at least, I don't perceive them as such, because they are easily amended (by at most 2 sentences each) and present no conceptual fallacies, i.e. as I see it, the particular parts are not clear to the reader and need additional explanations and more appropriate emphasis. The fifth concern addresses the structure of the paper, the reviewer proposes another ordering of the sections. The final point states the need for a discussion, which I indeed drafted, but chose not to include in the paper. It is not irrelevant, but it is not crucial for the problem, solution or background and could possibly distract the reader from the focus of the paper. In addition to space constrictions, this discussion was left out before submission.
Between submission and the decision, there was a change of the Editor-In-Chief at the journal. This might be the reason the review took longer than usual (10 instead of 6 weeks). Perhaps that could even influence the accepting policies...
After the first review, I'm used to getting rather harsh comments, either rejecting the paper or proposing another review cycle, it doesn't matter. The important part is usually that I get meaningful feedback about my paper and improve it. In this case, however, the reviewers' comments resemble something I would expect after the second or third review cycle, i.e. something that I can alleviate in a morning.
The problem is that I don't understand the reason for rejection. Even when I address all the reviewers' suggestions, I would still feel that nothing crucial has changed. Furthermore, when rejected, I can't submit the same paper to the same journal. I obviously intend to submit the paper to another journal. However, before doing so, I consider emailing the Editor-In-Chief and asking for more information regarding his decision. As things are now, the reviewers' comments state neither fundamental fallacies which imply that the paper is of low scientific value nor point how I could realistically improve on it. Is this a good idea?

I would correct the mistakes and submit somewhere else. Since your paper is already out of the editor's sight (and mind), she probably does not want to go back into it. Of course, you can write a polite email and ask but I doubt you will receive any substantial input.

In many journals with high impact factor the editors will be biased towards papers that will bring in more citations. This means that some papers which are scientifically sound will be left out. While this is ideally done during editorial checking, if the editor is unsure he might send the paper for review to get the referees to comment on its (insert euphemism for "bring more citations" here) before making a final decision. If the reviews did not convince the editor this might be the reason he decided to reject the paper.

I have never been an EIC but I have spoke to some, I have been a reviewer of many papers, and I have had the similar experiences as you described.
It is probably useless to further inquire about your paper. The EIC decision could have been based on the private communication channels of the review process. The reviewer might have been lukewarm about your paper - maybe it was not a case of a substantial error but that the result was uninteresting. It could also be the case that the new EIC did not have the time for a careful consideration of your paper, of balancing the different reviews and based her decision on the less positive one. EIC are usually very overloaded and some of them explicitly use the rule of deciding based on the most negative review. If it is any of these two cases, you will not receive any further information from the EIC regarding your paper.
My personal experience is that I was only able to change a EIC decision once, when the negative review was reasonably detailed and I could show that some of the  main points made by the reviewer were 100% opposite of what was already written in the paper. The other occasions where I asked for more info or criticized what I thought was a wrong interpretation of the paper, I would receive a polite answer that the decision was made.
Now, I wait a week until the frustration and the anger of how "dumb is this reviewer" subsides, make the the changes I think are reasonable and send to the another journal.

The editorial board's job is to keep out the worst papers, keep in the best papers, and make some (sometimes subjective) decision on which of the remaining to publish and which to reject.
Note that it does not include helping your write your paper better. (Note that while good referee reports often do provide sufficient feedback for you to revise your paper accordingly, the main goal of the reports are to inform the editorial board to allow them to come to a decision.)
EICs being busy as they are generally will not bother to carefully respond to requests for more information: all the info they can provide to you are already provided to you. It is possible that they made their decision in part on confidential reports by the referee to the editorial board (yes, most journals I referee for allow me to write a few sentences in private to the board that the authors don't get to see), and so cannot reveal that to you. It is possible that they are just so backlogged with submission right now that anything negative will cause them to reject.
You are much better off finding a somewhat senior person in your field, show him or her your paper and all the referee reports, and ask for his or her opinion. Chances are one of the following is true:

There are certain things that the referees wrote between the lines that you didn't quite understand yourself, and with this explained you can figure out how to much improve your paper.
There are nothing strictly wrong about your paper, but maybe you were too ambitious in your original choice of journal (importance/sexiness of results and so on), and the senior person can point you to a more appropriate one.
The senior person can, in an unbiased way, agree with you that your paper should not have been rejected, and that the EIC made a mistake to reject you. Then you just pretty it up and submit it to the next journal.


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How to decide between sending paper to a specialized journal or to a journal with broader audience?
I work in mathematical physics. Typically, papers in my field are either published either in general math journals (Annals of Math, Transactions of AMS, Proceedings of AMS) or in specialized math physics journals (Communications in Math Physics, Reviews in Mathematical Physics, Annales Henri Poincaré, etc.) Personally, I have had papers published in both types of journals. Yet I don't have a good sense whether a particular preprint should go to a general journal or a specialized journal, so I usually just pick at random.
What are the factors one thinks about when making a decision between submitting to a specialized journal and a general journal of similar quality?

I tend to think that in most cases, the specialized/broad dichotomy is not very relevant. The most important point is to send it to an interested editor; if the most relevant editor for a paper happens to be at a general journal, you will often be better of sending your paper there.
I would consider two exceptions to this principle. First, top specialized journals are usually less reputed than top generalist journals, so if you get a truly impressive result, you may want to get the best of it by sending it to a top generalized journal. Second, some generalist journals will turn back papers that seems much more specialized than the average math paper (e.g. when the basic objects you study are unheard of by most mathematicians).

I don't care how important the journal is or who the editors are.  The question is do I read it, or do the papers of relevance turn up in it, or do the most relevant/sympathetic authors publish in it, which means there will be relevant/sympathetic reviewers.  Publish in the journals where you see the most similar papers to what you are proposing, in approach, scope, length, depth, etc.  It is appropriate to publish short papers on new results quickly in the more specialised transactions, and longer papers that draw together work and provide introductions to a broader audience in the more general journals. If the work is interdisciplinary it is appropriate to present it for different audiences by retargeting to a new journal.  The more ground breaking the research the more important it is rather to see what journals publish novel research as opposed to bandwagon research. If none of the reviewers understand it, a reputable venue will not publish it (although often they won't admit the problem is theirs).
But in general the story goes like this...
research --> journals that publish that research --> most appropriate journal for your research --> target that specific journal
In other words I think you have it backwards - you choose the venue and then target the paper to it.  I develop repositories of knowledge for my own use (somewhere between a collection of notes and thesis-like treatise).  Sometimes I publish these as a Tech.Report. but the idea is not to publish on the growing body of work, but to draw on it as it grows to target papers to particular venues (workshops, conferences, transactions and journals).
I regard general journals as the least useful kind of publication, and workshops as the most useful kind of publication, with a funnel type progression to a proper journal paper (which I my field are typically 50-100 page papers whereas the other three typically have 6-12 page papers).  In the internet age, the most important thing is to publish in places that provide or allow open access, and most readers will come from a search process rather than by subscription to the journal.  Subscription journals are dead - they just don't know it yet, although the publishers are scrambling to get you, your employer or oterh sponsors to continue to pay them in a paid open access model.


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Branching out into a new research area
I'd like to move out of my comfort zone and do research on a topic that I know very little about, but is closely related to topics I have published papers in. Specifically, I have an idea from some of my previous papers that I think can be applied to this new area.
The trouble is, I don't know what the community in this new research area considers interesting. The literature in this new topic is vast, and I don't know anybody who works in this topic.
I have gone to Mathscinet and tried tracking down what seem to be the important papers in the area, and I have cold-emailed people whom I think are the experts in the field for help finding references related to my idea (I have gotten one response, which was very helpful).
Nevertheless, I still feel my understanding of this topic is very shallow. I think my idea, if it works, would be interesting to people in this field, but I am not confident in my ability to connect it to previous work and to explain to the community why they should find it interesting. (I am not concerned with the possibility that my idea has been worked out before, I have reasons to think this is very unlikely)
This is the first time I am venturing this far away from the topics in my PhD thesis, so I am not sure if there is more I can do to familiarize myself with this new field. What do the rest of you do when you are preparing to do work in a new, unfamiliar research topic?

Presumably this is in maths?

@henning yes it is

One bit of advice (in US academia) is: achieve tenure before trying to change your research area.

Be sure you read the relevant articles you can find so that you know what has already been done. Then go to the relevant conferences and see if you can talk one of the senior people into giving you 15 minutes for a discussion of your ideas over a cup of coffee -- and if that turns out to be productive, see if they are interested in collaborating in a paper. You will likely do the majority of the work for the paper, but the senior co-author will make sure you stay on the right track, and point you at other papers that you may have missed by yourself. He or she may also introduce you to other researchers in the field who have thought about connections between fields such as the one you have in mind.

What do the rest of you do when you are preparing to do work in a new, unfamiliar research topic?

If you are at a university where there is some institute that roughly deals with the general field you are interested in, just pay them a visit. I have always used such opportunities to get in touch with people from (thematically) further-away institutes. Even if they cannot help you now, you have established a contact that may prove useful in the future, when there is another opportunity for collaboration - either directly with you, or by someone else in your group who is interested in a given topic.
In any case, if you do not actually know the other institute, it does not matter much who you talk to first - just pick any one of the researchers there whose general field seems to be related and ask them which one of their colleagues you'd best talk to about topic X. They will then either forward you to someone who is proficient about the topic, or recommend a way how to obtain some information from external sources.
In my opinion, it is only after you have established such a contact that it makes much sense to read papers about the new topic. Otherwise (at least if the new topic is truly in an unfamiliar (sub-)field), too many aspects are usually unknown to you to find a worthwhile selection of papers to read: You do not know the primary venues, nor the signs that a venue is highly-regarded in the unknown field, nor the conventions of what is considered "thorough" or "exciting" in that field etc.


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Do policy papers count as research papers in a cv?
In the fields of International Studies or Politcal Science is very common to read and write policy papers, or analysis, rather than research papers. Do they have the same weight in a cv? Are research papers considered more relevant and serious than policy papers?

I disagree with the close votes on this question, unless they are coming from political scientists.  I believe this is a place where the differences between fields are significant, and am looking forward to reading answers.

Most policy journals are not peer reviewed in the same way that research papers are, but many people will put them in their "Publications" section of their CV nonetheless, so long as they are on a research topic. Furthermore, the length of the article and the reputation of the outlet matter a great deal. The more widely read and highly respected the outlet, the better. Also if it is long-form, 3k words or more, that is closer to a research paper.
The gold standard for high-quality policy papers are Foreign Affairs and Congressional Quarterly. Most departments would consider publications in those outlets similar to a research paper,and you are going to have to put in nearly as much research, to get a hit there too.
The best way to tell if it is as good as a research article is to see if well-respected Associate Professors in your sub-field are publishing in that outlet. Full Professors can publish wherever they want, and Asst. Professors may not be able to get it in that outlet. Associate professors don't want to squander their reputation, which they by then have.
A general rule of thumb:
FA, CQ - As good as Research Articles in most cases
Regionally or topically focused outlets like The Diplomat or Army Magazine - Only as good as a research paper if you are regionally specialized, otherwise see below
2nd Tier Policy outlets (Atlantic, Foreign Policy) - As good as research at lower ranked institions, but probably not at a top 20+ institution.
Think Tank Pieces (Including RAND's journal) - Great, if you are looking for a policy job, or at a policy school, otherwise, see below.
Niche Policy outlets (National Review, Mother Jones) - Most schools will not think too highly of these, but still not nothing. Grad students with this on their CV might not have a hard time with it, but unless it is really on your research topic, faculty should steer clear.
Opinion pieces (newspapers, public magazines, blogs) - Anything that is less than 2k words probably goes here, by the way, as is just about anything published online only. Do not put these on your CV, unless in an Op-Ed section, or you are desperate and want people to know you are desperate
As with everything there are exceptions. Articles that are excellent summaries of your work or are very closely tied to your research may be worth including at your discretion.

That's very interesting. To clarify, it sounds like to get a paper published in one of the publications you listed one still has to go through a competitive review process of some sort, except that instead of peer-review it's the editors who decide by themselves what gets accepted. @ThePompitousOfLove, is that correct? If that's the case, I would argue that the editorial review serves exactly the same role as peer review, so it's effectively the same thing by a different name. In particular, it makes sense that such papers count as publications.

@DanRomik That is essentially correct, and why the quality varies so widely. FA, for example, has the editorial backing of CFR, an entire organization with dedicated experts in most related fields. As such in house editorial review is nearly like a peer-review. Similarly, they never have to accept submissions to fill space, as there is always plenty to publish. The closer you get to the bottom of the list, the further editors are from subject matter experts, and the more 'media' like the work becomes.


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Is it necessary to understand every detail of a research paper?
I am currently an undergraduate thinking about doing a Bachelor's thesis (and publish one or two papers if at all possible). I have found an advisor in computer science (artificial intelligence). I have begun to review literature suggested by my advisor. Most of the times I can understand the general idea of a paper (and why it is novel or important). However, very often I can't understand all details of it. Sometimes it is the lengthy math proof that I can't follow and sometimes it is the algorithm description that lacks too many details for me to code it up by myself.
So is it necessary or recommended for me to figure out everything in a paper? I can certainly ask for advisor all questions I have about a paper but I do not feel good about it. I think it is a kind of wasting his time to go through all mathematical details that support a major claim which I have already understood. Also I want whether this aspect of literature review is different if I am an undergraduate vs. PhD student vs. professional researchers.

I disagree with the close vote here since this issue is relevant to students and professionals at all levels of research.

Related, but not duplicate: Do you need to read a whole article before citing it?.

Necessary for what?

I would posit that there are three general levels of depth to which you need to understand a paper:

Understanding context: For anything related to the work that you are doing, you need to be able to understand it well enough to explain how it relates to your work, and why it should or should not be directly compared.  This is the "general idea" level that you describe.
Direct comparison with other work:  For work that is closely related to your own work, you will likely need to be able to make a direct comparison, possibly even by running instances of the other work on the same problems.  Here, you need to understand at least well enough to correctly apply the other work and to make a cogent comparison of the relevant qualitative and quantitative attributes.  You'll probably need to understand most of the paper for this, but not necessarily all.  For example, you might not need to understand the proof of an algorithm's correctness, but would need to understand its uses and performance characteristics.
Building on top of other work: For work that you are actually making use of in developing your own work, e.g., by using it as a component or by extending a prior technique, you need to understand it very thoroughly indeed.  This is the level at which you really do need to understand everything in the paper.

This depends on how the paper is related to your problem. Since this is a Bachelor thesis or project I would assume it has a specific problem and doable in couple of months (maybe over one semester or so) and the results hopefully would be published in one research paper.  For example, a learning algorithm for structure X.  Usually, the number of directly related papers to your problem is very small compared to the number of related papers. So all you need to do is to try understand (in this case the algorithmic part) of one or two directly related papers. You know you understand them if you explained their similarities/differences and write their algorithms in your own way.
If, on the other side, your problem includes proving something then you need to look for how the paper proves something. Advisors are there to help you when you stuck. Moreover, many papers can be understood if we read about their techniques/terms from other sources. For example, a constrained learning algorithm cannot be understood without knowing what is constraint satisfaction/optimization.
I always find it useful to start writing the content of my research paper (at least the section names) before having the results. If my paper is going to be a mathy one then I need to understand the mathematical stuff out there. If not, I would skip long mathematical proofs.
In short: i) start writing the content of your paper ii) you will see the gaps iii) read the papers content that would fill the gaps.


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Inventors on patent regarding research results
In our research institute, advisors give phd students a lot of freedom and sometimes are not so much involved in the research. This was also the case for my latest research project. I gave him some demos every now and then to show my progress and another phd student helped me out a bit with making some examples and nice figures. However, I came up with the initial idea and step by step made the necessary decissions to come to the point where we are now. We are now in a phase where my advisor and the university want to patent my research and we are discussing all the possibilities with people from the legal departement. However, in all documents the other phd student + my advisor are also mentioned as "inventors". Wheras I'm quite sure that according to the laws related to being an inventor on a patent, they are officially not an inventor of this research project. The research that I did is quite applied so there is some chance that we can make some money with it in the future (selling it or starting a company). The university states that the inventors get 30% of all the profit that comes from the patent. This means that I would only get 10% since we are with 3 co-inventers. Also when I would start a company that does something with these results I would still have to give them some of the profit whereas they did not do something significant in the end.
When I look at researchers at other universities, I notice that it is quite common that all the authors on a paper are also the inventors of the patent that is associated with it. I can imagine that for most of these cases all the people involved at some innovative contribution which makes them a legitimate inventor. On the other hand it is also quite hard to say to your advisor that they should not be an inventor on the patent...
Is this an unspoken rule at many universities that advisors and co-workers are also inventors on a patent (similar to authors on a paper)? Is someone having experience a similar situation? How should I bring this up to my advisor and co-worker or would it bring me into more trouble when I would start this discussion?

People can be listed among the 'inventors' without getting a share of the royalties (like for physicians, for whom it's sometimes illegal to receive royalties). Apart from that, I think a polite discussion about who should be inventor is definitely a good idea.

Do you have a co-authored paper related to the patent with these people?

There is indeed a paper with all 3 of us on it, but it will not be available before the patent is finished filled. But rules for being an author on a paper are not the same as the laws for being an inventor on a patent.
Especially in our institute it is a hard topic since also on research papers they often put other professors on them before just to please them.

@EnergyNumbers From the beginning my advisor put all three of us as inventors in the documents, emails. We dont have the patent yet and are in an early phase so now is the moment to discuss this stuff if I ever want to bring it up.

@DonBatist tangential to this question, adding coauthors that did not contribute to papers is definitely a problem that needs to be addressed. This is not the way academia works. If caught, this can cause serious problems.

At least in the U.S., there is federal law regarding who can and must be named on a patent.

First of all, your legislation is what counts. Patent law differs substantially between legislations. The remainder of my answer is based on the situation in Germany - but similar rules may exist for your legislation.

Is this an unspoken rule at many universities that advisors and co-workers are also inventors on a patent

IANAL, and I'm not even totally sure about the situation in Germany, but I'd look for spelled out rules in

the "employee invention law" (Arbeitnehmererfindungsgesetz)
if you are employee as well as PhD student: your work contract or the relevant collective wage agreement
you may have signed a contract for your PhD that has relevant clauses, e.g. stating that any invention you invent is treated as "academic invention" regardless of whether you are also employee of the university or not.
If you are PhD student but not employee (e.g. paid by a scholarship), things may be totally different.
If you are in a research institute which is not part of a university, rules again can be different (industrial invention rules instead of academic invention could apply)

I found a web site dedicated to "inventor's compensation" (in German and for Germany).
They explain rules to estimate how much the invention the inventor's own invention and how much the company contributed (influenced e.g. by whether you used the university lab + instruments, and by your profession: how much of an inventor you are expected to be due to your profession and job).
This website explains that for you as well as for your (supposed) co-inventors, a point value (according more or less to a check list plus some common sense) should be calculated, and the percentages of co-inventorship are then calculated as percentages of the sum of all co-inventors' point values.

The fact that "all the authors on a paper are also the inventors of the patent that is associated with it" probably protects you more, otherwise an unethical supervisor could easily do the patent by himself behind your back.
On the other hand, wanting to remove the other co-authors from the patent is probably unethical on your side. In any case, you would have a hard case proving that this was entirely your idea when you have co-authored the related paper and cooperated on this project from the beginning. Also, if indeed your patent is that good (which unfortunately most aren't) you will still make a lot of money, regardless of 10% vs 30% (since the bulk of the money will still go to the university).


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Looking for a good repository for academic drafts
I'm currently submitting my CV for Ph.D positions and internships at research labs. I have one publication already, and I am currently in the process writing my Master's thesis. I would very much like to attach a hyperlink in my CV to directs to my thesis since it is more telling of the work I've been doing than say my publication. I'm wondering if there is exists a "version control" paper repository, similar to say the way Github works for software developers? What I mean by this is a place where I can upload improvements to my thesis without necessary making it publicly available (it can only be accessed via the hyperlink). My reason for doing this is fairly obvious. I can actively make improvements to my thesis after I have submitted the relevant documents, which the committee members viewing my dossier would later see. Does anyone know of such a resource?

Files in your public dropbox folder fit your criteria.

@DavidKetcheson Thank you! I don't know why I didn't think of this.

I recommend Zenodo or figshare, with a preference to the former. Check my relevant answer for details. Those solutions are better than Dropbox, Google Drive and similar solutions in many ways, including built-in version control, potential for social interaction, discoverability and DOI assignment, which makes your materials easily citable.

@AleksandrBlekh Can you share by link only on Zenodo (see my comment to Jeon's answer)?

@FedericoPoloni: Sure. For example, I can share via regular link or via autogenerated DOI link, which redirects to the same resource. Disregard the name of this particular resource, which is messed up a bit, but so far I haven't had the time to spend on figuring out this issue with my GitHub release management.

@AleksandrBlekh But that is a public document. It will be found by a search. If I read correctly, OP wants the document to be private and accessible to the world only via the link.

@FedericoPoloni: Both Zenodo and figshare offer restricted access (I haven't tried it, though) and/or private workspace. In addition, figshare offers private link sharing. Either of options/features should solve the problem. By the way, I just discovered that figshare also offers DOI assignment and, even, reservation, in addition to other nice features. Having said that, I still think that from a long-term perspective, Zenodo is a better option, as it is a not-for-profit organization, funded by EU and uses extremely solid IT infrastructure of CERN.

@AleksandrBlekh I tried out Zenodo and it's confusing to get what I want. How do I update my already uploaded document?

@user119264: I'm sorry to hear that. However, I won't be able to help you beyond my general advice (it's been a while since I used it and I have used public workspace then). You would have to figure it out - I doubt it's rocket science, though (plus, you can always ask specific questions here or other relevant SE sites, read documentation, check their forums, ... - you know the drill :-). Sorry I couldn't help you more.

@user119264: I decided to briefly refresh my memory on Zenodo's functionality. I submitted a primitive test document via main UI (not GitHub integration) and tried to update it. I don't see any versioning functionality for directly uploaded documents. Thus, it appears that the only way to achieve your goal (hosting of research documents with update and versioning functionality) in Zenodo is to use its GitHub integration. Unfortunately, I don't have time to play with it right now, but you should be able to easily try that and share your results with us. Good luck!

If you are familiar with LaTex, use it with git.
Edit and mess around with paper on master branch, and push some good, meaningful and confirmed improvements on your work into release branch.
If you need a repository private until you decide to make it public, use Bitbucket or GitLab, instead of github. They provide free private repository. When you finished your paper, you can change repository settings to public.
I am not sure whether Diff-ing PDFs---your previous and current paper---is easy problem or not. But you can choose a solution among several: pdfdiff, DiffPDF, pdf-diff, diff-pdf and etc.

You can set up your own git repo with controlled access using gitosis.

-1 because it looks like you misunderstood the question. OP knows about github, and they are looking for a way to make the thesis not public nor private, but reachable only via a link that they put on their CV.

All three provide hyperlink of raw files. Get a raw link of a single file, and shorten with goo.gl, bit.ly or something.

@vonbrand: I would say that self-hosted versions of the de-facto standard Git services are better solutions. I'm talking about GitHub Enterprise (very expensive) or much more affordable (and even free for the most of GitHub functionality) GitLab.

@Jeon That won't help -- if a file is public, it can be found by other means, too (e.g. the github search box), and it will be indexed by Google.

I don't understand. Is there any considerable reason that public repo should not be indexed. One workaround is to separate LaTeX source repo (private) and PDF repo (public). Another workaround is use self-hosted git and block non-human bots from accessing public repo.

@Jeon OP doesn't want a public repo. OP wants a private repo to which they can give access to selected people by giving them a hyperlink.


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Why do some journals allow their papers to be open access for a short period of time after publication?
Some journals upload their accepted papers for public viewing shortly after the papers were accepted, examples of this include J. Math. Phys and Cell Systems. What's the reason for doing this if the journal needs revenue?

I don't know about either of the two journals you specifically mention, but in math things like this are sometimes done to attract more high quality submissions to the journal to raise it's profile, particularly for new journals, since academics generally like open-access, and it can be a selling point when choosing a journal.  (From what I remember, with new journals what I sometimes see is that the journal is open-access for its first couple years.)

I would suspect that they do that to attract some attention to the new articles. Once the attention has been established, they put them behind the pay wall.

They may have other ways of generating income. Also Open Access 'advertises' their publications so why shouldn't they be placed out there for everyone to read and learn from.

other ways of generating income – And what would that be?


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Question about leaving supervisor
My supervisor is going to leave to work at another university before I finish my thesis. I'm not sure how this process works. Will this cause problems with me graduating?

Your supervisor should be willing to help you facilitate the change to another person in the department, possibly his replacement, or another staff member who is already established.

... or finish supervising you from the new place. In any case, he should have an idea how to transition his current students.

@Compass there's is no one in my department whose research is even close to my supervisor's area.

@xLeitix can you elaborate on that? I'm not sure how this process works. Can I be supervised by a member of staff from another university.

@user119264 That depends on the rules of your university, of course.

And how did your supervisor answer this question?

This is a fairly common situation, but there are lots of ways in which it can be handled.  A lot depends on the specifics of your situation and how well your advisor and your current department are getting along.
One important issue is the source of your funding.  If you're currently funded by your advsior's research grant, and that grant is moving with your advisor to the new institution, then it is may not be possible for you to continue being funded through that grant as a research assistant at your current university but it might be possible to continue with that funding at your advisor's new institution.
On the other hand, if you're currently funded by institutional or departmental sources such as a departmental teaching assistantship, you might be able to keep that funding where you are but it would not be possible to take it to your advisor's new institution.  However, it might be possible for you to obtain some kind of institutional or departmental funding at your advisor's new institution.
There are three common ways in which this handled:

The student continues at the advisor's old institution and the old institution allows the advisor to continue to supervise the student as an adjunct faculty member of the old institution.  The student ultimately completes the degree at the old institution.  This works best if the student is close to completion and has funding that is independent of the advisor's grants.
The student transfers to the advisor's new university and completes the degree at the new university.  This typically works well if the student is supported by the advisor's research grant and if the student is not very far along in the graduate program.  The new university would have to agree to accept the student into their graduate program.  The new university may have different course requirements and the student might have to repeat prelim exams or a candidacy exam.  Foreign students would have to get a new student visa.
The student remains where they are and switches to a new advisor.  This works best for students who have departmental or institutional funding and aren't very far along in the graduate program.

You should talk to your advisor about how he or she wants to handle this, and you should also talk to your department chair or the head of the graduate program to get the department's position. You'll also have to think about what you want- what's best for you may not be what your advisor or department wants.

Funding is not really an issue since my research is in mathematics. My funding comes from being an adjunct tutor/teaching assistant. I think the first option would be best for me. Because I'm almost finished and the research I do is wholly unique my supervisor. Besides,  the new university he is transferring to is across the world and wholly inconvenient for me as well.

Is it possible to mix options 1 and 2, where you add a co-advisor at your current institution but continue working with your original advisor remotely?

@RogerFan yes, that might be an option.

Transferring from one program to another doesn't necessarily require a new visa; it requires a transfer of the SEVIS record to the new institute and a new I-20 form for the student

@Drecate yes, that's a more specific answer.  The point is that this isn't a completely trivial process and it could delay a student.

This covers all the situations that I have personally seen over the years. Within a year of graduating, you stay and finish up. First year - you might switch to another group. In between, you can move to the new university with some assurances that your coursework and passed qualifiers from the old will be honored by the new (or your adviser should be shot for not negotiating that!). The professor who is moving really wants the core of the group to come and set up the new lab (which might not be in your interest, mind you).

Will this cause problems with me graduating?

First, I recommend to discuss with your supervisor how their departure might affect you.
Things to bring up:

Whether s/he can (and is willing to) continue supervising you after transferring to another institution.
The process for identifying replacement supervisor: Whose responsibility is this, and will your supervisor assist in some way? Can they recommend one or two colleagues they think would be a good fit for you and interested in your thesis topic or research area?
Potential difficulties you or the supervisor anticipate that could increase your time to graduation, and steps you could take to prevent such issues.

The answer to your question also depends on some of the following:

How far along you are in the program and into your thesis, and whether the new supervisor is receptive to the work you have done already

Note: This assumes current supervisor is unable to continue playing this role from another institution. This may not be the case, but some programs require that the committee chair/supervisor be a member of the same department.

Whether the new supervisor will be receptive to your thesis ideas, methods you have or plan to use (work done so far), or if they have some concerns that would involve re-work.
Personality fit with new supervisor: This is an important factor. Think about people with whom you had or can easily imagine having some conflict or communication difficulties, and try to avoid getting them assigned as your new supervisor.

Instead, think of who you see yourself working well with in terms of their work ethics/supervisor style, e.g. would they micromanage you or expect perfection, will that benefit or impede your progress, etc.
Lastly, I encourage you to think beyond graduation itself. The supervisor can be a key resource for furthering your career upon graduation. If you are in Master's program, their connections can decide your fate in terms of where you end up for your PhD, should you choose to go for doctoral study. If you are already in PhD program, their connections and your relationship with them could play an important role in securing a job after graduation (perhaps even one of your top choices). So I encourage you to think a little longer-term and consider how that person can contribute to your professional development not just to the extent of graduating but becoming a potential mentor for years to come. Good luck!


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Should I list memberships that have expired on my resume
I was a member of the AMS in 2014, but my school had cut funding for 2015, should I still list I was a member in 2014 on my CV?

In my opinion, this information is not useful on CV in the first place. How does paying money to some organization make you a better mathematician?

@BorisBukh it shows interest and commitment to a lesser extent. It's fairly commonplace, as I've seen to include societies one is associated with to be listed on one's resume.

@BorisBukh it ultimately depends on what the organization is. For example, IEEE dues pay for magazines and typically provide you access to literature in the CS field.

I see no benefit in listing expired memberships - it only encourges people to wonder why you didn't pay to renew your membership when it expired. If you are a mathematics student, the more important question you should ask yourself is whether you should be an MAA member and list that on your vita - it depends on the type of school you are looking to apply to.

When you did some work for the organization (e.g., organize a local conference or chapter meeting), you can put exactly that (e.g. 'co-organized annual XYZ regional meeting in 2014').
When you have built up a network relevant for the employer through the organization, you might also list your membership.
Otherwise, leave it out.

It depends on the target of your résumé

If the company is (uninformed) and (uninterested) you get no
particular advantage for putting that. Then, why putting that?
if the company is (uninformed) and (interested) you could win a small advantage by doing so.
If the company is (informed) and (uninterested) see case 1
If the company is (informed) and (interested) then they will ask you during the interview, and feel deceived when you tell them that this is a contact that they will not be able to take advantage of. So it's a loss on your side and may harm your chances of getting a job.

I cannot see a clear win in putting that, so I would remove it. Maybe being member you went to a conference, or shared some presentations to them, or did something for them. Focus on that instead.