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Good questions for post-class survey
In order to get feedback more quickly, I've seen some teachers run a quick (certainly no more than 5 minutes), entirely optional, anonymous survey for students at the end of each of each class, meeting, or session. The idea is to get feedback on what is working and what isn't on a per-week basis before mid-term or end-of-term evaluations. What are good questions or prompts to use on a survey like this?
For example, I am currently planning to ask something like:

Any feedback on the BLANK? (e.g., was it rewarding, challenging, about the right about, etc.)"

Where BLANK will be the readings, lecture, and discussion for the class session. I will also ask a general question like:

"Any other feedback or things you think I should know?"

+1 for the detailed question. Actually, the survey questions you propose already look good to me.

5 minutes = quick?

I've changed it "certainly no more than 5 minutes." Less is great!

I remember when they introduced university-wide standardised evaluation questionnaires. There's a whole science behind designing such things; an ad-hoc solution is probably bad, however reasonable it may seem to any non-expert (in designing questionnaires).

My class sessions each had a lecture and a period of time devoted to discussion. As a result, I ended up using a Google form with the the following four questions each followed by a text box:

Any feedback on the readings? (e.g., was it rewarding, challenging, about right, etc.)
Any feedback about the case and/or the other class discussion?
Any feedback on the lecture? (e.g., about the right length, too dense, etc)
Any other comments, ideas, questions, concerns, or reflections?

I sent a link to the survey every week after class and kept it online so that students could fill it whenever they liked. All answers were anonymous.
About half the class filled it out the first week and there was decreasing numbers who did so in subsequent weeks. Since I used feedback to make adjustments to the class over the quarter, this worked out just fine. I felt that the survey was successful enough that I plan to ask it again, in exactly this form, in my class this quarter.

I've always used the following in ALL of the classes I teach:

What did you like most about quantitative basket weaving? [free text]
What would you most like to see changed for quantitative basket weaving? [free text]
How valuable do you feel your time has been in quantitative basket weaving? [1-10]
Do you have any other comments about the module?

To these I will often add 3-5 other questions which I'm curious about. Sometimes it is to test the waters on new things I'm planning on trying with them or future classes.
The key is to keep it short. ~5 minutes is way too long. If you take more than 1-2 minutes of students' time, you are very unlikely to get many responses.
I usually ask these questions at mid-point and after the final class. However, if you want more frequent feedback, I'd suggest the "one minute paper" where you ask two simple questions (paper, electronically, whatever fits):

What do you think is the most important thing you learned today (or this week)?
What did you find the most difficult point to understand?

One minute papers are useful for constant course corrections while the earlier questions are more to find out how to change the design of the module next time (or next half).

The K12 definition of this is an "exit ticket," though it can be used effectively at any educational level.
Skim this article from Brown's Sheridan Teaching and Learning Center for ideas?

3 things you liked the most in X.
3 things you liked the least in X.
Other comments.

See my answer on How to improve myself as a lecturer?.

This is good, but generally I'd phrase the second question as "3 things that could be improved".

@DaveClarke From my experience phrase "that could be improved" is restrictive (it is to us to decide which things can be improved).


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How to calculate total GMAT score?
The maximum possible score is 800.
Divided by sections:

AWA: maximum is 6 (from 0 to 6);
Integrated reasoning: maximum is 8 (from 1 to 8);
Math: maximum is 60;
Verbal: maximum is 60.

If to summarize these maximum results in each section then we will have 134, but not 800.
What is the right way to calculate total GMAT score?

The total score (which ranges from 200 to 800 in 10-point increments) is a scaled combination of the quantitative and verbal scores.
There is no official "right way" to calculate the total score because the official conversion scale has not been made public. You can find various unofficial (estimated) conversion scales around the Internet - e.g. here, here, and here.

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Leaving academia for financial reasons - how to communicate the reason of departure in a professional manner?
I recently finished my PhD and continued to work at the same department as assistant professor. Amid lack of funding, and other academic joys, the department went an extra mile to procure my contract and I was assigned to interesting longterm projects. So from the academic perspective I should consider myself very lucky (most people fight for an uncertain short postdoc position), and the conditions for work are quite good in comparison to other departments in the field.
However, just a few months into the position, I decided to leave academia altogether, exclusively for financial reasons. I always accepted some pay gap in comparison to the industry, but recently I run into a few former classmates from undergrad, visited their companies to discuss collaborations, but suddenly ended up in getting a few job offers in comparison to which my current position looks quite inferior. The difference in the salary leaves me no option but to accept one of the offers. Also, since this happened I became quite demotivated to work.
I am expected to start in a few months. What would be the best communication strategy to my department? Considering that they did quite a lot, and I am in a position which looks perfect to them.
Unfortunately stating upfront the financial reason would be awkward and probably not understood, as talking about personal finances in most academic settings is frowned upon, and there is a culture which expects people to be happy with the academic salaries.

In my humble opinion, telling the truth is the best way even you'll be frowned upon. No offence intended, you must accept the consequence for the decision you make.

I would add to @scaaahu 's comment that (at least in the US) leaving academic and nonacademic jobs for better offers after a short period of time is relatively common.  Some colleagues will be upset and some will be understanding.

Have you actually signed a contract with the new job? Without a contract everything is just talk and talk is cheap.

Currently I do part-time risk-assessment to pay for school; I know my math professors could probably do this stuff in their sleep, but since they've spent their lives teaching people like me, I'm not even sure they make more than I do. I applaud you sticking around for so long. There is honor in the Academic's Vow of Poverty, but no shame pursuing the American Dream either.

Remember to crack a joke about the forces of corporate darkness on your way out though.

Would you do better to remain for 1 or 2 years, then get even better job offers?    E.g. get some experience that lets you go into a "normal" job at the level of a team leader?   Also consider what any pension etc is worth to you.   Also consider travel and housing costs depending on the location of the job.

Unfortunately stating upfront the financial reason would be awkward — Honesty is often awkward, but still necessary.

it's country dependent but "They offered me far far more money" doesn't seem like an unreasonable reason to leave. You're not a monk. You're allowed to have hopes and dreams for your personal life. Discussing personal finance may be frowned upon but they all know that most of them wouldn't be there if they weren't getting paid.

"The difference in the salary leaves me no option but to accept one of the offers." - Assuming you can live from the academic salary and aren't continously on the brink of poverty, this "justification" is none. - Academia doesn't make people rich, you don't stay in it for the money. Yes, people have to live - and without a wage that you can live from I can't see you or anybody else staying in academia, but outside of that, money is not the prime motivator for anybody in an academic positon.  (Aside from maybe the odd "high flying" professor or people in upper management of the university.)

I think you are doing others a disservice by NOT mentioning the pay gap as the main difference. Management may never think there is a problem if no one ever says anything about it.

"I am leaving the department because nunya"

@HannoverFist While you are technically right, it is highly unlikely that anything would change. The universities in the UK could do with at least 20% more staff - do you think anything changes? Of course not.

@DetlevCM I see your point, and money indeed shouldn't be a prime motivator, but I cannot agree when the gap is too large. Especially in the case when the (much) higher paying position requires less work and less hours.

@HannoverFist, that works only in industry. Unfortunately in academia salaries are pretty fixed and there is not much room for negotiation.

Do you have teaching obligations? If so, communicate now. The department needs time to adjust for your leaving.

@Joe443 That's how it is and it is unlikely to change - even more so given the continuous decline of science and education funding. (Apart from lighthouse projects where the money seems to misteriously vanish... - or at least no-one outside of management/the professors knows where it is going)
Academia cannot pay higher wages even if it wanted to, because it does not have the funds to do so.

"The difference in the salary leaves me no option but to accept one of the offers" the offers have not lowered your salary, if it was enough to happily live on before it is enough to live on afterwards. It is awkward to express your reasons because the truth is, the difference is greed. I think it is generally well understood that academia pays less and that people have made the choice to be there for other reasons.  It is fine if that choice isn't right for you.

@JamesRyan normally I would agree with you, but what if the academic work requires double the hours for half the pay... I don't think it's a good choice for a (rational) reason.

@Joe443 I'm sure the ratio is much higher than that for a lot of fields

Express that you have enjoyed working in your department. (Even if this is not entirely true.)
Explain that you are only leaving because of an opportunity "too exciting to turn down." Don't volunteer exactly why it is exciting; if asked, talk about what you'll be doing, not what you'll be paid.
If there's a way you can help the department while you're in industry -- serving on a committee, helping with accreditation, accepting an intern, things like that -- it would be kind of you (though it is not obligatory) to volunteer unasked.
Keep your resignation letter short and cordial.

These tactics should suffice to keep your departure as amicable as it can be, assuming you're doing the normal things to minimize disruption (e.g. not leaving mid-term).

Points 1, 2, and 4 works for any situation, not just academia. Succinct, appreciative, and direct.

@djechlin: I disagree. The OP mentioned that the department had gone the extra mile for them. While one shouldn't feel obligated to pat the department's back in return (certainly not as part of leaving), I think it would do well to keep doors open. If you've got a good relationship with people in academia OR industry, it often pays to maintain those contacts. Internships and accreditation help with your own brand and reputation. Lastly, a big perk to employing a PhD grad is that they are well-connected, and can thus offer the company some additional think-power from their friends.

This is exactly the answer I was looking for. Thank you.

@djechlin Fair point; edited my answer to reflect that.

Winston Churchill, or perhaps it was Benjamin Disraeli, wrote: "Never apologise, never explain."
It is sufficient when resigning from any employment engagement to simply state that fact together with the effective date.  A cordial thanks for the opportunities afforded at your present position together with an expression of appreciation for the colleagues that you have encountered there are customary when appropriate and are best omitted when not.
There is no requirement to provide any further details whatsoever. Offering vague platitudes respecting 'other opportunities' in their place simply state the obvious and often prove more awkward for both the writer and the reader than anything else.

I've found a short explanation is better than none.  For example, "a deal I couldn't refuse, and exciting project with great pay" goes over a LOT better than no explanation.  Give people something they can identify with.

Most people appreciate some kind of explanation.  Perhaps you don't owe them anything, but they're still human beings, and they have helped out in the past.  It's decent to give them a bit of explanation, it will make them happier.

It is my experience that most people change jobs for a number of conflated reasons.  No one reason predominates except perhaps in retrospect.  I deeply suspect that had the OP been given a tenure track position that the impetus to consider other opportunities would have been much diminished if not altogether absent.   In my opinion this is the crux of his desire not to reveal the 'real' reason for leaving.  It is not about the money in the end. This is really about the uncertainty of his future.  In these circumstances the less said the better.

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Should I send an email to the journal to ask about a submission 4 months ago?
I submitted a manuscript in December, and it was assigned to an editor in March. It went under review and one reviewer report was ready in late March. I have been waiting for the last two months for the other reports to come in and for a decision, but yesterday the status changed to "editor invited." Does this mean that they changed the editor and are inviting new reviewers as well? Should I send an email to the journal to inquire about this since it has been four months and if they can't find an editor/reviewer then maybe I should resubmit to another journal? Thanks so much for the help.

Yes, ask the editor. There is no way to know what is happening unless you ask. But over several months, large organizations have personnel changes. Also, early reviews might have indicated that someone else might have been a more appropriate editor. There are lots of possibilities.
But, after four months, you can ask for a status update.
And, don't submit to another journal unless you withdraw the paper from the current submission. I'd guess withdrawing and resubmitting elsewhere is suboptimal since you would be starting the process over again with several months to wait for a decision.

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Research proposal and research project
I'm an undergraduate student
I wrote in my research proposal that is was going to divide the outcome variable into mild, moderate but now when I'm writing my research project I found that I have to divide into another additional group which is severe, which in this case will be 3 groups.
Do I have to say in my research project why I chose to divide into severe group as well? For example
I should say like this:
We decided to divide into another additional group which is severe, we changed the method because we found that it's necessary to divide into this group as well.
Or I should just write we will divide into mild, moderate and severe without mentioning what we wrote in research proposal?

The proposal was based on early estimates of the likely outcome. That may have been quite informal and even naive. But the research showed that there is a likely broader range of outcomes.
The best report should mention the history, giving the original hypothesis and, perhaps why you chose to state it that way. Then you write about how the actual data didn't fit that scenario and that it had to be modified.
The complete picture can be valuable to a reader. As an undergraduate the analysis can also be valuable to your own understanding.
Another reason for doing it that way is to avoid a charge of fitting the hypotheses to the data, rather than validating/refuting the hypotheses with the data. Leaving out the early conception is a bit too pat.
An extreme position might even require that you revalidate a new hypothesis on new data. This would be necessary if the data was gathered under invalid assumptions driven by the original hypothesis. But for undergraduate research that is likely overkill. But it might be needed in some studies that have policy implications or implications about health and such.
And, your professor probably has good advice for you, given that they know a bit more about the project.

thank you very much for your response.

sir is it good if I write it this way: in our research proposal we divided into mild and moderate but we decided to evaluate the students who are at severe group as well. So we divide the groups into mild, moderate and severe.

You might be better saying a bit about why you made the change.

thank you, but I have as well to mention the word proposal ?

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how to share my research to maximum people across the globe?
I found something very novel during my Ph.D. and we have published this finding. However, many people don't believe in our work and it has been a year since I published my paper but I found very few groups citing this work. Scientists from renowned institutes are writing commentaries about the false belief that they have had for over more than 50 years. I feel really disappointed that people are occupied with fixed beliefs and the media gives full coverage to their research. They are spreading wrong information and this information is being taught to students during their school life. All textbooks in biology keep on talking about that belief. Though I am not the first one to discover something novel in this field but my research has provided evidence that the discovery was not cooked up. I believe that my research although very basic will change the course of this field. One such example is the discovery of the process of neurogenesis in the adult brain. Initially, people didn't believe it but later a simple experiment using BrdU proved that neurons are regenerated in the adult brain.
Please guide me on how to convince scientists around the globe. Can I send links to my papers to them so that they can read and repeat the finding? Will it give a negative impression? Please tell me how to spread awareness.
I am not the first one who made this discovery but the evidence provided by my study will significantly contribute to the current understanding of this process.

To address this question in a good way, could you answer the following: (a) Is your research actually published in a good reputable journal? Papers in not-so-great journals will get unnoticed if there are contradictory paper in high-ranking journals (as the latter's quality standards are normally higher). (b) Is there are a particular reason why you write about "beliefs" on a scientific question? If there was a dominant theory before that your paper disproved or showed to be highly implausible, then say so. if not, then....well, are you sure that you have a strong point?

My research is published in stem cell reviews and reports which is a good journal with impact factor of 6. But contradictory papers are published in nature. I want to disseminate latest advancement and request scientist to follow our protocol and see if they can find what we have found. Secondly, I am more than 100% sure that my findings will add to latest advancement in the field and it will lead to re writing of textbooks.

@mini: After reading your question and your comments so far, I strongly suggest that the very first thing you should do is to realize that beliefs and rhetorics are not useful to convince other people in the sciences. You say that you "strongly believe" and that you are "more than 100% sure" - but why should anyone care how strongly you believe something or whether you say your are sure about it? If you want to convince others of your scientific results, this "I strongly believe and am very sure" rhetoric does yourself a great disservice.

I totally agree with you and I will be very careful while presenting my work. But I have found evidence to support my finding. I also agree that others should repeat the findings.

I have found specific structures in mice which scientific community has long questioned. So, it's not about cheap idea. My paper gives answers to the arguments raised by the scientific community using confocal microscopy and live cell imaging. I also tracked cells using brdu to prove that they are proliferating. I have also used FACS to sort cells and transplant in mice. So it's not that basic. What I mean to say is that lineage tracing provides the best answer to the problem.

You should be always keeping in mind the possibility you are simply wrong. I have to disagree with DCTLib here: the implicit belief in that you are not going crazy and are able to reason properly gets challenged in situations like this.
Now, let us assume you are certain that your study is properly done and convincing enough to challenge the existing body of work in your field (how does your experiment compare to those that established this notion? Are sample sizes sufficient? Are alternative explanations ruled out? - answers to those questions should provide you with good opening arguments). In this case, you disseminate your results like any others - through your network, by attending relevant conferences and, possibly, directly contacting other researchers.
Bugging others to read your papers would most certainly give a negative impression, especially if it is an unsolicited contact. There are different types of events where researchers allocate time to absorb new ideas, use those. Give your talk a catchy title. Argue with people. Grow your network. If your research undermines key assumptions made by big papers in the field, do more research on these "hot" topics using what you have learned and make sure your theory offers a better explanation of experimental results observed by others as well. Good luck.

Thank you but I have done basic experiments first. Then, used my imagination to unravel this process. I am pretty sure that my findings will prove true one day. Secondly, I read all the criticism , others made about the discovery and I have answered all those questions  in my paper. Unfortunately, we don't have lineage tracing facility in our lab. Otherwise, we would have used that technique. I also strongly believe if some reputed lab with good infrastructure repeats our experiments carefully, they will definitely find what we found and using advanced techniques, we can convince the world.

Unfortunately, as they say, ideas are cheap. If you find yourself in a situation where you are resource-starved to do great research, well, you are not the only one. I would suggest looking out for an opportunity to travel to a lab with good infrastructure and work there first. Either way, you (in a broad sense, as in, your lab) would probably need to secure funding for either expanding your own facilities (hard) or using someone else's. If even your lab is not fully on board with it, you have to sort that out first.

I have found specific structures in mice which scientific community has long questioned. So, it's not about cheap idea. My paper gives answers to the arguments raised by the scientific community using confocal microscopy and live cell imaging.  I also tracked cells using brdu to prove that they are proliferating. I have also used FACS to sort cells and transplant in mice. So it's not that basic. What I mean to say is that lineage tracing provides the best answer to the problem. I also strongly believe that imagination is more important than knowledge as is said by einstein.

Upvoted, but I don't see where your answer goes against my comment made to the original post. Perhaps you refer to "are you sure that you have a good point?", but that was really not a rhetorical question, but rather the request for an answer with a line of reasoning that helps answering the overall question "189735".

@DCTLib I've referred to (b) specifically, yes. Sorry for misunderstanding; you were right and I was overthinking it. There is a place for beliefs in in scientific research, but only when all the earlier steps were rigorously done. I have indeed jumped to "what to do if you know you are right", while you seemingly were angling for the OP to provide their reasoning so to help to work on it if/as needed.

Even when assuming that you are correct, this takes time. Consider how long it takes you to go from an idea, to a draft, to a published paper. Most references will be from the time of idea generation or before - thus your paper can only be cited in those studies that have been started within the past year. Textbooks are even worse, they can take years to write and rewrite. And of course you don't want to make a big point in a book that hasn't been confirmed by anyone else.
In the meantime: give talks, go to conferences and research groups that might be interested or work on similar topics, and present your ideas/findings, and discuss them with those people.


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What should I focus on before starting a research internship?
I am a MS student. Recently I changed my topic and started working in quantum computation. I am  working on consequences of closed timelike curves. I was given a problem by my guide on the same topic. I right away jumped onto the problem without strengthening my basics of quantum information/computation. Yet after reading few research papers related to the topic I got the broad idea, though I could not get concrete results (I have few broad ideas on how to approach the problem, but I am stuck now). This summer I will pursue a research internship under a professor who is interested in related problems. Before going to the internship should I spend time strengthening my basics (as I had a lot of trivial questions while reading the papers) or should I focus on figuring out the solution to the problem?
This is my first time as a research intern and I don't know what the professor might expect of me: an almost complete solution to the problem or strong basics plus some ideas on how to approach the problem?

Why don't you ask the professor?  Presumably, that is the only person with first-hand knowledge of what they will expect of you.

@Kimball yes. But i wanted to get a general idea.

You should always make sure your basic understanding is at a very good level in any research project, particularly in the sciences. An important part of science and mathematics is being able to communicate your ideas in very simple terms. I think Einstein said that "if you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it well enough." If all you can do is prove things but not explain what the results really mean or how they connect to the basic components of your field, then you're not really doing science or math - you're only shuffling around symbols on a page. It's a bit like a computer: computers can prove things about math (automatic theorem provers), but would you say they're doing math if they don't understand what it is that they are doing? All they do is shuffle symbols around and come to conclusions based on basic axioms inputted by the user.
This isn't to say that you shouldn't pick away at the problem immediately. You should maybe poke around and get an idea of how things go but if you are put on the spot and asked a basic question and you can't answer it, you'll look like you haven't done your due diligence. You're always going to have some gap in your understanding, even at the fundamental levels, but that doesn't excuse not having any understanding of the basics.
Here's another take: if you end up solving the problem you're given, your professor might ask you to write up a paper on the work to be submitted to Journal XYZ. If all you can do is explain the steps you took but not connect it to the things the reader knows, your paper will be completely dead in the water and will likely get shrugged off. A good paper has good results. A great paper has a very good narrative with good results that is very clear and understandable. Even if you don't write the introduction yourself, throughout the paper you will naturally connect results or ideas back to things others have done ("Our approach relates to this work by [authors] in such and such ways," or "Employing a common technique, we have..."). If you don't have a basic understanding of the things in your field, you can't make this connection for the reader (which forces them to hopefully come to this realization themself). This is not a skill you should expect to have immediately; it takes time to learn and hone this skill but it is an important aspect of paper writing.
A personal anecdote/cautionary tale: I started on my current project a few years ago in undergrad. At the time, I had a very rough understanding of advanced mathematics. I knew enough measure theory and functional analysis to vaguely understand ideas and basic proofs but not enough to know what are acceptable procedures and what are not. I neglected the basics - not because of my own doing, but lack of proper supervision - and ended up too focused on my project. It's a bit like putting blinders up: you won't have any understanding outside of your project and can't properly judge the validity of what you're doing. I was rearranging integrals like it was going out of style because I didn't know that I couldn't do that in my situation due to skipping the basics. I ended up with results but they were not acceptable proofs by any means. Since I was so focused on my project, I ended up not having much of an understanding of the basics and looked like a deer in headlights when people asked me about the basic, very technical details of the mathematics I should have been using. Since then, I've more than made up for all of those deficiencies but had I not unintentionally neglected the basics, I wouldn't have wasted so much time (read: years) doing stupid things that were not valid at all.


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How to efficiently proofread my own mathematical paper?
The main purpose of this question is to collect some advices to efficiently proofread my own mathematical paper (when there are two authors or more, it is easier since one is supposed to read what the others write). When we write mathematics, there are a lot
of not so minor mistakes we can make:

We omit to introduce a notation.
Non-uniform notations.
A sum should stop at n+1, not at n but the last term is not important.
Etc...

Of course, we would like to limit the number of such mistakes in order to save the reader's (and referee's) time.

One possibility is to wait a long period of time in order to "forget"  and read what is written, and not what we have in mind. Although "hurry for publishing" is very bad, we cannot always wait a lot of time (thesis defense, applying for post-doc/permanent position) and we would like to make the process fast.
An other possibility is to send a draft of the paper to a colleague. But he may be busy and not read too much into details. Anyway, when we are alone to write a paper, we would like to send to the colleague a document without too much typos and mistakes mentioned in the beginning of the question.

I am not sure there exists any single "recipe" besides being as precise as possible on every technical term/arguments and having patience.

In addition to the strong answer from @Emilie: read the paper out loud to someone.

Similar topic: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/46586/how-can-i-proof-read-my-own-work-more-effectively?rq=1

A general technique, applicable not only to mathematical papers, is to list common mistakes, such as the one you noted. Then, you do a revision of your paper for each item on the list: reading only to look at uniformity, reading only to look if you introduce all notations, etc.
I've picked up this tip in the following book and it has worked well so far.
The book also suggest to reduce the familiarity with your text, so you might be able to read it as a "new" reader and thus find mistakes or parts that are not clear. You could do that by putting away the manuscript for a few days/weeks, printing it, changing the font, etc.

Another general technique to reduce familiarity is to read backwards.

Besides, if there is time, a break can help, i.e., not to look at the paper for a weekend, a week etc, longer the better, doing something else, and then reading it afresh. This context switch can help remove the bias of something having known already.

For long papers, one thing that I have sometimes found helpful is to generate a random list of page numbers, and read check those pages in the indicated order.  That somehow reduces the problem of excessive familiarity.
Another thing that can be useful for some kinds of papers is to code all formulae in Maple (or some similar system) and check them by automatic simplification or by substituting random parameters.


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Stating surprise about another researcher in my talk
I will be giving a talk in a research seminar in mathematics in a couple of weeks. During this talk, I'm planning to present one particular result of mine which shows that a certain method introduced by another researcher several years ago is quite limited. This limiting result is really simple and I cannot believe that this researcher did not notice when writing their paper.
When presenting this work to my colleagues at my own department I expressed my surprise during the presentation quite bluntly.
I cannot go into much detail but given the structure of the paper in question I cannot imagine that they were not aware of this fact at the moment of writing the paper. To me it rather seems that they omitted this limiting result to make their paper seem better.
How should I behave at the research seminar at a university I'm only visiting where I don't know the faculty that well? Can I also express my surprise there or would this be considered bad etiquette? Not sure if relevant, but some of the people there might know the researcher in question better than they know me.
Edit to address some comments/answers: First of all, thanks for all the helpful answers, they really give me a new point of view. Secondly, I wanted to mention that it was not my intention to criticise another researcher in public. I was (and am still) honestly surprised about both my result and the other researcher. I learned from the answers that others could misinterpret my intentions and will therefore only mention facts. Thanks for that!

A very relevant piece of information here: where are you and the other researcher in your careers? I would hesitate to advise a graduate student to emphasize another researcher's professional failures, even when the student is right (specifically: think twice, while early in your career, about giving others the impression that you are more interested in criticism of other researchers than you are in your own work). I would also be somewhat uncomfortable advising a senior researcher to emphasize the short-sightedness of a graduate student's research unless you suspect academic fraud.

I guess you mean that they failed to state some hypotheses/assumptions.  Quite possibly is was a simple oversight in the writing, or they say this, just not in a clear way.  (Sometimes it's hard to ferret out the exact assumptions an author is making.)

Something the answers have not addressed yet is that there is a chance that it was clear that the method is limited, and this was simply not stated as the method was simply used to achieve something rather specific.

A good rule of thumb is this: If you ever find yourself saying (or thinking) "I cannot imagine X", chalk it up to a failure of your own imagination and nothing more. One's inability to imagine a thing has no bearing on that thing's likelihood.

An associate encountered a similar situation. Suffice it to say that depending on where you are in the world, such challenges can get very complicated very quickly.

When I was a PhD student (computing, not maths) I was surprised to discover errors in a proposed standards document. I consulted an experienced colleague, whose advice was: that paper was written by highly experienced people. They know that everyone makes mistakes all the time, and they will be delighted to have the errors pointed out to them. Your surprise is only because of your lack of experience.

In today's connected world, why don't you privately contact the researcher and politely ask what _they _think about your result? Maybe it was so obvious that they did not care to waste more time. Maybe there is something you are missing. Always note that what you consider as research could be quite trivial to others.

Talk about the work. Stick to the facts.
Clearly and bluntly stating the limitations of a result is fine, but criticism of a researcher during a research talk is completely inappropriate.  Your expression of surprise could be taken as criticism of either the researcher's ethics or their competence, neither of which is appropriate to air in front of a research audience.
Whether the researcher is junior or senior is irrelevant.  Whether the researcher is known to your audience or not is irrelevant.  Criticism should be delivered privately.

Great answer, upvoted. The headline really nails it. However, I think there are circumstances when it might be appropriate to discuss a researcher’s ethics and/or competence in a public talk. To be clear, those would be fairly extreme and rare circumstances, and OP’s situation doesn’t come close to justifying such behavior, so your conclusion in the case at hand is 100% correct.

Besides this excellent answer – sticking to the facts is quite often a good guideline – I would like to add that the appreciation that some approach is very natural or obvious all depend of ones identity as a researcher. It is one of the many reasons why researchers need to talk a lot one another!

There's also a huge difference between "obvious" and "obvious once you see it".

Good advice for any discipline for any talk, paper, poster etc.

This is fine:

one particular result of mine which shows that a certain method introduced by another researcher several years ago is quite limited.

These are not:

I cannot believe that this researcher did not notice
I cannot imagine that they were not aware
it rather seems that they omitted this limiting result to make their paper seem better.
express my surprise

This is borderline inappropriate:

This limiting result is really simple

In short, show, don't tell.  What you express should be backed up by your results. If it's simple, they'll see that by your work, you don't have to say, "This is simple," or "The other researchers should have seen this" - whether they did or did not is irrelevant to your work.
If you happen to have tested for "surprise" or "Other researcher should have known" or "other researcher omitted information" then present the research and let it speak for itself.
You, however, do not need to editorialize on the subject, and certainly shouldn't be adding your own emotional elements or assumptions to your work.
Present your work, and only your work, and back it up with your research results.

When in doubt, stick to discussing the work. Don't try to make any assumptions or claims about what the other researchers did or did not know or do. That way, you can't be accused of trying to go after another researcher, which isn't helpful to anyone, and certainly not young researchers just beginning their careers.

Would it make any difference if the topic was of fairly wide interest and the faulty result had been accepted because of the authors reputation? That would make the OPs result a surprising one, the audience would be feeling surprised, and the OP might want to acknowledge this and reassure them. There would be both respectful and disrespectful ways of doing this, of course.

Like I said, comment on the work by itself, and leave any discussion of the researcher out of it, if possible.

Your surprise is irrelevant.1 People are in this talk to learn about your work and where it fits within the context of your field.
Present the facts, your proof/argument, conclusions and context. If that surprises others too, so be it. But, let them get there on their own.

1. It might even be a result of naivety on your part. Maybe the limitations of the previous work are obvious to the author and many other people in the field, and maybe it is actually not surprising at all that somebody else (you) has filled in the gap.

Or maybe the OP is wrong and the OP's result is wrong and they're going to make themselves look foolish.

My biggest fear! I wish I had OP's confidence sometimes.

Either way a potential catastrophe may be averted by simply asking. Asking the original researcher whether they are aware of a limitation, and  whether they think this could be one. Asking them to confirm the new analysis. That's how you learn. Not just telling them that they're stupid and have "obviously" missed something big.

Personal attacks undermine the credibility of your own work. Academia is already teeming with vendettas and squabbles that go more than skin-deep. Keep out of it, both for the sake of your own advancement and the dissemination of your work. God forbid that someone in the audience sees or knows something of the problem that you may have overlooked and calls you out on it in front of everyone else.
It is possible to underscore the limitations of the previous findings by illustrating with a counterexample. If the mistake is as flagrant as you say, the counterexample should be striking in its relevance and simplicity. For instance,

Lamarckian inheritance does not explain why the children of very tall parents tend to be less tall, rather than as tall or taller, than their parents.

Call the researcher and ask him/her what they think about x. When you get the answer, you can relate what he or she told you.


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How to publish proof of something if the academic level is lower than expected and cannot publish to a journal or a conference?
I am an undergraduate student with an interest in Computer science, so recently i have discovered new concepts and algorithms related to patterns and simulations (i.e biological simulations & computational models simulations), and how they can be related easily, extremely easily to mathematics in a way that it would envolve a single rule of (1+1=2) and it would take forever to fully analyse and understand all the possible outputs (all the biological & computational simulations) based on that simple rule.
So i have read about similar ideas that exist today (suppose we name it X), it took about (3) well-known physicists and mathematicians (20-30) years to introduce (X) and be accepted in the literature, mainly (X) is based on  two important topics in computer science (Turing machines & Self-replicating machines) these two topics can be considered as the core idea of computers, so like any other researcher i wrote the ideas explaining every detail neatly and revised it more than (30) times then contacted (3) journals about it and they refused to publish although they said and know that the ideas are novel, new and applicable ...
I went to contact some professional people in the field, they still suggested me to submit it to a journal or present it in a conference, so i went for the second choice, they replied "the proofs and ideas in the research paper are true but you can't present something that is not in your area of expertise and even if it was, you still can't because the different academic level between the presenter and the audience, it would be suitable to publish it in a journal", so here is my problem: As an undergraduate, i have a valid proof of something, how to publish it ? So,
1) I have contacted some related journals and they refused.
2) I have submitted the paper to a conference and they refused.
3) Contacted professional people and refered to option (1) & (2).
What's next to do ? Also, this seems to be on-the-edge situation, but i know there is one more thing i can do.

Did the journals give any reason for refusal? There could be many reasons a paper is rejected from a journal, but it doesn't always mean that it cannot be published. I think it is a strange reason for rejection from the conference, although I am not in Computer Science. I have been at conferences where inexperienced researchers presented (even undergraduates) and this wasn't a problem.

Undergrads do present in conferences. Some of the best presentations I saw were done by well prepared undergrad students...  Specifically in CS, this shouldn't be a problem. Funding to pay the costs in the other hand... Do you have an advisor? (Did you try serious conferences, that have double blind revision?)

@ mj4 All of the three journals required the submission with the CV so there was not much to put inside it and for the conference, it is really one of the respectful conferences made every year and normally you would compete with a majority of Phd student or graduates to take 20 minutes in the conference ...

@FábioDias funding is fine for me, for the advisor: i have looked over my university but could not find, even from computer science department + i went to other universities behind, about 3 universities but there was not an actual person with the same interest, seriously i could not find one.

@Henryakpo, I don't think any good journal would reject a paper because of a limited CV. However, not meeting the submission requirements (format, length, style, quality of writing, etc) could lead to rejection. I would suggest showing your draft paper to a friendly academic in your department (even if they don't have the same interest). They should at least be able to help you through the submission process and comment on the suitability of your paper for a particular journal.

I'll second mg4w's suggestions. The process itself isn't trivial or easy and experience is necessary... Almost any professor would be able to help you in this, preferably from a related field, since you already tried the specific field itself.

@Henryakpo I work with models in biology and computer science, and both your description of your work and your story are very difficult for me to comprehend.  I suspect you are communicating less clearly than you think you are and may be misunderstanding some basic things.  I would strongly suggest that you start working closely with a professor or other scientific mentor, who can better help you navigate the publication process.

@mg4w well one of the journal is a reputal journal for 14 years and over 24 volumes published in total of 625 papers published, they mentioned to submit the cv with it so that what really happen, for the draft paper i showed it to 2 of my professors and i got the ok to publish it thourgh a journal, lastly for the suitability of the paper to the journal, i was able to easily take any paper from the 625 publications and relate it  simply to my research (my ideas).
@ fabio, i tried and as i mentioned before i have showed it to two of professors (both in CS) and i got the ok to publish.

@ ja yes, that's wht my two professors who advised me to publish it in the journal said after it got refused, and for clarification: i am publishing a research about a new cellular automaton structure that shows universlaity by simulating Elementary Cellular Automata (all the rules) & rule 110 easily, in addition to simulation of Conway's game of life from the same structure with a real application of Cellular Automata of Solving mathematical equations like quadritic equations, generally polynomial equations.

More over, the research is about a simulation of Pascal's Triangle, sierpenski's Triangle & also some solutions to (Twenty problems in Cellular Automata Theory, by stephen wolfram).

If your paper is written similarly to your question and comments here, then that would be grounds for rejection.  Has your paper been carefully proofread to eliminate misspellings, run-on sentences, etc.?

you still can't because the different academic level between the presenter and the audience — This is simply incorrect. At least in computer science, if the result is novel and interesting and the paper is well-written, nobody cares whether the author is a full professor, a PhD student, an undergraduate, or a high school student. Are you sure this is what they said? — they mentioned to submit the cv with it — That is really terrible advice.

Question: Is the "second choice" reply in the quotes above (a) actually a direct quote, (b) a paraphrase, (c) a translation, or (d) something else? I note that it's a run-on sentence (among other things), and seems unlikely to be received as a reply from actual conference organizers or journal editors.

Also: What country was this in? Perhaps the customs are altogether different from what's expected in U.S. academia, for example.

contacted (3) journals about it and they refused to publish — I don't understand what this means.  Did you submit the paper to three journals and they rejected the submission? If so, then they would have given you a reason for rejection.  Or did you just email three editors and ask them if they'd publish your paper?  If that's what you mean, then of course they refused.  You have to submit the paper for a thorough technical review before any journal will publish it; that's just how the system works.

I will echo @jakebeal's skepticism about your results themselves - I would suggest having a long, serious, and honest discussion with a professional mentor about the novelty and importance of what you've found. This is important both for presenting your ideas, and deciding where they should end up - I certainly have thoughts that I know don't "rate" $TopJournal.
That being said, there's nothing about being an undergraduate student that would present you from publishing in a solid journal. For example, as an undergraduate working in the field you described, I published in several solid journals. There's nothing that would stop a paper from being published just because the author is an undergraduate.
You've said you've contacted several journals and conferences, and they've refused - have they said why? Have you spoken to your mentors to make sure your paper is actually submission ready - the process is non-trivial, and important even if your findings are genuinely important. What you should do next, if you're genuinely interested in moving your finding forward, is to talk to people in the field, make sure the idea is ready to publish and that you've got a solid notion both of its importance and how to "sell" the concept to an editor, and then proceed from there.

Assuming that your findings are modest, there are undergraduate and graduate journals as well as student conferences organized by your peers. I would suggest that you look at those venues.
If you do think that your findings rise up to the level of the professional journals, then I would try to find a better advisor who can guide you through the process of selecting a more appropriate venue.


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How to politely inform potential PhD supervisor that I must wait before responding to an offer? (Two-body problem)
I am a physics student in the UK.
A university (university A) has made me a PhD offer. The email from admissions was very clear that there is a 30-day time limit on this offer. As it happens I am likely to accept the offer, but do wish to take advantage of these 30 days. This is because my partner has also applied to university A, and their application is going well, we think it probable that we may both get offers from this university. However, there is a second university (university B) who has already offered my partner a place and will get back to me in 24 days.
In fact, we will both accept the first of A or B to make us both an offer. Perhaps this is not the best reason to chose a PhD place, but that is beyond the scope of my question.
The professor who would be my supervisor at university A has emailed me to encourage me to accept A's offer sooner. Clearly, I wish to remain on good terms with this professor, in case I do end up at university A. I'm not sure that telling A about the two-body problem is a good idea. How can I politely tell A that I will not accept yet?
Edit; I did inform A of my reasons for hesitating. Not only were they very sympathetic, they did their best to get my partner interviewed sooner, and helped them find an intern-ship with the relevant people.

Such situations are more common than perhaps you realize, and it would be perfectly find to inform the professor of your two-body problem.

I will respond with an honest explanation for my delay. If it has a noticeable impact either way I will leave a note here.

No. Bad idea. Don't unnecessarily give that information out. Might get a worse offer because they know your decisions will be co-dependent and that your choice is somehow limited.

@mathreadler fortunately my offer is already made, and unalterable.

But your friends offer may not be and people sometimes talk.

@mathreadler this is more of a concern, admittedly, however, in order for this to be a problem the staff at the university would have to work out who my partner was. As I mention in a comment on Bryan's answer, I think in this case that is unlikely.

Thanks for adding the update - I think that result supports the advice you got here from most contributors and will help guide people in your situation in the future. To add one more thing for other folks: remember a PhD advisor is a person you are going to be spending a lot of time with. Although there are a lot of reasons to choose a particular advisor, your life will be easier with an advisor who you can trust to have your best interests in mind in situations like these, and there might be more value in that than the prestige of an institution. Professors are people, too, good or bad.

@mathreadler most PhD offers have a fixed salary and conditions. There is no room for negotiation.

@Davidmh: Can vary by arrangement, but also if not there could be some other concern except for the salary negotiation.

In my opinion, since you are already accepted, there is no harm in telling about the two-body problem; if you end up going to University B, Prof@A.edu would likely feel better about that reason than some negative impression of them personally or of University A.
You are well within your rights to take the full 30 days to decide. Certainly not all professors are equally versed or sympathetic towards the two-body problem, but most have experienced it, if not personally, through their colleagues, friends, etc.
Ultimately I think it is your choice whether or not to explain your reasoning, but I would personally lose a bit of respect towards your Prof@A.edu if they were unable to accept you stating simply "My offer gives me 30 days to respond, and I would like to take that entire time to ensure I make the right decision for me. I will inform you immediately of my decision once it is made."

I can see what you mean about not really needing to give a reason, perhaps if I did reject A I would tell them about my ulterior motives at that point. I suppose I should mention that my partner is applying in the same subject as me, so I would not want to damage their chances, although it's unlikely that anyone could work out who they were anyway.

If your partner is applying to University A in the same field as you, and Prof@A.edu is eager to take you on, I don't see how that would affect their chances negatively, though there could be some unexpected or convoluted politics, who knows. I haven't heard of "spousal hires" for graduate students though for professorships it is very common for spouses to effectively apply together - in many cases, the simple odds of ever having two applicants independently offered a job at the same institution would be minute.

I would encourage you to tell your potential advisor, the department, your partner's potential advisor, and their department, about your situation.
I was in a similar situation (in the US), and not only were the advisors and departments sympathetic, they were actively supportive. They helped introduce us to other potential advisors, sought additional funding, etc.
In my situation, we had spent multiple years applying to PhD programs to find a good fit for both of us. In the first year, we did not mention the two-body problem to anyone until after the decision deadline. When I mentioned the challenges we were facing, one professor expressed regret that I had not informed the department sooner. He explained that they try to help in such situations, as it is often beneficial to the university to compromise on joint hires.
The following year, we were more up front about our two-body situation. We experienced no negative reactions and a lot of support. It took us an additional year to find funding for both of us, but we are now both in the PhD program at the same university.
Many academics have experienced 2-body problems. It is becoming more common in the US for universities to joint hire, and it looks like this might be extending to the PhD level as well. I would welcome commenters who can assess whether this is also true internationally.


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Communication & Networks v/s Signal Processing & Optimization - what area to work in?
I am an electrical engineering undergrad with an interest in communication theory, networks, signal processing and optimization. I have PhD offers from two groups - one working in communications & networks and another working in statistical signal processing, compressive sensing & community detection. How do I decide between the two? It is my opinion that currently communication theory and networks have become a mature field with not much scope for rapid growth or fundamental path-breaking research, while the work in the other group is quite more "in vogue" due to machine learning based applications and has the potential to solve more fundamental problems.
A comparison between the two areas with regards to future research and job opportunities would be great.

You are correct about the second group's research being more "in vogue," but don't discount the in vogueness of network research; in particular, distributed optimization of networks is quite a hot topic right now.

Topic is one thing.  An equally important factor is the supervisor.  I know of a big professor who let his senior students supervise junior PhD students. In other words, he doesn't interact with PhD students until they become competent.  They are others where students are 'thrown' into a group and students teach themselves -- no supervision. Yet in another example, a colleague of mine, who regularly recruits top undergraduate students, produces graduates with poor publications.  Another colleague graduates poorer undergraduate students with top publications.


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Is it plagiarism to use the same research method for similar papers?
I have to submit an original research paper for my Capstone. I was pretty excited about the topic and the method. However, I was gutted after finding a pretty similar paper which employed the same method in a later part of their paper - say, interviewing food delivery executives. They focused on the same city as me, and while their topic is aligned more to gastrogeographies during the pandemic, I feel worried that my topic is too similar.

You definitionally can't plagiarize something you weren't aware of.

A cornerstone of the scientific method involves replicating an experiment to see if you can reproduce the claimed results. This is grade school stuff. What made you possibly think that applying the same methodology would be plagiarism? Do you even know what plagiarism is?

This is unlikely. You can't plagiarize what is "common knowledge" and in many fields the general structure of the methodology is standard, well known, and common knowledge.
There can be exceptions, however, in which some methodology has unique characteristics. But if you cite such a work and use its ideas then you are protected against plagiarism.
However, you also need to be concerned about copyright infringement. You can't copy long passages from an earlier paper even with citation. It can still be an ethical violation when, strictly speaking, avoiding plagiarism.
In statistical studies, say, the methodology is pretty common. The novelty is in the questions asked and the importance of the answers. Even in math, many theorems use very similar techniques.
When in doubt, cite.

+1. Plagiarism would be if you do not reference that other paper.  Similar (or even identical) topic does not constitute plagiarism.

By definition, you cannot plagiarise what you were not aware of. A prior study with similar methodology may reduce the novelty of your work, but I doubt that's a real issue for a capstone project (it may be for a paper intended for publication).
Of course, if you copy how they describe their methodology it is plagiarism, but as long as you describe your approach and data in your own way there really should not be an issue. Reference the prior work, and ideally discuss and explain the similarities and differences, and your work will likely end up stronger than it would be if it were just a stand-alone study with no direct connection to the body of research.

Not plagarism.  This sort of thing is the foundation of proper science.  As long as you do your own work, you're fine.  It's a good thing to cite other very similar papers.  They can be inspiration for you to take a look at the topic yourself.  You could be trying to replicate what are in that other paper or disprove them.  Citing other papers is an important means of passing ideas around.  This is the essence of "standing on the shoulders of giants".


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Paper rejected as out-of-scope after submitting a minor revision
I sent my paper to a journal. The editor sent it for reviewing. I then received an email from the editor to congratulate me. I had have to revise the paper according to the minor corrections recommended by the reviewers. I did as requested and sent the modified paper to the editor.
I was surprised by reply from the editor that "your paper is not within the scope of the journal". Why didn't the editor reject the paper before sending it to reviewers, avoiding wasted time? Can I sue him for the this mistake that made me wait over a month? What do I have to do?

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/105065/what-should-i-do-when-my-accepted-paper-is-subsequently-rejected Does this answer your question?

Obviously, the editor did not do the editor's job well and you are rightfully upset. You can complain about the editor to the owners of the journal. For example, Elsevier has a complaint site. If the journal is run by a small entity, then it might take quite a bit of effort to find out even how to complain. But, in a case like this, the editor's judgement usually, but not always prevails.
Whether you can take legal steps is a different question. First, you need to have a tort, i.e. have suffered by someone violating your legal rights, or have had a broken contract that resulted in damages. The first seems impossible, and the second is at best debatable. One could argue that the editor did you a favor by preventing your article to be published in an unsuitable journal. Thus, showing damages would not be easy. Whether there is an enforceable contract also seems to be dubious.
Finally, even in the unlikely case that you and the editor are residing legally in the same jurisdiction, pressing a case would pose all sorts of difficulties. In addition, the other side is likely to have lawyers on retainer, whereas you would need to hire one. So, legal action has at best dubious chances and in any case, is difficult.

You answered and hit the mark. Thank you.

Not to say how badly suing a journal would look on you, even if you're (mostly) right.

Thank you for this advice


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Spousal hire for girlfriend in US university
I got a tenure-track academic offer in the US.
I am wondering how common/likely is to get the University to do a non-academic spousal hire for my girlfriend.
All the documents provided by my institution use the word "partner" which seems to suggest that it is not needed to be married.
Do you think that being married is typically an (unwritten) necessary condition?
Do you think that asking for help for finding a job for my girlfriend is only possible during negotiation, or I could potentially ask for this later?
Do you think it is possible, instead of getting a position for my girlfriend, getting a graduate school position for her?
If in the future we will break up, could this potentially affect my reputation with the department?
I guess most of these questions have an "official" answer and a "in reality" answer, but I would like to hear other people's opinion.

Keep in mind also the visa limitations of your options. US visas don't allow de facto couples to apply for joint visas. So if she wants to come with you on a permanent basis she will need to have her own work/student visa.

They employed you... That does not mean they must provide employment for a partner - but you may be lucky...

I'm guessing the documents you refer are for benefits, and generally will only allow "partner" to apply to spouse or some comparable legal status for same-sex unions.

I think the whole concept is rare in the US. I think your chances are just about nil.

This is a detail, but I wondered if English is your first language. If not, here's something it took me a long time to learn about English culture: marriage is still the norm in US/Canada (English part) and girlfriend/boyfriend refer mostly to short term relationship. Thus, when I talk about my boyfriend, I use the word 'partner'.

I am wondering how common/likely is to get the University to do a non-academic spousal hire for my girlfriend. All the documents provided by my institution use the word "partner" which seems to suggest that it is not needed to be married.
  Do you think that being married is typically an (unwritten) necessary condition?

Only your institution will know for sure, but it certainly does not seem unreasonable to ask. Given the wording I would be cautiously optimistic. However, visa might be a problem (as Herman mentions in a comment). The university maybe does not care much about your relationship status when finding a position for your partner, but they may care about having to sponsor a visa (this costs additional money).

Do you think that asking for help for finding a job for my girlfriend is only possible during negotiation, or I could potentially ask for this later?

You should get all discussions about benefits (and spousal hire is a pretty major one) out of the way during negotiation.

Do you think it is possible, instead of getting a position for my girlfriend, getting a graduate school position for her?

Assuming your girlfriend is reasonably qualified finding a graduate school position is probably easier than a regular job. However, an additional challenge may be if she would like to attend graduate school in your own department - then conflict of interest rules may kick in.

If in the future we will break up, could this potentially affect my reputation with the department?

Unless "in the future" is like one month after coming to the US, I doubt that the department will care very much.

+1, regarding partner/marriage, I'll add: I suspect (many) universities to avoid discrimination based upon relationship type. (This will certainly be country specific.) But, perhaps I'm too forward thinking on this. As @xLeitix writes, only your institution will know, so ask.

For the last point, I think it's important to consider the seriousness of the relationship. Given OP is asking, I'm a bit concerned that this might mean the relationship is less developed than warrants asking a university to pull strings for (alternatively, OP could also just be refreshingly pragmatic).

@BryanKrause I would leave this decision up to OP (and, I guess, so will the university). If it's important enough for him to bring up in a negotiation, it's a serious relationship to him. Also, every relationship (even a marriage) has a non-trivial chance to go south in the foreseeable future, especially if a life-changing event (like a move to a different country / continent) is in the mix.

Do you think that being married is typically an (unwritten) necessary
  condition?

Only at universities with a religious affiliation.  Secular universities will not care.

Do you think that asking for help for finding a job for my girlfriend
  is only possible during negotiation, or I could potentially ask for
  this later?

There are only two situations where you can request something expensive (like a job for your girlfriend) and have a chance to get it:

Before you agree to take the job.
When you have been offered a job by another employer which is better than your current job.

The chance of success is not so great because your girlfriend's salary will be very expensive.  It depends on the institution's needs and the number of other credible job applicants.


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What criteria need to be matched to be able to distribute a research article openly?
Distributing articles that are not freely available can get you into trouble. However, it is important to share and distribute knowledge.
If you are not sure about whether or not you are allowed to distribute scientific work (be it yours or from others), what are the main criteria that need to be met so to be sure that you have the right to share an article?

Under what conditions you are allowed to distribute a scientific work are governed by the licence terms under which that work is made available. Most often journals or repositories of other research outputs will have clear indications regarding reuse, redistribution, etc. Often, all rights will be reserved by default and only certain rights for reuse/redistribution, if any, will be explicitly stated. If no specific rights are stated then you have no rights to reuse/redistribute.
In order to distribute a scientific work where no rights are automatically granted you are required to contact the copyright holder to request those rights.
This is one reason why Creative Commons licences were developed; so that authors of works can be explicit about what reuse rights they allow so users are not forced to individually contact creators to request rights.
Even when a work such as a dataset may not have copyright protection in the strict sense (e.g. facts), it may well have database rights protecting the specific compilation of the data into a whole. It is important to request permission, especially where you are unsure of the restrictions that might be in place.

If you are not sure whether you are allowed to distribute scientific work, and not willing to take any risk, you should either ask the authors or the publication venue about their distribution policy.
E.g. for ACM, the rights are stated on their website: http://cacm.acm.org/help/copyrights-permissions/

@MarcCouture Thanks, very useful resource indeed!


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How to respond to an editor's post-review comments suggesting major changes I'm not willing to make?
I submitted a paper (in applied mathematics) to a journal about a year and a half ago. I received the first feedback from the Editor in Chief about a year later (the reviewing process for this journal is usually long): the two reviewers were positive and suggest minor revisions (clarification, typos, etc.). At this point, the EIC wrote me that he would keep his comments for the next round of reviewing.
The second feedback came 6 months later. The two reviewers replied very shortly, saying that their requests had been satisfied and one of them recommended publication overtly.
At this point, the EIC wrote a lengthy set of comments on the paper which can be roughly divided in two categories:

On one hand, revision of typos, clarification of some paragraphs, etc., that the reviewers had missed.
On the other hand, he commented on the theoretical framework used in the paper, saying that it was unnecessarily complicated and hoping there would be a simpler way to achieve the same goal. He suggested to cut most of the parts where this theory would be used and to rewrite the paper accordingly.

I feel being in a delicate situation, where I'd like to have this paper published, but not sacrifice its background and the main ideas it implies. For me, the theory which is proposed provides a very simple way to deal with the examples. I am considering writing to the EIC to essentially ask him if he's ok to keep the theoretical background (with justifications from parts of the paper) in which case I'm willing to make the revisions he requested for clarification (I'm considering withdrawing the submission in the other case).
What do you think would be the best way to handle this situation ?

God bless such journals. I would suggest, try to convince the editor.

If you think it is essential to publish the paper without cutting the theory section, then your plan sounds very sensible.  Try to convince the editor-in-chief; if you cannot, withdraw the paper and submit elsewhere.

I like that the editor had substantial comments. I hate that he gave them only after all the reviewers had been satisfied. This seems very weird to me. (but I am not in maths, so what do I know)

I agree with @xLeitix that the editor should have given those comments before. Does this mean that if you agree to make the changes, it's going to go out for a 3rd review? And if not, why not?

@mkennedy: I'm almost sure it is going to go for a third review, and most probably by the EIC alone. What I did not mention before, to remain as objective as possible in the question, is that that field is relatively small and the EIC himself has published on the same topic (not on the same subject), even in this very journal. This is one more reason why I have mixed feelings about the submission process.

I would suggest the following thought experiment. Take a day (or at least a couple of hours), and fully embrace the editor's suggestions. Think about why h/she made them, and think about how you would revise your paper to fully incorporate his/her suggestions, and in what aspects it would make the paper better.
Sleep on it a couple of days. Then, if you decide you prefer not to take the editor's suggestions, you will be in an excellent state of mind to write a reply.

I carefully considered suggestion X. As pointed out by the editor, this would have advantages Y and Z, and W. [It is especially helpful to not just say the same thing word-for-word, to show that you thought about the editor's suggestions carefully.]
Nevertheless, I feel that for the most part the paper is better as is, for the following reasons: ...


text:
Should I call my adviser by her first name?
I have worked with my adviser for a few months as a graduate student. Everyone, including her other graduate students, seems to call her by her first name. She never expressed a preference to me, so I've been calling her "Dr. Smith". She signs her emails with her first name.
I am worried that I am being awkward. I don't mind calling her "Dr. Smith", but during meetings where other students are present, it would be jarring to call her "Dr. Smith" while other students use her first name in the same conversation. So far, I have managed to avoid this issue by choosing my words very strategically to avoid directly addressing my adviser at all.
I don't wish my adviser to think that I am making some sort of statement by being unnecessarily formal. On the other hand, I don't wish to appear too informal either. Apart from that, once you've addressed someone by their title for several months, unceremoniously switching to their first name out of the blue seems like it would be very strange.
Is there any tactful way of resolving this predicament, besides waiting and hoping for the adviser to express a preference? I am in the US.

possible duplicate of Should your PhD students call you by your first name?

@EnthusiasticStudent I saw that question before asking mine, but unfortunately it doesn't quite address what I'm asking.

Welcome to Academia. Your question seems to have answers in these questions: Should your PhD students call you by your first name? and Is it acceptable for me (an undergrad) to call professors and other research professionals by their first names?. Before posting any question, please search the website to find if your questions is answered before or not.

@EnthusiasticStudent Unfortunately, it does not. The first link is about what professors themselves prefer to be the standard. The second deals with undergraduates. I think the position of a graduate student who is trying to find out the advisers preference is separate from these.

the answers to those questions partly cover your case too. Read not only the questions, but also the answers to the questions. You may find some clues to your own question.

My comments were made after having read the entire threads you linked to. (I did search the site and find the same answers before posting my question)

I am not insisting that your question is a duplicate; may be I am mistaken. After posting a question, the user should wait for answers or comments to it. Hope you enjoy being in this site and find your answer too.

When in Rome, do as Romans do. If your peers call her by her first name, so should you. If that upsets her, you'll hear about it shortly and you'll no longer have to wonder.

But asking, in private, if it would upset her will potentially be less traumatic for both of you.

(It was in reference to the previous comment about how doing it without asking to see if it would upset her was the suggested strategy.)

@EnthusiasticStudent This question is not a duplicate, as it is a specific situation, and not exactly the same as any of the questions you linked to.

@Thomas What's specific in this situation?

@EnthusiasticStudent Pronce is not necessarily asking what is proper.  Rather the question is what to do in this situation which has been going on for months now.

@Thomas I don't think just not necessarily asking what is proper makes a question specific and not duplicate. This question is about how to call a professor and we have many answers in different cases and from various perspectives to other questions similar to this.

It's not a bad question, and you are doing things right in that, in case of doubt, being overly formal is better than being overly familiar. On the other hand, an advisor-advisee relationship tends to get away from formalities very quickly. Probably, the best thing is to use the same level of formality that your advisor feels comfortable using with you. If your advisor goes "Mr. Pronce, what is your opinion on this issue?", then, yes, call her "Dr. Smith"; but if she goes "Jack, what do you think of this?", then calling her "Ellen" is fine.

The top-voted answers are correct as far as they go but are misleading.  An icy cold taboo is involved, not mentioned here, enforced by nasty people who will hunt down errant commenters and destroy their careers.  I fear that you cannot get truly sound advice in the matter here.  It is extremely complicated.  Good luck.

You should call her 'Sir', just like the characters in Spitting Image addressed Maggie Thatcher.

Excuse me, do you prefer me to call you Dr Smith or Ellen?

A polite question will solve all your doubts.

Kind of a tangent, but what about professors other than your adviser? I've noticed (in the US) that PhD students still seem to call other professors by their first names too, so does it matter if they're your adviser or not?

@Mehrdad I bet it depends on the culture they are and they come from. So, the same technique applies. Ask them.

Do you expect they would ever reject being called by their first name? i.e. I'm not sure everyone would ask to be addressed by their formal title even if that's what they might prefer...

@Mehrdad where I have been, first name basis is the norm for everybody, from high school to posdoc, so I cannot tell. In any case, if they would prefer something different that what they have explicitly told you, it is their fault.

Note: Unless it is her first name, don't call your Ph. D advisor Ellen.

I really don't think this is close to such a big issue as you seem to make it.
What's really bothering me in your question is the following:

So far, I have managed to avoid this issue by choosing my words very strategically to avoid directly addressing my adviser at all.

You are investing way too much effort into addressing this non-issue. As I see it, you have 3 options, all of them entirely valid:

Ask her, as Davidmh says.
Silently switch to calling her by first name. Everybody does it, why wouldn't you?
Go on calling her by last name, until specifically prompted by her to go for first name instead. You don't mind, she apparently does not mind, so why bother?

Literally all three are probably ok. Just decide for one option, and then start thinking about more important things (such as your research).

All other answers are correct.  One note to add is that if you are coming from different cultures, it is possible that your advisor does in fact feel awkward about it, but is not very comfortable with stating so explicitly.  So it's likely best to get this straightened out as soon as possible.
Otherwise, this flowchart provides the answer ;-).  On a more serious note, you seem to be in the situation that the student in the comic is.  In my opinion, avoiding to address him/her at all is worse than either being too formal or too informal.

Source: PhD Comics. Do not take seriously.

Less formal than Prof/Dr but not as disrespectful as their first name? How about "sensei"? You might even get bonus points for being "clever."

I can't imagine that someone who signs her e-mails to you with only her first name would object if you addressed her by her first name.

If all her other grad students use her first name, you can too. It would be a very strange person who let some of her grad students use her first name and insisted on others using Dr Surname.

Depends. Sometimes there are out-of-work or prior relations, e.g. a professor-doctorand pair may have a (informal) history as doctorand-undergrad.

There's one other option that hasn't been mentioned: call her either one, depending on the situation.
You've been calling her "Dr. Smith," but, apparently, she has never said, "Please, call me Linda." Therefore, she doesn't seem to mind being called Dr. Smith.
In meetings, everyone else calls her "Linda," but she doesn't seem to bristle, nor has she said, "Will you please show some respect and stop calling me Linda!"
I interpret this to mean she is unfazed by either one.
Nothing says you need to flip a switch, and always use "Dr. Smith," or always use "Linda."
In meetings where everyone is calling her Linda, call her Linda. When you are in a one-on-one meeting in her office, call her Dr. Smith, if that's what you're more comfortable with.
I work alongside several people I have a "part-time first-name" relationship with. I might call them by their first name in some situations, and use their more formal title in others. It depends largely on their rank and position, my rank and position, the formality of the meeting, and who else is in the room.
Your advisor seems to be someone who doesn't mind either name. Be glad you're working with such an adaptable professor.

Don't worry too much about it.  If everyone else calls her by her first name, and she signs her emails with her first name, then she clearly doesn't mind being called by it.
Switching suddenly to calling her by her first name will be far less awkward than avoiding addressing her at all.

Despite I think that your question is already answered in the other two related questions in this site (Should your PhD students call you by your first name? and Is it acceptable for me (an undergrad) to call professors and other research professionals by their first names?); I am posting my answer as follows.

Go back to the culture of the country in which you are studying. In some cultures, it is very normal to call a professor (also a boss, teacher, someone who is older, etc) by his first name. For instance, in my culture, it is very odd to call a professor by his first name because even students are sometimes called by their last name.
Look at other students of your advisor who are in your level and see how they call her. If they call her by her first name, you can also call her by her first name too. You are a student too. What's the difference? But I advice you to look at the students at your level. Perhaps post-docs or PhDs call their advisor another way.
Ask her directly and politely. Try not to complicate things for yourself. Ask her politely the way she prefers to be called. I remember when I wanted to write a professor's surname in an email and I was not sure how should I spell his name correctly, I asked him and he was happy to tell me the correct way of his name spelling.

First criterion is "fit in". Do what others do.
On another hand, from the opposite point, it may be worthwhile to think of whether you want to use honorific forms, however subtle, of address. One might not want to address one's grandmother exaggerately-familiarly, nor one's grandfather, nor father, nor mother, ... nor significant mentor?

And, back-around here another time: the real point is the respect expressed in the nuances of form-of-address. Duh. It is possible to be light-hearted in very positive ways and "yet" express respect. I do like the "Dr. G." I received when I was still young enough to contribute positively to the math dept softball team... I wasn't a bum on the team, and not "the hero", either, but/and, still, I think it was a psychologically good balance that the (20-something) grad students decided to give me a slight honorific... True, these things are subtle, and vary among cultures... but... be nice... :)

Yes
Adults call other adults by their first names. You're an adult and she's an adult so you call her by her first name.
(Cultural conventions vary by country but certainly in the anglophone nations, this holds true pretty well)

Clearly you have never been to the UK (-:

Er, I'm English. I'm doing my PhD in the UK!

I feared as much (-:

She signs her emails with her first name
Everyone, including her other graduate students, seems to call her by her first name
These are strong indications this person would be comfortable with you using her first name.  But even if she says, either in response to a question, or on her own initiative, "Pronce, please call me Mary," you may not be comfortable doing so, based on your own cultural upbringing.  This happened to me.  After finishing a Master's in the midwest, I moved to East coast, where I was the only one calling people Professor So-and-so.  It took a few years for me to re-train myself.
(Sample question you could pose: "Do you have a preference about what name you go by with your students?")
But that's okay.  I remember some advice given to me in Latin America when I was struggling with choosing between the formal and informal modes of address in Spanish: "What matters isn't what you call the person, it's what you say, and how you treat the person."

A person must never refer to there boss or somebody they work with who is in a higher position than you by their first name, if one of my employees called me by my first name, I would be deeply upset, it is unprofessional to use your bosses first name while talking to him/her, always use mr/dr/prof. [last name]!

You should include details in support of your answers such as if never using a first name is the norm in your country as it may be a cultural thing. For example in my home country Ireland we would be very casual and would nearly never refer to anyone but by their first name.

'never' never works. For instance, husband and wife, wife is in a higher position than the husband. According to your pronouncement, the husband must never use her first name.
I worked for a US company in the US for over 25 years and never heard anyone called by their last name with a title.

There are a lot of fields where respect comes from what you can and not which formal position you have. Together with a normal respect for other peoples, this goes quite well and enhances collaboration! You should may give it a try;)


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Should I list all of my scientific writings and technical reports (including those written for coursework) on my resume?
I am an undergrad preparing my resume for grad school application. During my undergrad I have done many projects, including a few real research projects and also those for courses as final projects, that were just about designing something rather routine (a simple robot for example), or a compilation of other research works. Most of these class projects have had a report (a writing).
Since I have just one official peer reviewed conference paper, is it a good idea to list all those technical reports in my resume in the Publications section? Or, conversely, adding these may decrease the value of that peer reviewed paper and making the resume look unprofessional?

My inclination would be to agree with your latter statement. I don't think it's very common to have peer reviewed publications as an undergrad, and you risk drowning it by including many non-publications in your CV.

As Sverre says in a comment, you should make sure that your peer-reviewed publication stands out. It is common, in an academic CV, to put such publications into their own separate section.
As far as your other technical writing, my inclination would be to include these only if they are available to the public in some way, as opposed to just being pieces of coursework. For example, if you have an undergraduate thesis which is lodged in your university library, or have (co-)written a technical report which is available from your department, then these should be included in the CV. They are a class of publication. But essays and reports that were only submitted for assessment are not the same sort of thing. You can certainly mention them in the part of your CV where you talk about your various courses and projects, but it would be misleading to list them among your publications.


text:
PhD with or without company partner
What are advantages and drawbacks of starting a computer science PhD funded both by the university and a company, compared to a PhD fully funded by the university?
I can provide more details about the context pointing out some hypotheses that I have done so far.
A company:

will provide proprietary data;
will stimulate about solutions for current issues;
will impose constraints on PhD topic (it could be slightly modified, but no more);
will impose some constraints about publications, e.g. they would delay publications until new outcomes are started in the company production line.

On the other hand, without a company:

no proprietary data;
less stimulating scenario compared to issues coming from a real scenario (?);
free management of PhD topic (you could modify significantly during the 3-year research);
no problem about publications;
more "theoretical" research.

I will appreciate any experiences, especially computer science area.

If your research interest is theoretical, companies which would be willing to sponsor your PhD would be much less.

The biggest advantage I can think of, which trumps in my opinion pretty much all disadvantages, is that typically in sponsored degrees the funding is better (and more secure). There may also be other perks, such as equipment, data (as you point out in your post), people, and other resources. And if you plan to afterwards work in industry, I suppose sponsored degrees look better on your CV.

I know a couple of PhDs who were on sponsored degrees, and I think both of them enjoyed their time. In fact, without the sponsorship (of one of the IT giants), their research would not be possible (at least in the PhD time frame).

It might be worth investigating the specific company (or even the specific group within the company). I know a few people doing PhDs at company that looks very rigid and secretive from the outside (in the defense industry, with security clearance and everything!) but actually lets them very free to publish, go to conferences or steer their research in whatever direction they feel like so the constraints are not necessarily the ones you imagine.

The main drawback is that they also have to work on more mundane company projects, which takes time and slows their own research down (none of them hopes to complete the PhD in 3 years…)

You seem to have a pretty good understanding of the some of the major advantages and disadvantages, but there are a couple more issues you probably should consider. To note, some of these issues may be particular to a degree and a career in the United States.
The first is your plans after you graduate.  If you are committed to academia, the limitations on publications the company may impose could be an overwhelming disadvantage.  You may be unable to participate fully in conferences; conference papers are often more highly regarded than journal papers in computer science, and provide important networking opportunities.  You need a strong publication history to be considered for an assistant professor position, which you may not have after you graduate.  This will all depend on the particular agreement you have with the sponsoring company, but I would be wary of an undefined delay which, at its worst, could become indefinite.
This is much less of a concern if you are not interested in an academic position.  An industry sponsorship will give you immediate connections in the work force, possibly more marketable skills that can be employed after graduation, and guaranteed funding.  University funding is not always ensured for your entire degree and may have its own conditions.  While more theoretical work may be possible when university sponsored, you still may be pushed onto or moved between projects dependent upon which grants/collaborations your advisor has in place.

As I was observing this in Academia it works like "get as much clear funding as you can work out"? With a decent funding, you can diminish all stated problems; inversed move is much harder. That concerns from a side looked like you're already at a peak with a solid financial foundation and choosing from a huge amount of options. Maybe, the situation differs, but recheck the reality, just for sure.