text:
Where can I see the standard salary range for California State University Assistant Professor?
Is there a website where I can see the standard salaries for recently hired tenure track Assistant Professors in California State University system? I am on the job market and almost in the process of getting an offer. I wanted to get an idea of what to expect and negotiate.
EDIT: it is California State University system.

What's CSU? California State? Colorado State? Cleveland State?

Probably varies with number of publications, years of experience and size of ego... Also, many places won’t always publish that information...

@SolarMike: Does that mean if I develop a huge ego I get a pay raise?

@einpoklum Probably depends on how you argue and what you think you are worth... some discussions "never the twain shall meet”...

@SolarMike Not only are public schools in the US required to publish a pay scale, they usually a required to publish individual salaries. This is a result of being a government institution funded by tax dollars.

@user71659 define "usually" - so this information is available or to a limited few or a range of salary is published... or does "usually" mean when they get around to it ie the last available figures are from 2005? Well 2017 as per another comment - what happened to 2018 salaries - not paid yet so they don’t know...

@SolarMike It's a matter of state law and how the institution is set up with regards to being a government organization. There is also an interaction with student privacy rights. See the answers for a link to California's disclosure.

@user71659 so if it invades privacy then they don’t have to publish... As I pointed out "many places won’t always publish that information" ... round and round the mulberry bush for not a lot...

@SolarMike Nope, nearly all non-student salaries are published. Go see the link. I stand by what I say, "many places won’t always publish that information" is simply incorrect for public US schools due to government disclosure requirements in this country.

@user71659 You first stated that they all have to publish, now you are hedging your bets... So stand by both sides...

Field also matters.

@SolarMike Typically, all you get in the US is a giant spreadsheet of everyone, their title, and salary. Sometimes news agencies pretty this up for you. For all the universities I've ever looked up, they're usually reasonably on time (six months to a year after the conclusion of the year in question). I have never heard of a restriction on releasing student wages. In fact, I just checked, and found my wages from my undergraduate years. Obviously I don't know the laws of every state, but I think its fair to say US public universities have to publish individual salaries more often than not.

I have no idea why this question would be closed. This is a request for a fact - where is this information? - and the fact is supplied in the answers. Vote to reopen.

@AzorAhai UC withholds student pay. "Pursuant to federal student privacy laws, the names of all employees whose employment was dependent upon student status (including medical residents) at any point during a given calendar year have been redacted and appear as ******."

@user71659 Interesting. I guess I was hired into a role that didn't define me as a student.

I'm just assuming you mean California State University since it's the largest system among the states starting with "C", which can be found here:
https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/california-state-university/
You can search individuals by name. If the university or university system is public, then the information for faculty/staff salaries is usually posted on some government or independent auditing site.

You cannot find standard salaries there, only individual salaries. 2. They don't sort academic faculty by rank or status. 3. For 2017, you see a scale of figures from 0 to 274,088 USD / annum - as the base pay. What does this tell you? Not much... -1 on this answer.

OP can look at the desired department's faculty directory, look for tenure-track assistant professors, and search them up on the database. There are large discrepancies in Assistant Prof positions among departments (e.g., English vs. Business), so standard salaries won't tell you much either and may even result in OP under or overestimating their projected salary.

Absolutely agree with @ssjjaca . Should base this on professors that are "like them", hired in the same departments or similar, etc. A "standard" won't tell them important information.

@ssjjaca What do they mean by "other pay"? Any idea?

@math Summer pay. You only get 9 regular paychecks for an academic year appointment. Grant support or summer teaching optionally covers the rest. For medical faculty, it includes the money they receive from patients for performing procedures. It may also include certain pay increments/bonuses for administrative duties.

TL;DR It's between $4,923 and $10,924 USD / month
I'm also assuming you mean the California State University system.
Well, CSU have a Salary Schedule database, which you can search. The appropriate search term seems to be FACULTY. This gets you a whole number of records, with different qualifications for programs, disciplines etc. But the basis-of-the-basis is:

Class Range   Effective Date  Class Title                             Min Salary  Max Salary  CBID    Status
2360  3       2018-10-31      INSTRUCTIONAL FACULTY - ACADEMIC YEAR   $4,923.00   $10,924.00  R03 Active

and if you click through the position code, as @user71659 suggests, you get to this page. It tells you this position is that of an Assistant Professor for the Academic Year. It also has the pay scale.
Note that even then the database shows a salary range, i.e. a minimum and maximum salary. I have no idea what determines where in the range you end up. Perhaps it's  managerial flexibility in hiring? Who knows.
You can also contact their (general) HR department and verify, or be more specific (department, program etc.): Their phone is (562) 951-4411 and there's also a web contact form.

Normal professors are "INSTRUCTIONAL FACULTY - ACADEMIC YEAR", you can see how they map to assistant/associate/full via the Abbreviated Class Title. Like most positions, note that you only get paid 9 months of the year.

@user71659: 1. What is the "abbreviated class title?"  2. There are multiple qualifications for programs, disciplines etc. so it's difficult (for me) to tell that there's an obvious default OP is interested in.

The question is missing information (even what "C" means), but this is the "normal" professorship. Click through on a class and you see "abbreviated class title" in the upper right, i.e. 2360 range 4 is "ASSOC PROF AY" [Academic Year]

@user71659: Right you are.

@einpoklum This range from $4,923 to $10,924, seems very wide. What determines where one stands in this range?

@MorganRodgers Ok, they must have changed it at some point. I know UC stretches your academic year pay over 12 months, I'm fairly certain CSU used to not pay over the summer (and they wouldn't even let faculty park on campus).

How usual is it to find courses to teach in summer? Is it competitive or first come first serve?


text:
What are the advantages of serving as an examiner for a MSc or PhD thesis?
As an early career researcher, I am curious to know the advantages of being an external or internal examiner for a thesis. How does it help you in your career? Since you are not being paid for the time you put into the task, I believe there has to be some other good reasons why you should do it. Does it count as service (to the research community) when you apply for tenure?
Or, is it a selfless job?

Well, my university pays external examiners for their time. :)

@Prof.SantaClaus Nice :)

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text:
What is a typical dress code for campus interviews on west coast state schools?
The question says it all.
I am shortlisted for a campus interview at a state school in California. I was wondering about the dress code? Should I wear a suit or would it be too much?
EDIT: It's for CSU math position in Northern California.

Depends on the field.

Just wear what you think is aporopriate. The location of the school doesn't even matter. Sort of like saying wear a cowboy hat to an interview in Texas.

@SeanRoberson No. There are often regional differences within an industry in what is considered to be appropriate attire, and this includes academia.

Based on the username, I'm assuming the department is math, but it would be good to specify this as the answer would be very different if this was for a position at a business school.

University of California vs Cal State might make a bit of difference. A suit is never wrong.

I wouldn't say "a suit is never wrong". I showed up to an interview once in a suit (for a math postdoc, at a large private institution in a rural part of the Northeast US) and my interviewer said to me "after the guy we interviewed last week showed up in a suit, I meant to call you and say a suit is not necessary".

If it's in California than it must be a flip-flop, shorts, t-shirt, and don't forget the "hang loose" sign.

Given your last edit, wear a button-down shirt, tucked in, and a reasonable pair of pants with a belt. Tie is optional if you're a sharp enough dresser to feel comfortable wearing one. And wear shoes that don't look ridiculous with the above. A suit is definitely too much. Signed, a woman in mathematics on the West Coast. Good luck.

As a general rule of clothing, it's better to be overdressed than underdressed. In that spirit, I would err on the side of dressing a bit more formally than what you anticipate to be "normal" for interviews in your field.
In my interviews, I have seen candidates in the full range of clothing, from jeans and t-shirt all the way to a full suit and tie. Personally, I usually wore simple suit pants and shoes, a simple jacket, and either a long-sleeved shirt or a nice and well-ironed polo shirt. I usually combined a dark-ish suit with a more colorful, less formal, shirt.
That said, it probably does not matter much at all. As I said, I have seen people wear all kinds of clothes to their interview, and I have never seen a correlation with interview success one way or the other.

I'm honestly just guessing here, but I'd think something along the lines of Business Casual or Smart Casual. Both of those are ambiguous, of course, but I think you'd stand out in a suit.
Of course San Francisco is more formal than LA or Berkeley, but academics in most fields are pretty laid back. If the interview will be long and includes evening events, you might want to have a suit available.

I believe the only correct answer is that you should call the admissions office of whatever program you're applying to and ask. Everything else is just guessing.

The tags say tenure track and job search so the admissions office is probably not going to be informative.

facepalm That's what I get for reading the questions too quickly.

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text:
Can I list a grass-roots organisation as an academic affiliation?
Several astronomers are building up the grass-roots / volunteer organisation Astronomers for Planet Earth (raising awareness for the climate crisis from an astronomical perspective).
Most, but not all of us have institutional affiliations with various universities, but we would like to (also) use our grass-roots organisation as affiliation in our publications -- and we are wondering if we may do so. Googling and searching on this site did not lead to an answer.
Does anyone know what the requirements are on an organisation to be listed as academic affiliation?

Technically the affiliation on a paper doesn't need to be an academic affiliation. For example it's common to see papers with companies listed as affiliation (e.g. in CS from Google, Microsoft, IBM...)

I think Microsoft and other companies like that are academic affiliations. They are companies that do academic research as part of their business.

Your home institution may be very annoyed thet they were who paid the research (at least your salary) and still some other organization, that did not contribute a penny, gets a spot in the affiliations. This may hurt your institutions in various evaluations and cost some actual money.

A similar "use case" is the Cogitamus Laboratory http://www.cogitamus.fr/indexen.html which has no physical existence but is cited by some researchers as an affiliation, as a form of protest against bibliometry.

@a3nm That is surely possible but may as well be against your work obligations in your work contract and I could even lead to contract termination. In paticular, I would not remain working here for too long if I did this.

While there do not seem to be strict formal requirements for what can be put as an academic affiliation on a paper, there is a general understanding that the institution given as an affiliation somehow "hosted" the research that is described in the publication. Examples from publishers are (highlighting mine):

Taylor & Francis: "Your affiliation in the manuscript should be the institution where you conducted the research. You should also include details of any funding received from that institution." (https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/editorial-policies/defining-authorship-research-paper/)
Elsevier: "Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names." (https://www.elsevier.com/journals/information-and-organization/1471-7727/guide-for-authors)

That means if your membership in the grass-roots organization was not substantial to the research being done, you should not list them as an affiliation. If you do, I think it may be taken similarly as someone listing a political party they are member of, or maybe the gym down the street where they have a membership card.
You should also realize that while the affiliations that are listed may seem not so relevant from the view of the author, they are relevant to the institutions, as this information may be aggregated in various institutional evaluations (see e.g. https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/117431/3890, KAU is accused of hiring well-known professors to boost university rankings by adding affiliation. Is it ethical to accept this kind of offer?).
If the organization can not be listed as affiliation, you could still check whether they can be mentioned in the acknowledgments. This would be justified if for example the interactions with other researchers, through that organization, were somehow helpful to conducting the research or just making the publication.

Thanks, this is a helpful answer. So basically it boils down to the question whether we are "just" a network (that can be acknowledged) or a (virtual) institute that actually hosts the research. If people work on our projects in their spare time and from their home office, it is probably easier to argue that our organisation should actually be the affiliation than if they do this as part of their paid outreach work in their institute.

"You should also realize that while the affiliations that are listed may seem not so relevant from the view of the author, they are relevant to the institutions": institutions will care that they are listed, but I don't see why institutions would care about what other institutions are listed. So my impression is that you have no reason to be blamed for listing "too many" institutions.

@a3nm If there is some productivity score, it could be distributed as 1/nauthors per every author and $1/nauthors/naffiliations$ for every affiliation of a certain researcher. In that case, the institute looses some of their productivity score. The algorithm may, of course, be different in many ways, e.g., by distributing more to certain authors and less to other ones.

@VladimirF: I agree -- but for now I have never seen anything of the sort, I have only seen institutions caring about being in the list, not in which "share" they got. So I agree this can be a concern, but a speculative one.

@Leonard Burtscher  I don't understand the last sentence of your comment. For your mainstream academic research work (not activism), I don't think you can claim that Astronomers for Planet Earth hosts the research.

@toby544 – some of our members are not affiliated with a university (anymore), but still contribute to our projects in their spare time. We work together on projects using online communication tools, so one might say we are a virtual institute and that the work is happening there, no?

John Briggs listed a pub as his affiliation:

(doi: 10.1088/0022-3700/13/23/008)

It is up to the journal, and most if not all journals will allow you to list "Astronomers for Planet Earth" as your affiliation.
People who are telling you outright not to do it, probably missed this part of your question:

"Most, but not all of us have institutional affiliations with various universities, but we would like to (also) use our grass-roots organisation as affiliation in our publications -- and we are wondering if we may do so."

For those without any other affiliation, the journal would probably ask more questions about their lack of affiliation than about the fact that the affiliation is "Astronomers for Planet Earth". Then if the people with no other affiliation are using "Astronomers for Planet Earth" as their affiliation and you are not, that would not seem right, so you should feel free to do it if you want to and the journal allows it (most likely, if you submit the paper with this affiliation, they will not even mention it in the slightest way, so you're probably worrying about nothing, but it's good that you're playing it safe and asking the community here).
Generally, institutions can get angry at you for putting their name on your paper if you weren't actually working there, but in the case where "Astronomers for Planet Earth" is someone's only affiliation and the organization wants you to list their name in the paper, your only obstacle would be whether or not the journal allows it and most likely they will. Some academics might not take you seriously if they haven't heard of your affiliation, and whether or not it's a good idea to do this will depend on many other factors, but whether or not you can do it is up to the journal and the answer is almost certainly a "yes".

I'm guessing that the pub was doing work on the ionization of alcohol or something, from that abstract?

Not even close!

@nick012000 I think the pub was doing work on keeping John Briggs well-fed and watered. I assume the affiliation here is basically a "you can find me at...".

Why do you claim that the answer is almost certainly yes, you can do it? If you are basing that on the Briggs example, that was one article 41 years ago. silvado's answers shows two publishers' websites that say the affiliation has to be where you conducted the research, which means OP would not be allowed to list Astronomers for Planet Earth.

@toby544 I didn't say that based on the Briggs example, I said it based on 100s of examples where the authors put something similar to OP (not a joke like Briggs did). You can put whatever you want as an affiliation, and you might be asked to declare no conflict of interest if the place sounds like a for-profit company, and you might be questioned if it doesn't look like a real place, but "Astronomers for Planet Earth" will quite certainly be okay (and if it's not, the worst that happens is that the editor allows the paper submission and just not the affiliation).

@nick012000 Briggs may have been enjoying some alcohol at that institution when he wrote a critical equation on a napkin.

The requirements are up to the publishers. But I don't think you should do it. How would you feel if people started listing social movements or political groups as affiliations?

That's a good point. What if we start reading publications by authors affiliated to grass-root MAGA movements? "The flat-earther society"? "White-supremacy-action-group"?

@Roland, precisely! So you agree with this answer that providing such non-academic ideological-driven affiliations may hurt the OP. And they better stick to their academic institute alone.

I agree with Dilworth, though the possibility of anti-scientific affiliations like the flat-earther society is not really the point. I was talking about all social movements, political groups, and non-academic organizations. Listing Astronomers for Planet Earth could hurt OP because it would annoy many readers, who do not think that a list of affiliations is the right place to mention this kind of organization.

@Roland, " If this could hurt the OP, it's most likely because it highlights a conflict of interest," --- So why would you like to know if someone is a flat-earther when reading their astronomy paper? Being a flat-earther is not a conflict-of-interest with being an astronomer.

@toby544, my example was merely a facetious, reverse-world scenario. Of course, I concur precisely with your point.

Well, there's a difference between advocating for science-driven policies and advocating for ideological nonsense, I suppose.

@LeonardBurtscher, of course, that is the point I wanted to get across: there is no such difference. A policy is a choice of value, regardless if it's pro-life or climate-crisis, etc. The obvious fallacy here is that academics assume that the ideology of their peers is going to align with theirs.

@Dilworth – the climate crisis is not an ideology.

@LeonardBurtscher, indeed, just as 'mass abortion rates' are not an ideology. But the policies surrounding them are a matter of values, not facts, hence ideological.

@Dilworth – the climate crisis is the scientific interpretation of a number of observables (e.g. rising CO2 and rising temperatures, and the link between the two through models). Models (and, increasingly, also reality) tell us that this is no good for us humans. "Mass abortion rates" is, if anything, just an indicator that does not tell us whether this is good or bad.

@LeonardBurtscher, both climate change and mass abortion rates are empirical observations. But the decision of what "is good for us humans" is a matter of values, NOT empirical reality. Some pro-life activists claim that "abortions are 'not good'". Science has no saying on matters of values.

I basically agree with Dilworth, but I don't think the word "ideology" or these examples of other issues are helping the debate. My point to @Leonard Burtscher remains - How would you feel if people started listing social movements or political groups as affiliations?

@toby544, why? I think these examples are illuminating, no?

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


text:
Can I acknowledge a close colleague for the good time I had with them?
I am finishing the redaction of my master's thesis and writing the acknowledgment section. I was wondering if it is common and professional to thank close colleagues for the good time you had with them?

Just don't use the words "the good time you had with them". It may not be understood in the way you intend.

I don't think that whether you do it or not, or how exactly you do it, will have any impact. As marker of master theses I'm not interested.

@JackAidley I didn't see it that way, I will formulate it differently in the thesis

As the commenters have already pointed out, your (non-academic) acknowledgments probably won't have much impact on anything. One option I've seen a lot is to thank people "for their support" to cover more emotional bases without getting soppy.


text:
Asking a Professor for a review of a university application research supplement
As part of the application to a particular university, I can submit a research supplement which is a paper I have written which will be reviewed by the university's faculty. However, it must be accompanied by a letter from a 'research supervisor' regarding the work.
The paper I have written is based on a paper written by a professor from another university, and as I am currently in high school and none of the staff here can review it, I thought it would be great if I could get said professor to write such a letter.
Firstly, would it be appropriate to send such a request, and is it likely to be fulfilled?
Note: For the purposes of your answers, you may assume the paper is in fact correct, and a serious piece of research, which although it presents original results, is 'orthodox.' I am aware professors sometimes get sent crazy letters from people with wacky theories (I've even seen some crop up on the physics SE).

I don't see any reason it would be inappropriate.

It is definitely not inappropriate. But professors are busy people, and you are likely to be put in the "crank" bin without a detailed reading. Be careful crafting your email, and ask some of the staff at your school to review it to minimise it.
If after a reasonable time you don't get a response, you could try to find a student's association at the university related to your research. They could probably be able to judge it, and take it to the professor in person with their "seal of approval", that is more likely to get his attention.

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text:
Difference between HS & college math teaching
I have been teaching math at HS level for some years, for this Fall I am applying for instructor job at local community colleges. Because of my background, I anticipate that the interviewer will ask me the difference between secondary and post-secondary math teaching.

In a non-interview setting, I would answer there really is no much
difference considering that vast majority of HS graduates are
deficient in math skill. I was even told that community college is
just an extension of high school. The upsides are that I do not have
to deal with the pesky parents, students are more matured and
motivated since college is not free. Are these assessments correct?
But in an interview setting, I think that this honest answer won't
be politically correct. Any suggestion on a politically correct
response?

Thank you for your time and help.

I think its a misconception that number 1 is true.  Many students have parents that pay for their education, get federal funding, etc.  You will still have parents paying for education that get angry at something you do.  It wont be constantly, but it will happen.

"students are more matured and motivated" Nice when it happens, and it does (especially with non-traditional students), but far from guaranteed.

This would be better at matheducators.SE.

There are several pretty big differences. Perhaps not all of these would apply, and not all of them are appropriate to mention in an interview context, but here are a few:

You will likely be teaching students older than yourself (depending on your own age). This can be intimidating if a lot of your classroom presence and authority derives from age. You can't use lines like "because I said so" or "you'll find out when you're older" - not that you should in high school, either, but you're more likely to get away with it there.
Discipline might be different. You can't send adults to detention (and adults includes both mature students returning to study to reskill, and 18yo kids whose parents are insisting they get some kind of an education despite their protests).
Academically, you may be required to teach a higher level of maths. Not all classes offered by the college will be high school remedial level, and the college may want to know if your own mathematical knowledge is sufficient.
"College is not free" can lead to students expecting more of you than you believe is appropriate academically: "I'm paying a lot of money to be here, so you have to give me more notes/help/assistance/marks..."
Nobody has to be there (depending on attendance requirements at your college, but they can always just not take your class). Attendance may vary significantly more than in high school, with some weeks being almost empty and others (near due dates) crowded with students with a months' worth of questions each. Controlling this can be difficult.
You might need to hold office hours outside of class times, and depending on the needs of your students, possibly have classes or office hours outside of regular business hours (such as evening classes).
Students are much more likely to see you as being "on their level", and you may feel the same. It's nice to be friendly, but the boundaries between teacher and student are a lot more blurred and it might take more effort to avoid friendly or romantic relationships.

@kman : Pretty darn awesome insights from an insider! I am very amused by #7, but should not an issue for me since I am about the age of the average student's parent, so this will eliminate #1 too, hopefully. Thanks again for your insight.

With regards to parents: in the US there are laws that prevent you from discussing anything about your students with anyone (including parents). But this is not an important issue, as any employer will likely believe that you will comply with basic privacy laws.
One major difference between high school and community college teaching is the diversity of the student population. At a community college you will have a wider range of age/outside responsibilities/life experiences among your student population, and this may require you to adjust how you conduct yourself in the classroom.
Also, unlike high school, at a community college you may have students who already went all the way through high school feeling like they will never "get" math. So you may want to think about how you would help such students.
It may also be helpful to note that some community colleges teach courses that go beyond the usual level of high school math.

Pretty good inputs, will note them down for interview. Thanks!

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text:
IEEE disclosing resubmission at peerj
I'm submitting a paper on image processing.
I previously submitted it to peerj, but they rejected it with this message:

I am afraid that your submission does not fit our Scope -
  https://peerj.com/about/aims-and-scope/cs - because PeerJ only
  considers and publishes Research Articles with primary data and
  experimental results across the whole of Computer Science.

Ok, so I need to find a journal with a matching scope
So I tried IEEE transactions on signal processing.
On the web submission form I see this message

Is this manuscript a re-submission or shortened version of a
  previously rejected manuscript? If you answer "Yes", specify the
  journal and manuscript ID of the previous submission and upload a
  response to the previous review. Please read the IEEE Signal
  Processing Society policy 6.16 "Handling of Rejected Papers" before
  resubmitting the manuscript.

The web form however does not appear to provide any have any field where I can specify the requested information. Also, peerj does not appear to provide any kind of "manuscript ID", since the paper was rejected, it is not even publicly available as a pre-print.
What should I do in this situation?

Usually, such kind of notes refer to manuscripts rejected by the same journal, not by other journals. In this case, the IEEE transactions on signal processing. The manuscript ID of the previous submission allows the editor to recover information about the previous process.
The IEEE Signal Processing Society policy 6.16, though not explicit, hints at the above interpretation (bold mine):

If authors indicate instead that their manuscript is a resubmission, then they are required to upload a supporting document detailing how the new submission has addressed the concerns raised during the previous review. Authors may also request that the resubmission be handled by the same Associate Editor, if the Associate Editor has not retired from the board. The Editor-in-Chief will do his/her best effort to accommodate the author’s request while taking into consideration the balancing of the workload among the Associate Editors of the editorial board of the journal. A new Associate Editor may also be assigned to the manuscript by the Editor-in-Chief.

Indeed, the highlighted possible request is feasible only if the resubmission is to the same journal.
Thus, you should simply make a new submission, without reference to prior submissions to different venues.
When, instead, you are submitting a revised version of a previously rejected manuscript to the same journal, you can report the previous manuscript ID in the cover letter.

If this is only asking about prior submissions to the same journal, then why does it ask the author to "specify the journal and manuscript ID"?

@NateEldredge The Signal Processing Society publishes several journals, not only that Transactions. See their publications page. The policy applies to all publications of the Society.


text:
Narrowing down a research topic
I would like to work on a research project in my particular field of mathematics. While I'm familiar with the area in general, I'm having a bit of trouble choosing an inquiry narrow enough to be productive. There are lists of open questions, but open questions are generally open for a reason, and I don't have the luxury of spending a decade on a single narrow problem. (This is also the sort of thing one normally picks up in grad school, but my advisor handed me a list of problems he found in a paper somewhere and insisted that I choose among them. Also, I don't have access to any sort of mentor or other useful figure to steer me in a useful direction.) How do I go from "I want to learn about X" or "It seems like there's a useful connection between X and Y" to some specific, publishable result? I would like to avoid--- to the extent that one can with something as unpredictable as research--- going down an alley that turns out to be trivial or intractable.

Short Answer Don't be too picky at first, learn about others' work; try to come up with some problem <-> solution pairs; and then you shall find your own path; when writing them down.
Longer Answer
Fun Fact: Publishable results are based on published results and some more. You need to do 'the some more' part, and know the 'published results'. So:
1. High Rank Publications and their citations: Find the best publications in the area of your work, and see how they solve the problems and how the present their results and who they cited; and read and learn them as well.
2. Narrow Down More and More When Writing Down: Ok, now after reading some papers/journals/books, you want to write something. Here we do the following:
2.1 Problem and Solution (Potential): You might ask what problem I want to work on? Well the one you know how to solve! I might go and write a code generator and say: "well, it is fast and 'efficient'". How do I know? Well I don't know! I need to check it with others. So, we go to the next phase:
2.2 Evaluation and Background Checks: You start evaluation of your work by others' approach (and write about it). Must likely your approach is not good enough, so you go back to he first step and update this one.
2.3 Introduction and Evaluation Now you know what you are talking about, you write the introduction and conclusion about it.
Then Boom! you have a paper, that could be published. Find a conference/journal and hope for the best!

In mathematics (the fields I am aware of, anyway), you would publish your paper in a journal, not a conference. (Well, after putting the preprint on arXiv. Usually long after that, given how much time review can take.)


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Presenting a poster about work that has already been published
I am planning to participate in a conference for the first time. Are there any rules or conventions that prevent me from showcasing results that have already been published?

Do you need to submit your proposal to the committee?

@Buffy Yes, I must submit an abstract  that will be in the Book of Abstracts of the conference

Speaking as a chemist: I would actually strongly suggest that you go ahead and show already-published work as a useful perspective for those who may not have seen that specific publication and as motivation for future work. The one caveat would be to show at least some work that you or your group/institution has done (past or current). Showing just others' work as a way of gaining presentation experience isn't the most ethical choice.
You can strengthen your poster by joining together previous work in a way that suggests a new idea, or a new way of relating disparate ideas. As others have said, be sure to attribute the old work. I have seen posters that highlight a significant piece of old work and then say "See this? It shows we need to do more work as a field into X, Y, and Z." Interesting and useful conversations come out of this. You can also show old work and reinterpret it in a new way, even going as far as to say that original conclusions were wrong or limited.
To more concretely answer your question: You should be careful of any work that might be legally restricted because of ongoing patents, intellectual property disputes, or classification. And be sure to correctly cite any funding awards, which may have changed since the previous work was done.

You can submit a proposal, being honest about what you intend. The committee will judge its appropriateness. In many CS conferences, poster sessions tend to be about work in progress, not past work. They give early-career researchers (doctoral students especially) a way to meet more experienced conference goers and get feedback on the work and some ideas as well.
You can also, and probably should, ask the "program chair" or equivalent about what you'd like to do.
The committee might see it as an advertisement for your work and reject it, but that is up to them. There are no ethical issues in a submission, however.
Look at past proceedings for the conference you want to submit to and get an idea of what they find acceptable. Don't bother them with something obviously out of scope.

Ok. I am in a chemistry field. Don’t have any ongoing projects right now that fit the scope, so I wish to show published outcomes as reference. If this is not unethical or against publishing agreements and committee agree on, then it’s fine, right?

The committee sets the agenda and determines what fits and what doesn't. If they approve it, then it is fine. Just be honest in your abstract that this is prior/published work.

yes, sure. Will add QR code if someone’s interested in delving into the manuscript itself

Also, name and cite the work.

Well, yeah. As a regular reference I would make in a full-text manuscript


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How does PhD funding work in STEM in Europe?
As a European student (and EU citizen) I have been considering a PhD for several years now and as I am contacting researchers in several European countries as potential advisors. A better understanding of how PhD projects are funded would be useful.
My questions are:

How do researchers find funding for PhD projects?

If a motivated and qualified student has identified a suitable topic for a PhD project, can the student find the necessary funding alone? If not, how is funding arranged?

I am aware that these are wide-ranging questions that have probably as many answer as there are countries and research fields. I am interested specifically in funding for STEM PhDs that are unlikely to attract industry funding.

There is no uniform funding structure for PhDs in Europe. In many cases, there isn’t even a uniform funding structure in a single department of a single institution.

This question is similar to: How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in Country X?. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem.

@Sursula I believe that the second point of my question (how could a motivated student mobilise the necessary funding alone?) differ from the question you rightfully pointed out. However, when reading the answers for the available European countries there are few, if any, mentions of cases where the student would be a grant holder presenting a project to a potential supervisor. This doesn't mean it's impossible but if it was a thing it would have been mentioned. I guess we can leave the question open until the end of the week in the case someone wants to add something and then close it?

@Patou A post should focus on one question to begin with. If you find yourself thinking "but it answers only one of my two questions" then remove the one already answered.

Europe is a big place with many countries and not all have the same traditions. But, in many places, doctoral students are employees; faculty members, though low level ones. One earns a salary. Their doctoral studies are a by-product of their employment. This is true in Germany, but I don't know that it is uniform even there. The student/employee will have a supervisor for purposes of the degree and that person or their group will be responsible for additional funding in some fields that require such things as experimental apparatus beyond what is generally available. This funding may come from grants to the supervisor.
As an employee, one will have access to the various seminars and working groups that bring faculty with common interests together.
There are likely other possible arrangements, but this is the one I'm most familiar with from contact with people in both UK and Germany. These folks are all in CS.
Generally speaking, admission is probably through the individual supervisor rather than a general admissions committee. For specifics on admissions in various places see the canonical question on doctoral admissions. Some of the answers there have specific information about funding.
It is probably useful to have ideas about a project, but that needs to be negotiated with the supervisor.

In the context of this question: where the PhD student is funded via an employment contract, one typically applies for such a position which is advertised already with a topic which one finds interesting. Alternatively, one may ask the supervisor of a group doing work in a general direction that one finds interesting, what particular positions are open now or in the near future, then applies for them. Then, within the scope of that project, there will hopefully be some freedom to develop one's own particular focuses.

"but I don't know that it is uniform even there" it is AFAIK the most typical form in STEM. But (e.g. as opposed to Italy, where AFAIK a PhD candidate has to be employed as such for 3 years) this is not a hard requirement. E.g. I basically handed in my PhD thesis at a university/faculty which had formally known me only for a very short time (days or weeks) and with which I never had any formal connection but the handing in, defense and subsequently receiving the PhD. The Prof knew me via work at a non-university research institution, though. The actual work had been done at another university.

It is rarely the case in the UK that PhD students are legally regarded as employed faculty members,  even if many departments test them as though they were.

Some two cents from someone who did their PhD in Germany: just because we are employed doesn’t mean that funding isn’t a concern. Where the money for an employee comes from is flexible and it was the norm that our supervisor tried to get us into funded programs or projects so that the "group funding" could be used for other people. I started on the group fund and ended up being paid by a graduate school and collaborating institute, for example. Special funding also often translates to a higher salary plus additional funding for travel and hardware.


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Is it crazy to leave a tenured position for a non-tenured but tenure-tracked job?
I recently obtained tenure, and lo and behold, my dream job comes up, but it is posted at a lower level. I would have to go through the process all over again, though potentially being posted further along the track rather than starting from scratch.
Do people do this?

is not this question opinion based? Is it crazy? I have seen people doing way crazier things. Do people do this? Surely yes. People do almost everything.

I thought universities would bring you on with tenure if you're coming from a position where you already have tenure...

@MissMonicaE Not necessarily.  Since a tenured position is permanent, or at least extremely difficult to terminate, there's a risk in just taking someone in straight at the tenure level.  They might be a complete mismatch for the department, and nobody gets along with them.  Depending on how well other faculty members know the hire, and the situation the hire is leaving--if they were already in a dysfunctional department, it may be hard to tell who is the "problem professor" and to get honest, dispassionate feedback on the hire--they may not be comfortable with that risk.

I know two people who have done this - one after 15 years at the dispreferred institution, the other after more like 25. I'm sure the latter in particular raised some eyebrows, but the person in question is reportedly delighted and so is the new affiliation.
I mean, I can't speak for other fields or countries, but yes, people do this.

@SalvadorDali yes, pardon my indelicate phrasing. I suppose I was asking about others' experiences and/or potential implications of such a move based on what others have observed

@julian then why not to write it in a normal way? Questions like: "10 most craziest things tenured professors have done in their life. Number 3 will surprise you. Is not it crazy?" belong to other places. BTW there is noting about implications in your question. Disappointed that no one answered with one word No to your question.

It's not crazy. We've had people at my elite R1 give up tenured positions to come in as assistants or even lecturers. Usually they had good reason to leave their old institution (lack of intellectual stimulus; bullying; family; etc.).
The main thing is that you need to determine exactly what you will need for tenure at the new place. Will they start you off in year 5 as a "high assistant prof?" If so, do they expect new work to come out in that single year or can you use your old tenure file in its entirety?
An elite liberal arts college or regular R1 might hire at the high assistant (if not associate), the most elite R1s might suggest you reset your assistant prof clock to zero and decide when to come up for associate on your own volition when you feel your file is strong enough.
But this might be putting the horse before the cart. You have to apply and actually be offered a position before you should worry. It's only then - and after a few rounds of negotiation- that you can make a rational choice.
Until then, apply and dream fond dreams.

Helpful, thanks. I wrote this questions when starting preparing the application - which is extensive - so yes very much cart before the horse, but helpful nonetheless to hear others' experiences about this.

@RoboKaren: what things should be discussed in this process? How do the new universities deal with these situations? Will they often ask to re-apply for tenure after one or maybe three years? Should one ask to bring all these things in the offer letter? Can one ask to waive, for example, fundraising since it depends on many other parameters (being lucky, collaborations, ...) and just consider publication and teaching?


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How many teaching professor/lecturer positions should a PhD student in mathematics apply to?
I am a fifth year Ph.D. student in Mathematics applying for full-time teaching professor and lecturer positions or teaching (non-research) postdocs in the US this year. I will also apply to full-time instructor positions in community colleges or even part-time positions if needed but I am not interested in positions that involve research. I read this post, this post, and this post which are related to job applications but they are focused on research-based positions.
I believe non-research positions are less desired by most PhD graduates, but there are also non-PhD student/post docs applying and there might be fewer positions in total (it is hard for me to know because I've heard that non-research positions are generally posted later than research ones).
I am asking because I want to know whether I should apply to more than 20 positions for lecturers and teaching professors to get at least 1 offer and how many community colleges I should apply to as a backup. I know that the conditions depend a lot on the individual (in my case I have an interactive math teaching website, 5 semesters of instructor of record, 4 semesters of teaching assistant, 2 published papers, and 2 submitted for publication), but I'm hoping to get an estimate on the order of magnitude of the number of applications to know how much time I will need to spend on cover letters.

My own experience is limited to research institutions (for mathematics in the US), so take this with a grain of salt for your situation, but I advise PhD students to apply to every job they would consider accepting if offered.  Twenty sounds low to me.  But FWIW your profile sounds very strong for applying for teaching positions.

@MarkMeckes This is an estimate, but I think there are about 40-60 jobs I would be happy to work at. If I applied to 40 positions and spent an average of 6 hours on each cover letter, that would be 240 hours in about 40 days, which I believe is not feasible. Would you recommend spending less than 6 hours on average on the cover letters to apply to more positions? I realize that it was a major mistake for me to wait until November to start my cover letters.

40-60 sounds like the right ballpark to me.  Again, my experience is mostly with research and not teaching-only positions, but I have been on a hiring committee for a teaching-only position.  I honestly can't imagine how you would spend anywhere near 6 hours on even a single cover letter.  I have rarely seen a cover letter over two pages long (most are between 1/2 and 1 page), and most of them have only minimal content that's tailored to one specific position.

@MarkMeckes. I see in the Reddit posts people mentioned that they would spend the best part of a day on their cover, which I thought would be more than 6 hours. In that case I should be fine applying to 40-60.

I didn't manage to find those comments but I would assume they are from very different fields than mathematics.  In some fields the norm is for the cover letter to include a lot more information than others.  Also, I wonder if it's clear that they meant they spend the best part of a day on each individual cover letter, as opposed to spending a day writing their basic cover letter which was then relatively quickly personalized to each position they applied to?

You should find that even if you are tailoring each cover letter very carefully, it shouldn't take 6 hours each time. For the first couple, yes, it is likely to take the better part of a day. After that, you'll find that you can recycle most of the material for different positions -- there will be a limited range of key things that they are looking for, so it will be a matter of working out what that is for each one, then copy-pasting the relevant section or version of your cover letter. So for 60 applications, think 40-60 hours total, which is a reasonable amount of time to spend on this.

I graduated into a similarly (or worse) academic marketplace in math. It took me over two years to find a minimally acceptable position with hundreds of applications. The problem then was that there had been a hiring surge in prior years and an end to government interest in funding research. Luckily, I had a temporary position to carry me through. Tough times then, and now.
But you should apply to every suitable position and keep doing so until you find something. And make sure that your application materials, especially letters of recommendation are good.
If you need a multi-year search, don't lose track of contacts with colleagues and professors who might support you.
You might also start to investigate other career paths that require math knowledge and ask yourself whether you would be happy with that. I looked at actuarial work for a bit. I'm not sure that is still an option, however.

The academic job market in mathematics is extremely difficult for job seekers.  Getting hundreds of applications for a full-time position (not just the most desirable tenure track positions) is reportedly common.
In such a market it is in your interest to apply for as many jobs as possible, excluding jobs you'd be unwilling to accept. Even so, there would be no guarantee that you'd be offered a position.


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How to deal with grammatically incorrect suggestions from my advisor on master's thesis?
I'm writing my thesis in English. English is neither my or my advisor's mother tongue. I'm now doing some corrections that were suggested. Some of them refer to the content of my  thesis and some of them refer to the language.
How should I deal with the suggestions that are obviously wrong? For example suggesting I put a comma before if or use a future tense after once. I don't want to intentionally make any grammatical errors in my thesis.
I agree with most of what is pointed out. There are only few amendments that I take issue with.
Should I just ignore his wrong suggestions? But then he may notice that I haven't changed what I was supposed to when he reads my thesis again.
Should I explain to him why I haven't changed what he suggested? I could quote some websites (when I disagree with what he proposes, I always look it up). Wouldn't that be rude?

The examples you give are not obviously grammatically wrong (well, unless you really do mean coma instead of comma).

Why not? When should I put a comma before if? When can I use a future tense after once?

First, you might want to trust your advisor, if only because he's been in the game way longer than you. Second, if you still think he's incorrect, nothing beats either asking a knowledgeable native speaker or consulting a good style manual. Third, nobody really cares about a typo here or there so long as the substantive parts of your thesis are correct.

@user2738748 I suggest asking when those constructs are appropriate (or not) at  http://english.stackexchange.com/ or http://ell.stackexchange.com/ - you'll get a better, more knowledgeable response there rather than here. (Comments aren't really a good place for extended explanation.)

Koldito slyly gives an example of a comma before if.  For the other, something like: "Once we find A, we can put it in the above formula to get B."  My point is that possibly your English grammar skills are not actually better than your advisor's.

@Kimball "The examples you give are not obviously grammatically wrong" except they are. No matter who's worse, if you know that something is wrong why would you still do it? I remember having the same problems with my supervisor for exactly the same reasons (if and once): I did not follow his suggestions (and that made him quite hostile).

@GennaroTedesco "except they are. No matter who's worse, if you know that something is wrong why would you still do it?"

@Paulpro The above is a different construction, where the comma is indeed required. An example where the comma is not required is the following: "I know that if we go there...". Please read carefully before commenting.

@GennaroTedesco That's the whole point. A comma before an if is not obviously grammatically wrong.

It's also not wrong to have a comma in "I know that, if we go there, we will be flayed alive by grammarians." It's probably less common than without the comma, but not wrong. Similarly with other constructions: "I know that, assuming he ate his vegetables, he'll make it out," etc.

The language of science is bad English, not English. You should be grateful to your advisor for leading you on the right path. (Sorry, could not resist.)

It seems that nobody understood the question (how to generally deal with incorrect suggestions) but they rather stick on this if example without going any further.

This happened to me with my advisor. I indeed just mentioned which changes I didn't make (or which kind of changes).

I'd simply thank them for the suggestion and move on. If minor grammar issues are the only thing wrong, you've very little to worry about, unless your masters degree thesis is on English grammar.

@GennaroTedesco One way to "deal with incorrect suggestions" is to first make sure they are actually incorrect. The comments that focus on the grammar are exploring this aspect of the situation. It certainly wouldn't do for the asker to push back on grammar suggestions if they are actually valid.

It will be helpful for your advisor if you give a list of changes, and where they were implemented in the text, together with your new version of your thesis. That way (s)he won't have to read your entire text again and can just foucus on those passages that have changed. That document would also be a logical place for mentioning the changes you did not implement and give the reasons why you did not do so.
Your advisor will probably be very familiar with this way of working; this is how we respond to reviewers when we sent articles to journals. So this should not feel strange or offensive to her or him. This does not mean that (s)he will agree with you, but that is something you can talk about at the next meeting.

or just use a text format for the work (TeX for example), which can be automatically 'diff'ed — no need to manually list changes

You could do that, but that will only work if the advisor uses such tools. For example, I work in sociology and my collegues won't use such tools. Moreover, the purpose of that list here was to provide a natural place to discuss the suggested changes the OP did not implement. We loose that with this approach.

I don't see how a diff is worse to work with than a table of changes to be honest, it is more verbose and you can see exactly what has changed and discuss it :)

The point of this question is to discuss the changes that were not made, which are obviously invisible in a diff...

If your using word, track changes and comments do this quite nicely.

I'm a non-native English speaker who happens to be also an advisor. As an advisor I am, of course always right; as a non-native English speaker and (defective) human being, I am -- guess what? -- sometimes wrong.
Since my students and I, and your advisor and you, are both non-native English speakers, corrections of papers and theses are a wonderful chance to both learn something.
Thus, when your advisor makes a correction and you have doubts about it, discuss it in a non-confrontational way:

Should there be a comma there? I seem to recall that English grammar prescribes that comma should be omitted, doesn't it?

The dialogue is of course fictitious, and strength and details can vary depending on the relationship you have with your advisor and on your country traditions, but if you cannot afford such a discussion with your advisor, well, grammar is probably the least of your problems.

In that spirit, using "isn't it?" as an all-purpose tag to form tag questions is non-standard (to be clear, I have heard it). In standard English you form tag questions with the same verb you would use to form a direct question. In other words: "English grammar prescribes that comma should be omitted, doesn't it?" For, in asking a direct question, you would ask "Does English grammar prescribe ...?" not "Is English grammar prescribe ...?" Therefore "English grammar prescribes ... doesn't it?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_question#In_English

Not to be a grammar Nazi, I just thought you might find it interesting

@Au101 You're right, I always mess up with tag questions ;-) Actually, I seldom use tag questions in normal conversation because I'm unable to use them naturally. I've amended the sentence.

It's alright :) It's apparently common in Indian English and I actually have a friend who is a native speaker, but comes from an Indian background, who uses this all the time. (Obviously the slang "innit" is also very common in some parts.) There's nothing bad about it, but it is the sort of thing an advisor might rightly correct on a master's thesis ;) Anyway ...

I'm a native English speaker and my default ending, at least mentally, for a tag question in English is "n'est-ce pas?"  Tag questions just not as common in English as some other languages.  In practice I usually use "right?" or "no?" or "yes?" which can be interchangeably stuck on the end of most declarative sentences.

This is meant as auxiliary to the fine answers already posted
that address the question more directly.

When you receive a questionable edit suggestion,
the true source of your advisor's concern
may well be in the surrounding content more than the grammar.
Quite often a seemingly-minor edit's underlying intent
is to clarify a distinction, for example,
or to fine tune an emphasis,
where you might do best to reconsider the wording,
not just punctuation.
This is true for suggested edits in general.
Each suggestion represents a location that itches,
not necessarily the very best way to scratch it.
All that you — or your advisor,
for that matter— know for absolutely certain
is that something caused enough discomfort to trigger a markup.
Your advisor quite likely hopes that
you will see more in their suggestions than
they had time to clarify, even in their thoughts.
If the edit in question does happen to be purely for grammar's sake,
drawing your advisor's attention to its material context
will forestall the edit while your advisor takes
a second look and possibly thinks of a better suggestion altogether.
In any case, grammar minutiae can be attended relatively comfortably
when the focus is momentarily wider.
For your once-versus-tense instance,
you could ask for an opinion along the lines of,
“looking at this sentence made me wonder
       if I should reorder it to give a clearer sense of
       how _____ depends/depend/depended on
       (or leads/lead/led to, ...) _____.”

This comes from a technical editor who
views all forms of writing and markup as a series of clues
and who helps academic authors
spin English from international fiber.
Some of these authors are very confident native speakers,
with whom the ideas mentioned here
have been refined somewhat delicately.

This is a fine answer and can surely stand by itself: I removed the note about incorporating it in another answers. Feel free to revert the edit if you don't agree.

Definitely a useful answer, and applicable to a wider range of writings too! I often review personal competence statements and re-arranging the sentences is often far more effective that grammar tweaks. E.g. too much of a 'tantalise without telling' styling etc.

I have encountered this issue on various occasions, and my usual reaction is to completely change the offending sentence. By completely, I mean that I change it in such a way that the grammar issue on which whoever reviewed the text and I seem to have differing opinions about does not occur any more.
My rationale in this respect is simply that when both of us are not native speakers of the written language, even though I am fairly certain I am right, this is not an issue I want to spend any real time with.
Quite random, fictional example:

Users could find the image during the study if they were previously informed about its extistence.

Suggested correction:

Users could find the image during the study, if they were previously informed about its extistence.

Solution:

Users who were previously informed about the existence of the image could find it during the study.

The only problem with this approach is that the reviewer might find another questionable grammar issue to focus on, but I have rarely encountered this issue in anything other than isolated cases (i.e. just isolated questionable suggestions for correction, or repeated suggestions, always referring to one out of a small set of issues that the reviewer thinks obey to different rules than the ones I apply).

That would be my approach too - to simplify and rephrase the sentences thus hopefully avoiding the grammar ambiguity and other concerns described above.


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How to get recommendations for PhD program when outside academia
I'm looking into applying to another grad school to get another PhD, whether again in mathematics or a closely related subject. In assembling the application, where I should get recommendations from? I can't ask my advisor (I wouldn't be in this situation if he hadn't screwed me over the first time); and while there are certainly some other professors who remember me favorably, enough time has passed that I'm not sure they would have anything more than a desultory blurb to contribute. Math departments have little interest in recommendations from people in industry, and related subjects are presuambly similar. Is it possible to get some sort of recommendation or other bona fides available from industry that a PhD admissions committee in math, mathematical physics, etc. would care about?

What industry are you in? E.g. if you are in finance or a quant, you could probably apply to a stochastic calculus programme. If you are in cryptography, you have a good starting point for algebra/number theory, etc. Some places encourage "mature" students, and it may help to know a prof you'd like to work with, and perhaps try to contact them directly.

@CaptainEmacs: I currently work as a general researcher at a tech company. Finding professors I want to work with isn't the problem; it's getting them to listen to someone random person off the street who already has a PhD in math but has been stuck in industry for several years.

I failed to see that you look for a 2nd PhD. I think that's what may scare them off. They will ask, why do you want a second PhD? Perhaps better to do a postdoc if you want to develop yourself. In some topics, a postdoc coming from industry may actually be more attractive as they know how to work, they have routine, discipline, and bring an orthogonal set of skills. Select a topic with some application angle, or where they may profit from links to industrial perspective, and you'll have a much better starting point than asking for a 2nd PhD opportunity.

anomaly's wish for a second PhD was covered in other question, Getting rid of first degree to apply for second. The general reaction seemed to be against the whole idea of a repeat PhD, so references may not be the biggest problem.

@CaptainEmacs: I want a second PhD because there isn't any opportunity for doing the theoretical math research I enjoy outside of academia, and I had a terrible advisor the first time around that prevented me from continuing in academia. If I could get some sort of pure math research position in industry, or a postdoc, or any other way of resolving the situation, I would. As it stands, I'm stuck with trying to get a second PhD as my best option. It's not a great option, but it's what I have available to me.

It could be worth refocusing the question (or asking a new one), since I think the second Ph.D. issue will be a much bigger obstacle than just coming from outside of academia.  Many departments simply won't accept an applicant who already has a Ph.D., no matter what the application looks like, and those that might consider it will be extremely skeptical.  The chances of admission will be essentially zero without extraordinarily persuasive letters.  So the key question isn't "how can I get letters from outside academia?" but rather "how can I assemble a compelling case for doing another Ph.D.?"

(In particular, there are various ways you could try to make academic contacts and acquire letters, but most of them are highly unlikely to lead to letters that would be useful for your particular goals.  It's not enough to acquire letters that attest to your talent or potential or accomplishments.  Instead, they have to very specifically make the case for why a second Ph.D. makes sense in your case, and that's a far more demanding requirement.)

@AnonymousMathematician: That's fair, but almost all of the responses I've gotten to questions about getting a second PhD have been tangents about how I somehow don't or shouldn't want an academic career enough. I'd rather narrow down the question in hopes of getting a more useful reply.

@AnonymousMathematician: The reason for a second PhD in particular is that I claim that I would have been able to continue my career in academia if I hadn't gotten screwed over by my department. Since there's no opportunity to do pure math research outside of academia, I have no idea how to back up the claim that I have the interest in and talent for it to an admissions committee. But I really don't want to spend the next few decades writing code, compiling actuarial tables, or modeling the stock market, so I'm willing to give anything a shot.

Since there's no opportunity to do pure math research outside of academia I am not sure this is true. Yitang Zhang did that. Some others did that. I don't think you need to be in academia physically to do that. If you are talking about experimental science, I would think you'll need other resources to do research, Pencil and papers should be enough for you to do pure math.

@scaaahu: Math does not work that way. (Also, do I really need to defend the merits of academia on academia.stackexchange?) I'm already very familiar with Yitang Zhang, since he invariably gets trotted out in this sort of discussion. One person has indeed managed to make it work, and good for him, but you might as well say that I can get rich by buying lottery tickets because a few dozen people have.

Yes, I understand what you're saying. I made the above comment because what you were saying "Since there's no opportunity ..." sounds very absolute, so I had to counter it. I am in the similar situation. I am not really in academia, so I had a lot trouble, ranging from getting access to the papers behind pay wall to having no one to discuss my research, etc. I completely understand. But, I never give up. Frankly, I don't believe getting another PhD can solve your problem. I am not you. I may not know exactly what your problem is.

@scaaahu: No worries. Thanks for your comment.

Getting recommendation letters should not be a problem, just go to your professors in undergraduate/graduate school, I am sure there will be many people who will happily help you. However, reaching them by e-mail could be somewhat hard, if you are not far away from school go directly to them and explain the situation(or perhaps a part of it). Moreover, there are many fields which require software skills, like machine learning, AI/neural networks,etc. Also, having a number of publications in conference proceedings or journal papers might be an alternative to strong letters.

Consider enrolling in a Masters applied math program. You can specifically mention your reason as being that you want to obtain marketable skills for job opportunities outside of academics. Then, with a Ph.D. in pure mathematics and an M.A. in applied mathematics (in which you want to do VERY well in, well beyond the minimal standards for the degree), you'll be in a much better position to find non-academic work. (Assuming that's what you want. You didn't say what your endgame was for the new Ph.D.)

@DaveLRenfro: Finding a non-academic job is easy; I already have one, and getting a master's degree in applied math wouldn't make me any more attractive to employers. I want an academic position.

Who did write you the recommendation letters for the first PhD? Maybe you could use them again. I think there is nothing wrong in using recommendation letters from industry, in any case. I was in the industry when I started my PhD and I showed my boss' recommendation letter, but my field is not math but physics.
On the other hand, I agree with people that recommend you to try a post-doc instead of a second PhD.


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Do journals avoid you as a reviewer if you are too fast?
A couple of years ago, when I started publishing in my field, I received several requests of review from 4/5 different journals in a row. Because I happened to have free time, I submitted those reviews (done conscientiously, although in just one or two pages) in 24/48 hs. I know this is super fast. Then nobody has asked for my review in several months. I recently read that there was a scandal, I think in China, where journals discovered that reviewers answering in 24 hours were the authors themselves in disguise. My question is: are editors letting me rest? Were my reviews too short? Or, might they have mistrusted my reviews because they were too quickly done?

What field?  How long are these papers?  If a review usually takes three months and you did one in half a day, I am going to be suspicious.  You say super fast, but does this mean 1/3 the usual time or 1/100?

Also, had you seem some of the papers before?  Sometimes I am asked to review a paper I just read.

@TerryLoring Philosophy. Probably 1/100, given that reviews always take months.

Have a look at the best reviewers, and on which topic, according to publons,
https://publons.com/wos-op/awards/2018/excellent/?order_by=place
and then draw your conlcusions ...

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/149155/17254

Note that the review process may be managed by artificial intelligence (AI).  In my areas, the review process is carried out by an AI that invites reviewers.  So it does not really matter.  If the editor is suspicious, then he/she can look up a reviewer.

Were my reviews too short? - How do your reviews compare with ones you've received?  Are they in line or very different?

@EarlGrey My only conclusion is that there is something very wrong either with Publons or with those reviewers. There are people on that website that claim to write 3 reviews/day even on Sundays.

@FedericoPoloni exactly, I have no other explanation either, so I let OP think about it themselves, I am not sure if we can apply the same metrics to reviews of, let's say Phys.Let.A and more specific journals publishing experimental tests of steel alloys.

@Prof.SantaClaus What? Who uses AI to assign reviewers?

In my experience, the unusual thing is not that you haven't been asked to review recently but that you had a batch of review requests all at once.
Most journals that I have worked with, as either editor or reviewer, prefer to use the same reviewer no more than 2-3 times per year, in order to maintain a diversity of perspectives and in order to avoid burning out reviewers.  If nothing happens across an editor's desk that makes them think of you, it could be years before a particular journal asks you to review again.
Referrals also play a role in being asked to review. Editors will often use at least one of the reviewers suggested by the authors. Also, if somebody declines a review due to being too busy, the editor will often ask the person declining for suggestions of alternate reviewers.
Thus, my guess is that you had an unusual coincidence of referrals early on, and that you've now reverted to a more normal rate of review requests. If you want to have more review requests, start spreading the word through your professional network, and people are likely to start pointing to you in their referrals.

"prefer to use the same reviewer no more than 2-3 times per year". I have a different experience: I've found that typically journals tend to assign manuscripts to review until one starts rejecting.

@MassimoOrtolano I'm sure this is one of the areas where there's a lot of variation. I've certainly explicitly been told to rate-limit and been provided tools that say when the last time a person reviewed.

I am not sure if you made the journals suspicions, but here is what I do when my reviews take extra-short or extra-long time.  I let the editor know what is going on.  For example, I just finished a long programing project and the referee task was a welcome change.   Or, this paper relates to an active project so I needed to read this right away for other reasons.  Or, in the other direction, I might say that I found part-way through the paper that I needed to review a math topic I had not worked on for a decade and the paper is fine. Even with this, communication does break down and editors end up mad at me.
I seriously doubt that any editor is going to be much concerned that one review came in fast.  This happens sometimes for valid reasons.  Just make it a habit of adding comments to the editor to let them know the context.  Editors are humans.

I can add a sample size of one from personal experience here:
In my field (somewhere between physics and applied mathematics), the actual workload of a peer review is at most one day of work while the average time for peer review is one month. The main reason reviews take so long is that reviewers need to find time for the review during their other duties (this applies to every field).
When I started reviewing (on my own), I was handing in most reviews within a few days. (The main reason for this was that my other duties were long and flexible, so a task quickly done was a welcome change and whether I did the review immediately or after two weeks would delay my other duties all the same.) I consider my reviews to be thorough and certainly not overly positive.
As a result, I became an “emergency reviewer” for one big publisher. They never officially told me, but I clearly got only sent review requests where the authors had been already waiting an overly long time, e.g., because one of the original reviewers failed to deliver or they needed an additional opinion. Mind that I did not get review requests at a high frequency, but those which I got were only “emergencies”. Other journals continued to request me as a reviewer in a normal manner.

Were my reviews too short?

It’s naturally hard to answer that. At least in my field and many others, reviewers are “trained” by starting to work on reviews collaboratively with an experienced reviewer (usually their supervisor). If you have undergone such a process, you should be aware what constitutes a good review in your field. If not, you might have committed mistakes that you don’t even notice.

Or, might they have mistrusted my reviews because they were too quickly done?

Unless your review time was below the actual workload of a proper review, I doubt that. The usual hallmarks of bad reviews are being overly positive or negative or too superficial. I would expect that journals focus on these criteria, since bad reviews can also take a long time – many people have received useless two-sentence reviews after months of waiting. On the other hand, if a low-quality review coincides with a short delivery time, this should fuel any suspicions and bad impressions.

Do journals avoid you as a reviewer if you are too fast?

No.

might they have mistrusted my reviews because they were too quickly done?

No.  Reviews are judged by the contents.

are editors letting me rest?

Some journals do have a policy of not asking for more than one review every x months.

Terry Loring says he would be suspicious, though.

Well, surely it depends on how fast.

My first instinct is that this is improbable. I can imagine one journal with such a policy but think it unlikely that four or five would, or would communicate on this.
You could consider asking the editors of those journals. They might be pleased to find another willing reviewer.


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What is the length boundary between article and monograph?
I've seen peer-reviewed articles of over 24,000 words, and short monographs (books) of barely over 100 pages. Is there a demarcation on how long can an article be without becoming a monograph? I'm in Philosophy.

I don't know specifically about philosophy, but in general I don't see a reason why this should be mainly decided by text length. For instance in mathematics (my field), research articles, survey articles, and monographs serve quite different puposes, no matter how long precisely they are.

Even in math there’s not a clear line. If you have a 90-page paper in JAMS it’s an article and if the same paper is in MAMS then it’s a monograph!

Journals and conferences may have length limits on articles but they differ widely. A given publisher with many journals may have different limits for different journals. These limits are usually easy to find. Reviewers also make some suggestions about length on occasion if they find extraneous (or missing) materials in a paper.
Limits might be in words or pages and there might be both lower and upper limits in some cases. Journals that publish paper versions might be quite strict with limits.
The same publishers of those journals might also publish monographs, though some publishers specialize in one or the other. Each will have its own standards about what it publishes. Many journals consider monetization of what they publish and length may play a role in decisions, though it is unlikely to be a major consideration with other things such as timeliness and relevance (and market) being more important.
But articles and monographs are somewhat different in tone, with articles usually leaving much of the background of an idea in the references and monographs often including more of that for completeness.
If you have an idea for an article or a monograph, you can discuss the idea with an editor (or two) who will give you advice on which might be appropriate and also about how complete and self contained your work needs to be to be considered a monograph. If they find your ideas interesting enough they will work with you on publishing them. The length is something that will be a consequence of that.


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Is it ethical to privately thank authors when you discover they’ve cited your work?
Is it ethical to privately thank authors when you discover they’ve cited your work?
Can it be looked upon like you’re trying to gain future favour? Or like the citation itself was for any reason other than purely academic reasons?

While there is technically nothing wrong with thanking somebody for citing you, doing so however puts a focus on that you "play the citation statistics game", which is probably not the first impression that you want to make. If you want to mention this, embed it in something scientific. For instance "I've notice that you recently had a paper on X - by the way, thanks for citing me there - and I found your conclusion very interesting. Perhaps there is a way to extend your result into direction Y?" is probably ok.

If you do this every time and happen to achieve a successful paper, people in your field will consider your emails as spam ;)

No, I meant it only for special/important authors.

I have the strong feeling that I've seen exactly the same question a while ago ...

Maybe, maybe I forgot...

Why would you write such an email, then? Apparently it is not one of the motives you list, so what is it? - That's certainly what I would ask myself if I received such an email: Why is he doing this?

Show appreciation?

Why would you show appreciation for being cited? Either you are cited rightfully, or not. I would feel odd receiving such an email; indeed, I have never received such an email, as far as I remember.

Good. Odd is the answer I was looking for. So it can be odd... Thanks!

In a way, this would be like thanking your neighbor for parking in their driveway instead of yours. Thanking them isn't unethical at all; but they're just following normal rules and conventions, so thanking them for it (even though it does make your life better) is kind of strange.

It is ethical if sincere (which is important).

It is fine, and they are not likely to look on it in those ways you say.
But they are likely to think it is a waste of time, unless you also have something else to say that is more interesting, for example a comment or question on their paper.

In this answer I just meant that it is ethically fine. As others have said it is weird and feeds the citation gaming.

It's not really appropriate to thank them for citing you, which is something they are obliged to do if your work is relevant and shouldn't do if it is not.
What may be appropriate is to thank them for taking the time to understand a very important point and for how well they've summarized your work and note that they've given you a new insight into it (or how it relates to other work). That is thank them for their work and insights.
Normally the point of an email in such a case would be to point out a more recent work that they've missed (of yours or someone else), or to point out that there's a subtlety that they overlooked or (more humbly) to question why they didn't use that approach or used a particular alternative, or asking them to comment on some followon work that you are doing or proposing.
Actually, this last is the most common time people contact me about my papers, to ask for comment or help on something they are trying to do or proposing to do. And sometimes it can be an invitation to collaboration of some kind.
It is a good idea to start a dialogue with people that are working on similar things and have a compatible approach - getting to know the people in the field is important for matters like conferences, grants, examiners, sabbaticals, etc. It is particularly important in times where travel is more constrained.

Is it ethical to privately thank authors when you discover they’ve cited your work?

I don't think it is a question of ethics, but would be weird.

Can it be looked upon like you’re trying to gain future favour?

No, but I would view the email as unusual, but not trying to gain favor.

Or like the citation itself was for any reason other than purely academic reasons?

By who? Both you and the author know the citation was only based upon merit (or the original author's motivation).
Instead of thanking, just drop a the authors a note saying you found their recent paper interesting. Perhaps something like:

Dear Dr. Smith,
I saw your recent paper, New Widgetology updates. I was impressed with your advancement/progress/work and how you build upon existing work/theory/etc.
< Add a comment, question, invite to collaborate, have a Zoom call here>.
user354948

That will let them know you read their paper.

What request would be unusual?

Updated to add "No, but I would view the email as unusual, but not trying to gain favor."

I would also find a note like that weird, unless you have a specific comment or question.  At least in my circles, saying a something to that effect in person would be normal and nice, but an email just to say that, expecially if you don't know the authors, would also be weird.

Even better, you might want to seek synergies between their work and yours. Something along the lines of "As you probably know, I am doing research in the area of Sepuling. I am wondering, if your new widgetology method is applicable to Sepulkaria."

@Kimball good point. I added text to address your comment

There is an elephant in the room, and I feel you are not addressing it.
The citation in itself has no intrinsic intellectual value. You may be flattered that your person has been cited—but in reality it is your work (most likely with your coauthors), not your person.
Therefore, why would you be thankful? If it is because you found the citing work interesting, then you should say thanks to all the interesting papers you have read, not only the ones citing you.
If it is because you see your citation counts growing ... well, keep in mind that the "real" worth of citations is logarithmic: it makes no difference if you have been cited 2 or 5 times; the real difference is between having 10s or 1000s of citations. And even that difference is simply stating "how many research slaves (phds, postdocs and the likes) have the author had", unless the author is a world-famous expert on the topic (a status you do not reach with citations).
If you cheer each single citation you receive, you are (involuntarily and as a side-effect) feeding the citation gaming.
Additionally, you are enforcing (again, involuntarily and as a side-effect) the belief that citation ranking have to mean something and that the citation-based metrics have some intrinsic value (therefore feeding the citation games).
Finally, if I would receive such a thank mail, I would think that you are a naive young researcher that believes in meritocracy, that understand nothing of the power balance in research, that do not understand that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and I would reply to you asking "why?".
Disclaimer: I am out of academia since years, and my h-index is 19 (yes, pun intended, citations and related metrics have no intrinsic values. I am just mentioning it for your pleasure).

In some fields, citation counts are much lower, and there are differences between the population of papers than have been cited 5 times and the population of papers that have been cited 2 times (but, for individual papers, the noise still overwhelms the signal).

@EarlGrey No, no coauthors, thanks. I guess we naive people think that you guys are cynical. Of course I believe in meritocracy: I never wrote anything awful that was published and cited.

@user354948 do you mean I am 1/3 right or 2/3 right or 3/3 right? I especially hope you will ponder about the deep reasons you are (so much) thankful for the citation.

@EarlGrey Ok, maybe the reasons make the thankyou unwarranted. Good point.

@EarlGrey Could you please expand on the “power balance in research”?

@user354948 the young researchers that are cited are the promising one that are going to win grants and perform nice international collaborations. Good quality in this research is sufficient, but not necessary: pretty boring and not novel research may get promoted, because the researchers profiles are "interesting" in the long term or simply because these young researchers seems the over-the-average-achieving, while in fact they are simply good&"smart" at taking merit of someone else work.

@EarlGrey Thanks!

I strongly advise against this.
There seems to be this fallacy that everything in academia is ''ethical'' or ''not ethical'' and that's all that matters (similar to the fallacy of people learning a language who divide things into ''grammatical'' and ''not grammatical'' in that language and don't appreciate that something can be grammatical and still sound strange).
Yes it's ''ethical'' in the sense that it's not wrong, but it's most definitely not a normal thing to do in academia and would look strange.  It is not normal practice and it is just ''white noise'' to clog people's email inboxes with random pointless emails like this.  If someone sent me an email like this, I would just delete it and be vaguely annoyed that I had to spend a bit of time reading and deleting it.
Edit: A few weeks ago a professor actually emailed me to thank me for citing their article.  Very strange, I just ignored the message as I only cited the article as it had a result I needed.

A simple "thank you" unethical? OMG how did we get to this place?!
It would be perfectly fine and not at all weird.
As long as you are simply thanking them for acknowledging your work and not making a big deal about it, it's simply a normal, decent thing a person can say to another person. We are after all still human beings.
If you add some additional chit-chat or mention something related to research they might find of interest, or "while I've got you here, I'd like to as a question" it may help to make your message feel more normal to you and to them, if you feel it's a concern.
Academicians should not live in balkanized ivory towers, they should be able to feel a sense of community and camaraderie1, and how better to do so than to treat each other in a warm and social way.
How can a simple "thank you" be anything but good?
Beyond that, you may make a friend, or find further direct discussion useful, or even collaborate some day.
Consider it an ice-breaker; go for it!

1though it may vary by field, there really used to be much more of this decades ago than there is now, and while some folks feel cut-throat competition brings out the best in everyone, I'm not so sure.

@Roland I have, it was nice, and I'm sorry to hear you haven't.

I don't see why it would be weird to get such a thanks; it is nice when someone recognises and cites your work.  Just because people don't usually do this doesn't mean we need to treat people as oddballs if they do.

If it is unclear to anyone why even a "simple thank you" brings up any ethical considerations have a look at what happens when citations become currency in a quid-pro-quo agreements https://retractionwatch.com/2022/05/17/how-citation-cartels-give-strategic-scholars-an-advantage-a-simple-model/

@user2705196 that could be the basis of a very interesting new answer, please consider posting as such.

"it's a thing a person can say to another person" there is a huge difference between saying something, spontaneously during the coffeebreak at a conference or during the chat time of a remote call, and thinking about writing an email to convey that message only (you should thank me for providing some knowledge, and you are doing that by citing me :D ) .
As an example, I received an email "thank you for the citation, but you got the main message of my paper wrong" and I was fine with that, a simple "thank you for your citation" would make me feel like I am selling citations, at the least.

@EarlGrey which is precisely why (if one checks my post) you'll see that I've already advised: "If you add some additional chit-chat or mention something related to research they might find of interest, or "while I've got you here, I'd like to as a question" it may help to make your message feel more normal to you and to them, if you feel it's a concern."

@uhoh OP is a bit ambiguous in his definition of "privately". I read it as privately=per email or similar. I agree with your answer, but I think it is referring to an in-person meeting (see for example the mention of ice-breaker) and I read the OP question more as something that happens via email.

@EarlGrey these days one can just as easily "break the ice" electronically as in person. I think it's reasonable to use "ice breaker" in reference to email correspondence as well.


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How long does Springer give you to proof your entire book?
I know it's 48 or 72 hours for an article, how long does the author have to check the proofs for an entire book (300 pages)?

The answer is specific to your contract with Springer.

Your question is about a book., not articles.

Ask your editor to be sure, but from my experience with other publishers you can expect 2-4 weeks before the editor starts chasing you about the proofs.

A month seems like a lot of time, when they give you 48 hours to proofread 10,000 words!

(+1) For my 343 page monograph, I had less than a month to check the final proofs and had to do the index, which is a nightmare, to say the least. And the final proofs, in pdf format, were locked and the publication folks, half a world away, simply gave up trying to help me unlock them. It turns out that was just the usual Windows and Mac problem, i.e., cross-platform compatibility is still mostly just a fever dream, so I hacked the final proofs to get to correct errors. With apologies to Chief Joseph, “From where the sun now sits in the sky, I will book publish no more, forever!”

Don’t know when this was, but Springer now uses an online proof checker that’s awesome… at least for articles. I hope they use the same for books.

@user354948 journal papers are usually more time-sensitive than books though (and are you rerea.ding the entire thing?).

@Allure Yes, I am. I’ve had experiences in the past of editors not fluent in English changing a sentence of mine into grammatically nonsensical English. I had to publish and erratum in that occasion.


text:
Waited almost a year and a half for a review. The reviewer reviewed the wrong paper. What to do?
Waited almost a year and a half for a review. The reviewer reviewed the wrong paper. What to do? Can I ask the editor to really expedite the next review?

Have you already made the editor aware at least?

@BryanKrause Yes, of course, immediately.

What did they say? Have there been other reviews? I don't think an editor ever tries to have a paper reviewed more slowly than possible. They're mostly waiting for unpaid reviewers that they have no sway over to respond.

While a comment notes, correctly, that the editor has little control over the actions of a reviewer, they most likely have options as to who to send the paper to and some knowledge of how long that person normally takes.
There is no harm in asking. Another option, of course, is to withdraw the paper and submit elsewhere, but there are no guarantees of faster response.