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I spotted a paper with an absurd amount of self citations. Is this normal?
I spotted a paper with around 106 citations, around which 86 are just the author citing himself.  Now I understand that people do this to work on their previous studies, but 86? That's around just 20 citations you've received for your paper. Another paper of his has 96 citations with 87 being self. Is this normal or excessive?

It would depend on the paper. Are they lots of citations for a few papers, or for many papers? Is he working in a very small subfield? Is there an alternative to these citations? After all, self plagiarism needs to be avoided. By itself, the number means little.

@Buffy it's not a vague field. It's a quite popular one I'd say. But regardless a whole of 86 citations ? And this number is constant for most of his papers? Isn't this self citation abuse?

Ask, rather, are the citations needed. Also ask whether other things should have been cited also or instead. See the answer of Dilworth

The worst I ever saw was 55 references, of which 54 were to the author’s own publications.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21797/how-to-discourage-irrelevant-self-citation

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/99875/curious-case-of-self-citations-and-how-to-monitor-self-citers?rq=1

The question is whether the citations are relevant or not. Some authors work in a specialized field, or with specialized  approaches in a popular field. So it is relevant to cite themselves. The problem is different in this case: if they are the only one working in their subfield or using their approach, then maybe it's not a good approach?

@Dilworth Thank you

Can be normal, I just read an preprint and 30% of the citations are self-citations.  This is probably the limit of justifiable number of self-citations in an article.

A while ago I peer reviewed a paper with 22 self citations, which does seem a bit like they are playing ''the citations game''.

I voted to close but I do not agree with the stated close reason. The corect close reason is duplicate of this

@6005 why are you always so insistent on closing the question? Is there some problem?

As I said: I do not agree with those voting to close for "strongly depending on individual factors" (does not apply here), and I did not vote to close for this reason. I voted to close to provide additional visibility to the duplicate question.

To clarify: there's no problem with your question and it is a good one. The closure is an artifact of the software which closes the question on 5 votes despite that I do not agree with the stated reason. Let me know if it is still not clear.

@6005 and other close voters: I disagree with the close votes and have voted to reopen, since the heuristics I give allow one to assess situations like these without knowing the individual papers and since the linked questions are different enough that the answers do not provide such heuristics.

Self-citations are valid, but too much is a bad sign:

On the one hand, an author with an ongoing research program will generally have significant prior work that needs to be cited.
On the other hand, all scientific work exists in a larger intellectual context for which Joy's law applies: lots of other smart people are doing related work that needs to be acknowledged.

High rates of self-citation thus generally indicate authors that are either:

intellectually isolated,
delusionally arrogant, or
deliberately manipulating citation statistics.

But how high is too high?
As a rough heuristic, I have come to regard 1/3 as a useful upper bound on reasonable self-citation. That means that most citations are elsewhere, even for papers with very strong prior work to cite. I also generally find that the higher the total citation count, the lower the fraction that are self-citations (i.e., volume of prior work scales more slowly than complexity of scientific context). Conversely, the ratio may break down entirely in short works with artificially limited citation counts, e.g., in  extended abstracts where all but a few absolutely mandatory citations are pruned for reasons of space.
Applying these heuristics to the cases that you describe, I would assess the citation ratios 86/106 and 87/96 as almost certainly indicating deliberate manipulation of citation statistics. If the fractions were similar but the citation count was small (e.g., <20 total), then it might be legitimate or a result of intellectual isolation. Even with lots of prior work, however, there is almost never a reason to cite so many different pieces of it, as a prolific author will generally also write review papers that are better to cite than the individual papers that went into them---and review papers have limited self-citation because they are describing other people's work as well. The author might be delusionally arrogant too, but there's a lot more citation manipulators out there than researchers who are both delusional and highly prolific.
Bottom line: probably deliberate citation manipulation.

Agreed. And who would want to read such self aggrandising stuff anyway?

Those three bullet points for high rate of self-citations are so on point!

+1 Spot on. Although your last claim: "... there's a lot more citation manipulators out there than researchers who are both delusional and highly prolific" seems true for hard sciences (or STEM in the US), the rate of delusional researchers is a lot higher in the humanities, e.g. anthropology and sociology.

With regards to the humanities: are the researchers that you would consider delusional also highly prolific? In the STEM world, the ones that I have encountered typically have low rates of publication due to their isolation, and thus would not have a large number of publications available to cite.

These numbers can't be accurately explained by someone (over-)cautiously avoiding self-plagiarism? Hanlon's razor comes to mind.

@Mast Almost certainly not, else a) they'd have a lot more to cite from other people too, and b) they should have review papers to cite.

Citations are neither a competition, nor a prize. They are simply a tool to refer to previous scientific work in order to establish the scientific case of the paper.
The fact that some people have decided that citations are in fact a good measure for "success", or a good case for "promotion", does not mean that citations should be perceived as anything else than a scientific tool, rather than a merit, prize or a favour.
Thus, there is nothing "excessive" in itself in loads of self-citations. Each citation should be evaluated solely based on the scientific justification of the cited work and its relevance to the current work, and there is nothing in your question that provides a witness for an unjustified citation. In other words, it is impossible to answer your question based solely on numbers and percentage of self-citations.

In other words, the question about many self-citations is whether the citations are relevant or not. Some authors work in a specialized field, or with specialized approaches in a popular field. So it is relevant to cite themselves. Overall, the problem of high percentage of self citations is different: if they are almost the only ones working in their subfield or using their approach, then maybe it's not a good approach?

"Citations are neither a competition, nor a prize." This is the case in principle, not in reality.

Well, if it is a "prize" as you contend, then I don't blame the author for generously awarding themselves with such prizes!

The prevalence of self citation also creates a funny situation in the double-blind review. Almost all of the few papers I had reviewed, the anonymous authors (or research group) that wrote the paper was very easy to spot.

@SeF, yes, but it's completely justified scientifically to self-cite your own work assuming you continue with the same research direction you've been doing in recent years.

Dilworth , I never said it is not justified.

You both have a point. Lots of (self-)citations are not going to make fellow scientists think better of that person, in some cases it's quite the opposite... But funding agencies like to think otherwise. Obnoxious as the chest-thumping might be, this is how they survive and keep on getting resources to produce more results. Thankfully, it is still possible to get reasonable funding without resorting to that.

I strongly disagree with "Citations are neither a competition, nor a prize" too. My institute (among the top three largest ones in the largest scientific society in Europe) has multiple KPIs related to publishing (PPH = papers per head, Scopus, number of citation etc.). There are many researchers, who also love playing the system in order to boost their own ego.

I am not sure if the h-index is influenced by self-citation. From what I recall it counts whenever other authors are citing you but I am not sure if this applies to other MAIN authors or all authors (you can be at the very end of the list of authors :D). If the latter, then I would imagine that self-citation can provide a nice boost of your h-index.

86 self-citations out of 106 is definitely abnormal. Most (all?) editors would want to investigate. It's not necessarily malicious, but it's something to check out.

If it's been published, the editor had a say, as did the reviewers. And "unusual" might be a better term than "abnormal". Just as "huge" might be better than "absurd", which implies a judgement has been made already.

There are certainly cases where a researcher is a pioneer in a specialty field, where they may have produced a large volume of work on a "niche" topic that comprises a large fraction of all of the work.

There are certainly cases where a researcher is invited to write a survey or review paper or one that covers the evolution of a specific research topic.

It is possible that these two could be concurrent.
So asking about a single instance without describing the nature of the paper along those two axes leaves open the possibility that this is by design, i.e. what the journals' editor(s) hoped for.
However:

Another paper of his has 96 citations with 87 being self. Is this normal or excessive?

Ya, could be, unless the concurrence happened twice; the author was invited to write two survey or review papers and you happened to find both.

Yes, it is normal and it is the equivalent of doping in sport.
If your competing organisation is self-citing, and both your competitor and you are equally piffle in doing research, then the only way to survive for you is to self-cite as well.
This has two interesting consequences:

the larger the research group the higher the number of artificial citations the participants can get.
the doped paper that go through blind peer review is de facto not anonymous (the self citation points eloquently at the authoring research group): two competing organisations can help each others to dope up the number of citations (I approve yours self-citing paper, you approve mine).

The positive note is that this mechanism is only doping up the bottom. Honest and really breakthrough research work have a number of citations that is unreachable for the self-citing research groups.
For example the paper by Nakamoto, "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" has alone more citations than the total number of citations of the self-citing professor in his whole career.


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How should I talk to my advisor about changing the research topic after already choosing one?
I started an engineering PhD program this year with an excellent advisor that I get along well with. I just finished my first semester where students are mostly required to focus on coursework with minimal research work.
When I first started, I was asked to choose either project A or B for my PhD. Both projects are funded, but project B is actually a joint project and is not fully the area of expertise of my advisor and requires co-advising from another professor who is the main investigator of the project. I preferred project B to project A so I chose it.
However, as the semester started, I emailed the other professor and he responded positively, but he then stopped responding completely when I asked to meet him. I tried to send him multiple friendly follow-up emails throughout the semester, but there wasn't any response at all. After I met his graduate students and talked to a couple of alumni, I got the hint that I will have a hard time working for him. Is it ok to change the project after choosing one?
How can I bring it up to my advisor that I want to change my project from B to A without burning bridges? I am afraid that I will disappoint my advisor and be perceived as flaky and not serious.

I changed the format of your post. However, there is an important question. What is your question? Please add the question to the title and also to the body of the post.

I suggest the title "How to talk to my advisor about changing the research topic after already choosing one?". What do you think about it? A good title will attract more viewers, making it more likely for you to receive useful answers.

You have, of course, been informing your advisor of the difficulties trying to collaborate on B?

Hopefully this will reassure you: of all possible reasons to want to switch topics, this is one of the best ones an advisor could hear. "I liked both these projects, my student chose B, but now wants to switch to A—a project I still like—for real reasons that aren't my fault. No problem!"

I emailed the other professor and he responded positively then stopped responding completely when I asked to meet him. Review your correspondence with a friend to ensure that nothing was said that could be perceived as unprofessional. Regardless, this is an issue best handled by management. Talk to his/her manager - the dean. Then request that all three of you sit down for a meeting. You're paying to attend this school.

It's much better to have this kind of conversation with your advisor as soon as you realize the issue. I remember as a student being reluctant to discuss this kind of issue with my advisor, but now as an advisor, I'd much rather a student bring it up early.
Let's consider the case in which you wait. Will you make as much progress on project B if it's not your expertise and you need help from the other advisor? If it's difficult to meet with them (e.g., they're really busy) you will probably have trouble learning the techniques yourself.
Now, it's possible that your advisor might want you to stick on project B. Maybe they need the funding, or they need the collaboration with the other group. In that case, I think it's on your advisor to help get the project off to a good start, either by arranging a meeting with the other professor, or finding out which member of that group can help get you started.
Your concern about your advisor's perception of you is, I think, unfounded. Coming with valid concerns about getting a project off to a successful start is (IMHO) a very good sign in a student.

The way to handle this is to just do it, preferably with a sit-down meeting in which you can discuss options and your reservations. If your advisor agrees to a switch then let them deal with the other professor. There is no need to "burn bridges" with anyone.
There is little worse than setting out on the wrong path, knowing that it is the wrong path. Let your relationship with your advisor carry you over the murky bits, both in this and in the research.
Yes, it is OK to switch. Some of us actually switched universities in order to find a happy home. Face to face, though. A conversation.

That's true. He/she should always do things that makes him/her happy.

First, a couple preliminaries/considerations that don't directly answer your question

Have you tried anything other than emails and gossip?

Not trying to be harsh, just some people respond much better face-to-face.
Are there office hours for the professor?

Is there money involved?

Has the funding explicitly/implicitly already paid for your tuition?
Has the funding paid for anything else?
Will it go away if you switch, or at least require significant behind the scenes money shifting?

Is project A still available?

If I was a professor, and had a student choose B, then I'd look for student for A.
Research doesn't stand still, and often there's a limited time window.

Given these, resolve Question 1:

if( !(Tried anything other than email) )
then: Attempt to have a meeting with the 2nd professor anyway, even without an email response.  Or trying calling them and leaving a voice message.  Or go to their building and try to arrange an appointment (maybe a receptionist?).  Or, show up at the office hours and introduce yourself.  Talk about your concerns politely, yet honestly, especially if you feel there's a need for significant research guidance.

Resolve Question 2

if( know money is involved )
then: Show far more care about changing.  If you do meet with your Advisor or 2nd Professor then its definitely something to discuss.  It's not so much an issue of flakiness, as whether your education will suddenly stop having funding.
elsif( don't know )
then: Find out.  If your Advisor is easier to find and talk with, then its a point that probably needs to be comprehended.
elseif( money is not involved )
then: Far less issue with changing research topics.

Question 3 resolution should be fairly obvious

if( project A was assigned )
then: You're probably out-of-luck.  Especially if student on project A has already started working and performing research.
else: Far less issue with changing research topics.

Personally, I think I'm slightly less positive on switching than the other answers (especially if you've only tried email).  You're in a profession where you're expected to track down answers, and pursue (somewhat) independent lines of study.  I'd expect that person to at least meet the other professor.  That said, understand the issue as I had a PhD experience with very distant advisors, and many undergrads => PhD's go from lots of advice => "nothing".
If you try meeting 2nd professor (even without an email confirmation) and it still does not work, and there's limited risk for education support (money), and Project A is still available, then its probably acceptable to request a project change.
Meet with your Advisor.  Get their opinion on the situation, explaining what you've tried and your concerns.  In their position, I would probably pick up the phone and try calling 2nd professor.  If you're set on switching, try to make the switch as painless as it can be, and offer to do whatever legwork is necessary.  IE: Don't just dump it on the prof. and expect them to deal with it.  Personally, I find that passive aggressive.  Also, I cannot stress this enough - try more than just email.  Do you want to go to your Advisor, and they'll ask "what you have tried?" and your response is "I sent some emails."

There aren't supposed to be questions in an answer (this is not a forum), not even rhetorical ones. There are seven questions in this answer.

Ok.  Did not realize there was a prohibition against asking the question starter questions.  Also, confused, since contributors on StackOverflow often ask clarification questions.  Most can be rephrased in anti-Jeopardy language.

@G.Putnam I think your answer is fine.  You're pointing out that certain questions are things that OP needs to consider, before deciding exactly what to do.  I don't see any reason to object to including secondary questions in a response to a question; and I certainly don't believe there's any kind of prohibition against doing so.

Yep, agree with Dawood here. Peter's take is too harsh. The supposed questions in this answer is a fine answer.

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Is solving all of the exercises in a textbook a good idea?
Is solving all of the exercises in a textbook a good idea? I'm particularly concerned with textbooks on mathematics. I have this obsession that I should solve all of the problems that a textbook has. It takes a lot of time and energy but usually I'm satisfied with the end result being me having a better understanding of that particular subject.
Any similar experience of this sort? How's this going to work in the long-run?

If it's helping you learn and not taking up too much time, then I don't see any negatives.

At some point, the exercises help more with memorizing vs conceptualizing. I've forgotten almost all of my integral tables, but I know how integration works and can massage an equation into something I can look up.

There is also the question of what you count as solving. If you are doing it only for yourself anyway, there are some shortcuts you can take. Say you are looking at the hundredth integral in a long list in some book and you immediately see a working substitution which reduces it to something you know how to integrate, without even picking up the pen. Then you should count it as solved and move on to the next, in the hope of finding something more interesting. Sure, you may not have inserted the boundary values, but after a hundred integrals, this part is purely mechanical anyway.

The Art of Computer Programming has a good number of unsolved research problems among its exercises. Fermat's Last Theorem was among them, but it was downgraded because it's not unsolved anymore.

It depends enormously on your personal objectives, apart from your personal predilections. For example, if a significant goal is to advance your understanding of mathematics, then obsessing over exercises (many of which are contrived busywork in undergrad textbooks, and sometimes in grad-level textbooks in the U.S.) is a dubious investment of your personal resources.
For one thing, apart from the articiality of some of the exercises, many of them will be semi-incomprehensible if you've just read the chapter they appear after... but obvious after you've read further! A significant reason for this is that mathematics has developed with various goals in mind, so that the most important enduring concepts and facts refer to important phenomena... not just to some artificial choice of linear logical development as is the common style in textbooks.
On another hand, if you do not aim to be a professional mathematician, or if somehow you have a lot of spare time, sure, why not do whatever you want? Indeed, another common trap of studying mathematics is being too obedient about following some syllabus or textbook, as opposed to following one's own curiosity and interests. It is subtler to parse the situation that your impulse is to do all the exercises... :)
Another practical point is that, at some point, probably soon, unless you severely restrict what books you look at, there's no way you'll have time to do all the exercises in detail, even if you are a whiz-kid. There are too many, and sometimes they are prankish. For example, the "exercises" in Atiyah-MacDonald's "Commutative Algebra" (a misleadingly slim volume) are mostly "theorems" one would find in other books on the same topic.
And, then, there's the point that novices' "solutions" to difficult exercises are often severely suboptimal, even if "successful". Sure, it's good to think about issues, but, at the same time, you'll be able to approach those questions far more wisely later (if you still care, and the things haven't become completely obvious anyway!).
But certainly no one is "required" to do all the exercises, despite some propaganda on the internet. For that matter, it is probably not optimal for most peoples' circumstances and goals. Still, taking an extreme stance, maybe the world will end tomorrow, and if you want to spend the evening doing exercises that you find enchanting, I'd be the last one to try to discourage you. :)

You have patreon  account?

@SrinivasReddyThatiparthy .... :) .....

There is no right answer here, although you need to think about the time commitment involved. For instance, I doubt you need to solve every problem in an introductory calculus book. However, in a textbook where the number of problems per section or chapter is limited, it may be instructive to you to solve the problems that aren't assigned.
However, ultimately, this is a function of how you as an individual learn best. For some people, additional repetition of skills can help; for others, they can pick it up much more quickly, in which case the additional problems may not yield many benefits.

No, it's not. All questions are not equally good exercises. You'd be better served to purchase 2 books on the subject (ideally that take different approaches to the subject matter) and solve 1/2 the questions (picking out the better ones) in each text. This is of course contingent on wanting to learn a particular subject very thoroughly, and that solving questions helps you a lot. In many cases, it'd be a better use of your time to look at other related subject rather than spend so much time on one in particular, but I leave that to you.
Frankly, I can imagine few exceptions to this. The one that I can think of is that a text is very sparse in the questions is has and all the questions are good, but even then, you should evaluate a question's usefulness independently of others. A blanket policy like just doing all the problems in a text is very likely to to have a lot of redundancy in the problems you're solving. Textbooks aren't cheap, but there's a lot of material online nowadays as well if cost is an issue. If you're studying a field that's so small that there simply aren't many textbooks on the subject, chances are you'd be well served to read papers rather than textbooks.

This raises the question of how a novice can pick out the better problems.

As a student of mathematics, I like to state that none can learn mathematics without solving mathematical problems in hand. Exercises in textbooks are a collection of mathematical problems. A good book contains beautiful problems. When you are learning a branch of mathematics you must select a good book to solve its exercises as much as you can. Solving problems is more important than reading the text.

Surely we can still learn the concepts without solving problems? We may not be as adept at applying them, but that seems secondary in some cases.

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How to quickly get complete list of citations to all my papers?
I need to get citations (with complete info including authors, journal, date) to all my papers.  What's the best way (hopefully without too much manual copy & paste) to do this?
What i so far tried:
Google Scholar seem to give more complete list of papers that cite my paper that it includes papers in non-English language journals etc.  But i can't see how to get authors, journal title, volume number etc quickly from the Google Scholar search output.

I haven't used it, but this might help: https://github.com/tonybreyal/Blog-Reference-Functions/blob/master/R/googleScholarXScraper/googleScholarXScraper.R

If you are using Google Scholar, you'll have to filter out lots of false positives and edit the reference files for wrong fields (e.g., wrong journal names). Google itself hasn't managed to do it properly yet, so if you know a way to automate this you might want to contact them with an offer. :)

@DaveClarke I'm sorry, it seems that I misunderstood the question. I'm not a native speaker and it sounded like "citations to [include in]" instead of "citations [pointing] to"  (/"citations of"). I deleted my previous comment.

You can use Scopus to do that, but only if you / your institute has access.
Search for an article that you (or someone else) has authored, click on the author name, then click on "citations".

Scopus screenshot, author page

If you click on the 13 link, you will see a full list of documents citing Gerrit Holl:

Scopus screenshot, author citation page

In my experience, Scopus doesn't have many false positives, although it might miss publications in new or unknown journals.
I'm not sure if Scopus deeplinking works, but try this for a direct link.

but only if you / your institute has access — and you only care about citations in venues that Scopus indexes.

As an alternative to scopus, you can use Web of Science. It's also subscription based though, and your institution may or may not have access.
Go to http://apps.webofknowledge.com , select the tab labelled "Web of Science", and enter your name in the search field for the author. When the results show up, you should see a link labelled "Create citation report" near the top right corner of the results list. Follow that, and in the results table you will see an element "Citing Articles[?] :   nnn", where nnn is the number of citing articles. Click on the number, and you are taken to a list of all citing articles from the Web of Science database.
In case the result list after searching for your name has false positives, you can exclude them from the citation report either by setting a year range, or manually excluding them one-by-one.

Harzing's Publish or Perish software is the tool which will probably help you most. It is a Windows application, which allows you to specify queries and then goes to Google Scholar to retrieve and sort the references, citations, etc. Besides computing h-index and a host of other bibliometric indices, it allows you to produce reports from your searches and this is what you seem to be after. Even though running only on Windows, installing Wine emulator to run it is worth the hassle.

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text:
What is a good research experience
What kind of research experience is a good or satisfactory research experience for grad school admissions ? There are tons of venues even IEEE has some easy to get conferences which has its name attached to.
So when someone says he has research experience it is very subjective and differs from reading a few papers about ones field to publishing in national level to mediocre international level conferences.
Also there are places where a professor at a respected institution may get his paper rejected.
So I am totally confused which research experience is really a research experience ? How do you set the thresold ?
What happens if I have easy to get >5 IEEE conference papers which are may be unheard or new ones such as 2nd IEEE conf on X ? Will I get an edge over other people with no publications or who does not want to publish at such places ? Should I lean towards this approach ?
Good letters from MIT will be a good indicator but what if you have no such recommender or he is tottaly unknown ?

you are evaluating one's research based on IEEE conferences. This is unacademic. IEEE is not the primary venue for many fields, for instance, in Artificial Intelligence (AI), you will not hear the word at all.

@seteropere: Well, except for IEEE PAMI, but I guess that's a journal.

@JeffE  there are decent number of well-known AI conferences and journals in IEEE but IMHO in general IEEE does not represent the main venue for AI researcher (AAAI press and Elsevier do) that's subjective I know  :-)

@seteropere: if you are into applications of AI for robotics, you would hear about IEEE a lot. Both IROS and ICRA are IEEE sponsored and accept a good deal of topics you would read about in Russel&Norvig.

What kind of research experience is a good or satisfactory research experience for grad school admissions?
How do you set the threshold?

There is no threshold.  Instead, graduate admissions committees judge research experience on a continuum.  At one end are things that hardly count at all (e.g., independent textbook study described as research).  At the other end are extremely impressive publications.  Most undergraduate research is somewhere in the middle, and how meaningful it is can be difficult to judge.  To help the committee, you need to explain what you did, why it is interesting, what your contributions were, and perhaps what you learned from it or got out of it (especially if it didn't lead to a publication in a high-quality journal or conference).  It's also important to have a letter of recommendation that addresses this research, to evaluate your contributions.  If you just mention a paper on your CV, without giving this sort of background information about it, then it probably won't help your application much.

Will I get an edge over other people with no publications or who does not want to publish at such places?

It's hard to predict.  Nobody's going to be counting papers or setting thresholds for impact factor.  Instead, the committee will be looking for two key things:

Have you demonstrated the ability to do research?  (Some people get wonderful grades but do not succeed at research.)

Do you have enough experience to know what you are getting into in graduate school?  (Some people think they want to do research, but when they discover what research really involves they change their minds.)

Instead of worrying about thresholds and quantities, I'd suggest focusing on making sure your application satisfies these criteria.

I see what you mean but no one in comitee believes just words or a reflection of this. Mostly school name and the size of recommenders balls make an application pass through.


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Transitioning out of a PhD program and into research in industry
After a bachelor's and the master's degree I decided to do the PhD and now I'm a first year CS PhD student in a very good University in Europe. However, I'm not living a good period of my life since I'm not finding motivation in this path, both for personal and work issues. I'd like to work in another country and find a good company where I can code that it's what I really love in this field.
However, I wouldn't like to do the task of a programmer where usually someone above you asks to develop a particular software for a client. Instead, I'd like to implement software that could be used inside the company by using personal or technical paper's ideas. It looks like this kind of work is more suitable for people who already have a PhD or who have experience with research.
With this two premises I would like to ask a couple of questions.

Is the interruption of a PhD a disadvantage for the applicant?
Is it possible to find a research work without a PhD?

"someone above you asks to develop a particular software for a client" -- I can imagine a couple of different reasons why this might not appeal to you.  Could you say a bit more? // There are no shortage of jobs requiring lots of coding.  How important is it that you be working with personal ideas or ideas from a technical paper?  That's the part that I'm not sure whether you would find immediately.

TL;DR ... 1. It is not much of a disadvantage, if any, and yes, it is possible to find research work without a PhD.

I've worked in four industrial R&D computer science organizations after getting a Ph.D.  Three were considered "research labs" while the most recent one is closer to the development side (but still has a strong foot in the academic research community).
Only one of these companies hired virtually only PhD-level employees.  The others had a mix of Ph.D.s and M.S.-level people.
So I would modify @dan1111's comment to say that some don't care about a Ph.D. and some do.  And many will hire an M.S. (with or without any time spent in a Ph.D. program), though some won't.
We've certainly hired people who left a Ph.D. program with just an M.S. after changing their mind.  I don't see this as an obstacle for industry, at least in computer software.
In other disciplines, who knows?


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What is the proper email etiquette when contacting potential supervisors on short notice?
I am currently an MSc student in the UK and am hoping to apply for PhD at the same institution. I have found some potential supervisors but was wondering what is the correct way of wording my email given that I have only about 3 weeks till the application deadline and it's currently the holiday season (end of term). Some things to note: 1) my current field of study is immunology and I'm hoping to apply for a PhD in Medical Sciences, 2) it won't be possible to meet the supervisors in person since I'm back in the States for the holidays.

The first few tips is be cordial and be brief and to the point.
Make sure you use the correct title and spell the name correctly, in fact make sure the entire mail is spell checked and grammatically correct, anything else sends a bad signal.
Begin by stating your purpose for the mail and provide a short but detailed reason for why you approach the person in question. In your case you should also explain the "short notice" and excuse yourself very concisely for the inconvenience this could bring on.
Follow up by providing a brief statement of why you are interested in the subject but also the school and/or research group. Continue by describing your background and how you see your background being an asset in working in the PhD field.
All this should not be more than 2-3 paragraphs of maybe 5-10 sentences. A short e-mail which manages to say the essentials will be more likely to succeed than a long and very long-winded detailed account (that no-one would take the time to read).
The tone of the mail should be respectful but do not excuse yourself or play "underdog", be confident, brief and to the point. that will impress more.
Finally attach a CV and provide any MS thesis papers you may have.


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When is it proper to add someone to your research paper?
I am an undergraduate working on a research project that is going to be published. My research adviser wasn't completely able to help with a certain portion of the research, so I contacted another professor (in a completely different department) at my university who was more than willing to help.
It seems that this other professor is going to be providing a huge amount of help. Should I offer inclusion in the paper? Should I bring this up with my main adviser and/or should I be upfront with the secondary adviser?

As far as your project is going to be published, I suggest that before you start any contact with that new professor, it is better to talk to your own professor and let him know that you want collaboration with that person. What if your own professor do not agree to collaborate with a new person in his research group?

I think you misspelled "Must I offer inclusion in the paper?" And the answer is yes.

To me it seems you forgot in the first instance to discuss with your research team that you are going to approach someone outside your team for help (before you do so). Thats in general of utmost importance and may save you from all other issues in this respect.

You should discuss the issue with both faculty members.  I would bring it up with your primary advisor first...if only for linguistic reasons (i.e., the meaning of the word "primary").
When you say that the project is "going to be published", do you mean that it has already been written and accepted for publication?  (If not, how do you know?)  In general it is a good idea to discuss issues of coauthorship as early as possible.  If you are already writing the paper it is on the later side, and if you have already submitted it then it is very late (but maybe not too late).
That's all I can think to say on general principles.  It depends a lot on the field and what kind of work has been done.
tl;dr: As an undergraduate, you can't know the subtle expectations regarding coauthorship in your discipline.  So err on the side of graciousness and inclusivity.  The worst that can happen is that you get a "Aw, how cute: he thinks I want to publish with him" type of reaction.  If so, you will definitely not have offended the faculty member and you'll probably engender a lesson about how publication culture works in your field: no problem there.

+1. But wouldn't it be better, however, if the OP could arrange a meeting with BOTH faculty members at once and discuss it there?

Not necessarily.  That could be more time-consuming and might or might not be desired by the faculty members themselves.  If they do want to talk: they are at the same university, so they know how to get in touch with each other.

A good starting point is to consider the points set up in the Vancouver protocol and augmented by, for example the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal editors) stated as

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;

AND

Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;

AND

Final approval of the version to be published;

AND

Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Note the AND in this list. It is well worth noting that these points indicate how things should be but some field-related traditions and, more commonly, personal opinions differ.
I think the above should make for a good basis for assessing whether or not anyone, the professor you have solicited included, should be on the paper. A gut feeling from your explanation says he should be asked. Not to discourage you, but authorship questions can be among the hardest questions you encounter in academia since authorship is such an important aspect for assessing excellence, success, or whatever you want to call it. This is also why the list quoted above has been assembled so that inflation in authorship can be combated. Please look at other posts under the authorship tag to get more aspects of this issue.


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How best to present long equations in two-column papers?
How best to present long equations in two-column papers?
I've tried splitting them in two or more lines along operators, but that still looks a bit weird to me, especially when parentheses have to be carried along across the lines. Also, I've considered stretching them across both columns, but that seems only an acceptable solution if the equation is of outstanding importance, e.g. the final result and not some middle section of a proof.

This might fit better in Tex.SE. See e.g., https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/117051/split-up-several-equations-into-smaller-ones/

This might also depend on where you publish. For instance, wide equations (that cross over the two columns, with separating rulers) are very common in Physical Review journals.

What does the style guide for your target publication say? What did the editor there say? What have other papers in your target journal done?

To expand on what @RanG. said: revtex (Physical Review's latex class) provides explicit support for this and generates pretty good looking output.

It is, however, only reasonable for [tex.se] if the OP is using or contemplating using a TeX based stack to prepare the paper. Of course, I'd recommend doing so.

When I have had occasion to deal with obnoxiously large equations, I find that there are four strategies that do well for me.  In order of readability, they are:

Shrink the font: if you are allowed (any many venues do allow this), you can usually shrink the font on an equation a few points without affecting readability.
Map separable terms of the equation to new variables, which can be given their own independent definition lines.  This can really help readability in a complex equation as well.

--- The line of desperation ---

Break the equation across two lines: this works up to about 1.6 lines worth of smaller-font equation.  When combined with adjusting font size, you can often adjust where the break occurs to make it look reasonable.
Move the equations to a full-width figure, where you can play all of the same games.

For extremely long equations (e.g. I have one in my thesis that occupied a whole page) one might also consider to place the equation in a rotated (horizontal) page.

When I see Option 1 being used, I'm en train de getting my knife and finding your address /sarcasm Now seriously: That is the worst thing ever, the equations get completely unreadable in small print and the result never looks good.

@yo's assessment is a bit harsh, but I do agree... shrinking font size is often a pretty poor choice. Multi-line is much preferred.

I suggest you check chapter 3.3.4 in the book Mathematics into Type published by the American Mathematical Society (AMS).
The book sets up specific rules for breaking the equations and also how to align these after breaking. The rules are too complex to be reproduced or duplicated well here so anyone interested should download the book using the link above for reference.

What a programmer would do is break the formula into sub-functions along boundaries that reflect the way the formula itself breaks up into individual concepts, define those, and then define the top-level formula in terms of those. I can't see any reason that wouldn't work here, at least to some degree...
(This is like @jakebeal's suggestion to define new variables, but taking it one step farther to point out that when several of those variables are of the same form, you can define a parameterized function rather than having to spell out every one.)
In my experience, what a pure mathematician would do is the same thing, but they'd call their functions operators and assign them symbols rather than names. :-)

"Operators" are only a very specific kind of mathematical function. When working routinely with things like "functions that take functions and return other functions", one feels the need to call them in different ways, to be more expressive and keep their sanity. :)

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


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Should I review a paper that violates the maximum length limitation?
I am reviewing a conference paper that violates the maximum number of pages by more than 10%. I believe that this is enough reason to outright reject the paper.
However, maybe the authors would welcome reviewer comments anyway. But I do not want to waste a day's work, in case nobody cares about my comments. What is customary and ethical in such a situation?

Just to make sure: Do the guidelines for reviewers provided by the conference say anything specific about that?

@O.R.Mapper That is a good point. There is no mention of page limit in the reviewer guidelines.

I see - in that case, please don't take that as a hint that you are supposed to ignore the length even if it bothers you (reviewers are not supposed to be robots that mechnically follow a checklist), just that there is no general procedure defined, or that editors want to react on a per-case basis.

Was this paper given to you after being processed by the program committee?

@MarkPlotnick Yes, it was. I already wrote them a mail to ask if my comments will be useful for them anyway.

I cannot believe that it is left to the reviewers to count words. Either someone upstream from you has decided to ignore the requirement, or someone upstream from you isn't doing her or his job.

@bmarguliesm, it's a page limit not a word limit. It should be pretty obvious how many pages the paper is.

Is the paper otherwise formatted according to the instructions in the call for papers? E.g., if the ultimate format is supposed to be max 8 pages of dense 2-column IEEE format, and they submitted a single-column double-spaced manuscript, it might be the case that it will be under the page limit after producing the final draft, and that the program chair has factored this into their decision to send it out for review. I think that checking with the program chair/committee is the best strategy.

Does this paper include an appendix? In cs, these are often not counted towards the limit (but should then not contain anything vital)

@BillBarth The formatting is the way it should be and there are no appendices.

Some conferences (like STOC) does not count titlepage and bibliography and has a 10 page limit.  Are you sure it is not within the range if you count according to the submission guidelines?

Is revise and resubmit an option? Is it possible the paper could have material excised and thus be approved? Do you have time to provide such a direction (I would think you would, since you're already intending to review a paper less than 90% this one's length)? If yes, review it with that in mind. Else reject it.

As a disclaimer, I have not been in this exact situation: in my field (mathematics) there are few conference papers, and the number of journals with strict length requirements is small enough that I have never reviewed a paper which violated the requirements.  Nevertheless:
In my experience it is customary in academic and professional contexts that if you submit something that does not adhere to the rules of submission, then you should expect that your submission will be rejected for that reason alone.  Now it may be the case that rather than definitively rejecting your submission you are told, "Hey, please fix X so that your submission can be considered"...and it may not.   There is much talk of grant applications that are rejected because something in the fine print of the submission rules was not followed.
In your case, you have noticed that one of the submission requirements has been violated, apparently in a nontrivial way ("by more than 10%").  In my opinion your clearest ethical obligation is to convey this knowledge to the editors.  It is really unfair if the requirement gets completely ignored and the paper gets published anyway whereas some other authors are either getting dinged for not following the same rules or are working much harder (and perhaps, trading on the quality of their paper) in order to follow them.  So I think your first step should be to point this out to the editors.
If you like, you can convey your willingness to look at a new version in a timely manner.  You could even say that you are reading the version that you already have and are willing to work on a report under the assumption that the authors will later submit a version which is essentially the same but meets the length requirements.  But I think that's about as far as you can go.  If the submission really is permanently rejected based on the length then the authors will resubmit to another conference/journal and they'll get their feedback at that time (possibly even from you!).  Viewing the fact that you received the paper and are not at this time writing a report on it to the authors as some kind of disservice to them is probably the wrong way to view it: this is really part of the usual business of academic refereeing.
Added: As long as you point out the failure to meet the length requirement, I certainly see no ethical problem with passing on whatever evaluation of the paper you want.  In fact, when communicating with the editors if you think that the paper is otherwise very strong then it would be useful to say that.  However, it seems to me that it is possible that the editors might decide that since the length requirements have been violated the paper will be rejected and the authors will not receive a referee report.  Thus your careful comments are not guaranteed to be conveyed to the authors.  This seems like a good argument for checking in with the editors before writing a full-blown report.

The advice to discuss with the editor/programme committee is absolutely correct. It's unlikely that the authors will be given the opportunity to submit a second version since, just as it's unfair to judge this too-long paper against ones which may have had to cut content to meet the limit, it's also unfair to allow the authors of this paper extra time that the other authors didn't get.

There is only one possible answer: Ask the Program Committee chair. It is an almost-one-line mail:

Hello Jeffy,
one of the papers I've got to review for the ABC Congress doesn't fit in the page limit given, it's: John Doe et al.: Study of DEF in context of XYZ, link:
  http://sciencesconf..../link-to-the-paper-in-the-review-system
Should I still review it or is exceeding the length itself a reason for rejection?
Cheers, Tom

It saves troubles in the thing I think. It may be fine in some conferences (when the page limit is taken loosely) and may be a problem elsewhere (when it's strict for instance because the proceedings publisher is strict about it, or for whatever reason). You can't know this, there's the PC chair to know this.

You should mention the page length in such an e-mail.  The program committee will react differently to an 8 page and 2 line paper than to a 15 page paper when the page limit is 8 pages.

@Eric Yeah, you can, but the PC chair (1) knows the limit and (2) will have to open the PDF file anyways and check.

Answering a question about the rules does not require the chair to validate the premise of the question. Just provide the necessary information directly.

It's not uncommon to have vague descriptions of maximum length (do references count? acknowledgments? tables? all of these can vary across conferences). Maybe the maximum length is not as you interpreted.
If you suspect that the paper is overlength, I would petition the program committee and wait for their response before putting any effort into reviewing, but I would not vote for rejection myself.
In my opinion, deciding on desk rejection is up to the editors/PC, not the reviewers. If the paper was sent out for review, I assume that it passed initial screening, but ofcourse it is possible to have slipped through the cracks.

Commonly the PC chair (or whoever assigns the reviewers) doesn't check the files in detail. I wouldn't be optimist to assume the paper passed any true pre-check more than "it's not a blatant spam".

Technically speaking, you have the right to immediately vote for rejection because of the length constraint violation.
If you want to review the paper and leave helpful comments, you are obviously welcome (for example, if there is some section in the paper you think is not necessary and can be removed to make the paper both in the correct length and good enough for the journal / conference then you might point that out).

Maximum length alone should not be a criterion for rejection. If the paper has merit, then final acceptance should be contingent on bringing the length down.
EDIT: Maximum length should still be within reason and often there is some flexibility for one page over the limit.  If the maximum page limit is 8 pages and the paper is 15 pages, it should be rejected.  For an 8 page limit, 10 pages is about the limit of what could be condensed to something less than 9 pages without losing content.

The problem is that the final version isn't re-refereed. So requesting a major change such as "cut 10+% of the length" means that the paper that will be published is substantially different from the one that was refereed. You'd have to reject a 100 page paper if the limit was 10 pages because you'd have no idea what the 10 page paper would look like. At the other end of the scale, it would be idiotic to reject on length alone a paper that was ten pages and one line. But the situation described isn't as clear-cut as either of those.

@DavidRicherby True but the same goes for any edits suggested by reviewers. You can usually take a page out of an 8 page paper just by condensing things and using terse language without significantly changing the actual content.

Sure, and then you could just condense things and use terser language to get it down to 6 pages. And then do it again to 5 pages... Obviously, there's a limit. If you've already condensed and "tersed" to get to 8 pages, it's unlikely that you can knock off another page without losing actual content.

@DavidRicherby Sure, there is a limit to what you can condense before you need to cut content.  The first things to do are abbreviate your references, shorten the introduction (usually at least one paragraph can be dropped), tackle dangling lines with one or two words on them, shrink figures, and use a bit smaller font in tables.  Then you work on shorter language in longer sections and as a last resort shrinking spacing between items.  It's not a fast process (which is why it can't be done 10 minutes before the deadline) but you can do a lot.

Re the edit, the flexibility of the page limit presumably varies between fields (so, again, check with the PC member who sent the paper to you). I've never heard of a theoretical computer science conference being flexible about page limits. After all, if word gets round that one person was allowed an extra page, everyone will want one.

@Eric: You might do those things, such as abbreviating references, tackling dangling lines, shrinking figures, etc., unless ... they have already been done. Removing a paragraph from the introduction can mean the difference between a paper considered quite good by a reviewer and one considered incomprehensible due to a lack of basic information. Using terse language can successfully reduce paper length, but it can also lead to complaints by reviewers about "spelling mistakes" when you write iff and they think it's meant to say if. ...

... at latest when you start tinkering with font sizes in tables, you're in a realm where you can get easily rejected just for violating formatting constraints. tl;dr: All of your points make sense, but only if the authors haven't yet done everything possible to shrink the paper, which is not a given.

The rejection is not up to you. The fact that the manuscript (MS) has gone out to review despite being two long can be for two reasons: (1) the length was not spotted by the editors and was thus sent out without identifying the problem and (2) the editors know it is too long but do not think it is a problem. Now you do not know which of these apply. If you refuse to review it and number (2) is the case, you are not doing the editors any favours. If you review the MS and (1) is the case, then it is still not certain you can see what will happen since any decision is up to the editors. It is possible they will reject the MS once they know it is too long but it is also possible they will require the authors to take the reviews and both revise according to suggestions and shorten the MS to a proper length. It is of course possible they let MS through despite breaking the length.
So options are plenty. Therefore, if you think your work may be done in vain, you simply drop a line to the editors pointing out the fact that the MS is longer than expected and ask whether or not they still want you to do the review. An editor should be quite happy to respond to such a heads up mail question.

Given that it is a conference paper, I would assume that by the time the reviewer sees it, the submission deadline has already passed. The authors would therefore not be able to submit any modifications. Hence the only viable action is to contact the chair of the program committee, as yo' suggested.

This isn't quite true. At least in the computer science conferences I submit to, if a paper is accepted then the authors are expected to revise it in light of the referees' comments. The problem here is that the revised version isn't refereed again because the changes are expected to be minor. In this case, the changes required (cutting 10+% of the length) aren't particularly minor.

Ask them to re-write it properly or if they refuse reject the paper. Schools work on a basis of you teach this person and they adhere to you're  guidelines not vica versa. As they are opposing this is the basic contract of teaching discluding money and limitations such as not permenantly confiscating or prosecuting.

I feel this answer is somewhat besides the point. This is about a conference paper, not about coursework. Usually, reviewers for conferences are in no position to "ask [authors] to re-write" something and wait till they have. Also, while the reviewer is expected to provide an expert view, I would see it as quite presumptuous to categorize the relationship between a reviewer of a paper and its authors as that of someone teaching someone else. Reviewers provide their (educated) opinions, which are valuable, but not infallible - that's why there are usually several reviewers, their ...

... statements may contradict each other, and the goal is that the paper is improved based on the reviewers' input, not that the authors learn how to write a paper specifically for reviewers X, Y and Z. Lastly, I really don't understand your last sentence.


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How to review a major revision of a paper?
A few months ago I reviewed my first paper. The authors submitted a major revision and I am asked to review the paper again. I received a long cover letter where my comments and the comments of two other anonymous reviewers have been answered.
The paper is relatively long (40 pages) so I am trying to avoid unnecessary work. Should I:

Re-review the entire paper as if I saw it the first time,
Just check if all comments have been addressed, or
Just check if my comments have been addressed?

I am afraid that if I just check the comments, it is possible that the authors have made some other changes, or that their changes might have broken the integrity of the paper as a whole. On the other hand if I re-review the entire paper it might be unfair to the authors.

Just a quick comment: there may be defensible reasons not to re-review the entire paper, but "unfair to the authors" is not one.  You have been asked to review the paper...again.  Doing so is completely fair!  I would in fact consider the opposite: whether failing to read the entire paper again might somehow be unfair to the authors.

This sort of dilemma illustrates why it is good for authors to include a detailed list of changes with each revision submitted.

After "a few months", I usually don't remember enough of the original submission for looking at comments & replies to make sense without the context of the whole paper...

When a major review has been requested, I think you really do need to go through the whole paper, for exactly the reasons you cite—the changes you've requested may conflict with the changes another reviewer has requested, and therefore the authors may have had to exercise significant discretion on which one to formally include in their revisions. Similarly, there may have been other changes that arose from your comments or those of your fellow reviewers.
Minor reviews require a lower level of commitment, unless the authors have indicated more substantial changes have been made.

Anytime you are asked to review a paper, that is what you should do. If the editor asks you to provide feedback on how your own comments have been dealt with, then that is what you do. As aeismail states, the comments from several reviewers have been considered by the authors which means the paper is at least partially new. An example: it is not uncommon that reviewers opinions differ, which means authors have to decide what they believe is their preferred direction forward, following all points proposed by all reviewers may be impossible. As a reviewer you may then need to re-argue your view point and possibly find other ways to make these view points count. There are hence good reasons for making a second thorough review of a paper that has been given a major revision by the editors.

This is difficult and, to some extent, a matter of opinion. So, my opinion is this: Your job as reviewer is to identify problems and make critical comments that will improve a paper. In the first round, hopefully this is what you did. The editor then looks at these comments to decide whether to offer an opportunity for revision. In many (most?) journals, an offer of revision is a 85%+ chance of the paper eventually being published. So, when the paper comes back to you, it has already received a round of review and has already been deemed nearly ready for publication. You need to check to make sure that your comments and concerns have been adequately address. Particularly with major revisions, you also need to make sure that no significant new errors have been introduced. This can be a lot of work, but that is precisely your job; you put in effort now in hopes that others reviewing your paper given the same level of effort. If a paper addresses your concerns and introduces no new errors, your job is to recommend to the editor to publish the paper (possibly with minimal additional revisions to address new or lingering concerns).


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Are replies from editors automatically generated?
I never reply to editor's and conference organizers' mails, since I somehow always thought that they are automatically generated and replying just to thank would be considered as spamming, since they probably write to hundreds of people.
But is this really true? Do editors prefer not to get trivial replies to their email? Are their emails really automatically generated, or just some parts of them?

In the case of editor's mails, some will need some form of response, some will not. If you receive mails from an editor requesting information concerning a manuscript you have submitted, you will obviously have to reply.
Since most journals use electronic manuscript handling systems, many mails will be generated automatically as reminders or to tell you something about the status of your manuscript. Unless there is a specific question for you to respond to, you do not have to respond. Editors handle lots of manuscripts and and the automated systems generate lots of mail for each as information to authors, reviewers and the editor. Responding to mails that do not request information is not wrong but completely unnecessary and the editor will likely glance at it and go on. Obviously the situation would get out of hand if everyone responded to all mails in such a system so just focus on those that request a response, that is all that is expected.
As for conferences, I would expect a similar scenario. Many mails will be information and only those that request information need to be answered.
The bottom line is, you need to make sure you answer the mails where you are requested to do so but the rest can safely be left as the information they were intended to convey.


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Publishing my work without advisor
Two months ago I submitted a manuscript to my advisor for reviewing and submitting to a journal. He didn’t reply to that and when I asked him about it, he said we should think about publishing after two months and we don’t need to rush. He didn’t even bother to look into my paper.
I feel very anxious and have written a second paper this time with no discussion or involvement from him. I have put his name in the acknowledgement section for allowing me to use his lab computer. Do I stand a chance in publishing it without his name? The idea was never discussed by us and his involvement in this paper is almost not existent.
I have only a year to graduate and am worried for job hunting without publications. (About the quality of paper: Last year, when I came up with an idea, he rejected it claiming it was not good enough; six months later I saw it published by someone else. This time I am confident of getting accepted in reputed journals.)

Do I stand a chance in publishing it without his name — As opposed to what?  Adding him as a coauthor would be unethical, since he didn't contribute.  Students publish without their advisors all the time.  (I did; my advisor did; my students do.)

Thank you @JeffE. I am worried if he will screw my PhD defense and reco letters for Asst. Prof. jobs

That's a separate question.  If you don't trust your advisor not to screw you over, you need a different advisor.

OK @JeffE thanks for your response, I have used his server for running and generating data for my present paper. Does that force me to put his name as a reviewer or author? Or acknowledging it in the end of the paper is sufficient?

You should take a look at existing questions on authorship and advisor issues. Either way, your biggest issue will be the reaction of your advisor (unless he is sufficiently incompetent not to notice your publication) – which completely depends on your advisor and is thus not predictable for us.

Does that force me to put his name as a reviewer or author? — That is a discussion you should have had with your advisor years ago.  In my opinion, merely giving you access to a computer does not merit coauthorship, but the correct answer depends on publication norms in your field.  Also, please keep to just one question: This is not a discussion forum.

@Joseph That's a separate question, which has been discussed extensively on this site. See for example http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/644/when-should-a-supervisor-be-an-author, also http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/authorship

Thank you all, I didnt see JeffE's answer on http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/644/when-should-a-supervisor-be-an-author, also clarifying the coauthorship...thanks a lot...

I would say against submitting the paper without your advisor's name. According to your description, no offensive, your advisor seems not "upright". To deal with this kind of people, the best policy is to forbear; for you just do not know where or when in the future you will somehow meet him or her. In short, if you are still young, then it is not worth annoying your advisor just because of a paper. You may pretend to follow your advisor's rule, and then stand aloof to him or her after graduation. When your status gets higher than his or her, then your advisor cannot effect your developments.

The straight forward answer is that you can publish the work as you see fit. A well-written sound manuscript submitted to an appropriate journal is always welcome.
That said, however, your actions is not likely to smooth out any existing "conflict", for lack of a better word, between you and your advisor. And, just because one can does not mean it is the best solution. I am not about to judge who is is right or wrong in your situation, only someone close to you plural) would know. But, one question that immediately pops if you really have tried to discuss the matter in detail or if you have the position that your adviser should solve the problem. Lacking your advisor's side, only you can make such an assessment.
If you are in the position that your adviser is one-sidedly not communicating with you, the situation  is difficult. I understand your eagerness to publish but will also mention a few things that can cause the actions to back-fire. First, you will most likely want letters of recommendation from your advisor so publishing work done in the advisor's lab without sanctioning from the adviser can become a negative aspect. You really need to objectively assess this proposed action. Second, if you are close to finishing, the timing is perhaps not optimal to ignite a conflict with your adviser. Again, you need to really assess your situation to know what ramafications can come from your actions. One partial solution, is of course to try to talk to other faculty for whom you have more confidence.
In the end, I can only see one solution: communicaton; and I can only advise to tread carefully over possibly mined territory so make sure you prepare your map carefully before running into solutions out of frustration or even anger.

Do I stand a chance in publishing it without his name?

Very possibly. In most fields, the merit of the work matters more than the identity of the authors.
However, that's not the question you should be asking, which is:

Assuming the paper could get published without my advisor's name on it - can I take his/her name off?

Not really. Even if he is not pre-reviewing it now, he has had enough influence and contribution on your development as an academic and the development of your research, even your individual research, that it can probably be argued he should be be listed as an author; and it is customary in many fields to include your advisor as an author.
So if you do feel you must act:

Inform him you intend to submit the paper, with both your names, qualifying that with "unless you tell me otherwise" or some such phrase.
If he says he should not be listed as an author, remove him; otherwise keep him as an author.

Your advisor can always ask the conference or journal to withdraw his/her name - and that is not automatically considered something fishy, especially if he does the withdrawal and his reason is "I didn't make a significant contribution".
However, note that doing this can adversely effect your relationship with your advisor if he would rather you wait for his input.

it is customary to include your advisor as an author This apparently is true in some fields and not in others. What is yours? he has had enough influence and contribution on your development as an academic and the development of your research that it can probably be argued he should be listed as an author If that's true now, isn't it still true in 30 years? So every academic always adds his former supervisor as co-author?

@sgf: About your first point: Edited to reflect that. I was under the impression it was more universal. About your second point: Philosophically not an easy question, but practical very easy: When you conclude your course and are awarded your degree, further work is independent enough of your former advisor's mentorship to not merit adding him/her as an author (unless you continue working together as regular collaborators).

I agree, my second point was more aimed at the logic of having your supervisor always be co-author than at the decision of having him be co-author in any specific case.

especially if he does the withdrawal and his reason is "I didn't make a significant contribution". — In my field, this would be considered extremely fishy. If you didn’t make a significant contribution, then how did your name get onto the paper in the first place??

@JeffE: Courtesy/deference by a graduate student.

Do I stand a chance in publishing it without his name?
Yes, you very much do. Your supervisor may genuinely wish not to be associated with the main idea in the paper, for their own good reasons, and if they are a decent sort (not a given in academia) they will let you proceed as long as their name is not on it, and also not try to stab you in the back later. I have been in this position as a PhD student, and luckily my supervisor turned out to be the good sort.
Now, if your paper gets accepted into a top-journal, the supervisor may turn around and demand to be on it. They may even insist it was their idea all along! They may write a nasty letter to the editor claiming that you are a rogue student. In that case you will probably have to give in to their demand to be included in the author list.
So you could be in for a rough ride. Many academics are not nice people and behave in dishonourable ways. But you can, most certainly, publish without a supervisor. In fact, the publishing itself will be a lot easier for it.


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Master's Thesis Adviser Co-Authorship?
I have just completed my Master's Thesis and am hoping to publish an abridged version. My adviser has been very supportive of this and upon approving my thesis asked what I would think about her being a coauthor. I don't really know what to think about this. She was very helpful, but she certainly didn't contribute to the research questions or methodology. On the other hand, I also don't know why it would be bad to have her name on it with me. Any information would be appreciated.

From a formal point of view co-authorship should involve a certain definable contribution. The Vancouver Protocol makes the following definition (here in the form presented by the BMJ:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND Final approval of the version to be published; AND Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

You state that your advisor did not contribute much to the research questions or methodology. I further do not know your background so I can only judge from your question and provide general comments on your question. Writing up your research from a thesis to a publishable manuscript is a skill which is normally learned through graduate school. I am therefore thinking that you may still need quite a bit of guidance to manage the transition of your thesis material to the manuscript format. If your advisor is willing to help you with this part and the scientific input required to do so then co-authorship may well be warranted. So the co-authorship question should be answered on the final product and the contributions that went into it, and not necessarily what went into just your thesis.


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When shall one write a mathematical expression as a separate line in a paper/Ph.D. thesis?
When do we write a mathematical expression on a separate line, and when do we write it inline with the text?
I believe that the answer is the same for researching papers and Ph.D. theses, or maybe even textbooks; but please correct me if I am wrong.
Here I am referring to a paper/thesis on mathematics. When one writes a mathematical paper, sometimes one writes a mathematical expression in a separate line such as in the following example:

We know that the identity
  a2+b2=c2
  holds true if ....

While sometimes one writes the mathematical expression inline with the text, such as in the following example:

Let f:X->Y be a one-to-one map, ...

My impression is the longer the expression is, the more likely it is written in a separate line. But is there any (possibly unwritten) rule for it?

I can remember that there was a question about when to use inline or display mode for equations on either Academia.SE or TeX.SE websites; I searched for it but I can not find it...

Don't make a mountain out of a molehill.  Make sure your paper is clear and easy to follow.  That's what matters.

Most people read more papers than they write. The papers you read should give you a good feel for what should, and should not, be displayed.

In the areas in which I work, there are no formal rules and it is left up to the author when to separate an equation and when to embed it in the text.  When I am writing, I find that there are three fairly straightforward principles that work well for me in determining whether an equation (or other mathematical statement) deserves its own line or can be inline with the text:

Will I need to refer to the equation elsewhere?  If so, it needs its own line, and equation numbering as well.
Is it more than ~1/3 of a line long?  Anything so long that it is likely to get broken across lines and otherwise be a typographical mess should be pulled out onto its own line.  Numbering is not required.
Do I want the reader to "pause" and contemplate the equation, or do I want it to "flow" as part of the sentence encompassing it?

This last needs a little bit more explanation... let's elaborate on one of the examples from the original question.  If I write the sentence this way:

We know that the identity a^2+b^2=c^2 holds true if the system is in condition X.

then the equation should be inline, because the sentence is really about condition X, rather than about the equation.  If, on the other hand, the reader's attention should be directed to the equation, then it is better to use something like the following form, with the equation on its own line:

We know that if the system is in condition X, then the following identity holds:

a^2+b^2=c^2

Note: these principles reduce to a similar effect as the style guide given by @silvado

When numbering equations, keep in mind that reviewers may want to refer to equations even if the author doesn't. Thus I'd recommend numbering most equations in display.

@silvado I find that it really depends on the type of paper.  When the paper is math-centric, I completely agree with you.  In certain cases when there are only a couple of equations in an otherwise entirely experimental paper, it may make less sense.  Regarding reviewers: don't forget that many journals put line numbering on drafts, which means equation numbering superfluous for this purpose.

The book "Handbook of writing for the mathematical sciences" by N. J. Higham shortly discusses that point in Section 3.7 ("Displaying equations"). I cite the first sentence of that section:

An equation is displayed when it needs to be numbered, when it would be hard to read if placed in-line, or when it merits special attention, perhaps because it contains the first occurrence of an important variable.

In all other cases, equations should be put inline (being a mathematician, the book author does not mention this explicitly).

You may want to check the book Mathematics into Type published by the American Mathematical Society (AMS). See particularly section 2.5 in the Updated version (1999).
There are basically no fixed rules for what should be typeset as so-called display (on a separate line) versus run into the text. Length of the equation as well as importance are key parameters in making such a decision.
Length. Long equations will be difficult to set and to read if set into the text. Hence they need to be set in display mode.
Importance. If an equation is important to the text then it is likely better to set in in display mode since it will be easily seen.
Running everything in display is not useful. in-text equations save space while display equation break up the text. From this it is evident that the mix should also consider the length of the final text and the readability of the text.
There may of course be specific instructions for individual journals so check, in your case earlier PhD theses for hints, perhaps with the book mentioned above in one hand.

As with any style question, work through these rules from the top, and stop when you have an answer:

Read the style guide / advice to authors carefully, and follow its advice. It will often contain the answer.
Ask your editor / supervisor, and follow their advice.
Copy the style from recent works that are in the same category as yours; so if yours is a review article to the Journal of Studies, copy the style from recent reviews in the Journal of Studies; if it's a PhD thesis to the Institute of Thinking, copy the style from recent PhD theses to the Institute of Thinking. This will only be successful if there's an obvious pattern present. Look at several works, don't just pick one: you're looking for a pattern, not just a single precedent.
Follow best practice in typography and graphic design. If your own eye isn't yet trained, ask someone who does have a good eye for these things. One way to assess this is to try several things, and pick whatever's clearest to a reader new to the material. But don't do this too often: you don't want to exhaust the goodwill of your style-checkers.

(you might wish to swap around numbers 2 and 3, e.g. if you know that the rules have not changed recently)


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Recommendations for maths courses choice to study AI
I study computer science at the Charles University. The undergraduate study (baccalaureate) in "general computer science" programme provides several focus areas, which are followed by corresponding programmes in the graduate study (master). I chose to go for mathematical linguistics in the undergraduate and artificial intelligence (Probably with machine learning focus, but I'm not sure yet.) in the graduate study.
My problem is: There are some mandatory maths courses and some optional. Some of the optional ones are recommended, but not for specific focus areas. So I wanted to ask for some advice on which areas of mathematics are recommended for this area.
Most courses are split into multiple semesters and completing only the first few is usually mandatory, continuation of the other ones is optional. So far (first year of undergraduate), I have completed these mandatory courses:

Mathematical analysis I, II
Discrete mathematics (Continues as Combinatorics and Graphs.)
Combinatorics and Graphs I
Linear algebra I, II (No more courses available, only applications in computer graphics etc.)

Mandatory courses for next years:

Probability and Statistics
Propositional & Predicate logic
Algebra I

List of some available optional courses:

Mathematical analysis III
Combinatorics and Graphs II
Set theory
Numerical mathematics
Algebra II

You really need to find a way to add probability and statistics to that list of course you plan on taking. That or self educate. That said, picking up set theory will let you at least let you learn the language of probability and machine learning. Learning statitistics and a programming language of your choice is a strong start to understanding where all that math you are learning is applied.

Yeah, sorry I forgot to mention the statistics, they are mandatory.

I did not intend to ask about CS related courses, as I had those figured out mostly. But based on what you are saying, is a Probabilistic Algorithms course a good choice?

And are statistics that important, or is it more about the probability? (I love mathematics, but unfortunately, statistics is the only area I still have problems with, so I just want to know if it's worth changing my view on statistics as something important to my future interests, rather than something I just need to know, but don't really want to.)

statistics is a core portion of machine learning. I think a better question on deciding what you want to take is what you plan to do with machine learning? Do you plan on participating in the exploding field of machine learning applications? If so, that is, at its core, stats/programming.

Well, what I want to do exactly is a complicated question. What I expect from the "formal education" is a more general and theoretical view on the machine learning and similar AI related concepts, before actually applying this knowledge in projects that I will come across by "self education" - by practice and experimenting on my own. So for now I'm just gathering all the basic areas, that I cannot miss out, before actually deciding where to aim my interests. Anyways, thanks for your recommendations.

No optimization in the course list? That would also be an obvious candidate.

There is a "Discrete and Continuous Optimization" and several other more in depth courses. I did not list it, as its more related to computer science. I needed an overview of the more abstract mathematics courses, that were not that obvious to me, as to what extent they will be useful.

Mathematical analysis III

Probably overkill, but it depends on the actual content. You will need some multivariate analysis (partial derivatives, Jacobians, Hessians), but I suspect it's already in the first two courses.

Combinatorics and Graphs II

Maybe not specifically for AI, but in general it should be a useful course for a computer scientist. Again, it may depend on the actual program; if it is set up as a very abstract course then it may be overkill.

Set theory

Not so useful. Probably more abstract stuff that you'll ever need as a computer scientist.

Numerical mathematics

Very useful. Matrix computations, stability and the floating point model, basic root-finding and optimization algorithms... That's all stuff that you will probably need.
 I'm surprised that it is not mandatory for a computer scientist (but I work in that area, so maybe I'm biased).

Algebra II

Not so useful. Probably more abstract stuff that you'll ever need as a computer scientist.
Other courses: look out for a course on optimization (it might also fall in the "numerical mathematics" category). Neural networks are based on optimization/fitting algorithms.

There are several courses on optimization. I only needed someone else's view on the more general maths areas, as I was getting biased by my personal preferences in the areas, which is not very useful, when using mathematics as a tool rather than just exploring what I like.

I thought about your list as well and have taken those courses. My internal question was "Which of these will help the OP build models". I thought that Abstract Algebra probably does this best of the ones you  mention, but it is a jump from theory to practice.


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What are the pros and cons of applying for graduate study in multiple disciplines?
My first attempt at this question was voted to be closed. Here's another attempt at the same question which I have broken into two different questions/posts.
I am an application programmer with 3+ years software development experience. I already have a Masters in Computer Applications from a reputed university in India. I am planning to apply for universities in the US and UK for the 2014 fall semester as I feel that my job is getting stagnant and I have always wanted to study abroad.
I am really not sure whether I want to take up another masters degree or apply for business school instead. Considering my indecisiveness regarding what I want to study, I have decided to appear for both the GRE as well as the GMAT and keep my options open. The first step for applying abroad is to take the GRE or the GMAT and I want to get done with this step by keeping all my options open.
I am planning to appear for the GRE by March 2013 and the GMAT by June 2013. That will give me enough time to apply for masters as well as business schools abroad. I understand that many business schools have started accepting the GRE but appearing for the GMAT will broaden my options.
Given the above information, What are the pros and cons of applying for graduate study in multiple disciplines? Has anyone taken this path and applied for a masters and an MBA in the same year?

Hi bot, I believe this is a good question, and a much better fit for the site than your earlier attempt. Thanks for staying and improving it!

I had to roll back the edit because I feel that the background information and the conclusion adds more meaning to my question.

The main issues against such a path are the time and expense involved in doing so. Effectively, you have to complete two different sets of testing requirements, and you'll need to write two very different sets of essays. You'll also probably need to get different letters of recommendation, as the emephasis for different fields are probably not likely to be similar. If you apply to US schools, there is also the cost of applying to the additional schools in the other discipline.
Since you're an international student, it isn't likely that you'll be asked to fly in for interviews, so that wouldn't be a big drain on your time.
As for the pros, if you aren't sure which path you want to pursue, this will definitely give you more options. But other than that, I can't think of a "real" advantage to splitting your efforts in such a manner. (I guess one other exception is if there's a special "dual master's" program at one of the school's you're interested in; however, this requires reviewing the information available from each school.)

I didn't really think that far. You make a very strong point which I never considered. Although I feel that I don't mind taking the extra effort in getting dual recommendations from the same person and spending more money on applications if it helps me keep my options open.


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How to ask the editor of a journal whether our manuscript fits the scope or not
I am interested in submitting a manuscript to a certain scientific journal, because it is well ranked. The problem is that I am not sure if my manuscript totally meets the topics and requirements (e.g. lenght, etc.) of the journal.
I would like to send a letter to the editor of the journal in order to find out whether or not they believe my paper can be interesting to the readers and may fit the scope and conditions of the journal.
I have been told that, in cases like this, this option is better than just submitting the manuscript and getting it rejected.
So, my question is: Could you recommend me a letter model to this purpose?
In addition, in this similar question: [ When is it appropriate to contact the editor before submission to avoid rejection without review? ] they talk about even sending the whole manuscript to the editor in this pre-submission step! Actually, I was thinking of not even including the abstract of my work (but just a description) in this letter to the editor. Should I really include it?

Broadly, I would encourage you to review the information for authors provided on the journal's website in greater depth. First, it seems that some of the feedback you are seeking is related to the format of the manuscript (you mention asking about length, for example), and as these requirements are generally laid out online in the journal's instructions to authors, the presubmission inquiry is not an appropriate venue for getting those types of questions answered.
Second, many journals that regularly field presubmission inquiries will have a description on their website of what this inquiry should include and where to send it, although the level of detail they provide may vary. I refer you to PLOS Biology's Presubmission Inquiries page for a good example (http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/s/presubmission-inquiries), as the points they ask authors to include in their inquiry could, I think, be broadly applied in cases where the journal has not provided much guidance regarding what they're looking for. Bear in mind, however, that it is necessary to do your own research regarding your particular journal's guidelines; Nature, for example, wants a fully referenced first paragraph of your article.
Final point--a positive response to a presubmission inquiry does not guarantee that you will receive a favorable review, or even get reviewed at all. It is a good start to the review process, but just a start.


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Standard way to specify roles in authorship
This question is not really about who can be considered a coauthor of a given journal paper —or maybe it is, after all— but rather about how to specify the different roles, levels of implication or contributions of each of the coauthors, in case this would mean to be done.
My question is: Is there any standard about how to specify the different roles or contributions of the coauthors of a given journal paper? I do not mean the importance of coauthors that can maybe deduced from their order in the author list (see What does first authorship really mean?, Authorship allocation - is it common to grant equal credit to two last authors?, for instance), but a way to explicitly specify the implication of each of the coauthors, in a sort of standard way.
I remember someone saying this could be added at the end of each article, as a way to make the contribution of each coauthor clearer.
Actually, my question is highly related to this previous one: Revamping Paper Authorship, *or* Should Papers Roll Credits, which has only received one answer and is still open at the moment of writing.
I have found some interesting webpages and articles dealing with this subject:

Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors)
The ICMJE's definition of authorship is illogical and unethical (David Shaw)
Is it time for a new approach to authorship? (Leash E.)
A New Standard for Authorship (Paul J. Friedman)

So, maybe my question is actually about the state of the art of this subject: how to credit authorship in a standard way or standard authorship crediting.

Other related questions in this site:

What are the minimum contributions required for co-authorship
Is it ethical for advisors to automatically coauthor papers?
If you make a substantial contribution should you be given the opportunity to satisfy the other requirements for authorship?
Should undergraduate students be included on papers containing data they collected?
Indicating co-PI status on a paper
Can I claim authorship on work I wasn't personally involved in, that uses a framework I developed for my research?

There is now a (reasonably) standard way of specifying author contributions, at least in some fields: a CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) statement, see http://credit.niso.org/. It was first introduced by Brand et al. (2015), and there are quite a few follow-up publications about it. E.g., Cell Press, Wiley and Elsevier do not seem to require it for all journals but at least endorse it. It uses a precisely defined taxonomy of 14 different contributions an author could have made. The roles are the following (screenshot from the above link):

Detailed descriptions of the different roles can also be found under the above link.
A typical statement might look like this (screenshot from the Elsevier page linked above):

Notice that it is perfectly fine to list contributions by people who are not authors of the paper.

In case someone is interested, there is even an R package by Shixiang Wang allowing to create a chart to visually show credit assignment for a paper: https://shixiangwang.github.io/home/en/tools/contribution-table/.

There is no standard way, not even in the same field or sometimes even the same journal.
But when people put contributions at the end, it typically looks something like this:

Author Contributions
  AB conceived the project. CD and EF designed the experiments. AB and GH performed the experiments. CD and EF analyzed the data. AB wrote the article with input from all the other authors.