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Is it okay if research problem is vague in the initial phase of research?
In short, I am a Ph.D. student computer science ( theory ) currently in the mid-stage. I have one serious doubt about the research process. I have worked on just two problems in the past and from that experience, I have felt that the research problem in the initial phase of research will be vague ( means research problem will be broader and somewhat less clear ) and as we start working on the problem, it will become clear and many times we will change the even original research problem. In the end, we will think about what results, we have and on the basis of those results, we will again change the research problem ( if needed ). There are a few problems with the above research process

Takes More time
More frustrations etc

Is the research process will be the same even after my PhD, I mean or I will become more careful with time which may lead to giving me a better way to do research.
Question : Is it okay if research problem is vague in the initial phase of research?

I think you're asking an important question, so my advice that this is something you should absolutely to talk to your supervisor about is not meant to suggest the question is off-topic here. If you already did ask them, what was their answer?

Every mathematician I know (and theoretical computer scientists are mathematicians for this purpose) has spent time on somewhere between three and ten failed projects for every project that results in a publication.

In my opinion this is the definition of "research" everything else is "development". Of course, from "devlopment", serious research questions may be derived.
In my personal opinion, a PhD work whose proposed result is known from the beginning is worthless.
It's a different story if the problem is too large for one person or maybe not solvable at all - then it needs to be re-adjusted based on the experience made so far. But this process can / shall be part of the PhD!

From my humble experience, and for you question:

Is the research process will be the same even after my PhD

My answer is No. In my case, there is no comparison between my first research and even the second one. The more I acquire knowledge, the more I become experienced in identifying research gaps and asking the right questions from the first place. I also become able to think of what it takes to implement/do the work needed. The reviews I got from the first two papers taught me a lot on how to present my results and what are the key points that are needed to make my results presentation (in the papers) sound.
I confirm again that in my case, things get easier and clearer with time.

Is it okay if research problem is vague in the initial phase of research?

Ultimately, the research you produce in your candidature should add some original work to the discipline, and it will need to be sufficiently specific that you can subject it to peer review and publish it in a scholarly journal.  It is not unusual for research investigations to begin at a "vague" level, and then progress to the point where specific research questions of interest emerge and are solidified.  In a PhD program, there is a rule-of-thumb that the first year is often spent finding a broad research field and formulating ideas, and then by mid-stage you should have progressed to the point where you have specific research questions and you are now able to make progress towards publishable work.  If you are mid-stage, but are still at a "vague" level of analysis, you might be a bit behind schedule, but there are plenty of PhD candidates in that boat.  You should check your progress with your supervisor and formulate a plan for progression.
In order to progress your research, sit down with your supervisor and hash out some ideas for possible research topics/questions within the broad field of interest to you, and make some proposals for specific research questions you could study within this broad research problem.  If the broader question is too large and complex for a single project, see if you can formulate some narrower questions to start an analysis in that field, so that you can formulate a specific PhD research project.  Try to come up with an idea for a preliminary paper, and this research paper will naturally lead you to ideas for extensions.  Since you have not described your research problem, there is no basis to speculate on whether your "vague" research idea is likely to crystallise into publishable work that is suitable as output from a PhD candidature.  As with any other research problem, you should seek guidance from you supervisor on this.
Although I cannot speculate on the value of your "vague" research problem, it might be helpful here to mention an analogy to this issue that arises in my own research field (statistics).  In statistical work, there is a distinction drawn between 'exploratory analysis' and 'confirmatory analysis'.    In the former, we use data to explore and describe general patterns that give rise to broad hypotheses of interest, for future testing.  In the latter, we formulate specific hypotheses that are ready for statistical testing, and we use data to test those hypotheses and report the results.  Both of these activities are legitimate avenues of research, and both can lead to published work.  (It is more common to see published statistical work that performs confirmatory tests, but a good exploratory analysis is also valuable.)  Depending on your specific project, there may be analogous research projects that you can pursue in your field ---i.e., projects that explore a problem, present some exploratory analysis, and offer hypotheses and theories (without necessarily testing them), and projects that formulate a specific testable problem and make progress on that problem.

Is the research process will be the same even after my PhD, I mean or I will become more careful with time which may lead to giving me a better way to do research.

The more you practice something the better you get at it.  If you complete your PhD and become a researcher then you will find that you gradually get better at assessing a potential project for possible research outputs, formulating research questions, and producing publishable research.  Everyone starts off bad at this, and even the best PhD candidates are nowhere near as proficient at these things as professional researchers.  Like any profession, you start off with few skills, and you gradually get better with practice.  The PhD candidature is like an apprenticeship; it takes in novices and tries to get them to the point where they can conduct independent research.  Seek assistance and advice from your supervisor as often as needed, and assess your progress relative to your status as a novice researcher.
In regard to this issue, it is worth noting that it is extremely common for PhD candidates to overestimate the amount that can be accomplished in their candidature, and assess their abilities and progress pessimistically, relative to unrealistic expectations.  Your goal as a PhD candidate should be to produce some publishable research, while noting that it is usual for research published at this stage to give some modest gains in the field.  If you can publish a few papers that make initial in-roads into a research problem then you will have done well.  If you later complete your PhD and become a researcher then you will have plenty of opportunities to research your field more deeply.


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Will Leaving a tenure track position after one year for a postdoctoral position at a better location hurt my future academic career?
I'm leaving a tenure track position after one year, I have a tenure track offer and a postdoctoral offer. The postdoc position is in the very nice city and I like the research projects there. But the school is not that high ranked. Will going down to postdocs hurt my future transition to faculty position?

I do not think this is answerable because so few people have done that.  Scrutinize your personal preferences.

I know of a case who went from a TT in a small, unknown place to a postdoc in a very famous one to boost their career. No idea if it worked, I didn't follow it.

Not necessarily. BUT, is it worth the risk?
Whether a post doc now will help or hurt depends on many things, such as, even, why you are leaving a TT position now and what your trajectory is. A perfect in every way post doc might help, but I'd think that anything less is leaving you on a treadmill without a sure path to progress. And you don't describe this offer as perfect. And, the "very nice city" aspect doesn't contribute to your career and is temporary in any case.
The goal is to get a permanent faculty position. You have an offer of a TT position which puts you closer to the goal. If it is in a place where you would be happy starting your career then take the TT offer.

Living in a nice city may not directly help your career, but if you hate where you live and are miserable for it, that's not a great career boost either. Plus, there's more to life than work.

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Is it ethical / legal for a PhD student to advertise that he is awarding PhD degrees to other students that pay him 200 USD/month?
My question is based on the example of a startup.
I have come across a "company" which claims to be providing services in Quantum Computing. However, various features of this company sound fishy to me and even unethical and illegal in academia.
The company is called "Bikash's Quantum" which claims to be charging money from students in exchange of promise for 'internship'. And then spread this idea for earning more money by 'referring' to more students and presenting it as a money earning scheme (without any academic basis). According to my interpretation it is precisely the pyramid scheme in the disguise of an "internship" as the scheme asks a student to refer to this internship scheme to about 10 students each day where each new student will be charged 500 INR directly paid to this startup.
Next is the idea of awarding people with degree and making them pay for it. Even for a Ph.D. There is no idea of a scholarship or a stipend, rather on top of that the chosen candidate has to pay the fee. The question I want to ask here is more fundamental. The founder is in midst of his Ph.D. (see here & here). On top of this there is NO clue to what the company is affiliated with, in order to provide a legal degree (for BS, MS and a Ph.D.). And the payment options are quickly given even by a UPI address via the GooglePay app into a personal account. The founder is also heavily self-cited.
Is it legal to operate like this in academia? To award degree (not even clear from what affiliation)? Can a startup like this offer any desired 'degree' to anyone in exchange of money?
The main task done by this "company" is making the quantum circuits for various recent PRAs and PRL papers and try to publish them in Springer QIP journal. First and second year undergraduates are hired for this in exchange of money and they design these quantum circuits in IBM Quantum Experience environment.
(This admission information from the website was removed recently after a social media post was made against this company, and now is protected by a login. I had screenshots in my previous edits but was told to take them down, so I obeyed.)

Could you please reformulate your question without the unnecessary details about the service? All those details can be interpreted as a veiled form of spam, and are really not necessary to ask a general question best suited for this site.

@MassimoOrtolano I was actually going to clean it up (remove the screenshots & only keep the essential parts) in response to one of the comments, but I'm still 323 points away from being able to edit questions easily. For something like this it's probably better for someone with enough rep to edit in real-time, to do it. If I do it, who knows how long it will take for 2 peer reviews, & if it takes 5 hours, there might be 3 other edits that people tried to do while my edit was waiting for approval, & then my edit might have to be re-edited. If you're online to reject/approve my edits I'll try.

@MassimoOrtolano The user came back and removed all the unnecessary details about the service, and it comes across a lot less like spam. My edit fixed some of the formatting since the user is a "New contributor" and might not have known how to do that.

@MassimoOrtolano kindly reopen the question, it has been edited 12+ hrs ago.

Even with the edits, this question is still about assessing a specific service, which is off topic.

@MassimoOrtolano Your comment on Jul 11, says "Could you please reformulate your question without the unnecessary details about the service? All those details can be...."  _____ He has now done all of those things.

@user1271772 The name of the service and many other details are still there. We don't assess specific commercial online services.  If the question cannot be reformulated in a general way, and without naming any specific service, it should stay closed.

@MassimoOrtolano you modified the definition of "shopping question" to include assessing (not just shopping), only 2 days ago but you closed the question 4 days ago.

@user1271772 No. The assessment part was already there and also the other linked meta question. I didn't modify the policy: I just added the term to better clarify it.

The company that you say is offering PhD degrees to people without being an accredited university, is in India. According to India's Department of Education, regarding institutions without accreditation or an Act of Parliament:

""It is
emphasized that these fake institutions have no legal entity to call
themselves as University/Vishwvidyalaya and to award ‘degrees’ which
are not treated as valid for academic/employment purposes."

So it is likely illegal for this company called "Bikash's Quantum" to be advertising that they can award a PhD to people that pay 200 USD/month to a PhD student named Bikash who is himself a PhD student that is basically asking for research assistants to carry out the research for his PhD.
Let me now comment on this part of the "partnership policy":

"A monthly compensation of 10000 INR or 200 USD has to be paid to BQ
within the 7th day of Every English calendar month."

200 USD/month is also a lot of money in India. Many people will say that it's unethical to get people to pay you 200 USD/month do to research for you. I don't imagine this type of thing working in USA, Canada, or most of Europe, because most people are under the impression that research assistant work is either voluntary or paid, but never the other way around where the ressearch assistant pays the supervisor.
Whether or not what this guy is doing is legal in India, is something that might be a very good question to ask, and this is one place you can start.

@cag51 my sentence included the word "usually". And about that Wikipedia list of unaccredited universities, many don't exist anymore, such as Trump University which closed in 2010 (I believe they were sued many times for mis-portraying themselves).

@BryanKrause I don't think so in this case, because the user could easily have replied to my comment but they didn't. My first paragraph is not "largely" incorrect as far as I know, and if it is, they could have said the reason why. Furthermore, can you please remove your comment which says "This post has multiple downvotes" ? I have not flagged it because I'm sure you can remove it yourself now that the tagged user has seen it, and apart from notifying the tagged user that there's many downvotes, the rest is not really something to be advertising publicly (people with enough rep can see it)

"In Australia, it is a criminal offence to use the term "university" or to purport to offer university degrees (Bachelors, Masters, Doctors) without government authorization." this is just the first one in alphabetical order from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unaccredited_institutions_of_higher_education

"According to the India Department of Education, regarding institutions without accreditation or an Act of Parliament, "It is emphasized that these fake institutions have no legal entity to call themselves as University/Vishwvidyalaya and to award ‘degrees’ which are not treated as valid for academic/employment purposes." : this is the one relevant to the country that OP is specifically talking about in his question.

" It is illegal under the Universities Act (1997) for any body offering higher education services to use the term "university" without the permission of the Minister for Education and Science."  this is the next one in the alphabetically ordered list.

"Dutch academic titles are legally protected and can only be used by graduates from accredited Dutch institutions of higher education. Illegal use is considered a misdemeanor and subject to legal prosecution." - that's next in the alphabetically ordered list.

"In the United Kingdom only institutions with degree awarding powers awarded by royal charter or by or under an act of parliament can grant degrees"

@BryanKrause it says "citation needed", but look at this: "Canada is the only developed country without an accreditation system to assess the quality of post-secondary schools[citation needed], such as the United States' network of national and regional accreditation organizations.[33]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Canada#Accreditation

This sounds like a straight up pyramid scheme. It may or may not be "legal" in your country but it's not a legitimate company. Run away from this.

What legal step can be taken against this?

https://law.stackexchange.com

@SiddhantSingh Research which government authorities oversee academic institutions, and submit either a report, complaint or tip-off (depending on what option is available at their site). Most government departments will have a way to send a letter or email, or submit a form.

@SiddhantSingh there are in India, so nothing. The government there is well aware of hundreds of such scams running. Corruption is rife.

@Myridium I think you meant to send that to SSight3, not to SiddhantSingh.

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How should I ask for professional help over a problem at which I am stuck?
So here is the issue. In my masters project, I have worked on a problem and am hopelessly stuck on a mathematical equation that I cannot solve.
I am a non-math student who uses math as a tool. I have tried several ways that I could to solve the equation, but I have failed. I would like to approach a mathematician with the problem. But my guide is not highly accepting of the idea. He is generally not enthusiastic about asking for such helps. How do I politely convince him to do so?
And how does one go about with such a situation? Do I simply find a math professor online and email them asking them to help? Instead of requesting my guide, can I directly email other professors asking them to help? Do people actually help or just ignore such emails?

If the mathematical aspects are not lengthy to describe, you could simply ask at Mathematics Stack Exchange. Make sure you provide sufficient context for the problem (like you did here) and any ideas you have toward resolving it. Incidentally, if the problem is suitable for someone to answer there, then this would almost certainly not be a collaboration situation. At least, the culture in math is such that is wouldn't be, although perhaps an acknowledgement somewhere in your thesis would be appropriate.

@DaveLRenfro I have tried to ask it on mathematics stack exchange, but there was no satisfactory answer. I haven't asked it on mathematics overflow however.

Sorry, I thought I checked to see what groups you've participated in, but I either didn't or I didn't notice "Mathematics". (The fact that 30 minutes later I don't even remember whether I checked should tell you something . . .) The last 2-3 questions you've asked seem reasonable for that site. It's possible the issue is that there are a lot more (I think) pure math types there than those who are familiar with higher level engineering-physics type math, and perhaps the question wasn't visible long enough. Maybe try to edit one or two of the most relevant questions to get them bumped up?

@DaveLRenfro Thanks a lot for the advice. I will do that certainly!

I have two worries here. The first is whether your "guide" is actually telling you that you need to do this yourself if your thesis is to be accepted. The second is that you really aren't asking for "collaboration" but for "help". I think most requests would be interpreted that way at least. It may be that the MS thesis is really supposed to be the work of one person with guidance from the supervisor (guide) only. Are my worries warranted?

@Buffy well actually my thesis has been accepted and currently the issue is more about solving the problem. He himself admits that he too can't solve the equation as he is also not a mathematician. I admit that what I am asking for might be understood as asking for help. But maybe if the problem is solved and if we get a paper out of it, I can ask my guide to add the math profs name to it. Would that be called a collaboration then?

Also, how open are academicians to 'help' others in such situations in general?

No, it probably wouldn't be called collaboration. It would be (at least) borderline improper. Authorship is for those whose ideas are fundamental to the paper.

@Buffy okay. Now I get it. Thanks a lot :) So it won't be a collab for that matter. I should probably edit my question now!

Does this answer your question? How should I phrase an important question that I need to ask a professor?

Just wanted to add that if it's a complicated problem, it might be that not every mathematician in your uni can solve it for you. It might be a good idea to find a mathematician and ask whether they know who could help you with that.

First, there's nothing wrong with you asking for help. I find it strange that your master thesis mentor objected. Indeed, master thesis is intended to teach you how to do research, and collaboration (or simply talking to experts in other fields) is a crucial aspect of it nowadays. You are not supposed to re-invent the wheel!
Generally, many mathematicians are fond of explaining maths to others, and seeing a problem someone cannot solve, they often cannot resist a challenge! So, if you ask for help, you do have a chance. Much more so if (a) ask someone you know in person and (b) ask someone working in a right domain. Alas, we are not generalists anymore, so don't an expert in category theory to know PDE or be willing to learn them for you! If you do shoot an e-mail to someone you don't know, it's hard to beat the advice of Scott Aaronson.
Actually, if a question went unanswered on math.stackexchange, it is considered acceptable to ask it on MathOverflow. By the look of it, though, MO welcomes more concrete and precise questions than yours on Math.Stackexchange. You should state the problem and what you are trying to achieve in full, refer to "most similar" problems you know of in the literature, and what exactly goes wrong if you try to mimic their method. Since MO is supposed to be "like asking your colleague next office door", the same applies if you ask/email someone.
On the issue of collaboration, I would say that if you asked for help and received valuable input, then you should offer a co-authorship. After that, it depends. If the answer is in the literature and they just point it out to you, or if it is standard for the experts even if hard to pinpoint in the literature, then they are supposed to refuse, and you just mention them in the Acknowledgements section. If, on the other hand, they start thinking or doing computations for you, then it's a different matter. Of course, there are many intermediate possibilities, e. g., they just write the math part in a separate paper, and you cite it, or they write a separately authored appendix to your paper. But it's up to the person whom you are asking for help to decide.

I'll guess that the best help might come just by visiting the math department at your university and asking a faculty member for help. Or asking (say at the the department office) if there is a grad student that might be willing to help you.
It would be appropriate to give an acknowledgment in the thesis, or any resulting paper, to someone who helps. For some kinds of help it might actually be appropriate to pay for the help. But, as long as the driving ideas in the thesis/paper are yours, then co-authorship by another isn't really appropriate.
And make sure your advisor is comfortable with all attempts to seek outside help as long as you are a student.

For some kinds of help it might actually be appropriate to pay for the help.
I have never seen this happening in academia, especially for an help concerning mathematics. Do you have a specific instance when this is possible or customary?

@BlueElephant, I think the OP's field isn't actually mathematics, but needs some math. However, some math results have been built on the results of computer programs (Four Color Theorem). In such cases, if very sophisticated programming is needed it might be fine to pay for that. If the program is specified by the mathematician paying the bills then it doesn't necessarily lessen their contribution or the centrality of it.

Ultimately, if you are unable to solve the problem yourself then you are going to have to ask for help, or even collaboration.  If it is a large enough problem that you need a collaborator to do a chunk of the work for you (e.g., solving this mathematics problem), that should not necessarily be fatal to it still being counted as fulfilling your project requirements.
Start by seeking help from some mathematics people at your university, and if it is a big problem then you can raise the opportunity for collaboration and coauthorship.  Your "guide" (supervisor?) should be able to give you some options here that make it possible for you to get a solution to the problem.

Sorry for the term 'guide'. Generally from where I come, supervisors are also frequently referred to as guides as they guide people in projects and stuff, so. And thanks a lot for the answer!

It's fine; I just wasn't entirely sure they were the same thing.  For the benefit of my future knowledge, what country is this in?

Mostly in South-Asian countries (India in my case).


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Trauma affected my grades while in undergrad, how will it affect me getting into graduate school?
I was traumatized by an abusive relationship. While in the relationship, my grades were affected. Out of the relationship, I chose to stay in school and struggle with my studies instead of medically withdrawing. I attended therapy and completed psychiatric care.
I'm back to being a straight A student, but what will graduate school say in reference to those 2 years on my transcript? Should I explain it to them? Will I be granted an interview even? My GRE scores are great, but my major is competitive. What can I do? Should I include a letter that certifies what occurred in those two years from a professional?

Have you talked to a graduate admissions advisor at your school? If not, is there a specific reason why? Also, "my grades were affected" may need to be elaborated on since that is subjective. Are we talking about a few Cs and Bs? Ds and Fs?

Well...about 3 C's. The rest were B's. 1 F. But they were in core classes. The graduate admissions advisors are so busy, i dont have an appointment with them until November.

Graduate schools will likely ask about the events leading up to the change in grades during an interview. You should work with someone you are comfortable with in a practice interview regarding this specific question, in my very non-professional opinion, as it may be very difficult to answer. I'm sure someone with more background in graduate admissions will be able to cover more ground, but at the very least, I am pretty sure that the disparity will be queried.

One would typically use vague phrases like "medical issues" or "a difficult personal situation which is now resolved".  You could likewise have your recommendation writers allude to the issue with similar phrases.  Admissions committees do not really need or want to know the details.

+1 for "now resolved."  Admissions people will probably be more concerned about whether the same thing could happen again.

How many semesters of straight As are left to you?  In other words, will evaluators see the poorer grades as "in the past?"

I have about 2-3 semesters left.

You may actually be eligible for a additional scholarship. My university has a scholarship specifically for people who's grades were adversely affected by * during their undergraduate.

I'm going to make this an answer rather than a comment; I hope others will react to it, especially if I'm wrong.  (I'm a teacher, not an admissions officer.)
From what I understand, you had good grades at the start of your college career.  Your grades declined for external reasons.  Your life is back under control and your grades are back up.  You have a little more than a year to gather good grades on your transcript.
Go for it.  Apply to the schools you'd like to attend, but apply to a couple of Plan B schools as well.
Here's the part that may be controversial:  You might want to include in your cover letter something like "You may notice that there was a slump in my grades during my time as an undergraduate.  That was due to a difficult personal situation, now resolved."  (Thanks, Nate Eldridge, for the fine phrase.)
The other choice would be to mention the grade slump not at all.  In any case, don't make a big deal of it.

I don't think your suggestion is controversial at all: I think it is very sound advice.  If anyone is worried that they may be calling attention to a weak point the admissions committee would not otherwise notice: that is very unlikely.  What they might miss on a quick reading is that the dip in grades is concentrated on a specific time.

If you have the opportunity, use the diversity statement to briefly allude to the medical / personal issue in your life at the time that is now resolved and that you don't think will reoccur.
I wouldn't not mention it. The admin committee will see a slump in your grades. But we're also interested in your overall trajectory. So as long as it doesn't represent something that will reoccur in grad school, we can be convinced to take a risk.
One other option if your discipline allows it is to do a Master's degree in the same field. That way we can see that you're capable of doing graduate work in the field.

This is from my own personal experience, so there's obviously no guarantee you will have the same experience, but I thought I would share...
I also had some difficulties with abuse during my undergraduate years, my grades suffered and I ended up withdrawing completely from the course, eventually completing my BA 7 years later from a different university. I'm now completing my PhD at one of the top universities in the US, and before this I did a masters at one of the top universities in the UK. So it certainly doesn't have to hold you back.
In my case, I chose to do a few things to try and maximize my chances of getting into the school and program I wanted:
1) I chose to do an masters before applying for the PhD - to show that I could do graduate level work, and, perhaps more importantly, that my grades really were back on track (that is, that the bad grades were the exception, not the good grades).
2) I referred explicitly to the problem years in my personal statement.I briefly explained why the drop in grades and eventual withdrawal occurred, but really focused on the fact that it was now resolved, and highlighted the consistently positive grades etc since.
3) I asked one of my referees (who knew what had happened), to directly address it in her letter of recommendation, again focusing primarily on the positive steps/grades etc since.
For me this worked really well. I was offered a place at each of the graduate schools I applied to, and although it may have taken me a little longer to get here than friends who didn't have similar problems during undergrad, I'm now exactly where I want to be, and couldn't be happier.
I hope this helps in some way, and good luck!

Your problem appears to be one of grade "blemish(es)," rather than a "pattern" of bad grades. It's a bit troubling that they are in your core courses.
You appear to be "admittable," to many programs, although there is also a chance that the bad grades will keep you out of some programs.
In this situation, your personal essay (and corroborating letters of recommendation from professors), take on heightened importance. Basically, you'll have to "explain away" your worst grades due to "extenuating circumstances," how you've risen above those circumstances, and why those bad grades aren't likely to be repeated. It would also help if there were sympathetic people, particularly women, on the admissions committees of the schools of your choice.
It's a long shot, but if you can get a letter of explanation/recommendation from the professor(s) that gave you the worst grade(s), it might help clear up matters. As an undergraduate, I once had a professor tell me, "If I had know what you were going through during that semester, I might have given you a better grade in my course."

I will say this from my personal experience, so don't take it as a definitive answer and be discouraged.
Graduate school admission is a competition. A fierce competition, especially if you're applying for a good program. So if there's someone with higher GPA than yours, he/she will be admitted. Graduate schools care about one thing only - how well will you perform in their program.
While you may want to tell it in your cover letter that you had relationship issues, the admission may or may not consider it. In my case none of the good programs I applied to cared about things I had to go through. One program did respond me telling that they discarded my application cause of my GPA.
Don't be discouraged however. I have noticed that sometimes they may prefer things like working experience, volunteering, etc. So while you cannot change your past, you can affect your present and future. Work hard, and show it to them.

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What to say in one-minute presentation of a poster in a scientific conference?
The chair person of my poster session has told each participant to make an one-slide presentation with one minute maximum speaking time (known as poster blitz or poster madness).
I am wondering what to keep on the slide and what to say in one minute? Is it Okay, if I speak my abstract only along with a figure? Could you please suggest me if there is any other good way of presentation?

You could also add a animation that showcases the basic idea of your paper if that is doable.

One important factor is how multidisciplinary your field is, and how many people in the room are likely to be aware of what your research is about.

@Alexandros I would be very wary of using animations in this context.  You have 1 minute. That means zero time for getting things plugged in/working, so you'll be using their system.  Does your animation work on their software version? Properly? Can you be sure?

@Alexandros: Also, animations usually require even more time explaining than plots.

@ChrisH I mean a 30sec animation embedded in the ppt file and not separate.

@Alexandros I know, so do I.  I've had trouble with different versions of powerpoint being incompatible in the past.  not to mention the fact that building an animation in powerpoint is a significant piece of work it it's to add much.

"First of all, I would like to thank the organizers for giving me the opportunity to present this work..."

5 sentences, averaging about 12 seconds per sentence: 1. Topic: "This poster reports on a project which addresses the issue of ...." 2. Context: "This research draws on the theory of ...., particularly the idea that ...." 3. One major finding: "The study found that X had a significant effect on Y". 4. Key implications: (a) "One important implication of this study is that X should be taken into account when doing Y." (b) Wrap-up: "Overall we found that topic .... is a promising area for further investigation, with possible extensions to other areas of research, such as ..." Hope this helps!

@FedericoPoloni That's a waste of precious time. Maybe you meant it as a joke? Gratitude is never wrong, but this minute is for information, not social niceties.

@CaptainEmacs Yes, that was meant as a joke. Sorry, sarcasm is often hard to convey in written text!

@FedericoPoloni I thought it might be, esp. with you a long-standing adviser. But some people might take it as actual advice. I am usually good at smelling irony, but even I was unsure...

I've seen this before and it can work very well.
Your only task in the one minute slot is to convince people that they should come and see your poster. Say what you've been doing and why it's interesting. You could use your abstract as a starting point but don't just read it out. Keep the slide really simple with the paper title and authors and a single, striking figure.

+1, + where to find you (e.g. poster number) if it's anything larger than a tiny poster session.

Tabloid headlines are a wonderful source of inspiration for brevity and invitation for engagement (the content, not so much, but that's your job at the poster).

Usually, in these "madness" sessions (that's what they're usually called on the conferences I'm familiar with), the one minute is more of an upper limit rather than a rough guideline. As such, your abstract may already be too long.
The main purpose of the one-minute-presentation is to serve as an appetizer for people to come and see your poster. Thus, while it serves a similar purpose as an abstract, an abstract should rather be more descriptive and matter-of-fact, whereas such a teaser presentation can easily be more on the "mystery" side, posing a question without answering how you solved it just yet.
A useful idea might be to pick an impressive graphic from your poster (one that makes the audience want to learn more), briefly describe your topic and give some hints, though not a full description, of the solution you present.

It may be better to start from your elevator pitch, rather than the abstract. If you don't have an elevator pitch, prepare that first.
The term "elevator pitch" comes from a scenario in which you happen to be in an elevator, or other situation allowing for a very short interaction, with somebody you want to influence. What do you say? The objective is not to deliver full details, but to get them interested enough to extend the interaction. See the Wikipedia article, or Forbes article.
The poster-at-conference version of the elevator pitch scenario is you find yourself in the elevator with an important professor in your field. You have less than a minute elevator ride to explain your research in such a way as to get the professor sufficiently interested to visit your poster.
Poster madness is just a very big elevator containing most conference participants who are likely to visit posters. It may be easier to think in terms of talking to one person first.

I like your answer. In case the OP doesn't know what and elevator pitch is, here's some links: The Wikipeida articel, a Forbes article, and a Chronicles of Higher Ed blog post. Please feel free to edit this into your answer as well.

Exactly. I also use the term "elevator pitch" to describe to my PhD students what they need (truly!) to have ready in case of opportunities...

Is it Okay, if I speak my abstract only along with a figure?

No, because usually your abstract is (usually) containing very condensed information and uses a sentence structure that is most suited for written language. If you just read your abstract, most people in the audience will have a hard time to follow you and not remember the essentials. You can easily test this by having random abstracts read to you.

Could you please suggest me if there is any other good way of presentation?

This depends a little bit on the diversity of your audience or at least the part of it that you want to come to your poster:

If your audience is rather diverse and needs some background information to understand what your poster is about, then this is as far as you can go. Think about the minimal information required to understand what your poster is about and talk about this. A similar approach is to just explain your poster’s title.
Leave out everything that is not essential. This usually includes your results. Rather use the latter as a teaser (“come to my poster, if you want to know more”).
Use a schematic graphics or similar as support, but be very careful with plots, as you usually do not have the time to even explain the axes or what you are actually plotting. Most graphics on your poster are probably not suited for this.
If your audience does not need background information to appreciate your work, you can convey a little bit more. You may be able to show a central plot, say why somebody should be interested in your work or what is novel. But in general, the above applies: Do not plan to present anything unnecessary.

Whatever you do, rehearse your presentation a few times and stop the time. Do not do any of the following:

use more than one slide;
cram content on this slide;
say your name or poster title (if the chair already said it);
talk about your university, collaborators or similar (I once attended a poster session, where somebody used up his entire time for just this).

Recently I went to a conference and one of the speakers of the 1 min presentation did wrote an ode to tomography. She showed up, recited a fantastic poem, and sat down.
Needless to say that she got an special prize for it.
My point: Just go there and show what you done, in the less "boring", less verbose way. Make it easy to understand, and show a fantastic picture on it, because ultimately your goal is not to present your work, but to convince the audience to go talk to you later!
Don't explain it, sell it!

The short answer from me will be: less than you think.
With only a minute, and it is a tickling challenge, you need a very good slide that sticks in peoples mind. You obviously cannot have an introductory slide with name and title etc since this will only flash by anyway; so make sure your name and affiliation (logo) is on the slide somewhere and can be seen so you are remembered. Then think about what is the most important point of your work (that you wish to present). Start out by concluding what you have found, this could (should) also be the title of the slide. What is then necessary to understand what you have done to reach the conclusion in just very few sentences.
The illustration(s) you chose is key to the presentation and should, as mentioned, capture the audience interest and help underpin your way to the conclusion. Do a search on "assertion evidence slides" and you will find several sources that can be of assistance to accomplish what I have outlined.

The OP writes that this is to by a one-page presentation.

"make sure your name and affiliation (logo) is on the slide somewhere and can be seen" - actually, this isn't too important in my opinion. I have seen (and shown) quite some one-minute-madness slides that contained only a single large, interesting image and no further information, or maybe just the poster title, but no author or affiliation info. The one-minute-slide is there to catch the interest of the audience so they look at the poster, not to provide any insightful information that would be sufficient for collaboration requests. Therefore, the scarce space can be put to better use.

Find a question that is likely to grab the attention of many in your audience, because it is somehow relevant to them. Ask that question (e.g. Have you ever wondered if/how ...). Then explain in a few sentences how your work addresses that question.
Be very general and very succinct. You can sketch a very broad idea of what you're trying to do, but that isn't the top priority. It is more important to introduce the subject in words that an interested person will understand without prior introduction than it is to cover your work in any detail or to use terms and concepts that you use yourself while doing the work. It is also far more important to explain why your work addresses the question than to explain the work itself.
Your goal will be not to explain your work, but to get people asking questions to themselves about your work, which you can then answer after the presentation.

1 minute isn't a lot of time. I'd recommend having 1 key point you want to get across. And then include points to support that key message.
Here's an article and video on elevator pitches... explaining why it's important to be laser-focused in any speech where you only have 1-2 minutes.

Just to complement several good answers, someone very wise once told me that you should always be prepared to explain what you are doing, in any amount of time.
She demonstrated that by giving surprise tours of her lab to visiting professors, where each "student" would have a few seconds to explain the gist of the work. If the work was interesting to the professor, you would have more time, even a "real" meeting.
In practice, start by trying to summarize what you do in one short sentence. Then a couple more, and go on... I find that is easier to go top-down than bottom-up, but either way works fine...
Also, never assume the person is familiar with your vocabulary/terms. Keep it simple at first, getting technical down the way...
I know it sound weird, but once you get used to idea, it is easy and works...

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Can I re-submit a rejected manuscript to same Journal after 2 years
I had submitted a manuscript to a Journal in December 2012, which got rejected in February 2013 with some comments and advising to re-submit as a new manuscript along with reply to the comments. But I neither modified the manuscript nor submitted to same/other Journal. This is because, the work was not related to my original work. Truly speaking, I got this result accidentally in November 2012 and wrote a manuscript.
This August 2015 reminds me about this manuscript and I modified it as per the reviewers' comments. Now I can't decide whether to re-submit the manuscript in the same Journal? Or to submit in a new Journal? It is already 2 years and half. Can anybody kindly suggest me in this regard.

Before you resubmit anywhere, bring the introduction and literature review up to date. You'll need to mention anything that's been done in the meantime.

If you were invited to resubmit, you can.  Unless this invitation was conveyed to you with an explicit deadline, your waiting on it should not be problematic.
However, if you resubmit to the same journal after 31 months, then although you should call attention to the fact that you were invited to do so, you should not expect to get any advantage or economy from this.  In my experience journals and editors keep papers "in mind" for a certain, smaller length of time, after which they can forget pretty thoroughly.  (For that matter, 31 months is plenty long enough for the editor who handled your paper to no longer be working for the journal.)  You cannot count on getting the same referee(s).  On the other hand you might, which is something to keep in mind if there was something negative in the original referee report.
What I would advise is to  reflect on whether this is the best journal to submit your paper.  If you feel strongly that it is, then resubmit there.  If you weren't sure whether that journal was such a great choice and/or submitted there more or less randomly, I would try again with a different journal.  I have had the experience of submitting a paper to a journal, having it rejected, writing back later to the editor explaining that I was able to get the results the referee asked for, and the editor said, "OK, then why not resubmit?"  The paper went back to the same referee, who forgot about it, and then when reminded decided it still wasn't good enough.  Now I might have gotten the same referee at a different journal, but still: annoying!  In general I feel that once a journal has rejected your paper, it's safest (even psychologically) to take future incarnations of the paper elsewhere.

If the journal you had sent it to last time was the right venue for your result, then it is still the right venue for the revised paper. People often take long periods of time to revise papers if the paper no longer fits their current interest. I see no stigma in this, and I don't think it's a reason not to send the paper to the same journal.


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Should I always provide my current affilition and address when a paper got accepted?
I had submitted a manuscript in last year (December, 2014) while working in Institute-A. After one month of submission I left Institute-A and joined in Institute-B from January, 2015. Now that paper got accepted, just yesterday.
So what should be my affiliation and address of the paper?

I would like to mention that my current Institution (Institute-B) has no contribution for this paper. Though the paper was revised during my stay in Institute-B, but I did those revisions through the co-authors still working in Institute-A.

Similar question: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/34442/is-it-acceptable-to-change-affiliation-to-new-employer-when-submitting-an-update?rq=1

Thank you for the suggestion. I read. But my current Institution has no contribution for this paper. Though the paper was revised during my stay in Institute-B, but I did those revisions through the co-authors still working in Institute-A.

The fact that you revised the paper while at Institute B means that they did contribute – they paid your salary.

Yes @Dave Clarke, I am fully agree with you. It is a very good point.

This comes up a lot when professors visit other universities, actually.  In mathematics it is common to use footnotes on the front page to cover grants and visits.  So in the author list you might have

John Q. Public1
  University of Wheresistan

with a footnote saying

1This author was partially supported by NSF grant 12345.  Research was conducted while visiting the University of Whatsitville.

The exact formatting and content is something that will ultimately be determined by the journal in question, and your particular circumstances.  The note may also include a thank you to the hosting university, or it may be split up (one footnote for the funding, another for the hosting/thanks).  You can probably find several examples like this just by surveying (the first page of) current research articles.
So I'd suggest using an author footnote on the first page that includes the pertinent information.  Use your current contact information and use the footnote to briefly mention the role played by other institutions and grants.  You can consult the journal's style guide--and if you're still unsure, ask an editor--to see if they have any specific requests or instructions for this sort of entry.  I believe most journals are fairly generous in what they allow here, and leave it up to you to make sure the proper thanks are given.

I think you should include both. Institute A should get the recognition that you produced the work while there and you should also add "current address Institute B" if readers want to contact you.

Do you mean I should use Institute-B address just for the readers if they want to contact me? The given e-mail address is accessible to me. The co-authors of the paper are still working in the same address of Institute-A laboratory.

Give the affiliation(s) where the research was conducted (universities and departments get credit in Scopus/ISI/Google Scholar for publications too and it affects their ranking) and put a footnote as to your current address if needed - just make sure it is clear which university supported you during the time when the work was done. I would make the case that your revisions at University B deserves a mention (even if through co-authors, revision is work after all, sometimes more than the original paper), maybe by giving both affiliations.
This is probably only really important for the corresponding author, but make sure to follow the rules of the journal you submit to and follow the standard practice in your field. But from my experience, they usually don't specify or care. It is common (I am actually dealing with this now on a paper I am preparing for submission) to use old affiliations when students are authors on papers and who have graduated since the work was done.

The most appropriate thing to do would be to add your current institution as your affiliation and include the institution that supported you before when the paper was submitted with the relevant details in the Acknowledgment section.


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How to find a good topic for a PhD research proposal?
In many countries an application for a PhD position includes a written research proposal, so my questions is what are some advises/strategies to come up with a good topic/idea for a PhD research proposal and how can one assess the quality/fruitfulness of an idea? As an undergraduate student one just doesn't have the experience to foresee which ideas might have promising research results and which probably won't have. (And I doubt that potential supervisors have the time to comment on every idea of every potential applicant in cases where it is possible to establish some kind of contact before the actual application.)

It seems unwise to undertake a PhD without at least a general topic already in mind. In my (very limited) experience students already have research experience and have established research relationships with faculty. For example, the fourth year of my undergrad ("Honours" in Australia), was a year supervised research. This is how I developed my research interests and found a supervisor.

This is an extremely popular paper on the subject: http://www.weizmann.ac.il/mcb/UriAlon/nurturing/HowToChooseGoodProblem.pdf

Jot down your interests.
Future goals (long term and short term). Doesn't have to be accurate but just to give you the "big picture".
Speak with your PhD advisor (if you already have one).
Align his/her interests with yours and see if you have common ground (you may need to lean towards his interests or find another advisor)
Once you have a list of topics that you could explore, do a literature review and figure out for what topics you'd have a taste.

Each person has his own formula on what to choose as their PhD proposal. This was the way I went about it.
PhD (Mechanical Engineering Expected Fall 2012)

I would stress that you should speak to your potential advisor (even if you don't have one yet!). You certainly shouldn't submit something that no potential supervisor has ever seen. This is not necessarily because the proposal would be better with their help, but there might be nobody who would be able to advise you.

Thanks for the answer! The problem in many european countries is, that you don't apply for graduate school and then find a topic and supervisor at the university which accepted you (i believe this is how it works in the U.S.?), but you are supposed to come up with something in before (when you apply in the first place). See e.g. in this  example what the applicants and their proposals will be judged on.

Regardless of what it says officially, it's always a good idea to at least establish contact with your potential advisor. If anything, it will show them that you're motivated. I think most people will be happy to give you at least some feedback on your proposal.

In most cases I know (Europe, Physics) the research proposal was written together between the PhD advisor and the candidate, or by the PhD advisor. You could in theory start without an advisor, but in practice almost everyone finds one before starting.

In your case, I would find scientific publications aimed at the student/general population in your field, and read the articles written for the public. Both Science and Nature will have numerous articles in each issue that can be read and understood by the general public. Some subfields have publications directed specifically at the student/enthusiast population (such as IEEE Spectrum for Engineering).
By reading through these publications, you will get a sense for what the current major research focus is in a wide variety of fields, and you'll get a feel for what's interesting to you.

Talk to professors in fields that interest you! You'd be surprised at how many professors (admittedly, not all of them) would be willing to spend 15 minutes talking to you about their research, and their field in general. I'm not going to say "showing initiative is key to making progress", because it's not, but it can help, and you'll learn a tremendous amount this way.

Find a subject that you really really are passionately interested in, and care about finding out more about it. This subject is going to become almost your entire life for a few years, and you will need huge dedication to it, in order to complete.
Talk, ideally over a coffee, but by phone or (worst-case) email if you can't meet in person, with people who recently completed their PhDs and are now actively researching in this field; discuss your ideas and recent developments in the field.
Find an area that your intended supervisor is up-to-date in.
If you do it right, your PhD will lead you to knowing more than anyone else in the world about this very very specific subject: so it will really help if you're going to be keen to pursue it as a career after completing your PhD, even after writing several papers and making plenty of conference presentations on it.

One aspect of a PhD is pursuing original research in your given field. I believe it is hard for an undergraduate to know what research has / hasn't been in covered in all of the topics they may be interested in.
Therefore, I would advise that you consider the topics you are interested in, and find out which Researchers / Professors are working in those fields, in the universities that you are considering. Then, you should ask them what they are working on at the moment, and what potential projects they would have in mind for a new PhD student joining them. This will give you a feel for the kind of research that you could be doing.

There are already very good answers above; I would only like to add that you should also take into account whether you can get a scholarship/funding for your research topic. Your personal interests may not necessarily align with those of your potential funders. Consider how much you would be willing to compromise your own interests to be able to receive a scholarship. Most people cannot support themselves financially through the course of a PhD programme, so this point is not to be underestimated.
If you apply for a government scholarship for example, they will likely want you to study a topic that is of high policy relevance to them and you need to think about whether you can offer that or modify your original ideas in such a way that they will meet the policy priorities of the government at the point of application. Governments tend to publish their strategic priorities in various documents online, so it will not be difficult to make the connections between your research and their needs.
University departments giving scholarships tend to be more flexible with regard to research topics as long as the quality and originality of the proposed research is high, but again, it would be best to get an opinion from a member of the department on the chances of your proposal attracting sufficient interest that it will get funding.
Without funding, it will be close to impossible to do a PhD.


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Sound reasons for excluding a reviewer
I am about to submit a paper, and I'm asked whether I want anybody to be excluded from consideration as a reviewer. I also need to state a reason. I briefly considered listing someone who - I have reasons to believe - once reviewed a paper of mine by listing criticisms that were unspecific enough that I spent a very large amount of time just trying to figure out what they meant. Of course my guess could be wrong, and it seems unfair to label someone as a suboptimal reviewer based on a hunch. Which led me to wonder - what are some good reasons for asking for exclusion of a reviewer? And additionally, what would polite wordings be for each of these reasons?

You should list reviewers (if any) that you think may be unfairly biased towards your science in some specific way. this includes persons with whom there may be a personal conflict that would shadow an objective review or people who have shown an unmitigated dislike for your science or the like. It is not intended to be used to list persons just because they may not agree with your science. In the specific case you list, I can see that such a reviewer may be unwanted but I do not think the reasons are strong enough to warrant signalling the reviewer as unwanted. The chances of the reviewer being asked may be small if there are many others that can be considered useful. Finally, if you were still to receive a review that is as unclear as the one you describe, you should ask the editor to clarify what you should read out from the review. After all, the editor must have read the review and used it to evaluate the degree of revisions necessary of your manuscript. So in short, you should save the nasty for listing as unwanted or non-preferred (whatever the journal terminology may be) reviewer.

Not that it's also the case when the bias is in favor of the author. A good reason to exclude a reviewer is if you have close ties to this person, whether professional or personal. Especially if they are not obvious to the editor (such as working in the same group and sharing authorship of previous publications).

Thank you. I'm not going to list this person because I also think it's not a strong enough reason, it was just the trigger for this question. Someone I'll certainly list is a person I'm collaborating with on some additional analyses of the same dataset, but that is quite clear-cut: he has too much incentive to want this paper published.

But still, I am interested - how would you politely say 'this person has shown an unmitigated dislike for my science'? Surely you can't just say that to the editor?

Does the letter from the editor require you to give reasons? Many times you're not require to list the reasons, just the names.

@RoboKaren - this particular life sciences journal does. There's a whole online form with boxes to fill, with 'Reason' being obligatory. I have no idea how common it is though.

You could be vague and say "served as reviewer in recent past" -- most journals know the importance of making sure single people don't serve as gatekeepers to small fields


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A level as entry requirement to PGCE program
I would love to pursue Maths teaching but I am unsure whether I would be accepted onto the programmes and whether I should complete an A Level in Maths with a view to apply for PGCE or Schools Direct Route in 2015.
Will getting my A Levels in Maths help to get admitted to a PGCE program?
As background: I'm 26 and hold a 2.2 degree in Biomedical Science from a British university. I took my A Levels in Biology and Chemistry but only got an AS Level in Maths and Art. My work background is that I have been a carer for family members for many years.

It appears you have asked this both here and matheducators.SE. If this is about positions lower than university, it is off topic here.

It was suggested to put my question on this forum. My question is in regard to postgraduate training.

I have edited the question to make it more on-topic. If I have not preserved your intention, please roll back my changes.

@ChrisC Although the teaching would be to schoolchildren, the question is about applying for a postgraduate teaching degree (PGCE).

The question at http://matheducators.stackexchange.com/q/4462/77 currently has one answer and three votes to close.

In the UK it should definitely be possible for you to become a maths teacher with your background, but I'm not completely sure whether you would need to do A-level maths first.  I would expect that most maths teachers would actually have a degree in maths or a very closely related subject, but I don't know this for sure.
You might find helpful information on the UCAS website (the link is to the page about entry requirements for teaching).
From that page:

Obviously, you'll also need a strong understanding of the subject you
  want to teach before you start training. If your degree subject
  doesn't link closely to your chosen teaching subject, we'd advise you
  to take a subject knowledge enhancement (SKE) course before starting
  teacher training. You can only do these in England and in certain
  subjects.

Following on from this answer, I suggest you speak to the admissions people for some of the courses you are interested in applying to. You won't need to do A-level maths, but you may need to do the maths SKE (as mentioned above) if they don't think your degree is closely related to maths. I have a friend who has just started doing Schools Direct teaching maths. She has just completed an MPhil in Space Physics, and she was advised to do the maths SKE just to refresh her skills. I don't think she HAD to do it, but they recommended it.

I do not believe taking A level maths will help you gain admittance to a PGCE program. The entry requirements for Goldsmiths PGCE program in Mathematics are:

The extent of mathematical understanding you bring to the programme is important. You should have a degree in Mathematics or a related subject. Engineers can generally offer enough Mathematics, as can actuaries and physicists. Those with qualifications in Business, Accounting or Computing need to be able to show a substantial amount of Mathematics in their degree. It is also important that you have some knowledge and experience of UK secondary schools. Some applicants may be referred to a TDA subject enhancement course.

The amount of mathematics in a Biomedical Science degree can vary substantially, however, even the most mathematically rigours biomedical science course, probably is not enough. Further, many PGCE programs also require you to have obtained a 2.1 or higher. I think the combination of those two factors will put you at a substantial disadvantage. I think a Mathematics Enhancement Course would serve you much better, in terms of gaining admissions to a PGCE program, than A level maths.

It depends, where. If you just want to teach very young children, that much of Maths probably everybody knows. However you may need to complete the minimum required pedagogical education. How much is required, is largely country and often school dependent. Normally it may be additional courses during studies, or independent studies lasting for a few years.

In the UK, children under the age of about 11 generally taught all subjects by the same person so there tend not to be specialized maths teachers for young children.


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What is the etiquette on presenting work-in-progress that's mostly literature review in a conference talk in the humanities?
Is it socially acceptable to present a conference paper which is not (yet) highly original research?
Being in the humanities, research requires much of literature reading rather than experimental or lab work. So, in a sense, it's inevitable that I need to take the existing literature as a starting point.
Personally, I consider journals to be the proper place to disseminate original research. As a starting PhD student I am trying to participate in workshops and conferences as much as possible.
Many times my presentations are work-in-progress and a personal synthesis of the vast amount of literature I have been processing. These presentations help me to make a "coherent story" of months of reading work. Making such a coherent story also helps me to orient my future research and accomplish intermediate research goals. Many times I submit an abstract to conferences to have some "external motivation" to finish some work before a certain deadline. Repeating this process, eventually, I am able to integrate these research goals to a higher plane where truly original research can be done.
Furthermore, I also consider conferences in a more broad sense. Rather than being a place to impress other people with your results, it's an opportunity to receive feedback and criticism. I also consider conferences as occasions where people with different backgrounds can meet each other, that is, meet each other qua human beings (not their research).
To formulate my story as a question: (a) How common is my vision of conferences? (b) Is it socially acceptable to present something which is derivative work-in-progress (and not yet revolutionary research?)

Although I'm in the social sciences rather than in the humanities, I'll give a general response:
"Socially acceptable" is an odd question. I understand that you are asking about if people who attend your session might find your presentation appropriate or not. However, academic conferences are peer-reviewed. That means that before youre presentation can be presented to an audience, it is evaluated not only by the conference committee, but by two or more subject experts. So, if your presentation is acceptable to the committee and to the peer-reviewers, then I expect that that answers your question--yes, they have approved it for presentation before an audience. (Of course, and especially if you are only submitting an abstract for consideration, you must be explicit that your final presention would be of a literature review.) If they don't accept it, then no--though their rejection might not be because it is a literature review per se--it could be for many other reasons.
Also, note that what is acceptable for one conference might not be acceptable for another, and indeed, what is acceptable for one conference one year might not be acceptable another year (since you often have different evaluators). Only by actually submitting would you know.
So, in short, submit it for peer-review and then you'll get your answer. You don't need to worry about the audience; the peer-reviewers are there to protect them from inappropriate material.

It is indeed acceptable as long as you state it as a survey.
Many papers published in both conferences and journals present only the collated information of existing work. Such papers can be classified as a survey. Not all papers that are published propose novel methods.
The quality of the survey paper, however, lies in the credibility of the sources cited and the way in which the information is collated. Writing a good survey paper is not just about putting all the pieces of research in a field together. An admirable survey paper ought to explain in detail the comparison of proposed methods, the state of the art and show open areas of research within the field.

This isn't much of an answer.  Can you please expand to say why?

@jakebeal: Thanks for the prompt. Edit confirmed. Kindly refer.

I'm not in this field, but this answer seems questionable.  I'd think a survey, intended as a paper in itself, is quite a different beast from a literature review done as a preliminary to some original work.


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Reference for image drawn by yourself, but originated from others?
I am using some images (among others: Laser niveaus) in my thesis. I am drawing them myself with tikz, but as a guidance I use images and data from papers and books. Should I reference them, and if yes, how?

In particular, this answer to the linked duplicate addresses your question exactly, as far as I can tell.


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Is it possible to use one thesis for two degrees?
I am currently a masters physics student and doing my master thesis abroad during an exchange. At the moment my master thesis will be graded by my home university, but I have the option to enroll on the exchange university, thus being a master student there (and my master thesis will be graded there, too). Furthermore I will get a master degree from this university, and not from my home one.
Now my question is: Is it theoretically possible to use this master thesis for graduating at my home university, too (getting me two master degrees)? If not, should I still enroll on the exchange university and only get my masters degree there (it would not result in a loss of time; I would finish as I would have finished my masters degree at my home university)? Why?

I don't really understand what an "exchange university" is for a master's student: could you clarify?  (Or perhaps others will know.)  Anyway, your situation of having one foot in each of two different universities sounds rather unusual.  The answer probably depends on the particulars of your program(s): is there some reason you wouldn't ask your two universities about it directly?  (If you're worried that the question will sound ridiculous or offensive: don't be.  It sounds reasonable to me.)  Whether you will actually gain anything from these "two degrees" is of course a different question.

@PeteL.Clark Anyway, your situation of having one foot in each of two different universities sounds rather unusual. It is actually (relatively) common outside the US. ;) But the specific details do indeed vary, so only the universities involved would know the answer.

@PeteL.Clark: Exchange university: I am currently an erasmus exchange student, thus I called the host university "Exchange university"

Isn't this self-plagiarism?

@EnthusiasticStudent: Some universities allow this in a joint venture, you just have to spend a certain amount of semesters at each university...

Universities accept transfer credits. They usually have limits on how much can be transferred in from outside toward their degrees.
Can you explain why you want to get a degree from one versus the other? Is this a case of prestige or personal pride or finances or ...?

Don't you have an advisor in the erasmus mundus program? You should definitely ask him/her, as he/she may know best.

Yes, it is theoretically possible that a university accepts a thesis that has been used to acquire another degree (I even know cases where this happened for two different fields). Usually, the only way to find out is to ask the responsible people at your home university and your exchange university. The latter matters because it might cause trouble if they have some regulations about you “reusing” your thesis. I can imagine that some universities have existing regulations for this matter, so you might check them first to avoid annoying people by asking something that you could have looked up easily.
If this is not possible, I can think of some factors to consider as to which university’s degree you want to get:

One university’s degree might have a generally higher prestige.
Relatedly, a foreign degree might not be accepted or be less valued by potential future employers (be they academic or not). This might even hold, if there are international regulations to make degrees comparable (I know somebody who did a second thesis partly due to this).
Finishing the degree at a foreign university while not completing the degree you originally set out to achieve might be regarded as unfinished studies by some bureaucrats, which is more likely to be negative than positve. Even worse, this may ring title-mill alerts to some. And yes, this would all be rather silly but unfortunately very real.

So, if this is any realistic, make as much decisions about your future as possible and ask potential employers as to whether they have any preference regarding this.

Also, there are sometimes partnerships between universities (or single faculties) where it is officially announced and promoted, that one can earn a degree of both universities if one has taken part in their exchange program and fits some additional conditions (having studied at least x semesters in each university or the like).


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Personal log of peer review conducted at Elsevier journals
A few months ago, I found a web app that showed statistics on my experience as a reviewer, especially with respect to Elsevier journals; it just displayed the number of referee reports I had submitted, for each journal.
Given the data, I think it was some service owned by Elsevier, but despite my best efforts, I cannot find it anymore. I thought it might have been Mendeley, but not quite: my (private) Mendeley profile just shows the last two papers I've reviewed, along with a broken link to "view all publications".
Publons, in principle, is similar to what I'm looking for, but it does not have any agreement with Elsevier (and in fact, the peer review part of my Publons profile is currently empty).
Any ideas?

Checked your browser history?

Sounds like Elsevier's Reviewer Recognition site/platform. According to a description here this platform lets reviewers track their reviews, claim book discounts, etc. [It also mentions a service for public reviewer pages (hmm, where have I heard about that before?), but the provided link is broken so I'm not sure if that's still available or not.]

That's it, thank you! I guess one of the reasons why it was so hard for me to find it again is that profile pages are "public" but not tracked; that is, instead of being able to access your information using your Elsevier password, you need to ask that a link to your profile (shareable? I guess you shouldn't) is sent to you via email. I wonder why


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About approching advisors and switching advisors
I joined a PhD program last fall with the idea of working with a particular Professor. This Professor requires their students to pass his research seminar first to do research with him. I enrolled in that seminar, but did bad in the first homework assignment which is given during the first week of classes. The Professor didn't give me permission to continue in his seminar, but told me that I could take it again next Fall and that if I do well he would be happy to take me as his student.
Because of the requirements of my PhD program I have to start doing research this Summer and next Fall. This means that I have to look for an alternative advisor to start doing research with. I've been contacting other faculty of interest. Some cannot take me as their student and others haven't replied yet. There are other three other Professors that I can still contact but I think I don't have the technical tools yet required to working with them (it could take me a while to catch up). So my two question are

How should I approch  these Professors whose research I find interesting, but feel that don't have the technical tools yet to completely understand their papers?
Is it a good idea to just planning to find a temporary advisor for two semesters (to comply with the program requirements) to then change to the advisor I'm interested in working with?

NOTE: I'm assuming you're in the U.S. due to being able to switch advisors.  Specifying a country will help.
New PhD students are not expected to completely understand papers they read at the beginning.  Learning to read papers takes works - it's part of getting a PhD.
As for how to find professors to work with.  Have you contacted every professor in your department except 3?  More details here would be better, but here's some general advice on finding funding.

Which classes are you enjoying most?  Talk with those professors after class and see if they can fund you or might know someone who can.

Don't be afraid to work with new professors.

Talk with other grad students and see who has availability on a project.  If it sounds interesting, see if they can fund you.

In general, don't send "scatter-shot" emails to professors.  They get hundreds of emails a day.  Do research and approach a few professors that you feel you'd work well with.
Consider picking another advisor permanently
Your first professor is unwilling to help you improve your skills because you failed his seminar.  That's a red flag.  Find someone who will help you improve.
Advisors can only advise so many PhD students.  It sounds like you were taken out of the running early on with the first professor.  You may need to accept you may not be a good fit for the particular professor.  That's ok.
Having a good advisor who will go the extra mile to help you can be the difference between a great experience and dropping out.


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Why do so many people go into Academia when the career prospects are so grim?
Judging by a lot of the questions on this site, a career in Academia sounds very grim. Lots of pressure, extreme working ours, few benefits, mediocre salary, and, because one has to work with so many different people (supervisors, students, collaborators, HR, editors, etc., etc), one is more likely to run into social issues, as evidenced by the questions on this site.
So why then do so many people go into Academia? Is it really just a reason not to grow up?
"Passion for the field" doesn't sound very convincing either, when one considers that only a small, small minority of Academia actually produce worthwhile, interesting results. The rest are just scrambling for any sort of recognition by constantly publishing mediocre results that will be cited twice over the course of the next 10 years. Rinse and repeat. Really, a lot of these people are just glorified teachers whose main contribution is giving lectures or conferences. When one considers the rising academic dishonesty, fabrication, plagiarism, and so on, the picture becomes even worse.

Of course, the questions on this site are not representative of 'Academia' at all - they are the outliers. I don't post questions about why it is that I've enjoyed 35+ years in grad school, as a post-doc, and at a national lab. Questioner bias at work...

You are right.  If you see no convincing reason for a career as an academic, then this is not for you.

“Passion for the field” - the passion shown by the person who taught you to read and write may have been sufficient satisfaction for them and they did not feel a need to publish any papers whatsoever. Others don’t have that patience or skill but do have a focus or determination that leads them to do research into the X of Y for years...

There are actually places in the world where academia isn't grim at all and job prospects are pretty good.

For the reasonable portion of your question, I'd say that I don't imagine myself doing anything else than creating stuff. It doesn't need to be in a university, but I do like to teach, so it is a perfect combination for me. I don't care much about money, but I really want that feeling of advancement, from a new method that works, or a student that grows competent and awesome over time.
It is hard and competitive, but then again, is there any field one that isn't? Would it be rewarding if it wasn't? Not everyone that wants to be in academia should be there, but again, which field is free from that?
Regarding the non-reasonable portion of your question, I can't really think of anything more "grown-up" than being responsible for someone's education, which can shape their futures. Do a good job and a good student can be a rockstar. Do a bad job and a good student can get PTSD and shiver at the thought of an academic meeting.
I compared Faculty Tenure Track searches to "the hunger games" more than once. Doesn't mean I won't volunteer again :)

I have no clue what your final paragraph means.

@gerrit: The reference is almost certainly to The Hunger Games book/movie series. See the "Setting" here, especially beginning with "... one boy and one girl from each ...".

@DaveLRenfro yes, thanks. I naively assumed common knowledge. The essence is: a bunch of people get into a life or death fight (some have sponsors that can directly give advantages) where only one can survive at the end. While in the games people can make alliances, not so much on TT searches ....

It took me a while to realise that "TT" here referred to "Tenure Track", I kept thinking, what might it mean?

To paraphrase Tolstoy:

Happy workers are all alike; every unhappy worker is unhappy in his own way.

If everything's going well, you're probably not going to need to post on a site like this or Workplace.SE or whatever the equivalent is for your particular profession.
As for going into academia, it's a personal choice. If you love doing research—if the thrill of discovery and shepherding new talent is so irresistible—then it's worth the challenges, setbacks, failures, and sometimes tough conditions. If that's not for you, then it's something you want to steer clear of.
But that said, every workplace and every career is going to have its drawbacks. The question is if the problems are severe enough that they interfere with what you actually want to do. Most of the questions we get on this site are related to when things reach breaking points: when they're crises, not just problems.

I did. The gun didn't go off in Act III as it should have.


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Using teaching materials I found on the internet for my own teaching
I teach in a university. I want to ask whether it is allowed to use slides or tutorials that I downloaded from the internet in my class. I don't make any modifications to the slide, which I want to show in the class room and distribute to my students. If the slides have the author's name on it, I will leave it there.
Should I ask for permission for using it and distributing it to my students?

I see this happening often. Professor's use visuals (sometimes a lot more, I know people who literally link other course webpages and their notes as part of the class material) for given subjects from courses taught at other universities all the time.
Think about it, not everything can be handmade by you. Yes maybe all your written material is yours, but not the visuals.
But do seek permission. Maybe the author's are cool with you not using their name at all. Maybe they want a name in the references at the end of the lecture notes. Maybe just a scant mention during the lecture:

"So the university at X has done this M and this is interesting because K"

I guess it's okay as long as you dont pretend the work represented by the visual was done by you, for eg. if you use a visual representing a project done at a specific university, but then you fail to mention who did it and talk about it as if your own work, then I guess there could be problems if someone finds out.