text:
Are you more likely to be accepted to a conference that is being held in your university?
My university is hosting an international conference in my field. I would like to present at the conference. I have recently co-authored (along with my supervisor) a research paper that will soon be submitted to a journal for review. This paper would suit the conference well. I am still an undergrad so I'm not entirely sure how conferences work.

Would my affiliation to the host university have any impact on the application?
Would my supervisor be more likely to allow me to submit an abstract for the conference given that I wouldn't need accommodation funding?
I have worked with some of the committee members, is it still okay for me to submit an abstract?

You might be interested: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/171071/does-giving-a-good-conference-talk-affect-the-acceptance-of-future-submissions

Are conferences publications venues in your field or not? This is an important distinction and some answers may silently assume one or the other and thus not applicable to you. For example, in all fields I ever was in, I never heard of anybody having an abstract rejected from a conference. The main decision by the committee is whether something should be upgraded from poster to talk.

@Wrzlprmft Perhaps we need two [tag:conference] tags that would force the asker to identify their kind of conference. The only thing is I lack a name for either kind.

@AzorAhai: That would only work if we had no neutral conference tag, but then what to do with all that questions about conferences that apply to either kind?

@Wrzlprmft Fair point, how many of those are there?

@AzorAhai: Let’s continue this discussion in the Ivory Tower, since it has little to do with this question.

The answer depends on how each particular conference is organised. However, it is not unusual for local students to become a proportionally larger group compared with international visitors. This can be explained by several factors:

International conferences are normally organised at locations, which have historical ties to the topic of the conference, for example, at a University that hosts a strong team or a prominent world-class professor. Their students are familiar with the research of their supervisors, and as such, do research that matches the topic of the conference. Hence, local students have a better chance to be a good match as speakers for the conference.

Arranging a "short track" or "light-touch" approach for local participants can be seen as an informal "reward" for the hard work of the local organising committee

Local participants do not require budgets for travel and accommodation, which makes it easier for them to apply locally

Certainly you can submit an abstract. Many of us know and have worked with committee members of conferences.
You will need to ask your advisor, but (IMO) only if funding is needed. I don't believe an advisor should block a submission. You need approval of all authors, as usual.
Ideally, your affiliation will have no bearing on the case. It would be improper (again, IMO) for the committee to advantage or disadvantage anyone because of such things. The focus should be on the paper, not the author. I can't promise everyone shares that opinion, of course, nor that everyone behaves ethically, but in almost all cases committee membership implies some standing and prior ethical practice.
Edited to add: If any of the authors, especially the supervisor when an author, may have plans for the paper that a conference talk would interfere with. In particular, appearing in a conference might (some fields/situations) make a later journal publication impossible.

In my fields, the advisor would be an author on the abstract, and their approval would be needed.

All authors are always needed, advisor or not, @AzorAhai-him-, the OP described authorship in the singular, however.

I updated my post to clarify this - I am the first named co-author on the paper with my supervisor being last which is common in our field. I'm somewhat worried that asking my supervisor whether I could submit the abstract would be overly ambitious/eager. Would it be a reasonable suggestion for me to make as at the end of the day I am the student in this.

I think it is reasonable. Ambitious is a good thing. The paper needs to be ready for prime time, of course, and a conference submission needs to not be a problem for a later journal submission. Talk it over about the best way to proceed.

@jim_athon Saying "hey, could we submit an abstract to this" is usually well-received by supervisors, and pretty much the worst outcome would be your supervisor saying "no, we don't have money/full paper won't be ready by then/the research needs to mature more/etc." That is, you don't really have anything to lose by asking, and potentially lots to gain.

Would my affiliation to the host university have any impact on the application?

Most likely not. Conferences usually just look for speakers and abstracts that provide the greatest scientific value. But as @Buffy said, one cannot be sure about such things, and there is a chance it will make a slight difference.

Would my supervisor be more likely to allow me to submit an abstract for the conference given that I wouldn't need accommodation funding?

Yes, all other things equal, supervisors prefer to spend less money than more money. Any good advisor will seize on such a conference being held locally as a great (and cheap!) opportunity for their students to gain good experience, get their name and work out there, network with people from the field etc.

I have worked with some of the committee members, is it still okay for me to submit an abstract?

Yes, conferences generally have mechanisms to avoid conflicts of interest. No one wants to disadvantage people and prevent them from sharing their scientific knowledge just because they happen to have worked with some of the committee members. What will likely happen is that the conflicted committee members will have to recuse themselves from participating in the review of your abstract and/or discussions about whether to accept it. But you will still get fair consideration. It's also possible that the relationship you have with them will not be considered sufficiently significant to be classified as a conflict of interest, in which case this will simply not be an issue.
What I said above holds generically, but specific conferences may have specific policies that pertain to situations of this type (and which may approach the issue differently than this generic approach). So make sure to read any guidelines on the conference website before you submit your abstract.

In smaller fields it might be completely impossible to not know the committee members after a few years. I don't know if there is a special procedure for such cases, but these conferences are usually not the type that reject many abstracts.


text:
gaining research experience in anthropology in US
Where can I get research experience in the social sciences, especially politics or anthropology? I am no longer in my bachelor's degree, making it a lot more difficult to get any experience.
How do I get publications with no mentor and no guidance?
I want to increase my chances for PhDs in the US and I'm reading that many people already have publications. I'm a US resident, but did my BA and MA in the EU.

Sorry I can't say too much about anthropology specifically, but there are basically two ways to get research experience:

Be a student and do research

Get a job to do research

I would strongly recommend against the third "independent research" path. You'll waste your time without guidance, and all the people who can usefully guide you are busy advising their students.
If you've already graduated, it's up to you to evaluate the cost-benefit of (1): education in the US is expensive, is it worth getting an entire degree just to get some research experience to possibly join a PhD program?
The availability of (2) depends on your field, experience and skills, and network. I work in a field where it's common to hire people with just a bachelor's degree for junior research positions, but a lot of those positions are filled by recent students.
My impression of social science in general is that these are usually "low money" fields which might mean that these positions don't exist at all. You might find special roles if you have special skills to bring, though, for example if you are fluent in multiple languages there might be opportunities in translation. You'll just need to look for jobs at universities in your field and see if they exist and if so talk to the person hiring about your goals.

I think the reason you haven't gotten answers here is that it is pretty much impossible to meet the conditions of your two questions.
One doesn't need a mentor to publish, but one normally needs guidance in developing something that is publishable, until they gain the experience to make their own judgments and find their own insights.
And, it is especially difficult if you are moving to a new field. But that is what graduate study is meant to do. I've said elsewhere here that you don't enter a doctoral program to prove that you don't need to do that.
I'd guess that a field like anthropology might be especially difficult to get in to informally. Especially if something like field work is implied. People have enough to do managing their own students. But, the field is pretty broad, of course.
I doubt that all that many people starting doctoral study in the US have a publication record that has a lot of value. But that is because most doctoral study in the US begins with only a bachelors. It is difficult here to get any meaningful research done because of the nature of the program which is very general, with only a portion devoted to the "major" subject. Combine that with the fairly strict time constraints and it becomes hard to do open-ended research that makes a real contribution to knowledge. I remember with some horror my first undergraduate attempts, and not much better at the masters level. But that was no impediment to my beginning doctoral study.
However, if you want to study for a doctorate in the US, the path is to make application to a few programs. You will need good letters of recommendation from people who know you well and can make an honest prediction of your likelihood of success.
Note also, that changing fields when starting a doctorate is relatively common here, but, again, because of the broad nature of the undergrad education.
Since you are a US resident, one way to get an idea is to visit an anthropology department here and ask to speak to one of the professors (during office hours). They can look at your CV and give you a sense about your chances, and possibly a path forward.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Author Affiliation for Paper Accepted After Leaving University
I submitted a few papers while I was at a university. All major revisions were done while I was still there. Now I've left academia and joined an R&D company and working on totally unrelated subjects. The papers are now accepted with very minor revisions required. I understand that since the papers were done entirely during my position at the university, that's what I use as my affiliation.
But as for author biography, I would like to consider it a courtesy to indicate my current whereabouts. But I would like to do so only if it does not imply that my current company has any interest/invest, or endorses these papers. I wonder what the commonly accepted practice is, since my company could only advise me on the "affiliation" part.

Didn't some just ask this the other day?

I thought so too but could not find anything. Also, I think the "biography" question is new. The questions I found all asked about affiliation only.

When I was in the same situation the following note was given along with the current authors' affiliations -- This work was done while Dave L. Renfro was at the Department of Mathematics at Central Michigan University.

@AzorAhai-him- this one? https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/215301/co-author-on-papers-after-leaving-academia

@user1079505 Yes.

@AzorAhai-him-, that is also what I remember, but that question is about authorship, not affiliation.

@Buffy Fair enough. Although even though the OPs have framed them differently, I think it would be really unlikely a company demands they drop authorship (although I don't work in an area where there's much "industry") and so they are essentially the same question.

@AzorAhai-him-, I disagree that they are the same. The common element is having left the university, but the questions are distinct.

To answer your title question Author Affiliation for Paper Accepted After Leaving University:
Conventions vary by subfield, but typically, authors can list "current affiliation" or similar address as a footnote or second affiliation.
To answer your body question: But as for author biography, I would like to consider it a courtesy to indicate my current whereabouts. But I would like to do so only if it does not imply that my current company has any interest/invest, or endorses these papers. I wonder what the commonly accepted practice is, since my company could only advise me on the ``affiliation'' part.
Some journals include "author biography" (but typical not my subfield).
For that section, just list a summary of what you said:

I completed this work while at University X as a post-doc/grad student/research scientist/professor. I am currently a job title here at Company Y.

I also encourage you to browse other articles to see how authors word that section.

Indeed, this is a very common situation for a recently graduated student (or post doc moving to their next position). One tends not to notice such things in the papers you read, and then you yourself need to figure it out...

Journals usually have the capability of providing more than one affiliation per author.  Use that capability, and put "Current Affiliation:" at the start.  that's a more common solution than the other way 'round, where you list your current affiliation first, and then specify where the work was done.
FWIW, there was a time, not so long ago, when people who wanted a reprint usually requested it via snail mail to the corresponding author.  Reference management software printed out the requests on special postcards with peel and stick labels -- the point being that all the databases used generally had support for more than one affiliation and address.

This may depend on the field and the specific journal, but in general author affiliations aren't regulated, and it is up to the author to use their best judgement. Journals do not usually check affiliations, so you don't even need to be "formally" affiliated (e.g. have an official position, an email account, etc.)
If the time period over which a work is done spans several stages of one's career, it is customary to include all of those institutions, typically in chronological order.  People tend to err on the side of listing more rather than fewer affiliations, and this is why it is common to see authors with large numbers (say 4-5) different affiliations.
If there is a biography section, then it would be reasonable to include a comment on where the work was performed at, and which one is the current affiliation. (disclaimer: I don't have experience with publishing in fields where author biographies are the norm, so I'm just speaking from common sense here)

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


text:
Do professors tailor recommendations to universities?
Preferably from a professor's candid viewpoint. When writing graduate recommendations for an undergraduate, do professors write general recommendations describing why #insert name# is a great fit for graduate school or do they tailor each letter to the school. I know this can vary from professor to professor, but what is a common practice.
I ask because I will be applying to graduate schools (quite a few of them on my list currently) and just wondering how much extra work each school is for my professors.

Not a direct answer, but I'd give the profs a few keywords summarizing how you targeted your applications (mostly regarding your project and the schools) to make it easier for them to tailor their letters.

My own MO is to write 1 letter (per student) and send it to each school unmodified, unless the student tells me what I should stress (or un-stress) for particular places. Keep in mind that professors usually don't know the specific preferences and biases of math departments outside of their field and their personal travel experience; there are maybe 2 departments in the world I could tailor a letter for based entirely on my own knowledge. The onus is on the student here, who has ideally put out some feelers and gotten to know people she would want to collaborate with.

Professors often write just a single general letter about the student and send that everwhere.
Advantage: don't feel shy about applying as many places as you want.

It depends on the professor's familiarity with you and the school. There is no one-size-fits-all answer.
My mentor, who I worked with for four years, spent much more time on my letters than I'd expect from anyone else, tailoring them to specific schools based on little blurbs I provided them with describing my interest.
My second letter-writer, who knew me less well, tailored their letters to the couple of programs he was personally familiar with, and presumably his alma mater, which I applied to.
My third letter-writer I don't believe did that much tailoring at all, as they knew me the least well and was also not in the field I was applying to.

Actually, I think the common practice is to be as supportive as they can be within the limits of time and honesty. But if you are the student you can help in this. If you are intending to apply to a large number of places, let the prof know this so s/he can write a general letter that can be sent out quickly. You might even suggest things that you would like stressed in such a letter.
But if the situation comes up that you are applying to a place that you are especially interested in and which may have special requirements, let the prof know that the general letter should maybe be spiced up a bit.
If the professor is somehow connected to a university or has worked with some faculty there s/he may tailor the letter in any case, knowing what they might find interesting in your background and/or potential.
Some professors ask students to write a first draft of a letter, or even the final draft.
If you are the professor, it might be useful to ask students what they think are their most important qualities and significant accomplishments as an aid in preparing any letter. It is also good to keep a general letter on file in case you are asked again in a year or so if the student's situation is changing.

If a student is applying to 5 similar graduate programs, I won't bother to tailor the letter to each one.  However, if the student is applying to significantly different programs (e.g. an MS in Data Science vs. an MS in Statistics), then I do typically modify the letter slightly to discuss why the student would be a good fit for that kind of graduate program.


text:
Are there any documented cases of meta-science or scientific meta-research? Does that have a name?
Research is an activity, a process to obtain knowledge, which has been greatly empowered by the scientific method.
We can collect lots of information about research, consider impact factors, etc.
There is data and information there, that data could possibly become knowledge through some analysis, hypothesis testing, and in general terms research. So what I'm talking about here is research about research, meta-research.
First of all, I'm interested to know whether this has been done in the past.
Second, if this has been done (I guess so), I would like to know by what name, so that I can search for it. It's easier to find information about fluid dynamics when you know it stands by the name of fluid dynamics.
BTW: I'm not interested in philosophy or epistemology, but science and hard verifiable facts.
There may be some lack of that, whatever that is. Related article: Scientific method: Statistical errors

If you search Google Scholar for "learning" or "research methods" or "cognition" there are some results...

Are you talking about meta analysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-analysis)?  I'm not sure whether you mean research about research in order to understand the research process itself better, or with some other goal (meta analysis is the latter).

@AnonymousMathematician that's good, but that is done in statistics wrt to statistics, it's meta-statistics, but there is science and research beyond statistics ;)

@mankoff but they are more on the side of psychology, specially for children. Research methods seem to have been written by philosophers, to define research, before any researcher could do so, because there were no researchers, because research had not been defined.

See question Research in "Research Engineering" and my answer. As I now see, it is possibly a duplicate.

@PiotrMigdal I think engineering requires some science to get the knowledge it needs to then define the methods that compose it. Therefore it's not an exact duplicate but may very well considered a duplicate if you consider that asking for this science is included in asking for that engineering (e.g. as a necessary condition). Despite of that, he seems to focus on a software engineering approach, while I'm more interested in an information theory approach, because research is about information and knowledge (not software), isn't it? I'm not sure it's a duplicate under any viable interpretation

@Trylks Title of the other is not the most fortunate. But did you read the content? (I.e. questions and answers.)

@PiotrMigdal yes, there are a few differences in the question that may be subtle but fundamental IMHO, the answers are good but as the OP I'm not completely satisfied. There are some descriptions about methodology, but they seem to be fancy descriptions of an art or craft. The same for science itself, no formal definitions for science and most of its concepts. I'll try to read the references provided, though, to have a better understanding of the state of the art in the research of science and research themselves.

You may find this article about the founding of the Meta-Research Innovation Centre at Stanford interesting.

@episanty Indeed, thank you very much, the article itself is not very scientific, but I'll keep an eye on what people at METRICS are doing. Maybe I would even like working there, but that's something I prefer not to think about because I think it's out of my league. This is certainly very recent, it makes sense that not many people are aware of it yet.

Philosophy of Science, History of Science, Sociology of Science, Scientometrics to name a few meta-sciences.
(General trick for meta-science: use X of Science, where X is a science.
To generalize it even further, for meta-X, use X of Y, for some X in Y.)

Philosophy of Science doesn't sound as a meta-science, unless you want to imply that philosophy is a science. Similarly for History of Science. Sociology of Science focuses on social aspects of science, but not science itself as a process. Scientometrics is about measuring, but not science. Newton didn't simply measure the orbits of the planets, measuring may be a first step, but it takes many others to make science. Please correct me if wrong.

@Trylks Then I don't understand what are you looking for. Could you give one or two examples of research topics that would fit in "meta-science"?

@Trylks "Sociology of Science focuses on social aspects of science, but not science itself as a process." It's not true. Try looking at Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact that specifically address science as a process. (Though, I won't defend name "sociology of science" - names are always artificial.) Scientometrics - did you read the Wikipedia page? It's not "research on measurement" but "measurement of research".

I once met a philosopher of the philosophy of science branch. They were interested to find out e.g. what types of knowledge can be gererated by simulations, what the general limits of this are etc. The practical part sounded like sociology or anthropology, just they went to some science labs to conduct their interviews instead of to wealthy or not-so-wealthy neighborhoods.

Let's make it recursive! "I study X of X" and then compound it a couple times!!!

Are you asking about scientometrics?
From Wikipedia: "Scientometrics is the study of measuring and analysing science research." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientometrics
It's a major field of study in its own right, with its own journals, etc.
Citation analysis, mentioned by James Barrett, is one area of scientometrics; there are many others. For example, formal studies of the  prevalence of research fraud also fall in this category.

I'd expect a doctor to do something more than just measuring my constants and maybe predicting when am I going to die. I'm talking about this, but this is just a first step, it takes many more steps to advance in the state of the art (as compared to diagnose and treat a patient).

@Trylks So, you are asking if there have been clinical trials on the research of research? :) I really don't understand where you are going with this analogy.

you are trying to understand meta-science from a particular science, that will never work. Is like trying to understand 4D in a 3D world, or 3D in a 2D world. Meta-science is science about science, it's not simply metrics about science. The analogy means that science is more than measuring.

If you look at the content of Scientometrics (the journal), you will see that the field is quite broad, encompassing the analysis of virtually anything quantifiable about science research. If you are interested in studies of non-quantifiable characteristics of research,  @Piotr Migdal has listed additional fields that cover those pretty thoroughly.

If the objective of meta-science is to determine what are the good ways to perform science, it immediately runs into a major methodological hurdle: it is necessarily going to beg the question. That is why work by e.g. Popper counts as "merely" philosophy of science. So if that is the meaning of your question, then the question "Give me meta-science that is not philosophy of science" is similar to "give me an answer to 2+2 that is not 4". It will only result in bad answers, because you are excluding the only good answer.
If the objective of meta-science is to better understand what happens in the practice of science, then you cannot exclude sociology of science, as science is a social activity (you mention impact factors yourself: I do not think any discipline is better suited at understanding those than sociology, or the related field of scientometrics).
So the question is poorly formulated and cannot be answered satisfactorily. The current first answer (Piotr Migdal) would be the best answer if the question was modified in such a way that it can be answered.

then the question "Give me meta-science that is not philosophy of science" is similar to "give me an answer to 2+2 that is not 4". - No, it's not similar at all, should I elaborate?. BTW: "The CoffeeScript compiler is itself written in CoffeeScript" [ref]. Give that idea a second.

There has been some research done on citation patterns. See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citation_analysis. A recent post asked Is there an inflation in the number of authors per paper?.

In bioinformatics, it is common to do the data mining, generalization and normalization, putting together results of multiple past research projects. See for instance the Genevestigator project that does normalized analysis of multiple available micro-array experiments.
The idea behind this project was that while raw data obtained by different laboratories are largely of the same type, the subsequent processing and normalization is often too different to make the numeric results actually comparable. The project collects raw data and applies the same normalization for them.

What is wrong for you with this?

The sociology of science is another possible avenue. It may not qualify as the most data driven way to study science but it does shed some interesting light on the effects of intermediate reports, naming of concepts, and funding strategies amongst many other topics. You may liken it more to the study of scientists rather than of science per se.

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


text:
Are there any research careers except professorship for a person holding PhD in pure mathematics?
I'm interested in mathematical research, but want to know if there are good jobs besides being a professor.  Are there any lucrative research-centric careers out there for someone with a PhD in pure mathematics?

I don't understand how the last sentence of your question fits with the rest of the question.  "Types of careers" makes it sound like you're asking about alternatives to math academia, but the last sentence seems to be saying you're only interested in math academia.

Sorry my phrasing was somewhat bad there. I meant basically what types of research careers are there besides academia?

Do you want lucrative careers, or research careers? The two are rarely synonymous.

Well what types of lucrative careers and and what types of research careers are there? could you give examples of both?

I'm not sure what you mean by a "research" career that isn't academia.  Could you clarify?

Given that the question is specifically about career outside academia, it seems to be off topic.

@TobiasKildetoft I disagree.  What else you might do with a graduate degree is obviously of interest to academics.

This question was unfocused, but got some highly focused and well-liked answers.  Accordingly, I have removed the extra question components and changed it from "give me a list" to "does it exist?" and voted to reopen.

@jakebeal There are questions concerning Math jobs/careers: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/21534/546, http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/13833/546, ... I am not too sure we should keep this one.

@scaaahu So can we get one of the mods to convert it from "too broad" to "duplicate" of one of those?  The question may not be worth much, but the answers are worth saving.

@jakebeal I don't know the mods can merge this one with one of those. This would be a question for them. I just votde to "Leave Closed". Sorry.

@scaaahu Well, I trust they'll notice some of what's been going on and maybe notice this question too... I'm glad that many of the others I've worked on reviving have gotten reopen votes, though.

@scaaahu both of those are about where those jobs might be posted, and they're about applied, not pure, mathematics, so I don't think they're as close duplicates as they might seem at first.

@jakebeal: As this connot be repeated often enough: Closing is not deleting. If this question remained closed, there is no reason that it would be deleted. The roomba bot would not delete it, the author is very unlikely to delete it and if it gets deleted by 10 k users or a diamond moderator, the respective persons should have their privileges revoked (unless I am missing some issue here).

@Wrzlprmft Absolutely, however per recent chat, EnergyNumbers put out a call for people to do some cleanup on the non-Roomba questions, per the recommendations for the network.

@jakebeal: See my comments on this in chat.

NSA . NSA. NSA.

Related on Math.SE: First job in industry for a pure, pure mathematics folk

I can speak from personal experience. I have a math Ph.D. on a topic with absolutely no real world applications, I work in industry, and my job title is actually "Senior Research Expert". So yes, there are research careers in industry. And while I won't get rich off it, I can't complain about the remuneration.
However, (almost) nobody in industry will pay you for thinking about stuff, going to conferences and writing papers. My research is extremely applied, and I am very much constrained by a) what customers will pay for and b) what is feasible given our code base and software architecture. I simply can't go off on a tangent and argue that a particular algorithm is very elegant, if it is not implementable in a reasonable amount of time or nobody will buy it.
Depending on your Ph.D. topic, be prepared to change fields. I used to do something like discrete optimization - now I do statistics and time series analysis.
While I personally don't code (which the developers are very happy about), I work closely with the developers that actually turn what I thought up into software. Interpersonal skills and the ability to fit into a team and a software development process (Scrum) are much more important here than in academia.
Research mathematicians are rare, and few people understand what I do and why I'm paid. It took a long time and some very fortuitous circumstances for me to demonstrate that I do add value to the company, and I was lucky to keep my research job when my company was acquired - my new employer really doesn't have research positions as such, so I had to justify why I should keep my niche.
Finally, there are about five other originally pure mathematicians in the team I work with, two of them with Ph.D.s. None of them do anything that could be called "research". They develop software or do analytics.
Summarizing: yes, there are math research careers in industry. They are few and far between. Be prepared for an uphill battle, to change fields, to do what needs to be done.

Hi Stephan, just saw this answer though it was 5 years ago. I wondered that you said your PHD topic (discrete optimization) has "absolutely no real world applications". Isn't optimization very useful in today's industry?

@Robert: yes, optimization in general is useful. (I am working on a stochastic optimization project right now.) It's just that my specific thesis topic was on a particularly useless aspect. (And one could dispute that it was about optimization at all.)

I can speak from personal experience from my job market experience this year. This year I'm graduating with a PhD in math. I mainly applied in academia, but I sent out a feeler for some industry to see if I found things I liked and in case I didn't get a job (maybe 2-3 applications). I am in algebraic geometry, and nowhere near direct applications to applied math or at least the definition that the USA has for applied math.
I got an on-site interview for a really great research job in the Defense industry. There was a lot of activity in my department with people interviewing with quant jobs on or near Wall Street.  One student in my class took a startup job in the Bay Area. I got a job early on in the market in academe that I fell in love with, so I took myself out of the running and withdrew all my applications from industry and academia alike at the end of January.
A month later, Google headhunted me.
If you do good work and learn how to communicate quantitative ideas, then a PhD in math can really help you achieve industry goals.  I think it is important to keep in mind that not everyone will get an academic job and a lot has to do with luck.  I would not do a PhD in math if earning potential is your plan. A lot of these opportunities prefer a computer science background and will pay better for it.
That being said, to answer your second question, no one really speaks to you regarding salary until you get the offer, but in my interactions, the floor for starting salary for industry seems to be somewhere around 75-80k for these moderately prestigious industry jobs, and the ceiling seems to be around 150k. Results may vary depending on location and how valuable they believe you to be.

@T K, I'm only asking this question because I'm new to industry job hunting: what did you mean by Google head haunted you? Did you mean they tried to offer you a job, or asked to sit in an interview? But then you had already withdrew all applications from industry and academia,no?

They emailed me directly saying they wanted a resume to see if they could find a way to place me. A grad student that had left my program to go to google had told them that I would be a good hire for them.

@ScienceMan - I think the word was 'headhunted' not  'headhaunted' ;-)

@ chasly: you're right! I can't edit it now, it seems :(

@chaslyfromUK - yes, but maybe we could start using "headhaunted" for getting stalked by particularly spooky companies (not necessarily Google) 'cause it is so descriptive of ... something ... I'm not exactly sure ... but it's a word worth coining ...

Indeed this has continued with recruiters from London calling my office at work.....

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


text:
Why do university campuses have glass blowing services?
I noticed that my university has a glass blowing service in the same building as the chemistry precinct, supposedly to make the glassware for the chemistry labs. At first I thought this was kind of quirky and I chortled to myself, "man, the chemistry students must break a lot of beakers."
Later I toured a campus overseas and noticed that they too had a glass blower. A quick Google search showed that many institutions have similar facilities. Most of them sell their services too. It seems to be more academically-focused than I first thought; it would be incorrect to equate it with the janitorial service or the on-campus bakery, presumably.
Why glass blowing and not another craft? I'm curious as to what separates glass blowing from other crafts and manual arts that warrants it a dedicated department in an academic facility.

Glassware breaks regularly, and the stuff used for chemistry can be rather expensive. And repairing it is often possible if you were a bit lucky with the location of the damage. Having someone who can repair glassware is rather useful in such situations.

Would you be surprised if a Mechanical Engineering department had a mechanical workshop?

I find this super amusing because we typically repaired our own glassware at my school, and the glass blower - the only thing I'm aware of that he ever made was bongs.

man, the chemistry students must break a lot of beakers — Yup.

Related (off site): Caltech glassblower's retirement has scientists sighing

If you make enough use of them, it's cheaper and more efficient to use in-house services. That's why most universities will also have a mechanical workshop, to make one-off items mostly for the physics and engineering departments.

Everything is streamlined: the glassblower is an employee, not a business owner. He can spend more of his time on his products, thus his services are cheaper. The University will also make some profit from selling their services.
It makes things easier for the academic staff, and there's less bother with accounts or purchase orders. For routine jobs (if these things aren't outsourced), just visit the workshop and ask for another 1L boiling flask.
The academic staff know that he will always do a good job: a low turn-over rate means the glassblower(s) develop a strong rapport with their frequent customers, and have a good understanding of their needs. If more jobs are outsourced, this personal touch can be easily lost.

Of course, it seems these days that ordinary items are usually outsourced -- a big factory is more cost effective. It's for the one-off custom items that it still makes a lot of sense to keep things in-house.

I wish my university understood better this concept -- as of now, we don't even have an in-house poster printing service. :(

I wish we could have a programming service for the same reasons. :|

@Raphael They do have a programming service. Us.

@Moriarty To add to your excellent answer, a further reason for a glass blowing service on campus is because of the nostalgic connection between the craft and Chemistry. Many chemists at my school take great pride in teaching the art to those of us who would not otherwise be privy to it. It ties you to Chemistry's roots, in a way.

As a chemist, I'll expand on Moriarty's answer, and confirm that he's in the right. Buying beakers is definitely cheaper through a commercial supplier, but for research in synthetic chemistry, every now and then you'll need glassware that doesn't fit standard specifications. For these one-off pieces, if the university is large enough it's better to have an in-house scientific glassblower. In particular, what my colleagues appreciate most with having access to in-house glassblowing services, is that it makes communication very easy and helps improve the products (“you sure you want the top part to be so thin? I looks to me as it won't help condensation and might be a failure point later”).
PS: the design and production of the most complex glass instruments is an art as much as a craft. In France, there even is a yearly competition of scientific glassblowers: 1, 2.

To expand further, in the UK, an in-house glassblower will still quote figures on the order of £2000 for a full Schlenk line, and repairs on the taps can easily be £150, so you can imagine that the prices to outsource would be both considerable and considerably higher!

And sometimes there are hard-to-find specialist glassware that one can basically only source from somewhere other than the big-name commercial vendors.

What kind of qualification does one generally need to be a university glassblower? Are there degrees one is expected to earn (e.g. MA in Glass Blowing)? Does one complete an apprenticeship?


text:
Are there "uninteresting" publications in high profile journals?
I always want to read a high profile publication papers. It is true that they are in general hard to understand but they have very important results (in general).
It happens to me sometimes. Sometimes when I read a high profile paper, I found that the contribution is not very interesting, not worth to publish the work in this kind of high profile journal. Maybe I am the one who do not understand the paper but it is only me?
Do high profile publication contain "uninteresting" (i.e., not very important or novel) publications? If it is the case, why they accept it?

@PiotrMigdal From the OP's description, I think he/she means "uninteresting" - e.g., not very important. I edited the post accordingly, hopefully the OP can confirm whether I captured his/her intent.

I do not know what I mean really. I said in the question that sometimes I found the contribution in them not very interesting. It could be my fault of understanding?
Not correct I do not think so.

By "high-profile," do you mean e.g., Science and Nature? Or journals that are considered reputable in your field, but not necessarily known outside the field?

In that case: "(un)interesting" is a very subjective criterium (to some degree "important" - as well).

@PiotrMigdal True, but reviewers and editors make this exact same very subjective decision for every paper they consider.

@ff524 Yes by high profile I meant to say journals that are considered reputable in one field.
But I think the question could be more general to include the best journals like Science and Nature.

@ff524 I agree (BTW: my first comment was just before edit).

@x.y.z... Interesting is defined by the folks who accept/reject the paper.

@x.y.z... I'm curious what your reasons were for declaring a particular paper uninteresting. Was it because you were able to come up with a similar solution shortly after reading the paper and therefore didn't think it was that profound ? Or was there some other reason ?

@user11192 The paper is already accepted. I can read it. I can say something about it. If I find it "uninteresting", it means I am wrong?

@Suresh The reason is the following one: I read the paper and I found no big contribution. I.e., the journal where the paper was submitted and accepted is very high and the contribution is not good (from my understanding of course). So, in that case in this happens only to me (did you feel something similar for example or any other person) or maybe I am making mistakes or maybe I am right and the contribution is not enough.

Everyone makes mistakes, including journals and readers who think they understand :)

@x.y.z... it means I am wrong? No.

If a paper is published in a very good journal (one that is sufficiently good that it doesn't need to accept boring papers to fill issues), that means somebody (reviewer, editor) thought its contributions would be interesting, novel, and/or useful to a nontrivial subset of the journal's audience.
But, this doesn't mean that the paper is interesting to everyone. (Very few papers are!)
For example, I usually find papers that say "We applied a known technique to optimize problem X for some metric Y" very boring, but others in my field appreciate these contributions.
In some cases, you may find the paper uninteresting because you either understood less than the reviewer or more than the reviewer.

It often takes some knowledge of the field to really appreciate the contribution a paper is making.  In most journals, the authors are allowed to assume that the reader already has some field-specific knowledge. If you read the paper without understanding this context, it will probably seem boring or not useful to you.
It works the other way as well. Sometimes, a reviewer reads a paper and thinks, "This is an important contribution," but those with more knowledge understand that it isn't. For really good journals, the editor can usually find a reviewer who understands the field well, so this (ideally) doesn't happen as often.

I am sure somebody can think of a paper that was accepted only for e.g., political reasons, and is genuinely, objectively unimportant. These are rare enough that I don't think these are the papers you are asking about.

usually those high impact journals have several stages of approval and it is more likely that an 'interesting' paper will get rejected, than an 'uninteresting' will be approved. They will most certainly contact at least two independent reviewers. However, the "tuned results' ratio tends to be higher in high impact journals.

@Martin "tuned results" ratio?

Making look numbers nicer than they actually are. I.e. in a chemical reaction you have a conversion (yield) of 10%, but you can regain like 85% of your starting material. So you can argue that you only used 15% and hence write that the yield is 80% after eductrecovery. (Also leaving out relevant information that might disprove your theory is quite common)

Each journal has his own policy as for what kind of articles it is going to select, that is it will have a set of criteria weighted by different degrees of importance.
Among those criteria you will find:

relevance to the journal
significance of the studied problem
originality and novelty of the work
achievement of the objectives
writing quality
technical quality
replicability if the paper describes an experiment

Those will be drastically different for example between a subscription type of journal and an open-access one, mostly for financial reasons. The peer-reviewing is also executed in different ways, with different methods and emphases. One has to pay attention to that.
At the end of the day, you will also find certain papers more "interesting" than others. The only way to find what you are looking for is to know what you are looking for exactly. Is it a journal focusing on novel content? Or just accepting the most methodologically correct ones? Ideally, to know how much you can trust different aspects of a paper, you need to know the details of its origin, that is who reviewed and selected it for you. Journals are a great tools for science, but they sure are not absolute.

You can take an other measure than subjective importance and this is the citation rate.
There are statistics which indicate that even in high-ranked journals there is only a relatively small number of articles which are heavily cited - and those create the high impact factor. All others are cited once or twice (and therefore "unimportant" if you accept citation rate as an indicator for "importance").

The OP is asking about uninteresting papers, not low-"impact" papers (which are an entirely different matter).


text:
Is it possible for reviewers to mistakenly reject a quality paper?
If I am not wrong, turbo codes was submitted to the ICC conference and rejected but accepted later on.
I want to know if there are other similar works (strong works) that were rejected at first but then accepted and considered revolutionary.

I have no doubt that this happens all the time.

This happens extremely often. The trick is not getting this  confused with the converse (my paper gets rejected => it's awesome)

cough Copernicus/Galileo cough

Not a journal publication, but Galois was rejected by Polytechnique twice.

Also note that there's a difference between good research and a good paper. It's definitely possible to do groundbreaking research, but then have it rejected due to poorly communicating what you actually did in your write up. If the reviewers can't understand what you did they're not going to recommend the paper be accepted.

Just as an indication of how often that happens, I read your question title and simply laughed out loud.

Yes. Especially if the reviewer writes "I don't find the problem interesting" just because he's been stuck to his XYZ method and know that and nothing else.

Hah. Forget about rejected papers. What about a rejected life? Read the amazing story of the life of Doctor Ignaz Semmelweis. He thought hand washing was a good idea. His colleagues disagreed, and he was eventually committed to an insane asylum. I'm not making this up.

In top-tier journals, it can be enough for 1 reviewer to reject the paper for the paper to get rejected. Then consider the fact that many reviewers often do not understand the papers they review in depth. Finally, some reviewers may understand the paper but reject it due to a personal agenda (they may or may not try to hide this). So it is not surprising that rejection of great papers happens all the time.

There was also the case of Alfred Wegener and the continental drift. Rejection of a good paper is not necessarily bad, as the next version may be even better and have even more influence. On the other hand, what about the clutter of bad papers that get accepted.

For examples in mathematics, you can have a look at http://mathoverflow.net/questions/13896/what-are-some-famous-rejections-of-correct-mathematics/13983#13983.

Of course this never happens: reviewers have special super-powers, so they are always correct!

Higgs's 1964 paper on the Higgs mechanism was rejected by Physics Letters (where his preliminary paper on the subject was published).
He was told that it was not suitable for rapid publication and that he should send it to another journal. However, he reportedly heard that the paper had been rejected because the editors felt that "it was of no obvious relevance to physics."
Apparently, Higgs acknowledged that the paper "had been short on sales talk," and after adding a couple of paragraphs it was accepted by Physical Review Letters.
Here is an early example of manuscript rejection, from 1842: Mayer came up with the theory of conservation of energy, and wrote an article explaining his idea that "energy is neither created nor destroyed." It was rejected by the leading physics journal of the time, ended up in an obscure chemistry journal, and was mostly ignored by physicists. When the physicists of the time rallied around Joule, who described conservation of energy later in the 1840s, Mayer suffered a mental breakdown. Towards the end of his life, he was finally given credit as a father of thermodynamics.
Nature declined to accept Krebs's paper on the "Krebs cycle" in 1937. The work later won a Nobel Prize. The letter from the editor regretfully informs Mr. Krebs that the editor already has "sufficient letters" for the next 7-8 weeks.
The seminal paper on quantum cryptography, Wiesner's “Conjugate Coding,” was rejected by the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. (A surviving copy of the original typewritten manuscript says "Submitted to IEEE, Information Theory" on it.) It was published about a decade later.
In the same subfield, the original manuscript by Bennet, Brassard and Breidbart that introduced quantum key-recycle scheme (QKRS) was rejected several times by major CS conferences including STOC, and was never successfully published.
Ernst's work on nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, which won the 1991 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was rejected not once, but twice, by the Journal of Chemical Physics.
Binning and Rohrer's report on their first experiments in scanning tunneling microscopy, which earned them a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986, was initially rejected on the grounds that it was "not interesting enough."
These are just a few examples. Many more have been compiled in various publications:

Here are some more Nobel-prize-winning papers that were rejected at first.
Here is a compilation of classic economics papers rejected the first time around.
And here are some famous papers in the field of medicine that were rejected the first time around.
This paper lists influential rejected papers, of which several earned their authors Nobel prizes and several became the most cited papers in their respective journals.
And here are some more reports of Nobel laureates who encountered resistance from reviewers and editors to their award-winning work.
And, yet another list.

One more, Lamport's original Paxos paper was rejected several times. See his history. Paxos and its derivatives are now at the core of almost all large-scale web-sites (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, ...).

@MichaelDeardeuff that's a great read - I think you should add it as an answer to http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17873/article-that-shows-the-complete-publication-history-of-acceptances-and-rejection

Well timed since Lamport just got the Turing award.

@ff524: done.

The original Google paper (by Page and Brin) on "PageRank" was rejected by SIGIR. However, this is not to say it should have been accepted. Even if a paper goes on to have huge impact, it does not mean that the paper at the time it was submitted, in the form it was submitted, definitively should have been published.

Originally posted on this question, but it may be more useful in helping to answer this one. This article by Juan Miguel Campanario and Erika Acedo investigates the question of paper rejection:

Rejecting highly cited papers: The views of scientists who encounter resistance to their discoveries from other scientists

Abstract:

We studied the views of scientists who experience resistance to their
  new ideas by surveying a sample of 815 scientists who are authors of
  highly cited articles. The 132 responses (16.2%) received indicated
  that only 47 scientists (35.6%) had no problems with referees,
  editors, or other scientists. The most common causes of difficulty
  were rejection of the manuscript, and scepticism, ignorance, and
  incomprehension. The most common arguments given by referees against
  papers were that the findings were an insufficient advance to warrant
  publication, lacked practical impact, were based on a wrong
  hypothesis, or were based on a wrong concept. The strategies authors
  used to overcome resistance included obtaining help from someone to
  publish problematic papers, making changes in the text, and simple
  persistence. Despite difficulties, however, some respondents
  acknowledged the positive effect of peer review.

It is published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.
Andrew Hayes writes about the subject, linking the above article, as well as this second article also by Juan Miguel Campanario, at his blog.
Full citations, for posterity's sake:
Campanario, J. M. and Acedo, E. (2007), Rejecting highly cited papers: The views of scientists who encounter resistance to their discoveries from other scientists. J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci., 58: 734–743. doi: 10.1002/asi.20556
Campanario, J. M. (1996), Have referees rejected some of the most-cited articles of all times?. J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci., 47: 302–310. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199604)47:4<302::AID-ASI6>3.0.CO;2-0

Is it wrong that I felt disappointed that this story didn't end with "fittingly, the paper was rejected twice"?

Dan Shechtman's paper in which he announced the discovery of quasicrystals was rejected for being "not interesting". It was accepted after few years in a different journal.
He won the Nobel Prize in 2011 for this discovery.

Many of the seminal papers that have proven of exceptional importance to science were rejected. Some of them over 13 times:
https://majesticforest.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/papers-that-triumphed-over-their-rejections/


text:
Do I deserve to be acknowledged as the primary contributor to a publication derived from my student's thesis?
Unlike the supervision style in my department (CS), I put an enormous effort into supervising my master's students. I meet with each of them twice a week and spend around two hours each week explaining what to do and how to do it.
From the first step, I propose a topic with a potential methodology and ask the student to follow it and give him or her precise instructions on how to proceed. After they successfully complete their theses, I usually push the student to write a paper but never worked out as the students find it meaningless to write papers if they move to industry. Instead, I write papers out of these theses/work and submit them to journals by including the respective student as a co-author. Since I am the one writing the paper, I put myself as the first author and primary contributor. For some journals, it is possible to specify the contribution of every author but for most of them, it is not possible.
I am wondering whether claiming that I am the principal contributor is fair/ethical, given that the student is implementing my ideas and I am who writes the papers. Being the principal contributor is important for some grant applications.
EDIT
After reading some comments, I think I did not make myself clear. My question is not about whether I should be the first author or not because that what is should be done as the one putting the effort to write the paper. In summary, there is not disagreement between me and the students. They are actually happy that they can have a paper without putting in additional effort. My question is rather about whether should I work on the paper and submit it or not (If not, the paper will never see the light of day). Note that this is done only after the student decline to write the paper and gives his/her consent (e.g. exchanging email after the thesis is completed so that I do not affect his/her decision) that I take the lead.

"I rewrite the theses and submit them to journals by including the respective student as a co-author" Excuse me, what?? What country is this?

@AzorAhai-him- What did you find strange?

Rewriting theses and submitting them to journals by including the respective student as a co-author

Are you an assistant Professor or an associate? What kind of institution? There is not a “ethically right” answer because you have done very different kinds of work on the paper, in my opinion. The answer will come down to convention and norms and these are largely based on the relative benefit of each position to the various parties.

Your post somehow makes me think that you did almost all the work.

"For some journals, it is possible to specify the contribution of every author but for most of them, it is not possible." Have you tried to simply include a contribution statement? I have done so several times in journals that did not require it and it was always accepted.

@User Well, two things: the need for a rewrite so comprehensive the first author changes (but i suppose they could be in a field where theses are so different from papers); and placing themselves as first author.

@AzorAhai-him- At least where I'm from, a thesis is something like 50 pages of text, plus a dozen or two of figures, etc. That's way too long to be submitted as a journal article, and shortening it to <10 pages is going to be very close to a full rewrite.

@AzorAhai-him- Do you really think a master thesis (the first try of the student to write an academic work) can be converted into a paper by just rephrasing the paragraphs?

@Yacine I don't think it's a rule that a master's thesis is an individual's first try so I didn't know that was part of your constraints.

@AzorAhai-him- I meant that it is very very rare to have a master thesis of high quality that can be easily converted into a manuscript and submit it to tier-1 venues. Most of the time, a lot of work has to be put to extend it to something publishable.

This would be completely ethical… if only you discussed the authorship order with your students and made sure your suggested order is acceptable to them before submitting the papers. Explain to them that you are planning to adapt parts of their thesis research into a paper, that this requires a lot of work, and that therefore you think whoever does that work should be listed as the primary author. Give them a chance to do the work themselves and get that primary authorship credit (as you seem to be doing already). If they are uninterested, get them to confirm that they agree you will be the primary author. (And if they disagree to that, then have a discussion about it and make sure you and the student reach some agreement on this issue before proceeding with any further work on the project.)
In other words, the ethical issue here isn’t your thinking you should be the primary author, but the fact that you think it’s okay to submit a paper without having an explicit agreement from all coauthors about the type of authorship credit they would be getting. This type of agreement is necessary with any collaborator regardless of whether they are your students.
Edit following OP’s clarification of the question: you say that you do actually discuss with your students the plan of you turning their thesis results into a publication, and get their consent to proceed (presumably also with the author order agreed to by everyone, although you didn’t state that explicitly). In that case, as I said in my original answer, there is no ethical issue — your contribution seems within the range that warrants first authorship, and your coauthors agreeing to you being first author shows they clearly believe so as well.

To be honest, I would always let the student be listed as primary/first author, even in cases where it is pretty clear that they weren't. That is a matter of opinion, I guess, but I viewed (retired now) it an important part of my job to boost student careers.
The precise instructions you give are exactly your main job. Letting them off the hook on writing for publication was/is probably a mistake for any student wanting to go farther in their education, though not all masters students do.
In fact, I'd go further and not be listed as author at all except in clear collaborative work with some equality of participation. I was listed as co-author on none of my student theses or subsequent publications either at masters or doctoral level. Let the glory be theirs. An acknowledgement is enough, sometimes detailed.
I don't know how common my views are, of course. I will note that it is pretty common for doctoral advisors to suggest/provide problems and advice and feedback along the way. I suspect that most doctoral advisors could do the work themselves if they had the time.
As to the specific ethical question, I think it is marginal at best.

As mentioned in the question, I push them to write the papers but no one did until now because it is meaningless for them if they move to industry.

"I was listed as co-author on none of my student theses either at masters or doctoral level. Let the glory be theirs. "

I do not know anyone (senior researcher) who write a paper by himself. All the publications are coming from supervising PhD students (being listed as co-authors with them).

That seems very strange to me, actually.

What is very strange?

That all senior researcher publications come out of doctoral student supervision. Especially in CS or similar.

they are busy writing grant proposals and 2) It is not logical that a researcher collaborates in 20 publications/year in CS.

It is a common practice I would say.

Not common in my (CS) experience. What country is this?

I just realized that you are talking about being a co-author of a thesis. I was meaning all time co-author of a publication (journal or conference) derived from the work of the thesis. The thesis is authored by a single person -in my country- and this person is the student.

No, I meant publications. Edited to clarify.

You are saying that you supervise a student/PhD student and you do not get listed as an author in his/her publications even if you contributed to it (supervision alone is a big contribution). Right??? That's what I find strange.

Right!!! Glad I'm clear, at least.

+1 I think giving precise instructions and (what sounds to be) over-supervising the student is not doing them any favours - the ability to work independently is an important skill whether they are headed for a career in research or not.  They need opportunities for using their initiative/creativity.

I would mostly agree to this answer when the students in question have any ambition to continue their education or want to enrol in a research programme (Master by Research, or PhD), however the question has later been edited so that it appears it is primarily about master (not PhD) students continuing on in industry. It further seems that this is about work that would otherwise go unpublished as publishing is of no interest to the students in question; so they only get published because OP chooses to prepare them in publication form. Would your advice change in this situation?

My remarks here merely add to the similar remarks from @Buffy.
I too would prefer to have the student as the primary author because I consider my promotion of my students to be one of the most important things that I can do for them, whether they ultimately end up in industry, academia or somewhere else.
I also recognize that the sense of urgency about publication is frequently driven more by my priorities than by theirs. It isn't that students don't care about publishing, but they often have other things to consider: completing their applications for multiple graduate schools, finding a job to pay of their student debt, or finding new accommodation for example. Publication might have a more immediate pay off for me than for the student; I can chalk up publications against my employment KPIs!
So yes, I'd write up the paper, put the student as first author, and feel good about the whole deal.

The key here is to be explicit with your students when they start. In my first meeting with students I now routinely explain that 1) I want them to publish, 2) if we think we can publish then either they, or me, or one of my post docs will need to turn the thesis into a paper, and 4) whoever does that will usually be first author. If we agree on that, I then put it in an email to them, and it saves hassle in the long run.

After the battle, everybody is a general. You cannot predict and secure all possible scenarios that might arise in a cooperation. That's not realistic. And useless to the OP at this point.

You can predict some of the scenarios though. OP describes their current (ie ongoing) approach, and I have suggested a tweak. Up to them if it is useful or not. But thanks for the attempt at constructive criticism.

In some research areas in some journals there is no primary author. Authors go in alphabetical order by "family" name. I prefer that, but it's just my bias.
About these rewrites. It seems the student has been doing ample work to require their name on the paper. So they should be quite closely involved in the rewrites. Whether editorial or technical, their name is going on the paper. So they should have something to say about what goes in the paper. Rewriting without involving them, even if they wind up approving of the paper, it's at least inconsiderate.
Also, rewrites were for me a way to learn a lot about what makes a well written paper. From mundane details like acceptable style for a journal, to fundamental technical details, I learned a lot having my prof drag me through the process.
I'd be surprised for a prof to do much of the mundane work themself. Markup on a draft, sure. And meetings to discuss things, especially if there are technical issues. But I'd really expect the student to do the "pounding a keyboard" type work. Again, so they can get the learning benefit. And also so that the prof can spend more time on other work.

I don’t share your surprise. A lot of students don’t really want to think about their thesis ever again after submitting, especially in a professional MA program (vs a PhD program or a research MA).

I can just speak for my case. But I supported while writing my Ph.D. thesis bachelor and master students as well. Same with you, I put a lot of time, also my free time, into supporting students. So I planned their experiments with them, helped them evaluate their data, and so on.
Each of them enjoyed staying with me for their thesis. In the end, I used their experimental data to write papers. The thing is, none of their thesis has enough data for a single paper, and also not the quality of references and so on to be published alone. So I combined most of the time 2 bachelor's thesis or a bachelor's and master's thesis to write a research paper. Also because I combined the experimental Data and evaluated it with a new perspective everything I wrote was new, except for some information from the students. But this information mostly is known before and published in papers. I am so always the first author and each of the students is my co-author.
Nevertheless how small their contribution was. In my institute, this is also a common way. First authorship is given to whom the writing was of the paper. So and this is me. Also most of the time the figures in the thesis of a bachelor's or master's need to be equalized. So I make all figures new. It also takes me most of the time 6-8 weeks to write the manuscript.

Your department seems dysfunctional; it is not uncommon. You should be considering a broader scope of the issue.
That is, students do not really care about research, but you do. Their goal is to get their diploma as efficiently as possible (which means not putting any extra effort in). Given the university is happy to give those away without publications - which is also perfectly sensible - there is absolutely no incentive for them to do anything about these papers after they have completed their thesis. Further, if the thesis committee sets the bar far below that of a decent publication, there is practically nothing you can do with respect to students actually writing papers. Ergo, as Dan Romik points out, you should just sit down with your students and agree on authorship in advance.
Also, if the work your students do is essentially limited to working in the lab, running experiments, getting familiar with frameworks and tools of the trade, you may be well-entitled to the first authorship by any reasonable standard regardless. Still, you have to develop a shared understanding of contributions and publication strategy, because it is, essentially, just your whim right now; students do not have any skin in this game.
This situation - again, not uncommon, especially in weaker departments/universities, - has other implications for your career. If higher up the management chain there is motivation to rework the existing system, make students more competitive, including academically, build a scientific school, you could leverage it to slowly (!) shift the evaluation standards and normalize paper-writing-related assignments. If not, your efforts there would be futile. And if so, consider how much time/effort you should keep putting in into supervision and what to focus on: your students might need less research-focused subset of skills that you are giving them, you are likely doing less-than-optimal also when it comes to the project scale and continuity.
Bear in mind that categorical imperative or, more practically, "fake it until you make it", is often not the most optimal approach.
In good departments, many students write papers
In good departments, some students continue working in academia
In good departments, professors are productive
All of the above is not a function of a single person's work. There is an entire system supporting it, and attempting to change it alone, without a substantial administrative power, is doomed to fail. I know it all too well; you can change things when you are a dean or a research rock star, but at the earlier stages of your career, pick your battles wisely. Limit the scope of your ambition to what you can realistically achieve at the time. Maybe your university/department is a wrong place to push MSc students towards novel scientific contributions altogether, and its social role currently is limited to pumping out new hires for the ever-hungry industry. I have taught in one such place, and it was miserable.

You are not answering the question. You are solving something the OP didn't ask about.

I don’t agree: there are multiple types of graduate programs. Some are explicitly professional prep programs vs academic prep programs. In such a program, it would not make sense for a student who is interested in research or academia to enroll. I actually think these students should be exempted from a thesis requirement, but such things are hard to get rid of.

I disagree! "In good departments, some students continue working in academia" This is a big problem everywhere. We cannot offer higher salaries than industry and with a master's in CS, the student can find a good position in the industry within a week after defending the thesis.

I am happy that my department is giving the researchers the freedom how to supervise. Some supervisors prefer to give the student complete freedom and I prefer to closely work with my students. There is nothing wrong with both approaches but a good department -in my opinion-  should allow this diversity.

@Dawn Well, for the industry prep the thesis might be an exercise in technical writing instead, but handing these students to research-oriented faculty sounds like doing disservice to them both. Yacine, I am afraid it is not so one-sided, but it is a big problem indeed. That said, some students happily choose Stanford's CS department over FAANG after graduation or oscillate between both :) Close supervision is good, but I am very confused about your motivation here. If you are assuming that the student will leave shortly after graduation and have a joint project to finish, (1/2)

(2/2) ...why not make all of the necessary arrangements in advance? It is like spending a better half of the day in the supermarket, knowing that on average you would need about 20 minutes for cashiers to handle all of your loot, and still coming to the checkout 15 minutes before the store closes. I sense a disconnect here. Sit down with them for a talk at the start of their degree, outline your mutual expectations at that meeting. It is a good practice anyway and it practically saves you the entire headache. "We get results, we publish them. Sounds good? Sounds good."

Often the principle idea comes from the supervisor and the steps to achieve the goal are small, also helped by the supervisor. If the student has no big idea of its own, I think it is okay to be the first author.
To me, it is very important to talk to the student. Offer them writing the paper with them as the first author. If they are not interested, offer them to write the paper and list them as a co-author. If they don't agree, you are not allowed to list them as a co-author!


text:
The usage of a literally incorrect phrase to simplify the meaning in manuscripts
I am writing a survey paper in computer science, where I frequently use the sentence:

....videos that are taken from uncalibrated monocular moving cameras....

In long sentences, the above phrase makes the meaning very complex. I found in some papers:

....uncalibrated monocular moving videos....

Although this phrase is not literally correct (because the adjectives should describe the camera, not the videos), it is widely used. I would like to know, whether this usage is OK in order to make the sentences shorter.

Words are what people understand them as. I know nothing about this specific situation, but I think that's the most important rule to go by.

@BryanKrause Do you take that approach to a contract? Is it acceptable for the two parties to understand the terms differently?

@JessicaB My point is that if people use a term commonly and it isn't likely to cause confusion, it doesn't matter much if the construction taken out of context loses meaning. It has sufficient meaning within that context. I doubt "uncalibrated monocular moving videos" would be misunderstood by anyone familiar with the OP's context, and it solves a problem that there is no simplified construct in English for "videos taken from".

And I take the approach to contracts of puzzlement: how did language that is supposed to be precise and understandable become so completely unintelligible by people without legal training. If legal documents are the result of avoiding "abuse of language" then I would much prefer to abuse language.

@BryanKrause My question is not about the misunderstanding of the sentence, and I mentioned that I found it used in several papers. Explicitly, I am asking how to keep the sentence fully correct in both senses technical and linguistic.

In mathematics we frequently create new meanings for phrases. The key point is that we explicitly state what we are doing (in theory at least).
So put somewhere early on put in something like

For the sake of brevity, we will abuse terminology by referring to videos that are taken from uncalibrated monocular moving cameras as 'uncalibrated monocular moving videos'.

Personally I'd take out the "abuse terminology" here. This sentence defines the terminology (and apparently it's even standard terminology, per the question).

@DanielR.Collins You can if you like. But it remains an abuse of language, whether commonly used or otherwise, and the point of the question is that this bothers the OP. Often when it's written in maths papers I have to pause to remember why it's technically wrong, as I'm so used to identifying the two objects.


text:
What to do when you notice that a value in your paper is wrong, once it is accepted but before it is published?
8 months ago, I have submitted my paper to the top journal in my field and finally it got accepted. Unfortunately, I have found one wrong table entry (Experiment Section), which is not a logical value at all. More precisely, I was copying from my raw data (in cm) to the paper (in mm) and I forgot to convert one value. Actually the mentioned value is not possible at all and the change does not affect the conclusion of neither the corresponding subsection in the experiment section nor the conclusion of the paper. This paper is very important for my PhD which will take place in few weeks.
I am pretty sure that reviewers did not deeply examine that table, otherwise they would find out the error because it is too obvious. Now, I am wondering how to deal with this issue.
Ps. Another problem is that in the policy of that journal, the paper which needs another major revision will be rejected. Now, I have one week to provide the final revised version.

This is not a major revision. Why can't you just change the value in the final version? (And explain to the editor in the cover letter that you are correcting a typo.)

The problem that it is in the experiment section and it is presented as a result.

That's not a problem. Just change it. Explain that you fixed a typo in the cover letter (because misplacing a decimal point is essentially a typo). If you explain this in the cover letter, you are not misrepresenting yourself. And any editor who would reject the paper for this reason is totally insane.

A little melodramatic, surely !

Many journals specifically state in the author guidelines that typos can be fixed up to a certain stage in the process without causing delays.  This stage is often quite late.

As you yourself say: you forgot to make a conversion (on one figure) and it doesn't affect your results. That is to all intents and purposes a typo.  If all your conclusions depended on the wrong figure, then that would be a major change to the paper.

Actually, the subsequent result does not match with the wrong value. If any one checks that value with other result will understand that it is not wrong. So the conclusion is obviously the same but the value is wrong.

If this was indeed a career-destroying error, none of us would be employed.

I destroyed your day with my question, better than destroying my career.

This is not a major revision. Just change the value in the final version. (And explain to the editor in the cover letter that you are correcting a typo. A misplaced decimal point is essentially a typo.)
You are not misrepresenting yourself in any way. Because you're explaining the change in the cover letter, you are giving the editor the chance to reject the paper if they deem the changes are big enough to count as a "major revision". However, any editor that rejects the paper for that reason would have to be totally insane. Typos get fixed in the final version of papers all the time.

Additional detail OP may not be aware of: At this stage of the process, "major revision" does not mean "an important change, one that affects the overall meaning of the paper." It means "a large change, one that will require re-copy-editing and re-typesetting a lot of text." The distinction is a little weird nowadays, what with authors being expected to hand in camera-ready PDFs, but publishing is a very old-fashioned business.

@zwol: That depends on whether they're submitting the changes requested by the referees, or are returning the copy edits to the galley proofs. I can't tell which stage they're in from the OP's question. But in either case, it's not a major revision.

If you are still in the revision process, changing a single number in the Results section is no problem at all. A simple typo, anywhere in the manuscript, is a minor revision. They will not reject your paper. If worst comes to absolute worst, they will send it back to the referees, but likely that will not happen either.
Just explain the issue to the copy editor or the handling editor - this stuff happens all the time. Don't worry.
Once it has been accepted, things get more difficult, if not impossible to change such stuff.
Once published, an erratum needs to be submitted, which is not a disaster, but does complicate things.

It's just a typo. It's two characters that were swapped. That's all. It's not a massive change that implies a different conclusion. It's the smallest of small changes.
You're clearly competent and have found an error that your peers who reviewed it failed to find. You'll be fine :)

Edited because of a number of flags and comments concerned about sarcasm. Please take questions about this edit to [meta].

@eykanal done: https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3745/at-what-point-should-an-answer-be-considered-a-non-answer

... This paper is very important for my PhD which will take place in few weeks.
I am pretty sure that reviewers did not deeply examine that table, otherwise they would find out the error because it is too obvious. Now, I am wondering how to deal with this issue...

Presumably your PhD thesis duplicates the error and is already with your examiners, and your defense is in a few weeks? This isn't an issue. If asked, then you can explain to your examiners that you are aware of the problem and that you fixed the problem in the published version. (I don't know whether it is advisable to raise the issue yourself.)


text:
What is the point of being the head of the department?

What is the point of being the head of the department ?

I'm an undergraduate Physics & Mathematics student and I want to stay in academia, do research and also teach. I'm assuming professors also want this. Hence,

Why do they become the head of the department and deal with lots of administrative stuff?
Isn't that boring for a person who presumably wants to work on his/her field rather than deal with lots of nonsense?

Note: I want to restrict this question to departments in STEM fields only.

Someone has to do it.

@Thomas Yes, but I saw lots of professors who are working in a single department for years, but they are not in any administrative position of the department, and some, I'm assuming, wants to do this.

Related: What are the benefits of becoming an academic administrator?

While there can be benefits for being the head of a department, at many US R1 STEM departments, I think the most frequent reason for becoming head is because some one has to do it. Further, turning down an offer to become head likely means that someone less capable, or at least that you view as less capable, will take it.
In my experience, academics do not really like administrators (e.g., Deans and Provosts). Further, departments that are run by individuals that wish to move up the administrative ranks tend to be over managed. I know a number of department heads who have taken the position to simply prevent someone else from becoming head.

The head of our math department just retired, with a rather abrupt transition for the new head. I've been assuming the new head accepted the position for exactly this reason, that somebody has to protect the department from the administration. Maybe I was just imagining it, but the poor guy looked so frazzled, in the first couple of weeks...

Though the question is asking "why" someone would want to do it, I will answer it in a different way.
Consider there are 20 faculty members (senior professors, professors, associate professors, senior lecturers, lecturers, non-teaching staffs) in a department. Someone must control and coordinate in/regarding the department with the university higher ups.
Usually, many universities follow a nomination procedure where usually Senior Professors or Professors would be voted to become the Head of the Department (this system is followed in my university). Please note that there is no compulsion to become the head. If a person has been nominated by the majority and (s)he is not willing to become the HoD, then the next nominated person in the order would be chosen.
Otherwise, the university admin such as director, vice-chancellor, or deans would designate one professor to be the head of the department.
Usually, the assignment is not for life time, rather it is assigned for 2-3 years (depends on the university rules and regulation). And, there is no harm in doing something different from usual teaching and research stuff. It is not completely true that the HoD can't do research along with administrative loads, actually, he can. But, might not be that productive.
However, the quantity of teaching load for the head completely depends on the university norms.

I've just now finished my Ph.D. so I am in no way speaking from experience. However, I have had several discussions on these topics with several of my older professors, and I've heard people rant about department heads or praise them for their achievements. So this is what I gathered so far.

Someone has to do it, and most people don't really like to do it, but they understand that it needs to be done. Like cleaning your cat's litter box. It's a stinky job, but it has to be done.
The department head has a lot of power in deciding who are going to be the new faculty members. Sure, they don't control all the power, but using some skill they can influence these decisions a lot. I have seen a friend of mine apply to two universities, one of which the department head was completely incompetent, and by the time he "remembered" to tell him that they want him to come and gave him an offer, the other university already snatched him.
Some people have some sense of responsibility. They might feel that they could run the department better, or the faculty, or the university itself. And they decide to invest some of their time into these academic politics rather than into research because of one reason or another. Starting out as a department head is where you start if you want to eventually be the president.
And while it's rare, some people manage to devote time for research even when sitting in the chair of the president. It's hard, it's rare, but it happens all the same.

(While the extra-pay is certainly a perk, I don't know how reduced teaching load for administrative work is computed, and that might depend on the individual and their local teaching environment: I can imagine being in a department where this is a perk, and others where this is not so much of a perk.)

The position comes with perks, PhD scholarships, increase in salary, no teaching, etc.
It's a stepping stone to becoming the dean, then vice-chancellor and after that, chancellor.
In some universities, it is easier, as compared to going down the research track, to become a full professor if you hold a significant admin position.
You want to protect your 'turf'.

Here 'turf' can mean the school or a discipline.  In the former, you may not want your school to be merged with another school, which could result in retrenchment, and as for the latter you want to ensure your favorite disciplines continue to thrive.

What you mean by "turf" ?

I assume 'turf' means the department. If you've been in that department for 20 years, you want to ensure that it doesn't get changed radically by some outsider - whether it's processes or culture. Of course, not to say that new ideas aren't welcome.

Or you want to improve your "turf"

Or you want to see your "turf" to stand its on feet :)

You specifically mention people want to do research and teaching and that is true. The head of department where I study has used the position to promote research into his field of study and still finds plenty of time to both teach and research.
Heads may not do the research themselves but are often in the position to greatly influence the shape of a department to do even more than they themselves could do alone.

Be it academia, politics, or a business environment a large incentive for going into a administrative role is the power to improve the way the department is run.  These improvements can come from by fixing broken policies or implementing new ones.  For some people this incentive is worth taking their focus away from their true passion for a few years.  For even fewer running the department becomes a part of their true passion.
By facilitating their fellow professors doing meaningful research with minimal administrative distraction they are doing positive work in their field.

In addition to the other answers, people can become department head because the previous head did not wish to continue serving.  In this case, if there are no volunteers someone who has not served as head before will be asked or ordered by a dean to take the position.

Can dean force someone to become the head of the department ?

@OnurcanB. not at every university.  I think at some universities appointment of department heads is at the dean's discretion.  Of course being head and performing the head's duties are different things.

I'm assuming professors also want this.

I think this is your mistake.
In the Universities I am slightly familiar with (University of Cambridge, and ETH Zürich) competition for Head of Division and Head of Department is fierce.  It is a brutal fight for political power, and people fight for it for much the same reasons as they have always fought for political power.
Note: Those Universities happen to both be in the top 10 or 20 universities in the world.  Things may well be different in smaller, less prestigious, institutions.

@Coder : Yes.  I understand that.  My point was that the OP assumed that other professors also want to just do research and teach, in fact some of them want the political power that comes with being department head.  The heart of my answer was the line "people fight for it for much the same reasons as they have always fought for political power"

"people fight for it for much the same reasons as they have always fought for political power"-- people may fight for political power for entirely different reasons. But, a professor might want to improve the department, might want to introduce something new, might want to open new elective courses. Anyway, nice analogy.

Most departments, in my experience, have someone in them who wants to be department head so that they have the increased power, prestige, and income associated with that position.
This changes the dynamic of trying to be department head, because even if a professor doesn't really want the position, they may accept or seek out such a position if they are aware that an unqualified competitor may otherwise seize it.  Alternatively, if the person (or persons) seeking the position are qualified, then those disinterested have no reason to take part in the department chair work at all.
That said, it is not always the case that someone wants to be department chair.  The first community college I attended had a robust math program, but all of the math professors despised dealing with administrative tasks, and found the idea that they should tell their departmental colleagues what to do (as some of them put it) distasteful.  While the position included a modest pay increase, it wasn't enough to justify the extra work, so the department would cast lots every year and the person who drew the short straw would take on the role until the next year.  In actuality, department policy/funding was consistently decided on by democracy, and the department head just took responsibility for effecting those policy decisions.  I think it helped that it was a small department and everyone in the department had a long-standing positive relationship with one another.
The point is that sometimes nobody wants to be department head, and if that actually is the case then people can work out ways around the need to have one.